Top Ten Alternative Christmas Movies

When you are done eating your Christmas feast with your family, and all the gifts have been opened, do you and your loved ones sit down to watch a Christmas movie?
A lot of families do, but most of the time you are stuck with It’s a Wonderful Life on NBC or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation for the more risqué. However, fear not, I have an alternative. These are films that have Christmas in them, but are not necessarily about giving and family hi-jinx. Plus, four of them have nudity in them.
Here are the Top Ten (though I really give you sixteen) Alternative Christmas Movies of all-time:

Honorable Mention: American Psycho, The Apartment, Cobra, Lethal Weapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and The Ref.

10. Batman Returns (1992) – Tim Burton’s dark, dark, dark adaptation often gets overlooked with the revisions that Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins presents. However, this is actually a very good movie. You have Michael Keaton, Danny Devito, and Christopher Walken incredibly overacting and munching on all the scenery they can get their hands on. You have the Penguin actually being closer to a Penguin than you do a mobster. Not to mention Michelle Pfeiffer in black leather. Plus, the movie’s backdrop falls against the ultra-chic 1992 Christmas setting of Gotham City.

9. Gremlins (1984) – This movie was released in the summer of 1984 because the studio feared it would not sell. It went on to become on of the box office smashes of 1984, alongside Ghostbusters. Who doesn’t like the idea of like creepy, green monsters emerging from the boiling back of a cute, huggable creature? Plus, Gremlins dressed up as Santa? Check. Family hysterics? Check. A movie that probably should have been rated PG-13, but got a PG rating? Check. Pop this one in, but do so before midnight.

8. Eyes Wide Shut (1997) – Stanley Kubrick’s final film portrays a man shopping around for hookers at Christmastime; after his wife reveals longing thoughts about a man she had several years ago. Kubrick’s film was a tough sell, and it still is. It’s very atmospheric with a dissonant score that becomes more terrifying than anything else. The movies ubiquitous sexual overtones help drive a plodding plot that makes the film go on about twenty minutes too long.
However, this movie does take place at Christmas. It does have gifts to be opened, along with a message that all can relate to: Nicole Kidman naked and lots of full frontal nudity can warm anyone’s heart.

7. Cast Away (2000) – Everyman Tom Hanks is thrust into extraordinary circumstances when his Christmas flight crashes in the Pacific Ocean, stranding him on a deserted island for four years. This movie is heartbreakingly beautiful, even if the ending is a bit over-the-top. It does offer a true Christmas message that you should never give up and always battle through things.

6. Catch Me If You Can (2002) – Two Tom Hanks’ movies in a row? What am I? TNT? This is a more lighthearted affair as Tom Hanks plays a square FBI Agent tracking down a fresh-faced fraud artist played by Leonardo Di Caprio. The film bookends itself around the Christmas Holiday and features a story about family and a story that makes you shake your head at what went on in the United States during the 1960s. Catch Me If You Can makes for a great Christmas movie that everyone can enjoy, and it allows you to prove to your twenty-something-year-old sister that Di Caprio made another movie after Titanic that was called The Departed.

5. Love Actually (2003) – This is another feel-good movie by the lovely British people who make all those sappy Hugh Grant romantic-comedies. I actually enjoy this one though as stories of togetherness and love emerges all around you. Plus, Bill Nighy is in Oscar form as a rock star way past his prime. Put this one on the DVD Player for a good laugh, a touching tale, and the hotness of Laura Linney.

4. Go (1999) – This is a Doug Liman film before Doug Liman got too big for his britches. This tale focuses on three plotlines that intersect one another at Christmastime. Think of it as Crash, but without the racial theme and a lot of great one-liners. Oh yeah, there is nudity here too.

3. L.A. Confidential (1997) – Matt Damon said in an August issue of Entertainment Weekly that Hollywood should award the Oscars ten years after a movie comes out. He states that 1997’s L.A. Confidential would win today over James Cameron’s Titanic. It is hard to disagree with Damon as this is perhaps one of the best crafted crime movies ever. A tale of three cops on a collision course in a corrupt Los Angeles Police Department. The film is bleak, relentless, and always entertaining.
The Christmas element emerges from a riot that breaks out in a Hollywood jail, while Guy Pearce is night watch commander. Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, and Kim Bassinger – in her Academy Award winning performance – all light up the screen. Personally, I would watch this film anytime of year, but avoid watching it with your grandparents.

2. Black Christmas (1974) – It’s a horror movie. It has a bunch of girls. It has a sadistic killer. It’s revolutionary though.

Bob Clark (The same Bob Clark who directed A Christmas Story) produced this low-budget slasher film in the mid 1970s. It is the blueprint for most modern slasher films in its depiction of its villain, the ineptitude of the police department, and edge-of-your-seat suspense. This falls into the horror canon with The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Alien as horror/suspense movies that shaped the mold for decades to come.

1. Die Hard (1988) – How often has this happened to you? You fly across the country on the red eye. You're from New York, you hate the Los Angeles heat, but your wife is here. You are going to accompany her to a pretentious Christmas Party at her banking firm’s headquarters. You arrive, she’s rude, her colleagues are coke addicts, and you’re a hung over cop looking for a forty ouncer. All of this becomes irrelevant as German terrorists take hostages, commandeer the building, and are trying to steal a ton of money from the nearly impenetrable vault in the building. This happens all too often if you’re John McClane.
Jon McTiernan’s masterpiece is the ultimate Christmas movie. It has action, romance, the fat guy from Family Matters, and Alan Rickman as the best movie villain in the history of cinema.

I hope that you enjoyed this list of movies and consider them as alternate viewing entertainment this holiday season.