Sure, Extremely, One other 10 Crime Motion pictures You Forgot Take Place at Christmas ‹ CrimeReads

Okay group! It’s time for us to spherical up crime films which additionally occur to be set throughout the Christmas season however aren’t actually, technically “Christmas films.” As I clarify EVERY yr, after I make one other one among these lists, these aren’t films like Die Onerous or Dangerous Santa or Deadly Weapon or the brand new Violent Night time: famously crimey and clearly seasonal for having a “Christmasy” backdrop. NOPE! These are the films you don’t all the time bear in mind are even set at Christmas. In December 2018, our editor Dwyer Murphy assembled ten thrillers which may shock you with their vacation settings, and in December of 2019, I added ten more. After which in December of 2020, I added another ten more, after which final yr, I added another ten more! (So, people, if a film isn’t on right here and also you assume it needs to be, test the opposite 4 lists.)

So, sure, for the FIFTH TIME in as a few years: listed below are one other ten extra crime films you may need forgotten happen at Christmas!

Reindeer Video games (2000)

Ah, Reindeer Video games. On this late John Frankenheimer crime film, Ben Affleck performs an car-thief ex-con who assumes the identification of his deceased cellmate in order that he can get with that man’s engaging jail pen-pal Charlize Theron and consequently, finds himself embroiled in a Christmas Eve on line casino heist along with her gunrunner brother, Gary Sinese, who doesn’t know Ben Affleck is an impostor and due to this fact thinks he has the abilities to be their ringer. Hark.

 

Mr. Mushy Contact (1949)

This genuinely miserable noir is a couple of WWII veteran named Joe Miracle who comes again from the conflict to search out that his nightclub has fallen beneath the management of the Polish mob, and his enterprise accomplice has gone lacking. He robs them and hides out till he can flee the nation on Christmas Eve, the subsequent day. Within the meantime, he additionally dons a Santa Claus costume as a disguise to hide his identification from the mobsters.

 

In Bruges (2008)

Sure, Martin McDonagh’s black comedy, about two hitmen hiding out within the historic metropolis of Bruges, Belgium after a bungled job places their employer in jeopardy, takes place throughout the vacation season! There are lights and tinsel all over the place, behind all of the flying bullets and sulking assassins.

 

Black Christmas (1974)

Sure, tremendous, possibly you didn’t overlook that “Black Christmas,” a film with the phrase “Christmas” within the title, takes place at Christmas. However possibly you forgot it existed in any respect. Or possibly you by no means heard about it, regardless of it being the primary bona-fide slasher film in American historical past. It’s a horror film but it surely’s positively crimey in a Ted Bundy sort of manner, a couple of sorority home terrorized by a serial killer throughout winter break. It stars Romeo and Juliet‘s Olivia Hussy and 2001: A House Odyssey‘s Kier Dullea. (And don’t anticipate it to evolve to present-day slasher guidelines.)

 

Cowl Up (1949)

William Bendix stars on this noir about an insurance coverage investigator who goes to a small city at Christmastime to test on a dying that has been dominated a suicide, however nothing is because it appears. The tagline is “it takes greater than a kiss to cowl up a killing!” As I all the time wish to say round this time of yr.

 

Girl within the Lake (1947)

Robert Montgomery stars as Phillip Marlowe on this very experimental  thriller film that he additionally directed, which options a number of subjective digicam pictures (so that you see the world the best way Marlowe does). It’s disorienting! Nobody likes subjective digicam pictures! BUT it’s an enchanting exploration into movie kind and non-conventional visible storytelling. Mysteriously, it’s set at Christmas, with “Jingle Bells” even taking part in throughout the opening credit.

 

The Good Guys (2016)

Shane Black units a number of his films at Christmas (see the opposite lists on this collection), and this consists of his current (and underrated!) 70s buddy-comedy The Good Guys, starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as an unlikely pair of investigators: PI Holland March and enforcer Jackson Healy. Sure, the Christmassy themes on this film may be extra refined than in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3, or Deadly Weapon, however they’re there! It’s Christmastime in Los Angeles when March and Healy take up their case. The entire city is roofed in tinsel “and stuff.”

 

The Lodge (2019)

Girl on a Prepare (1945)

Deanna Durbin stars on this movie as a younger San Francisco debutante who loves mysteries and who boards a practice to New York at Christmastime solely to see a horrible homicide by means of the home windows of her automobile. Fortunately, there’s a thriller author on board who may also help her determine the identification of the killer! This film encompasses a very good rendition of “Silent Night time,” in the event you like your crime films to characteristic carols.

 

Psycho (1960)

What? Sure, pals… Psycho takes place at Christmas! Marion Crane steals the cash from her boss on Friday, December eleventh. However greater than that–whereas she is driving by means of the streets of Phoenix, the digicam captures a reverse shot of her view from the windshield, and the town is roofed in Christmas decorations. Stephen Rebello, writer of Alfred Hitchcock and The Making of Psycho, noted in the film’s DVD commentary that this was not intentional; the opening scenes had been shot on location in Phoenix in December, and the town was decked out in tinsel for the vacations, that means the movie needed to write the setting into the story. However I feel it really works, thematically, anyway; you may’t deny that Psycho is a movie about the entire household coming collectively on the holidays!