10 Best Christmas Movies Without Santa Claus

Without Christmas movies and TV, the holiday season would feel lacking, not just for movie buffs, but for everyone who celebrates — the unwritten custom of getting together and watching something Christmas-themed the night before completes other traditions. While some people have a ritual of revisiting their favorite Christmas film every year, others look forward to Christmas movies releasing as recently as 2024. From romcoms like Meet Me Next Christmas, to horror films like Terrifier 3, Christmas has become the setting for all genres of cinema.

A common fixture of the Christmas film is everyone’s favorite bearded man who flies in with his reindeer every year. Without Santa Claus, it would not entirely feel like Christmas. Well, not entirely. While there have been slasher movies with Santa in them, and the occasional movies with moral messages being spread by Santa, many films just use the premise of Christmas to tell stories that have little to do with the festival itself. Christmas is such a specific mood in and of itself, that it serves as the perfect setting for some action, drama, or horror.

10 Happiest Season (2020)

Directed By Clea DuVall

While it’s considered to be one of the best Christmas movies for fans of romantic comedies, Happiest Season is mostly a queer drama with dry, witty comedy. The romance gets complicated, as most things do when families get together for Christmas. In Happiest Season, Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis play Abby and Harper, in a committed relationship with each other. The film is premised on their trip to Harper’s home for Christmas, which Abby is excited about. There’s just one catch — Harper isn’t out to her parents and needs Abby to pretend to be her straight friend.

While this is a great emotional hook for the drama that ensues and also a necessary story because this happens in the real world more often than it should, it makes Happiest Season more of a drama than a rom-com. If anything, Happiest Season explores why a festival so centered around family is perhaps not the happiest season for a lot of people. Rom-com or not, it’s worth a rewatch every Christmas, if just for supporting stars Daniel Levy and Aubrey Plaza, who also play queer characters

9 Batman Returns (1992)

Directed By Tim Burton

While horror movies served as Batman Returns’ inspiration, it is as much a Christmas movie as it is a Batman movie. The rest of the world might be on holiday, but the caped crusader can’t take time off for festivities. Set during Christmas, Batman Returns chronicles the origin stories of the Penguin and Catwoman, who team up on Christmas Day to trick Batman. Tim Burton masterfully uses the context of Christmas festivities to create a mix of camp and horror that provides the perfect gothic atmosphere where the gimmicky villains feel grounded.

Sleazy and tragic, Batman Returns is operatic in its exploration of the themes of identity and loneliness. The psychology of its characters is its real plot as they come into their own while losing themselves in the darkness of the city. The real Christmas miracle is the perfect juxtaposition of themes with the wacky thrills like an army of penguins and Michelle Pfeiffer inexplicably surviving getting shot.

8 Love Actually (2003)

Directed by Richard Curtis

Love Actually will never leave Christmas watchlists just because of how iconic its cheesy moments have become. Opening on a montage of Heathrow Airport, Love Actually begins with a voiceover about how watching the display of love in airports can be an antidote to sorrow, especially sorrow born of loneliness during the holiday season. Love Actually tells nine different stories at the same time, all romantic adventures of people in London as they navigate the various dramatic dating and familial situations that arise during the holiday season.

The best part of Love Actually is perhaps that there’s no restriction on the kind of background of the people whose lives are depicted. The toxicity of some of the romantic narratives shouldn’t be overlooked for the festive mood, and there are a lot of harsh realities to face when rewatching Love Actually today. However, it explores all kinds of sources of strain between romantically involved people, from infidelity to financial difficulties to grief — this is as varied as it gets, with a good balance of drama and romcom tropes.

7 Tangerine (2015)

Directed By Sean Baker

Sean Baker’s Tangerine is one of the most influential films ever and changed LGBTQ cinema forever. Following two transgender sex workers, and an Armenian man who’s a frequent customer of theirs, Tangerine is an ensemble drama that highlights how transphobia and fetishism make the holiday season just as hard, if not more so, than regular days. It could be Christmas for everyone around them, but for the main characters, there’s no Christmas miracle. They’ll still be misunderstood, mistreated, and rejected as “other”.

Tangerine
was shot entirely on an iPhone, the visual beauty challenging people’s assumptions about videography forever.

Such a direct focus on the trans experience, told with sympathy for marginalized people, is rare to find, even today. Back in 2015, it stood out for how unfiltered it is, painting a portrait of the characters’ struggles that culminates in an eight-way argument where the victims are inevitably the two trans sex workers. From infidelity being explained away, to a bar performance being walked out on, the film carefully depicts some personalized experiences. Tangerine feels real, where the trans characters aren’t hollow representatives of collective trauma.

6 Black Christmas (1974)

Directed By Bob Clark

A classic slasher set in a sorority house, Black Christmas follows a group of sorority sisters who are plagued by creepy calls from a stalker who sneakily kills one of them. After the death is discovered, the sisters naturally become more paranoid about the man’s presence, and the police get involved. The influence of Black Christmas on John Carpenter’s Halloween is obvious, as the closed house structure of this slasher, especially the second house when each person gets picked off one after the other, is an instantly recognizable genre staple.

Black Christmas inspired two remakes that failed, but the fact that it’s been remade is another testament to its cultural footprint. While it wasn’t people’s favorite when it was released, it has since garnered a cult following, becoming a traditional part of many horror fans’ Christmas watchlist as the original Christmas slasher. It also features one of the best final girls of all time in Olivia Hussey’s Jessica Bradford.

5 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Directed By Shane Black

One of the many Shane Black movies to be set during Christmas, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a unique mix of comedy and film noir, transported to the 21st Century. Robert Downey Jr. plays a confused man who accidentally wins a screen test and is sent to LA, where he comes in contact with his childhood crush and a gay private investigator with questionable morals.

The usual traits of a noir film can all be found in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and that’s why it stands out as a Christmas film. Not only is sunny LA too bright of a backdrop for the dark themes the film explores, but Christmas is way too festive a time for such a story. The contrast makes for a funny and ironic narrative of depravity that’s chock-full of jokes one might think twice before laughing at today.

4 Carol (2015)

Directed By Todd Haynes

Arguably responsible for making queer films more mainstream, Carol tells the story of two lesbians in the 1950s as they try to protect themselves from persecution while having an affair. Cate Blanchett plays the titular woman, an upper-class single mother who takes an interest in a toy store clerk and decides to pursue her romantically. The discovery of their relationship jeopardizing her case against her husband for custody of her child is the primary conflict.

The melodramatic treatment of the themes in Carol is perfectly complemented by the bright but muted color palette which highlights the vibrancy of youth while also acknowledging the drab monotony of a tiresome existence inside the closet. Using mirrors and window panes, Haynes creates liminal spaces where the protagonists can be completely themselves. While it focuses on the characters’ struggles, Carol‘s one of the best modern Christmas movies and, in the spirit of Christmas, has moments of unadulterated queer joy.

3 It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

Directed By Frank Capra

Based on Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story “The Greatest Gift”, which draws inspiration from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life tells the story of a man considers taking his own life until an angel shows him a version of the world in which he wasn’t born. Using magic realism, the film takes a look at how the man’s good deeds, which have unfortunately put him through some hard times, have made life better for everyone around him. It’s often considered the most inspirational movie of all time.

It’s a Wonderful Life is the peak of Christmas-themed filmmaking, exploring how Christmas is a day of reckoning with the past year or sometimes of one’s whole life, and finding moments of joy to be grateful for. It also features a literal Christmas miracle and embodies the optimistic sweetness that is the Christmas spirit. The highlights-reel style of storytelling emphasizes the power of kindness and empathy in a cruel world, showing that the man always chooses to do the right thing and, as unfair as his destiny may feel, his good deeds do have a positive impact.

2 Home Alone (1990)

Directed By Chris Columbus

One of the most beloved Christmas movies in the world, Home Alone tells the story of little Kevin McCallister who is left behind at home when his family goes on a trip for Christmas. He has the house all to himself and does the wackiest things but also responsibly protects his home from two notorious robbers, setting up elaborate traps to outsmart them.

Macaulay Culkin is adorable in the lead role of Kevin as he goes around the house looking through people’s stuff, wanders around town, making friends and getting groceries, enjoying a luxuriously quiet time away from his family’s chaos. He also successfully causes multiple injuries to Harry and Marv, the robbers that target his house. Home Alone is a tight film full of cheer, turning a scary situation into a comedic circumstance to instill joy in viewers’ hearts.

1 Die Hard (1988)

Directed By John McTiernan

While debate will always rage on about whether Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie, there’s no doubt that the film’s hero John McClane, played by Bruce Willis, certainly appears like a Christmas miracle to save the day. When his ex-wife’s company is under siege from terrorists, McClane, who’s a cop in a different U.S. city, decides to take them on all alone as local law enforcement and, later on, federal agents are incompetent in dealing with the threat.

​​​​​​​The script balances action with emotion very well, and John’s loneliness in being the only person fighting the terrorists and his internal turmoil about his separation from his wife form the crux of his character development — with the biggest highlight of Alan Rickman as a suave German terrorist as an added bonus. Die Hard is an intense Christmas thriller that goes through action sequence after action sequence, as John single-handedly deals with each of the terrorists, doing insane stunts like jumping from a roof with a fire hose around his waist to running over glass to escape from bullets.