There is no shortage of iconic movies focused on Christmas. From unique takes on the folklore that has been built around the holidays, to heartwarming takes on family and childhood innocence, you are spoilt for choice when it comes to finding movies that are fit for holiday viewing. However, there are also plenty of examples of movies that forgo tradition to frame the season in a new light, from mixing genres to exploring the holidays from new perspectives.
Despite bucking traditions, these movies can often showcase the lessons of the festive season better than most mainstream features. If you are looking for movies that break tradition but still uphold a festive heart, here are my personal recommendations of unconventional holiday hits.
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Anna and the Apocalypse
When it comes to the festive season, many movies incorporate musical numbers to convey their Christmas cheer. However, few movies have added such a twist as Anna and the Apocalypse has, bringing festive cheer and the rise of the living dead together into one feature. In Anna and the Apocalypse, Ella Hunt’s titular student is in her final year of school, but a sudden zombie outbreak collides with her and her friend’s teen drama during the festive period.
On a surface-level glance, Anna and the Apocalypse could seem like an incredibly bloated movie with a Frankenstein-esque combination of musical numbers, gore, and teen angst, yet it all fits wonderfully together for a wild but strangely cohesive production. As the world is literally falling down around them, Anna and her loved ones come closer together despite their own personal struggles and the overwhelming flesh-eating hordes, emphasizing the value of family.
When paired with catchy musical numbers and an arsenal of Christmas-themed tools of undead destruction, Anna and the Apocalypse is an absurd yet heartfelt twist on familiar tropes that can act as a perfect palate cleanser amidst the more traditional holiday programming.
5
Violent Night
The undead aren’t the only threats you may encounter during the holiday season. In Violent Night, a group of mercenaries takes the wealthy Lightstone family hostage in their home in hopes of stealing their fortune. In their hour of need, young Trudy Lightstone (Leah Brady) takes the walkie-talkie that her father told her was a direct line to Santa Claus himself and asks for help, and a cynical, but battle-ready and good-hearted Saint Nick, played by Stranger Things‘ David Harbour, responds.
Despite an incredibly wild premise, Violent Night never feels like it is relying solely on its action hero Santa Claus gimmick. The feature feels like a blend of Home Alone and Die Hard, offering mature, full-throttle creative violence that incorporates Santa’s arsenal of magical abilities alongside a wholesome narrative that focuses on bringing Trudy’s holiday wish to life. With a fairly uncomplicated narrative, Violent Night is an ideal, easy treat you can watch across the holiday period.
4
Tokyo Godfathers
The near-limitless creative freedom that animation offers has provided many filmmakers with the opportunity to bring fantastical Christmas stories to life. Despite this, acclaimed anime director Satoshi Kon’s grounded approach to the holiday in Tokyo Godfathers stands as an underrated encapsulation of the best the season can offer. On Christmas Eve, three homeless people find a newborn baby in the garbage and set out to reunite the child with her parents.
Despite being relatively more grounded than Kon’s other, often darker anime movies, there is a sense of wonder in Tokyo Godfathers that makes it perfect for the holiday season. In their quest to find the baby’s family, Hana, Miyuki, and Gin find themselves swept up in so many lives from across the various levels of society, breaking through class and language barriers and ultimately growing their little found family with these individuals as they try to do the right thing. In a season where goodwill to all is preached regularly, Tokyo Godfathers fully shows what the powers of kindness and community can achieve.
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Krampus
The holiday season also brings plenty of challenges, as not everything can go to plan. Between family disagreements, finding the perfect gift, and the pressures of delivering the perfect day, the stresses of the season can easily overwhelm you. As such, Krampus can provide some catharsis by putting these rough experiences on screen, and then adding a horror twist that will remind you of the holiday spirit in its own warped way.
In the seasonal horror movie, a young boy is frustrated and pushed to his limit by his dysfunctional family, leading to him rejecting the holiday spirit and inadvertently summoning the titular creature to terrorize his home. As Krampus descends on the family, the figure uses monstrous toys inspired by Christmas iconography to pick off each member.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the pressures of the holidays, Krampus balances an embrace of the season’s traditional iconography with a cathartic send-up of the worst experiences you could encounter to remind you of why the good matters.
2
The Holdovers
While it may not be as fantastical as Krampus, The Holdovers is another feature that peels back the usual veneer that the holidays are wrapped in. In the 2023 comedy drama, Paul Giamatti’s Paul Hunham is a despised teacher left to supervise a group of students who remain at the all-boys boarding school he works at, including Dominic Sessa’s troubled young Angus Tully. Isolated alongside cafeteria manager Mary Lamb, played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, the experience allows the student and teacher to learn about one another and understand the demons that plague them.
The Holdovers is a fantastically performed feature. Although its characters’ struggles aren’t tied to the season, its Christmas setting adds an additional layer. Angus and Mary come from broken homes, and each has trauma that haunts them, while Hunham is trapped in his position due to past mistakes. Despite their dire circumstances, these three form a short-lived found family, confide in one another, and perhaps even change for the better.
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Die Hard
No list of unconventional holiday mainstays would be complete without Die Hard. Bruce Willis stars as police officer John McClane in this 1988 action icon, as an invitation to his estranged wife’s work Christmas party at Nakatomi Plaze sees him become entangled in a supposed terror attack led by Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber. Between memorable one-liners and iconic action beats, Die Hard has more than earned its status as an influential piece of pop culture.
While movie aficionados may argue about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, I wholeheartedly believe it is. Alongside Christmas featuring so heavily in the film, from dialogue to gags to its soundtrack, John McClane’s arc is an action-packed twist on the familiar seasonal trope of a work-oriented father who is pushed to recognize what matters most during the festive period. As such, Die Hard wholly embraces the holiday spirit as far more than just set dressing, and something would feel lost without that layer of festive cheer.
