December is here and while a lot of people are gung-ho to get into the Christmas spirit, you don’t necessarily need to fully dive into the Christmas season just yet. Maybe you want to acclimate to the winter. You can do that by watching movies and eating soup. To me, that feels like winter. If you’d like to join me on my journey to assimilate into the winter season, I’ve put together a list of 13 films to watch that embody the winter vibe.
If you’d like to see the full list on Letterboxd, click HERE.
Carol (2015)
A lot of people would probably classify Carol as a romantic Christmas drama, and while I fathom the sentiment with the time frame being in the holiday season, I see this as more of a wintery romance film that guts you from the insides. Todd Haynes pairs two of the best actresses of this century, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, and makes you fall in love with the idea of their scandalous relationship to the point that you need it to happen. You don’t want it to happen — you NEED it. Aside from that intimate relationship, the backdrop being 1950s New York during the holidays feels elegant, yet also cozy in a way where you’ll want to substitute watching Elf with a loved one to watch Carol one night this winter season.
The Holdovers (2023)
A new great addition to the world of winter cinema is Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers. I got to see it on a brisk fall evening at the Montclair Film Festival, and while I was blown away with how great it was, I do wish my first viewing of this came in front of a fireplace while wearing a wool sweater. The old New England prep school setting already radiates wintery vibes, but when you see the heavy sweaters and dapper coats that our main characters wear, then you feel fully entrenched in the winter. Everything about this Alexander Payne film is coded with winter. From the on-the-nose snow to the underlying friendships formed in the winter, this is a winter flick.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Nothing screams the winter season like shopping for gifts and erotic sex cults. If those two things are for you, then I recommend you watch Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut. This is actually being shown at the Amherst Cinema on December 26th, and I will undoubtedly see this in theaters — not that I’m into erotic sex cults with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. I’m not, seriously. A lot like Carol, some people could categorize Eyes Wide Shut as a Christmas movie because it’s around Christmas, but it’s anything but that. It’s grim, eerie, and extremely profound. The New York City winter is just a vehicle used by Kubrick to display the seedy underbelly of the rich and powerful.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Setting the holidays aside, the winter season is depressing. It gets darker early, you constantly feel cold, and you just want to lay in bed. Some people, like myself, when we get into that seasonal depressive state like to compound it with things that’ll make me feel worse, both mentally and emotionally. Musically, I’ll listen to Radiohead’s In Rainbows or Long Time Sunshine by Weezer. Film wise, I’ll watch Inside Llewyn Davis. Spoiler alert, there’s no happy ending. Our main character doesn’t find fame or glory. Instead, he hurts those closest to him and repeats his cycle of failures. You begin to catch on to this pattern early on, and even though you know something tragic is coming, you still feel gutted when it occurs.
Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
One of the funniest comedies of the 2010s is Hot Tub Time Machine. It’s a great representation of male relationships when you get older as it becomes tougher to connect and your friendships feel altered because you’ve all matured at different rates. Nevertheless, hot tubs and ski trips are synonyms with each other and the winter. You’ll find yourself laughing at this groups antics, gripped by the 80s nostalgia and oddly cozy from the winter time feel.
First Reformed (2017)
Looking at Ethan Hawkes filmography, you can pick out Training Day or Boyhood or the Before trilogy as his best performance. For me, his best performance comes in First Reformed. Paul Schrader optimizes a slow burn with the films pacing, but keeps the viewer engaged by using realistic shock. Hawke adds great stoicism that’s compounded by real looks of despair to further entice the viewer. In the same vein as a film like Requiem For A Dream, First Reformed has extremely uncomfortable moments, especially the ending which I won’t spoil, but I love. Schrader, like Aronofsky, shows us the unsavory lives that people live that’s packed with loneliness and delusion.
The Shining (1980)
I find that horror with a winter back drop might be the scariest form of horror films. I’m not entirely sure why, but the idea of snow piling up adds a claustrophobic element and the coldness adds a discomfortable vibe that you can feel through the characters. Great examples of this are The Shining and The Thing. The Shining is great because that feeling of being suffocated by your surroundings and the build up of “cabin fever” are on full display. We’ve all been snowed in with our families before. At first, it started out as fun. You watch movies and play board games, but at some point, you get sick of everyone. That’s kind of what Jack Torrence did — except on a more extreme level.
Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Seeing Anatomy of a Fall in a packed movie theater in Chatham on a winter night was one of the best theater going experiences I’ve had all year. The snowy countryside of France makes you feel like an artsy traveler right off the rip. Then director Justine Triet thrusts you into controversy, morphing Anatomy of a Fall into both a gutting crime thriller and a riveting courtroom drama. It’s one of the best films of 2023 and has now become one of the best winter films. Triet makes you want to stand in the cold and smoke a cigarette like Sandra Hüller.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
The Wes Anderson aesthetic is one that’s been mimicked, but can’t be copied. His unique style relying on symmetry adds a whimsical nature to his movies that many love. The Grand Budapest Hotel is the film that optimizes the Anderson style. It also is a great film for the winter time. You feel an odd nostalgia looking at this waggish, pink hotel as the snow covers its shingles. It’s quite quaint and relaxing. With whacky characters played by Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, and Edward Norton only make you fall more in love with this film.
The Pale Blue Eye (2023)
Scott Cooper has a style that he likes to direct and sticks to it. It doesn’t always hit, but he adores his films having harsh tones. He also likes to work with Christian Bale, which always ropes me in. I’m definitely a bigger fan of The Pale Blue Eye than most. It wasn’t super well received at the start of the year, but I thought that tone and style wise, Cooper executed this perfectly. I also felt that the Edgar Allen Poe hints were glorious, even if they were a bit on the nose. If you’re a fan of gritty crime thrillers, then The Pale Blue Eye will soothe your winter and thriller aspirations.
Fargo (1996)
It’s rare for a film to not just double, but triple in multiple great genres/nano-genres. Fargo is a fantastic crime drama, an underrated comedy, and a perfect film for the winter that doesn’t rely on Christmas to get you into the seasonal mood. Joel Coen uses the North Dakota winter as the stage for this outstanding crime comedy that hones in on everything the could possibly go wrong in a kidnapping scenario. Frances McDormand and William H. Macy deliver entertaining performances that are packed with “you betchas” from start to finish. Maybe one of the most perfect films for the winter season.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
In the 20th century, the king of westerns was Clint Eastwood. Now in the 21st century, we’ve seen less and less westerns, but if anyone does them the best, it’s Quentin Tarantino. His 2015 film, The Hateful Eight is a great spin on the traditional western as Tarantino sets it in the middle of a raging blizzard in Wyoming. We still get all the common western elements like quick draws to the gun and great nicknames like The Hangman, but the snow makes this feel much more secluded and builds the tension early and often. If you’d like a great, shoot-em-up western with winter vibes, then eighth feature film is for you.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
While Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio isn’t exactly a wintery flick, I watched it last year for the first time in a hotel room in Portland a week before Christmas. The heartwarming narrative from del Toro, the king of portraying parental relationships, makes me attribute this film to the winter. Growing up, I never had a connection to the Pinocchio plot. I was more in the camp of Monsters Inc., but seeing del Toro’s twist on the Pinocchio story as an adult was refreshing because of how mature it was. A lot of people think animations for kids. It’s not. Animation is an art form that del Toro loves and executed a beautiful story about a father and son in his adaptation of the Pinocchio story.