Top 10 Non-Christmas Movies to Keep You Warm Under the Mistletoe This Christmas

Ah, Christmas Time. You can’t sit down to watch TV without a deluge of obnoxious commercials with families dressed alike in Christmas jammies, mind-numbingly plot vapid Hallmark movies, and unrealistic car commercials where spouses gift each other luxury vehicles.

This season also brings your obligatory Christmas movies with Love Actually on a loop to make sure I spend at least one evening crying and pining over Hugh Grant. But, of course, I also try never to miss It’s A Wonderful Life because it makes me miss my grandpa, who I always thought looked just like Jimmy Stewart and would’ve been dear friends with George Bailey had he existed.

But I’m not here to talk about any of that tinsel-covered candy-caned-laden entertainment. Instead, I’m here to break down the Top 10 non-Christmas Christmas movies.

The Criteria

My husband and I fight about my unique categorization of Christmas movies. I hold my ground every year because I’m right and he’s wrong. I have broken down my criteria of what constitutes a Christmas movie, and the breakdown is as follows:

• Tier 1: Your unmistakable Christmas movies. These are movies where Christmas is the central plot of the film. This list isn’t about all that.
• Tier 2: These are movies where Christmas is a running theme in the film from beginning to end. This is your first level of non-Christmas Christmas movies.
• Tier 3: If a film finds itself in this tier, it means the movie takes place around the holiday season, so anything from November through January.
• Tier 4: This last group is for those few movies that have pinnacle scenes that take place and couldn’t have happened without the holiday season as a backdrop.

Are you with me? If not, don’t sweat it, remember, it’s Christmas time, and none of this is all that serious. So let’s get ready to jingle all the way through this list of fantastic movies.

10 – The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

How can you dislike any movie with Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson? I remember watching this action-packed movie in the theater, and to this day, I secretly want to grow up to be just like Geena Davis. 

In this Christmas-time flick, Geena Davis plays a school teacher who had been found eight years prior pregnant with amnesia. After hitting her head in a car accident, all of a sudden, she realizes she’s got some excellent knife-wielding skills.

Eventually, she teams up with Samuel L. Jackson to discover in a previous life she was a badass CIA assassin with amazing fight and action scenes. Nothing says Holly Jolly like government intrigue and explosions.

Fun fact, you should watch this movie simply because Geena Davis is in it, and she is also one of the top 25 female archers in the nation, which is just simply fantastic.

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9 – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

There is debate over whether this film qualifies as a Christmas movie; I can assure you it does as the film takes place over the Christmas season, so you can just put that in your pipe and smoke it, Frosty. This is a comical whodunit starring Robert Downey Jr., playing his usual character before Iron Man, a goofy, highly flawed yet lovably haphazard essential character that seems to go through life surviving one accident after another.

Any good dark comedic crime movie set in Los Angeles has to have a damsel in distress played by Michelle Monaghan, who wears a sexy Santa outfit the bulk of the film, so there you go Christmas movie. But the real reason you should watch this movie is Val Kilmer, who plays a private investigator whose biting wit makes the film. 

Get those matching holiday jam jams on and snuggle up to this comical Christmas crime flick.

8 – The Hunt for Red October (1990)

Not only is this the best Jack Ryan film, but it’s also a classic non-Christmas Christmas movie. This Tier 3 movie takes place in November during the Cold War. 

Sean Connery plays a Soviet submarine captain looking to defect to the United States. Still, he must utilize political intrigue and slight of…boat. With the help of Jack Ryan, played by Alec Baldwin, our Scottish accent-slinging Russian naval giant can make it to the land of opportunity.

This movie is full of underrated actors from Sam Neill, Tim Curry, Scott Glenn, Stellan Skarsgard, and Courtney B Vance. It’s a shame Sam Neill’s character never gets to see Montana; it really is quite beautiful. 

7 – Invasion USA (1985)

The grandfather to Lethal Weapon and Die Hard takes place in the Christmas season in Florida. This is the second time this movie has made its way into one of my Top 10 lists.

If you are a Chuck Norris fan which obviously you are because you have impeccable taste, as you are reading one of my articles, this movie was on my Top 10 Chuck Norris movie list and now finds its way on this one. In this Uncle Chuck classic, we find ourselves fighting the Soviets again with retired CIA agent Matt Hunter played by Mr. Norris, fighting Soviet terrorist Mikhail Rostov.

Probably every Top 10 movie list should include a Chuck Norris movie because I don’t want to get roundhouse kicked in the face and because a Chuck Norris movie is one of the best gifts you can receive from Saint Chuck.

6 – When Harry Met Sally (1989)

This Tier 4 film is a nod to my sensitive side, a side I don’t show very often, the softer side of your spicy writer. The two iconic lovebirds realize they love each other on New Year’s Eve, which is perhaps the best time to realize that you “want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

And while my feminine sensibilities and love of classic Billy Crystal comedy have me returning to this movie year after year, it’s equally the two supporting actors, Bruno Kirby and the late great Carrie Fischer, that made that film so spectacular. For the record, I would’ve loved that wagon wheel table Bruno.

My all-time favorite scene isn’t the fake orgasm or the scene at the New Year’s Eve party. No, no, it’s the karaoke scene when Billy Crystal sings Surrey with the Fringe on Top, makes me laugh every time and is still one of my favorite karaoke songs to sing.

I’ll take chicks and ducks and geese better scurry over the 12 days of Christmas any day.

5 – Ghostbusters 2 (1989)

I’m hit or miss with Bill Murray movies; I either love them or hate them. I adore most of his older films like Stripes and Caddyshack, but I could live without On The Rocks.

The first and second Ghostbusters are the only Ghostbuster movies I choose to acknowledge because there is no replacing Venkman, Spengler, and Stantz, and to try to smash together moderately humorous female comedians and call it a reboot is just plain lazy and foolish. In addition, Ghostbusters 2 fits our list because it takes place sometime between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, with plenty of Christmas accouterments found throughout the film.

Who are you going to call Santa? Give me a break; I’ll take the Ghostbusters, please.

4 – Batman Returns (1992)

This isn’t just a Christmas movie. This is a Tier 2 Christmas movie, my friends. The holiday has a prominent role throughout the film, with decorations, a giant Christmas Tree, and Christmas music. 

To this day, the best Batman has been Michael Keaton. The best Catwoman is still Michelle Pfieffer, who was born with the facial bone structure to play that feline felon. In a way, Christopher Walken plays a sort of Scrooge character in this caped crusader movie, although at no point does he learn the true meaning of Christmas.

I only see the Penguin when I see Danny DeVito, perhaps the best role he’s ever played. The best line of the movie comes from the femme fatale herself; “Mistletoe Can Be Deadly If You Eat It. But A Kiss Can Be Even Deadlier If You Mean It.”

Me-ow!

3 – Trading Places (1983)

Besides myself, the best thing to come out of 1983 was Trading Places starring Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, and Jamie Lee Curtis. I remember watching this movie on TV as a kid and laughing until my stomach felt like it would split in two.

This movie could never be made in today’s socially woke climate. We should all download it before it is erased from all platforms for being, you know, funny. Financier Dan Aykroyd’s character is forced to swap lives with street peddler Eddie Murphy in this hilarious hijinx comedy.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays a prostitute named Ophelia for the tragic love interest of Hamlet and is a knockout even by today’s standards. If you want a holiday movie filled with old-school comedy, a critique of the divide between poor and rich in society, and insider trading, this movie is for you.

2 – Lethal Weapon (1987)

Mel Gibson and Danny Glover play perhaps one of the best cop duos in the film next to Tango and Cash. This buddy cop film that kicks off the franchise takes place during Christmas, earning it a spot on this list.

It gets the coveted number 2 position because I love me some 1980s cop movies, plus Mel Gibson’s hair in this film is just too luscious not to give it a prominent place on the list. Roger Murtaugh and Martin Riggs are unlikely friends in this movie. Still, they quickly become close as brothers, making these films a must in our house whenever they happen to be on television.

I don’t believe I’ll ever be too old for this shit, just like I’m still not too old to put out cookies for Santa year after year (and in my house, Santa likes Oreos, they are the superior cookie). And this brings us to the obvious number 1 non-Christmas Christmas movie…

1 – Die Hard (1988)

I’ve basically modeled my entire life after what I think John McClane might do, he is the ideal man, and the life lessons you can glean from a Die Hard movie will stay with you forever. Die Hard is the best non-Christmas Christmas movie as it takes place during a Christmas party, has a great Christmas soundtrack, and has some fantastic Christmas props.

One year my military unit had a Christmas movie-themed holiday party where you had to dress as your favorite Christmas movie. So I wore a “Merry Christmas from Nakatomi Plaza 1988” sweater, and my husband dressed as the dead bad guy McClane sent down in the elevator.

For some reason, we didn’t win that year. As I was saying, John McClane, is my life guru. 

To this day, I never am far from hard-soled shoes because you never know when some bad guys are going to shoot the windows out around you, you won’t catch me picking shards of glass out of my delicate feet. Hans Gruber is also perhaps the best bad guy to ever grace a 1980s screen, and we have to give the nod to the recently deceased Clarence Gilyard, who passed away this year. 

Merry Christmas, dear reader and have a Happy New Year.