Folks, there are so, so many crime movies that take place at Christmas. Some are “about” crime during Christmas, like Home Alone or Bad Santa or The Ref, while some others’ interaction with “Christmas movie” themes are somewhat debatable, as in the notable cases of Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. Last year, our editor Dwyer Murphy put together a handy list of 10 thrillers from Three Days of the Condor to The French Connection to The Godfather that all stage their grit and murder during the glitz and merriment of the season, and are probably not really “about Christmas” in the traditional, generic way. But there are many more movies that unfold their tales of corruption, mystery, and danger against a backdrop of twinkle lights and Salvation Army Santas. Please enjoy the following detective movies, noirs, con stories, and sinister musicals to help you, less conventionally, ring in the holiday season.
The Thin Man
W.S. Van Dyke’s 1934 classic noir-comedy, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as the hard-drinking, nonstop-bantering leisure class amateur detective couple Nick and Nora Charles, begins just before Christmas, when Nick is reluctantly enlisted by a young woman to find her missing father, the eccentric inventor Clyde Wynant. But when Wynant’s secretary Julia Wolf is found murdered, evidence suggests that Wynant may be the culprit, and Nick (who, as a former PI, does a lot of the fieldwork) finds himself investigating the same case from several different, baffling angles. Based on the Dashiell Hammett novel, this lighthearted and high-spirited adaptation is not boozier than its source text, but it is significantly fizzier and much bubblier.
Carol
Todd Haynes’s moody, melancholy masterpiece Carol, based on the Patricia Highsmith story formerly titled The Price of Salt, is not explicitly, really a traditional crime movie, but it is extremely dark and dangerous. It follows a young woman named Therese (Rooney Mara) who works in a department store in 1950s Manhattan, and one day is captivated by an elegant, older woman named Carol (Cate Blanchett) who is perusing an aisle nearby. The two women develop a fast bond that grows into love, but their affair cannot avoid complicated consequences. As such, the story does not unfold like a romance; it is too apprehensive and brooding, knowing, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s clear that what these two women are doing is extremely dangerous, for many reasons. There are private investigators, divorce lawyers, custody battles, “morality clauses”—the perils of Carol are often more bureaucratic than lethal. But they are just as sinister, and make the film’s environment all the more menacing.
Batman Returns
Tim Burton’s 1992 sequel to his very successful, dark Batman film is set during Christmastime in Gotham. Michael Keaton stars as the caped crusader, once again; this time, he must vanquish Oswald Cobbplepot, aka The Penguin (Danny Devito), a grotesque blackmailer who teams up with/is blackmailed by an evil multimillionaire named Max Schreck (Christopher Walken) to destroy the city. Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer), is Shreck’s secretary who survives a murder attempt after she uncovers the truth about his corrupt business. She survives, vowing to destroy him and becoming Catwoman. Batman, Catwoman, the Penguin, and Shreck all try to destroy one another in various ways, all against a backdrop of red and green twinkle lights and white snow and the gloomiest-possible black sky.
Trading Places
In this 80s comedy classic directed by John Landis, Dan Ackroyd is a rich jerk named Louis Winthorpe III and Eddie Murphy is an impoverished but street-smart grifter named Billy Ray Valentine, and they find their situations totally swapped when two millionaire brothers try to figure out if human behavior is determined by environmental and social factors or not, and use the two unwitting men as the specimens in their experiments, destroying Winthorpe’s life and boosting Valentine’s. This kind of puppet-mastering is weird and definitely illegal, but Trading Places becomes a crime movie when the wager ends, the two men find one another, and decide to get even with the men who messed with them. Also, this movie does an extra good job of reminding you how gross Philadelphia is.
8 Women
8 Women, a French murder-mystery movie from 2002, is a delight. A wealthy family assembles to spend Christmas at their country estate, but one morning, the patriarch is found in bed with a knife in his back. The remaining people is the house, eight women with different relationships to the deceased, are the only suspects, and they all have reasons for wanting him dead. The movie features an unbelievable all-star cast, including Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Fanny Ardant. But, and here’s the twist, it’s also a musical! And as each woman’s motive comes into focus, she has the opportunity to richly develop (through song) into her own person. Also, an old wheelchair-bound woman blames her sudden, mysterious ability to walk on “a Christmas miracle” and it’s a hoot.
Iron Man 3
In this Marvel installment, released after the first Avengers movie, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), returns from defeating Loki only to cope with terrible PTSD and to encounter a new villain, a thing called the Mandarin, waiting for him. Directed by Shane Black (who loves setting movies during Christmas—he made Lethal Weapon, and Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang). The vibe isn’t totally Christmassy, but there are lots of twinkly lights, and at one point, Iron Man dances in his suit to “Jingle Bells.” So, if you’re into that sort of thing, it exists.
Shazam
Another superhero movie, another grimey Philadelphia setting. Shazam, based on the DC comic, is the story of a young orphaned teenager named Billy Batson who winds up with the ability to turn into a handsome, grown-up superhero (Zachary Levi) with tons of superpowers. It’s basically Big, but with flying and capes. And let me tell you, it is a delight. A DELIGHT. I saw it in theaters with my mom, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can, the 2002 Steven Spielberg classic starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio, is not entirely set during Christmas, but its saddest, most defining scene is, so it makes the list. The story, based on true events, is about a charismatic, pathologically-lying teenager named Frank Abagnale Jr., who winds up forging thousands of checks and documents, successfully impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer, all by the time he was nineteen. Leo plays Frank, while Hanks is the beleaguered FBI Carl Hanratty agent who hunts him down for years, but also becomes the strongest, longest-lasting relationship he has, after his family crumbles? The scene where Frank calls Carl on Christmas because he has nobody else to share the holiday with is painfully sad… but the scene where he watches his mother’s new family celebrate Christmas while looking through the window of their house just before the authorities will close in… devastating.
Annie
Annie, a musical about the Great Depression, an abusive orphan-mistress, and a plot between three sinister hucksters who attempt to kidnap and leverage the good fortune of a child to con a billionaire out of money, is a deeply horrifying story and a startling reminder about how virtually no infrastructure exists to meaningfully care for children who are failed by adults. It ends on a happy note during a big Christmas celebration at a big 5th Avenue mansion, and there’s a dog, but that’s not enough to erase the horror that takes place during the rest of the story. Nothing is.
While You Were Sleeping
While this lighthearted 90s Sandra Bullock film may not be regarded as being a traditional crime film, it definitely counts on this list. It’s about elaborate, insane fraud and deception, and besides that, all romantic comedies are detective or crime stories anyway.
