The Five Best Christmas Movies You Didn’t Even Know Were Christmas Movies

At some point this holiday season, one of your friends or relatives is going to come up with the bright idea that you should all watch a Christmas movie. This is unavoidable, and if you happen to be allergic to the saccharine Yuletide bullshit that constitutes most Christmas movies, it’s also going to be a problem for you.

But it doesn’t have to be! Christmas movies don’t all have to be about peace on Earth, good will among men, and kissing under the mistletoe. Some of them are actually hilariously, tremendously dark and screwed up, and you’d never actually suspect they were Christmas movies at all. Horrify and amaze your loved ones as you slip on one of these during this holiday season.

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Showgirls (1995)

Showgirls may well be the most trashy and exploitative movie of the ‘90s. A young girl named Nomi (Saved By The Bell‘s Elizabeth Berkley) travels to Las Vegas to make it as a dancer, only to get lured into a dangerous world of sex, drugs, betrayal, erotic dancing and horrible pronunciations of the word “Versace”. You might know the movie best for its gravity-defying swimming pool sex scene, but what you may not know is that Showgirls is also a Christmas movie.

When the impressionable Nomi wins a place in the chorus line of the wacky, tacky floor show ‘Goddess’, she steps out onto a Vegas strip full of Christmas trees and other holiday cheer. Her no-good boyfriend then delivers his “I have a problem with pussy” speech in front of a bank of twinkling Christmas trees, as canned holiday muzak plays in the background. Ho ho ho indeed.

Christmas Message: To make your Christmas dream come true, all you need to do is push your rival down some stairs.

Holiday Cheer-O-Meter: 2/10. There’s less kissing under the mistletoe than there is gyrating and full-frontal exposure.

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Less Than Zero (1987)

Based on the debut novel by Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero is a tribute to fabulously wealthy, disaffected kids doing drugs and getting in trouble in L.A. in the ‘80s. Frank Ocean’s ‘Super Rich Kids’ would straight-up not exist without this movie and book. The kicker is that it all takes place over the holiday season.

College student Clay (Andrew McCarthy) comes home for Christmas and attends a series of lavish parties, only to discover that his friends are debased and debauched and his best buddy Julian (Robert Downey, Jr) is maybe a crack-addicted prostitute. The movie is pretty terrible, but it’s redeemed by Downey, Jr’s fascinating performance, where he plays an early version of the drugged-out mess he would become for most of the ‘90s.

Christmas Message: Christmas is way hard when you’re a rich white person.

Holiday Cheer-O-Meter: 3/10. Less Than Zero is a pretty hefty dose of holiday nihilism.

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Gremlins (1984)

As holiday movies go, Joe Dante’s funny, gross and endlessly re-watchable Gremlins is pretty damn subversive. The trouble all starts when a father buys his son a cute, furry creature for Christmas. The creature, an adorable little ball of fluff named Gizmo, comes with a very specific set of instructions: don’t put it in sunlight, don’t get it wet, and NEVER feed it after midnight. When these instructions are blithely disregarded, gremlins begin multiplying, and before long, the cute critters are gobbling food after midnight, turning into vicious, slimy little sociopaths, and terrorising the town of Kingston Falls. The makers of the movie pulled a double whammy, neatly skewering Christmas consumerism while selling a shedload of toys in the process.

Christmas Message: If you’re not careful, the presents under your tree might come to life and kill you.

Holiday Cheer-O-Meter: 7/10. Gizmo is just so damned cute.

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Die Hard (1988)

Bruce Willis is famous for playing the kinds of characters who just can’t catch a break, not even on Christmas. In this holiday action classic, reluctant cop John McClane somehow finds himself at the centre of a massive L.A. tower heist, spending Christmas Eve crawling through air vents with only his trusty revolver for protection, as he takes on a group of heavily armed terrorists. Alan Rickman plays the heavily-accented ringleader Gruber, and frankly, if we’re ranking Alan Rickman Christmas movies, Die Hard shoots Love Actually in the head and then drops it onto a police car from a great height. The sequel also took place at Christmas, back before the rest of Die Hard series proved conclusively that you actually can have too much of a good thing. But the most Christmas-y thing of all about the movies? John McClane’s estranged wife is named ‘Holly’.

Christmas Message: Don’t mess with Bruce Willis, especially not during the festive season.

Holiday Cheer-O-Meter: 10/10. “Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker.”

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Batman Returns (1992)

Tim Burton’s Batman films struck a great balance between action, humour and gothed-out weirdness. The second of these, Batman Returns, is the most fun and surreal, and features Gotham’s villains wreaking havoc over the Christmas season.

Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is a great villain, but she has nothing on the slimy, short-statured Penguin, a role that the polymorphously perverse Danny DeVito was basically born to play. The Penguin unleashes an unruly gang of circus freaks upon the city, frames Batman for the murder of the tragically ditzy Ice Princess, and then attempts to destroy Gotham with missiles strapped to an army of mind-controlled penguins.

Christmas Message: Gotham City is a really terrible place to live, and that goes double during the holiday season.

Holiday Cheer-O-Meter: 6/10. I kind of wanted The Penguin to win in the end.

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Alasdair Duncan is an author, freelance writer and video game-lover who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer.