Christmas can be a beautiful, cheerful time of year, and it can also, even amongst the cheer, be downright depressing, dark, and sometimes a little terrifying (see: mummering). So why not have a few Christmas and Christmas-adjacent films in the rotation that celebrate the dark side of the holiday, too? Dig into this list and find something off the beaten path for your Christmas holiday movie nights. We’ll always love Home Alone and Black Christmas, but there’s so much more darkness on film to behold for the yuletide season. Y’know, if you’re into that kind of thing, I guess.

Blast of Silence (1961)

“Your hands sweat a little on the wheel
remembering another Christmas running from the cops.”

Blast of Silence is a fabulously depressing, neo-noir Christmas story filled with nihilism. A hitman called Frankie Bono must go back to his hometown, New York City, during the week of Christmas to do a job. One condition: no payment if he’s spotted before the hit. Blast of Silence feels like a film noir version of A Christmas Carol, in a strange kind of way. Except this one doesn’t have the happy ending where Scrooge learns the big important lesson; this ends on a far more bleak note.

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

“Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. You‘re gonna lose.
Smile, you fuck.”

While it’s often hard to tell that The Last Boy Scout takes place at Christmas, Tony Scott’s underrated action-thriller is a lot of fun precisely because of that fact; a perfect viewing when you’re not loving the holiday season and need to escape while still watching something technically considered a Christmas movie. A washed up private investigator, Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis), has to join forces with a former footballer, Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans), in the wake of a famous running back shooting three players before killing himself on the field during a game. They then stumble onto a political conspiracy that makes their holiday season a real bitch. The Christmas message, if there is one, in The Last Boy Scout is pretty clear when Joe’s kid is found to have drawn a picture of “Satan Claus“: the holidays can certainly be hell.

The Lodge (2019)

“Do not forget: birth & death are two doors through which we must all journey.”

Just a simple description of The Lodge‘s premise is enough to induce murderous or suicidal ideation, or both: a man whose estranged wife killed herself recently takes his new girlfriend, the survivor of an extremist cult, on Christmas vacation to an isolated cabin with his two grieving children. This is one holiday excursion that’s hard to forget. It’s National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation written by a psychopath. If you hate your dad or mom’s new spouse and you’re stuck spending Christmas with them, The Lodge may be right up your alley.

In Bruges (2008)

“That‘s for John Lennon, you Yankee fuckin‘ cunt!”

Murder and suicide are a common denominator across much of this list, so In Bruges fits perfectly amongst it all given there’s equal amounts of both. Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy Christmas story follows two hitmen, Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), forced to hide away in Bruges on orders from their boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes). There’s so much more going on beneath the surface than what you expect in a movie about hitmen, from dark pasts to deep bonds between men. In Bruges is perfect for Christmas because Ray’s attitude towards Bruges captures how many people feel about Christmas: at first it can be tired and painfully nostalgic, then it wears you down and pulls you in until you never want to let go.

Calvaire (2004)

“To miracles that bring lovers together for Christmas.”

Want to have a real bad time this Christmas? Throw on Fabrice Du Welz’s Calvaire. Best not to explain too much: rhe plot involves a small-time singer called Marc whose Christmas season takes a dark turn after he’s stranded in the backwoods at an inn run by Mr. Bartel, a man grieving being left by his wife Gloria. You’d never guess where this holiday tale will take you, not in a million years. Prepare to be haunted.

Cover Up (1949)

“Put away that gun. You don‘t wanna go killing anybody. Not at Christmas anyhow.”

Within the first minute of Cover Up, one man gleefully recounts the suicide of another man he hated. Thus begins a cynical Christmas story about an insurance investigator looking into the aforementioned supposed suicide only to uncover a twisty scheme. The producers of the film originally wanted to axe the Christmas setting. Dennis O’Keefe, who stars in Cover Up and co-wrote the script, protested this and eventually won the argument. Like most of the films on this list, Christmas is integral to the plot of Cover Up because even during the most wholesome season of the year there are still dark, nasty things happening in many of our neighbourhoods. Although, sometimes bad things do happen to the right people.

Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)

“Isn‘t it a shame there isn‘t a way to make time stand still?
Keeping the children just as they are tonight?”

There’s a real deep pain to Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, an underrated Curtis Harrington film that’s part horror, part thriller, and all Christmas. Rosie Forrest (Shelley Winters), known in the community as Auntie Roo, hosts a big Christmas bash for ten of the most well-behaved children from the orphanage in town. Roo seems like a normal, loving lady trying to give back to the community and its kids. But she’s terribly deranged. She keeps a mummified corpse in the attic—the corpse of her daughter, Katharine. And now she’s looking to replace Katharine. Christmas makes all the pain of Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? even more painful. Despite Roo’s madness, she’s really just a woman and a parent hurting badly. That doesn’t really make this twisted version of Hansel and Gretel any less ugly. Thankfully it ends on a happy yuletide note for the community, but not so much for ole Auntie Roo.

Sole Survivor (1984)

“You cannot stop it, & anyone who stands in its way, or finds out,
or even remotely suspects it, they will be dealt with.”

Before It Follows, there was Sole Survivor: the story of Denise (Anita Skinner), a TV commercial producer who winds up the only survivor of a terrible plane crash, then finds herself haunted by something that refuses to let her go. Most folks believe Denise is experiencing survivor’s guilt. Easy for them to say; they’re not the ones being followed by dead people. Sole Survivor is about the inevitability of death. Sometimes that’s a perfect theme for Christmas since, as our families and friends get older, we naturally begin to wonder if this Christmas will be our last with the ones we love most. Let’s hope your Christmas is better than Denise’s Christmas; I’d rather just get coal in my stocking.

Brazil (1985)

“By the by, I saw the most wonderful idea for Christmas presents at the chemist‘s: gift tokens, medical gift tokens . . . It‘s good at any doctor‘s & most of the major hospitals. It‘s also accepted for gynaecological examinations.”

Christmastime is the perfect time of year for Brazil to take place, given the hyperconsumerism on display, as Terry Gilliam’s film takes place in the kind of near future that’s actually unsettlingly believable—a world warped by the terrors of capitalism and bureaucracy. The plot itself isn’t overly focused on Christmas, yet the holiday backdrop accentuates the plot’s absurdity. Santa plays a significant role at one point in Brazil when Mr. Helpmann, Deputy Minister of Information, dons the famous red-and-white. It gives a whole new unsettling meaning to “he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you‘re awake” within the context of Brazil‘s world.

Eileen (2023)

“Some people, they are the real people. Like in a movie,
they‘re the ones you‘re watching . . .
And the other people, they‘re just filling the space. And you take ‘em for granted . . .
Take a penny, leave a penny. That‘s you, Eileen.”

Apart from Valentine’s Day, there’s no other day of the year more than Christmas when people are seeking connection, and nobody’s more desperate for connection than the eponymous character in 2023’s Eileen, played to perfection by Thomas McKenzie. Eileen works and lives in a world dominated by men; she works in a juvenile detention centre, and at home she lives with her drunk asshole of a father. Her world brightens after she meets a new psychologist at the centre, Rebecca (Anne Hathaway). What begins as a potential budding friend-turned-lesbian romance takes a swift, dark turn partway through when Rebecca reveals a shocking secret. This is the only the tip of an unsettling iceberg that unfolds during the Christmas holidays, as the film traipses along the thin threshold between repressed desire and madness.

The Silent Partner (1978)

“There is nothing more important than banking.”

The Silent Partner is one of the most underrated films of the 1970s, Christmas or otherwise. Elliott Gould plays a mild-mannered bank teller in a Toronto shopping mall who inadvertently discovers a planned heist after finding an abandoned note. He suspects the mall Santa Claus (Christopher Plummer) is working on robbing the bank. So he begins to stash money and when the mall Santa does try to rob the bank, he only gives out a bit of cash. But ole Santa Claus sees all and starts to stalk the teller, initiating a dangerous cat-and-mouse game. The Silent Partner is clever and it concerns the best Christmas theme of all, going right back to Dickens and all the way up to Home Alone: pure greed.

Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

“What is your fucking obsession with A Christmas Story? . . .
If you wanna watch a Bob Clark Christmas movie,
we‘ll watch fucking Black Christmas.”

Joe Begos’s Christmas Bloody Christmas is fun, a bit sexy early on, and full of murder committed by a killer robotic Santa Claus; what else do you need from a holiday horror flick? Maybe the best part of Begos’s film, apart from robot Santa’s killing spree, is the funny, raunchy record store owner at the centre of the story, Tori Tooms (Riley Dandy). Tori’s unapologetic attitude about Christmas, sex, and drinking is a breath of fresh air in contemporary film, especially in a Christmas film. On top of that, like some of the nastier Christmas horror out there, Begos turns the figure of Santa Claus into something horrific. Let’s face it: an old man who sees you when you’re sleeping is already pretty creepy, but in Christmas Bloody Christmas, the stakes of being naughty or nice are a lot scarier.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

“There is something very important that we need to do as soon as possible…”
“What‘s that?”
“Fuck.”

Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut is a very un-Christmas film yet it’s full of the Christmas aesthetic and set in the lead up to the day itself, not to mention plenty of holiday spirit including self loathing, relationship doubt, weird parties, and fucking. What’s so good about Eyes Wide Shut is that Christmas, despite being all around the characters, takes a backseat to death and sex. The terrors of life, and marriage, don’t stop at Christmas, so Kubrick goes full tilt with them. You could also look at Kubrick’s film as a disturbed version of A Christmas Carol, in which Cruise’s character is visited by the potential ghosts of his Christmas present and it forces him to make a decision: will he appreciate his family life back at home, or will he dive into the bourgeois darkness that his doctor lifestyle can facilitate?

The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

“I come from great darkness & deep peace.”

A sequel to 1942’s Cat People, The Curse of the Cat People is one of the earliest horror films to tell a story focused mostly on a child and their child-like view of the world. A little girl called Amy starts to see the ghost of her dad’s dead wife, Irena, as her parents become increasingly worried by her imaginative flights of fantasy. Christmas is a time for the Gothic since it often involves nostalgia and looking back into the past of traditions. Dickens popularised the Christmas Gothic, though the holidays, in most cultures, have always held a Gothic quality. In The Curse of the Cat People, little Amy is pulled into her father’s past. This pull eventually forces a decision by Amy’s parents: do they keep fighting her fantastical inner world, or do they allow Amy to retain her childlike wonder just a little longer? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was talking about a child’s belief in Santa Claus.

The League of Gentlemen: Christmas Special a.k.a Yule Never Leave (2000)

“I‘ve been having these funny dreams.”
“You shouldn‘t be having sticky duvet at your age!”

If you’re the type of disturbed person, like myself, who grew up loving horror and Monty Python equally, then The League of Gentlemen is generally something you need to watch if you haven’t already, and the show’s Christmas special is particularly unhinged. Reverend Bernice isn’t a fan of Christmas. She receives three visitors on Christmas Eve: one man believes his wife is using voodoo to stop him from winning a line dancing competition; an old man recounts the story of someone he believes was a vampire; and a veterinarian insists his family was cursed due to his great-great-grandfather touching a monkey testicle. This description could never do any of this madness justice, so if you need something extra weird and unnerving for your Christmas this year, The League of Gentlemen has you covered.

Better Watch Out (2016)

“So, fear really makes girls wet?”

The young boys aren’t all right, as evidenced by 2016’s Better Watch Out. The plot involves a young woman, Ashley (Olivia DeJonge), dealing with a misogynistic little shit, Luke (Levi Miller), whom she’s been babysitting for years on a holiday night when he decides to make a rather violent move on her. This movie fits right in amongst a 2020 media landscape that’s been infected by the likes of Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes, and other subhuman creeps. Luke is every budding psychopath out there who’s been made to feel entitled to women and their bodies by an overall misogynistic global culture that continues growing. Better Watch Out is uncomfortable because it’s so genuine; it’s disturbing cinematic coal in the stocking in a wonderfully frustrating way.

Carry-On (2024)

“Dreams have an expiration date.”

Jaume Collet-Serra’s Carry-On is an intense, fun Christmas-set thriller with occasional Die Hard vibes that includes a fantastic close-quarters fight sequence in a car set to “Last Christmas” by Wham! and an overall very 2020s American zeitgeist feel. Taron Egerton’s wannabe cop/TSA agent Ethan Kopek faces a rough day at the office when he gets a chance to step up at work only to accidentally fall right in the path of a mysterious traveller (Jason Bateman) who forces him to be part of a terrorist plot. Yes, there are plot holes, and yes not everything is perfectly plausible, but why do action movies have to be perfect? Guess what, they don’t! Carry-On is great fun if you want an action-thriller that isn’t Die Hard set during the Christmas holiday.

Christmas Holiday (1944)

“They said it was shameful that I should love him, as if you could stop loving
because it‘s shameful to love.”

Based on the 1939 novel of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham, Robert Siodmak’s 1944 Christmas Holiday follows a U.S. Army Officer on Christmas Eve after he’s dumped by his girlfriend (Deanna Durbin), as he meets a woman in New Orleans brothel who recounts a terrible former marriage to a violent Southern aristocrat (Gene Kelly). While this film didn’t get good reviews in ’44, it’s a fantastically dark slice of film noir that’s not entirely a traditional noir despite what some would have you believe. Christmas Holiday is a tale of how love can twist us apart, and how it isn’t always what we want or expect it to be, yet still we tend to cling to whom we love even when things turn bad. There’s perhaps no other better time for a story about the perils of love than Christmas since it’s both a lovely time of year and also one when love, or nostalgia for better times, can lead us astray, from spending too much of our time and money on people who don’t deserve it to loving a murderer like Durbin’s character.