Christmas films were once limited to being quite wholesome. They’d typically be similar to It’s a Wonderful Life (1956), where you’ve got themes of redemption, community, and family values. These fizzy-warm sentimental journeys have Christmas as a sort of moral compass, and usually, everyone ends up being a better version of themselves, just in time to enjoy Christmas Day. Ahhhh.
As our cultural tastes have changed, though, so have Christmas films, from the slightly more cynical views of the ‘70s to more blockbuster, action-type movies in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Suddenly, there were horror-themed Christmas films, as well as comedy, supernatural, and even dystopian ones. Audiences wanted films that moved away from sentimental cheer and were more entertaining and fun. One of the films to come out of this time was of course Die Hard, an action film that happens to be set at Christmas.
With the rise of streaming, there’s an even greater choice of genres and formats. All the major platforms have launched their own particular holiday content, from things like A Christmas Prince to the animated Klaus and comedy-horror The Christmas Chronicles. Streaming means it’s easy for audiences to get niche Christmas content, so films that might (in the cinema/TV release only era) have slowly become ‘cult classics’ can now quickly find fairly mainstream audiences.
What makes it a Christmas movie anyway?
The ‘is Die Hard a Christmas film?’ debate actually raises a good question: what is it that makes something a Christmas film or not? Does it need a little sprinkling of magic, do we need some morality lesson at the end, or can it just be set around 25 December to count? We suspect there’s no right or wrong answer (yes, this is a cop-out), but here are some things that might help qualify Die Hard and others.
1. Seasonal setting
Films set during Christmas often have festive decorations, parties, and seasonal weather—although we’re very Northern Hemisphere biased in our interpretation of this, as it’s usually snow we have in mind! Die Hard is set on Christmas Eve during a Christmas party, so it definitely fits this particular criterion.
2. Christmas themes and values
Ah, the Christmas morality lessons that usually circle around love, generosity, family, and sometimes redemption—classic Christmas film ingredients! Even the more slapstick Christmas films, like Home Alone, focus on things like family and forgiveness. John McClane and his estranged wife Holly do kiss and seem to be reunited at the end of Die Hard (though we find out in later films that it doesn’t last!), which does seem to tick the love, family, and redemption boxes, doesn’t it…?
3. The Christmas spirit
What is Christmas spirit anyway? For Christmas films, it’s something like a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia that’s really hard to define, but we all kind of just get what it is. Although Nakatomi Plaza does end up on fire, we’re not quite sure that’s the kind of warmth that qualifies really. Well, two out of three ain’t bad.
So we can probably agree that Christmas films fill at least one and sometimes more of these criteria, traditionally at least. Now, with so much on offer, there are films that probably don’t tick any of these boxes, but we’d still accept them as good old holiday escapism.
5 non-traditional Christmas films that are favourites
1. Die Hard (1988)
We said what we said—we’re on side with it being a Christmas film. No, no, don’t click away, stick with it. Who doesn’t love a good ol’ action movie, and this one is set on Christmas Eve, at a Christmas party for goodness' sake. There are Christmas decorations, a lot of Yuletide puns, and Let It Snow even plays over the credits. While John McClane fighting terrorists might not seem very Christmassy, he’s trying to reunite with his family, and in Christmas movies, that’s a biggie.
2. Gremlins (1984)
We refuse to believe you haven't seen Gremlins, but just in case… it’s about a boy who receives a Mogwai, a weird but very cute pet with a few simple rules including not to feed it after midnight. Predictably, this all goes very wrong, and they’re soon overrun with little, well, gremlins, obviously. It’s set at Christmas, there’s snow, and of course the gentle I-told-you-so of not following the rules that fits with our morality tale benchmark.
3. Krampus (2015)
A new(ish) yearly favourite for many in the Tuts+ family, Krampus is a comedy-horror where, essentially, an evil version of Santa comes to punish people who’ve lost their Christmas spirit. It’s deliberately saturated in every Christmas trope going, and although it’s a scary, fun romp, it does hammer home the message of appreciating family, and it quite nicely satirises the commercialisation of this time of year.
4. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
This is an animated fantasy about Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, who finds Christmas Town and becomes obsessed with its festive spirit. There are a lot of decorations, lights, snow, and other Christmassy things, along with some exaggerated desire to force joy and wonder on everyone.
5. Groundhog Day (1993)
Not set at Christmas at all (and in fact almost as far away from it as you can get, because it’s supposed to be February!), Groundhog Day is still undoubtedly a non-traditional Christmas favourite; but why? Well, the snow helps—there’s a lot of that. Probably most important, though, is the repetitive day structure, which likely reminds us of A Christmas Carol, complete with redemption arc as Phil (very gradually) learns to become a better person.
5 recent non-traditional Christmas films to check out, and where to find them
1. Klaus (2019): Netflix
Although this is another Santa Claus origin story, it’s quite a different take on it. When a rubbish postman, Jesper, is sent to a remote, chaotic little town, he finds a toymaker called Klaus, and well, you can probably guess the rest. What’s nice about this film is it bases the myth very much on human connection, and it feels fresh. It’s also very adult-friendly, as well as being suitable for kids.
2. Silent Night (2021): Amazon Prime & AMC
This is a dark comedy where parents host a gathering for friends and family at Christmas, but a deadly disaster is looming! Of course it is. Who wouldn’t love Christmas mixed with a little bit of apocalyptic dread?
3. Elves (2021): Netflix
Perhaps a slight cheat as it’s a series rather than a Christmas film, but it’s a mini-series so just watch it all in one go and call it a movie. This Danish horror follows a family travelling to a remote island for Christmas. Something we all can imagine turns out really well... Yeah, of course not: the daughter manages to ruin a truce between the locals and SOMETHING ELSE, and horror and chaos ensue. Yay!
4. Anna and the Apocalypse (2018): Amazon Prime
A Scottish musical-comedy-horror (yes you read that right) that’s set during a zombie outbreak during the Christmas period. Can’t say we can think of many zombie-filled Christmas movies, so this is firmly in the non-traditional category.
5. 8-Bit Christmas (2021): Sky Cinema
Although a newish film, 8-Bit Christmas is set in the 1980s and has a lot of fun with the culture of the time. The premise is a kid called Jake looking for a Nintendo for Christmas, and it’s narrated by Jake as an adult. In one sense, it seems very traditional, but rather than being cynical of the commercialisation of Christmas, it actually fully embraces it and taps into that excitement you get as a kid around getting gifts.
Conclusion
There’s definitely been a greater enjoyment of non-traditional Christmas films in recent years, and that uptick is in large part thanks to streaming and weirder films finding a more mainstream audience. That said, we’ve always had a love for films that are subverting traditional Christmas movies, and films like Groundhog Day, Gremlins, and yes, Die Hard have been seasonal family favourites for decades now.
Whether it’s a snowy, cliché-filled love fest or if you just like seeing stuff blown up and Bruce Willis crawling through air vents, it’s not so much the content of the film that makes it Christmassy, but how it makes you feel. If you’re seeking joy and nostalgia… great! If you’re seeking a bit of festive yippee ki-yay, then that’s just as valid. After all, a lot of that feeling of the time of year we get is from creating traditions, like watching the same film each and every year. So, is Die Hard a Christmas film? It is if you want it to be, because the real Christmas spirit is inside each and every one of us...
Just in case Krampus is watching.
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About this page
This page was written by Marie Gardiner. Marie is a writer, author, and photographer. It was edited by Andrew Blackman. Andrew is a freelance writer and editor, and is a copy editor for Envato Tuts+.
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