There is perhaps no time of year more wonderful and gleeful than the festive season, a time filled with celebrations with family and friends as Christmas cheer is spread around. A defining element of the holiday season for many is the wide selection of classic Christmas movies which have become an annual event for many families, from timeless gems likeIt’s a Wonderful Lifeto more modern favorites likeHow the Grinch Stole Christmas. However, the Criterion Collection has got its own unique range of Yuletide hits which address Christmas a little differently.
Ever since it was founded in 1984, the Criterion Collections – or simply Criterion – has been dedicated to the safeguarding, restoration, and distribution of culturally important films, be they classics or contemporary hits, which may otherwise go unappreciated.The Criterion Collection’s holiday selection is no different, featuring many astounding films from all around the world with intriguing links to Christmastime, whether the festive season is playing a major part in the plot or merely existing in the background.
18’Blast of Silence' (1961)
Country of Origin: America
Alow-budget neo-noir filmthat came to be revered as a cult classic before being inducted into the Criterion Collection in 2008. A lean and mean crime thriller,Blast of Silencefollows a hitman from Cleveland carrying out a job in Manhattan over the Christmas period. While he goes about his business in a no-fuss manner, complications arise due to a sketchy gun dealer he must work with and a series of encounters with people from his past.
Its scrappy nature gives it a rough-around-the-edges energy that catches the attention with arresting fervor, while the tight plotting allows the story to unfold with mechanical precision and engrossing focus.Tactfully swift and abruptly brutal,Blast of Silencepresents a stripped-down and unromantic image of Christmas, one that uses the festivities to highlight the protagonist’s isolation and, perhaps, critique the glamour associated with crime cinema.
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17’My Night at Maud’s' (1969)
Country of Origin: France
The highlight ofÉric Rohmer’sSix Moral Talesfilm series and a defining gem of the French New Wave cinematic movement of the 60s,My Night at Maud’s thrives as a gentle and wafting exploration of human connection, religion, and modern values. Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintigant) is a devoted Catholic whose strong traditionalist principles are challenged when he finds himself spending the night with Maud (Françoise Fabian), a recently divorced woman.
The presence of Christmas is merely a setting and little else, but it is still interesting toconsider the festive season and its inherent traditionalism throughout the philosophical discussionsabout life, faith, and morality in changing times. One of the best Criterion Christmas movies, it remains an enticing picture about the impact that such unlikely yet fateful encounters can have, and how some of the deepest and most shaping connections we form can be with people who think completely differently from ourselves.
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16’The Long Day Closes' (1992)
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Laced with the tender and intrinsic personality that only autobiographical projects can truly embody,The Long Day Closesis a touching reflection on the trials and tribulations of childhood realized with a poetic magnetism that is both poignantly real and divinely dreamlike.Directed by Terence Davies, it follows Bud (Leigh McCormack), a reserved 11-year-old boy who navigates the rigors of life while finding solace at his local movie theater.
With familial relationships and the importance and centrality of the church’s role in the lives of people in 1950s England being core focuses,The Long Day Closesis a quietly powerful slice-of-life meditation. Brilliantly,the film’s final act aligns its thematic focal points with the onset of the Christmas season, a decision that sharpens its melancholic overtones while commenting on the significance of the holiday in a cultural sense with profound warmth.
The Long Day Closes
15’Make Way for Tomorrow' (1937)
Christmas movies usually focus on how families come together.Make Way for Tomorrowanalyzes how they can fall apart. Thetragic yet touching dark dramaopens in the festive season with an elderly couple losing their home to foreclosure. As they turn to their five adult children to take them in, they find that none of them have the room or resources to house the couple together, leading to them being pried apart and reduced to feeling like burdens to their family.
In a bitter sense, the film’s core focus on the financial hardship of growing old has remained relevant and is particularly poignant today.It reflects on what is left behind in a world where rampaging progress and the teasing allure of a brighter immediate futuredominate the considerations of the working class. Armed byLeo McCarey’s unflinching conviction and his reluctance to cave to sensationalized storytelling norms,Make Way for Tomorrowis perfect and powerful right up to its beautifully devastating final moments, and its use of Christmas as a thematic set-up is as exceptional as it is effective.
Make Way for Tomorrow
14’Pandora’s Box' (1929)
Country of Origin: Germany
A film made decades before its time,Pandora’s Boxfollows the enchanting and seductive showgirl Lulu (Louise Brooks) as her web of erotic intrigue steadily spirals out of control. Fueled by both her reckless amorality and youthful naivety, she resorts to utilizing her uninhibited nature and her sensuality to work as a prostitute, a decision that leads to chaos, desperation, and ruin for all ensnared by her charms, including herself.
The silent drama leaps off the screen with Brooks’ captivating, conflicting, and nuanced lead performance and with directorG.W. Pabst’s masterful ability to build atmosphere and suspense. While it was initially dismissed by critics, the German picture has found international acclaim retrospectively, not only for its foresight and progressive qualities, but for its pulsating story of deceit and desire as well.Pandora’s Box’s dramatic finale, which transpires on Christmas Eve, isa devastating sequence that depicts tortured people succumbing to their own natureand hurting others in the process.
13’Brazil' (1985)
An underappreciatedTerry Gilliammasterpiece that meshes dystopian sci-fi with black comedy and searing social commentary,Brazilis a captivating, nightmarish fantasy that is often viewed as being one of thebest films of the 1980s. Set shortly before Christmas, it follows a low-level bureaucrat in a hyper-consumerist society as he starts looking for a woman from his dreams, which sees him become an enemy of the state while he sees to a menial clerical error.
While it doesn’t feature the holiday season in abundance, its mere presence plays into the setting of the future world Gilliam creates, one rife with technocracy and unrefined capitalism. Complemented by stunning cinematography, Oscar-nominated set design, and a gripping lead performance fromJonathan Pryce,Brazilis a quintessential sci-fi drama with a great satirical punch.
12’All That Heaven Allows' (1955)
A romantic drama with a stern focus on class divides, the power of perception, and complex relationships,All That Heaven Allowsis a big-hearted movie that uses Christmas to poignant effect. It follows an affluent widow whose empty life finds fulfillment when she strikes up a romance with the younger landscaper who tends to her garden, but the disapproval she faces from her friends and family – namely her children – causes her to end the relationship.
Her regret comes to a head at Christmas when, while celebrating with her family, her children share their plans and state that Cary (Jane Wyman) should sell her house as they are taking their own lives elsewhere, making her feel as though her sacrifice was all for nothing. The romantic intrigue is beautifully enhanced by the film’s striking use of color, which heightens every beat of emotion and drama.
All That Heaven Allows
11’The Night of the Hunter' (1955)
A noir crime thriller with the sinister intrigue of Southern Gothic,The Night of the Hunterwas a remarkable achievement as the only credited directing effort of acting greatCharles Laughton’s career. It follows a serial killer who, while serving a brief prison sentence, learns of a stolen stash of money from his cellmate who is to be executed. Upon release, he poses as a preacher to marry the inmate’s widow and tries to get information as to the money’s whereabouts from her two young children.
WhileThe Night of the Hunterwas a total failure upon release, it has since come to be viewed as an undervalued classicwith its confronting and lively story and its unique visual display, which prevented it from aging like many othermovies from the 1950s. While not necessarily a Christmas movie, its conclusion does take place during the festive season with its own, unique celebration of family.
The Night of the Hunter
10’Morning for the Osone Family' (1946)
Country of Origin: Japan
As one of the most fraught Christmas movies in Criterion’s collection,Morning for the Osone Familyis a brilliant and powerful illustration of the societal complexities and familial strains in a war-torn Japan. Starting with the Ôsones celebrating Christmas by singing “Silent Night,” the film sets its roots in what were uncharacteristically Westernized family values for its setting, a key component as the story explores how each member of the liberal family responds to the Second World War and the eventual arrival of Uncle Issei (Eitarô Ozawa), an ultra-conservative nationalist who serves as a colonel in the army.
While the film only opens on Christmas, the holiday establishes the identity of the family with beauty and impact…
It was Kinoshita Keisuke’s first film since WWII ended, and its focus on just one family painted a vivid picture of the political unrestand the sense of mourning that engulfed the divided nation. While the film only opens on Christmas, the holiday establishes the identity of the family with beauty and impact, while an instrumental version of “Silent Night” plays again later when the family learns of Takashi’s death in the war.
9’Fanny and Alexander' (1982)
Country of Origin: Sweden
A legend of international cinema who directed some of the most thought-provoking and stimulating movies ever released,Ingmar Bergmanis a filmmaker of great influence, to say the least.Fanny and Alexanderis one ofBergman’s best pictures and among his most accessiblefor viewers new to the director’s work. Set in the late 1910s, it follows two siblings, the children of theater workers, who, following their father’s death, find themselves stifled in an abusive environment when their mother remarries a strict bishop.
With a runtime of over three hours,Fanny and Alexandermight be viewed as an intimidating watch, but its incredible visual display makes it a worthwhile experience, as does its outstanding coming-of-age narrative. The scenes that take place around Christmastime are truly a delight to watch, rich with striking and lavish colors and awe-inspiring production design that has an uncanny knack for stirring up family Christmas memories in many who watch the movie.
