The five most underrated Christmas movies
The holidays are all about nostalgia, so it stands to reason that many of us watch the same Christmas movies every year. Your choice of festive film reveals a lot about how you feel about the season. For those who want something cosy, a little melancholy, but ultimately life-affirming, there is no beating Frank Capra’s all-time classic It’s a Wonderful Life. If you’re the kind of person who likes to keep sentimentality close to their chest but is a softy at heart, Die Hard is probably your go-to. And if you’re an overgrown kid who wants to escape to the cosiness of a city full of Christmas cheer, Elf is probably right up your alley.
Although the canon of Christmas music has been pretty tightly sealed since Mariah Carey graced us with ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ in 1994, things are not so exclusive on the film side of things. In addition to Elf are Terry Zwigoff’s Bad Santa, Richard Curtis’ Love Actually, and Nancy Myers’ The Holiday, all of which have become classics in their own right despite being from the 21st century. An even more recent addition is The Holdovers, which will surely become a classic in the coming years.
The holidays can be the most wonderful and the most painful time of the year. Whether you’re crammed together with family or missing the people you love while everyone else seems to be celebrating, it is bound to bring up complicated emotions. Tricky family dynamics, hosting responsibilities, and the pressure to make every minute jolly and memorable only add to the strain. Movies are one of the best ways to hit pause on all the chaos and escape into a world that stokes feelings of contentment and catharsis.
These overlooked films offer something for everyone. Whether you need three hours of escapism, a heartwarming romantic comedy from one of the greatest rom-com directors of all time, or an underrated action thriller with too many explosions to count, we’ve got your back.
The five most overlooked Christmas movies:
The Long Kiss Goodnight (Renny Harlin, 1996)
Renny Harlin’s The Long Kiss Goodnight is a warp-speed action thriller that begins at a Christmas parade in a small town. Geena Davis plays a schoolteacher who lives with her partner and young daughter and has been suffering from amnesia for the past eight years. She’s hired multiple private investigators to try to uncover her previous identity, but until someone sees her face in a television newsreel about the parade, there are no leads. Samuel L Jackson, in full Pulp Fiction mode, plays the current PI who helps her uncover the truth: this small-town primary school teacher was one of the most feared agents in the CIA before she was nearly killed on the job.
With that set-up comes two straight hours of action. Davis is as charismatic as ever in her dual roles as the sweet suburban mother and the counter-assassin who she slowly remembers being. It’s a witty, gritty thriller with plenty of bullets, stabbings, explosives, and near drownings, with several layers of race-against-the-clock stakes. Set during the Christmas period, its allusions to the holiday are sporadic and not particularly mandatory to the plot, but it provides plenty of festive cheer and entertainment to fill a chilly winter evening.
The Bishop’s Wife (Henry Koster, 1947)
You might assume that It’s a Wonderful Life is the only film from the 1940s that could combine Christmas and a literal angel without becoming insufferable, but Henry Koster’s The Bishop’s Wife proves otherwise. David Niven plays Henry Brougham, a bishop in a small town who is working overtime to get a cathedral built. Loretta Young plays his long-suffering wife Julia, who supports him but is growing increasingly distanced by his singleminded obsession with the project. When the Bishop begs God for guidance, he is sent an angel named Dudley in the heavenly form of Cary Grant.
Instead of devolving into moralism and sentimentality, The Bishop’s Wife takes a surprisingly comedic and emotionally delicate turn. The Bishop is neither thrilled by Dudley’s easy entry into his life, nor by the fact that Julia seems instantly happier in his presence. Things are even further complicated when Dudley starts falling in love with Julia and questioning his divine purpose. It’s a romantic comedy that deftly explores questions of marriage, priorities, and attraction. Like It’s a Wonderful Life, it is more bittersweet and grown-up than it might appear at first glance and is more than worthy of becoming a permanent fixture on your holiday watchlist.
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Ingmar Bergman’s masterpiece Fanny and Alexander might seem like an odd film to recommend during the holidays. It is, after all, over three hours long, and although it revolves around a family, it is not family-friendly. However, if you don’t have kids around and want to escape for three hours or spread the film out over the course of a couple of lazy days, few movies capture the experience of existing within a flawed, contentious, loving family better. Based on Bergman’s own upbringing in early 20th-century Sweden, the story is seen through the eyes of the young Alexander and begins during the lead-up to Christmas.
There are cosy interiors, sleigh bells, and the requisite chaos of a large family coming together, but it also features troubled marriages, sexual desire, debilitating grief, regret, betrayal, abuse, and the awakening of a young boy’s artistic sensibilities. It isn’t exactly the type of escapism you’d find in The Holiday or How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but it captures the fullness and complexity of a family unit like no other film before or since and does so in a definitively, lavishly cinematic way. Extra points if you opt for the five-hour version.
Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
Carol is a different type of Christmas movie, a holiday film that is lush with romantic longing and deep-hued cinematography. Every frame oozes luxury, not just because the main character is wealthy, but because Haynes has an unparalleled eye for detail and Douglas Sirk’s devotion to visual opulence. Set in the 1950s, the story revolves around the illicit romance between Carol (Cate Blanchett), an upper-class housewife, and Therese (Rooney Mara), a shop assistant and aspiring photographer. Their romance not only threatens Carol’s marriage but her ability to retain custody of her young daughter.
The holidays are all about indulgence and excess, and while that often arrives in the form of delicious food and hours spent with the family, Carol offers another version. It is steeped in yearning and the warm glow of a budding romance.
Everything from Carol’s fur coat and lipstick to the department store where Therese works signals sophisticated opulence, but the love story at the centre of the film is anything but melodramatic. Instead, it’s full of tenderness, an antidote to the sappiness of many romantic holiday movies. If you’re looking for a Christmas film that is romantic without being twee, opulent without being tacky, and powerful without being devastating, this is the film to watch.
The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
Of all the films on this list, Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner may be the most frequently associated with Christmas, but it is so charming that it deserves another mention. It stars Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as warring gift shop employees in Budapest who don’t realise that they are falling in love with each other through the letters they’ve been writing as anonymous pen pals. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the film was remade in the ’90s as You’ve Got Mail, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as warring bookstore owners.
In their letters, Alfred and Klara bond over their grand, poetic outlook on the world that is full of youthful ambition and idealism. At work, they bicker at every opportunity, despising each other’s pettiness without realising that their banter is just as electric as their written correspondence.
The chemistry between Stewart and Sullavan provides the central conflict and charge of the film, but it’s the peripheral characters that make the film a heartwarming classic. As Christmas approaches, the gift shop struggles to stay afloat, and it’s up to the goodwill and hard work of everyone who works there to turn things around. Full of warmth, friendship, and witty one-liners, The Shop Around the Corner can warm the chilliest of hearts.
