12 Films of Christmas Present

Christmas is coming and Cinema Paradiso has lots of screen goodies for you to enjoy over the holiday period. There are so many, in fact, that we've had to divide them into Christmas Past and Christmas Present. So, to avoid being a Cine-Scrooge, join us in celebrating the best in festive cinema.

Having taken the Christmas screen story from its origins to 1990 in the first part of Cinema Paradiso's festive feast, we move into the modern era with this second selection box of seasonal delights. There are those who say that the heyday of the Christmas movie has already passed and that quantity counts for more than quality, as Hollywood seeks to cash-in on the feel-good spirit by repackaging treasured storylines in updated settings. But, while they may not have the nostalgia factor of the classics of yesteryear, there is still much to enjoy in the Yuletide offerings that have been released over the last three decades.

A Time For Families

The holidays have always been a time for families and film-makers have invariably relished the chance to tell tales that see conflicts resolved in time for a cosy celebration around the hearth. In Robert Lieberman's All I Want for Christmas (1991), for example. New York siblings Thora Birch and Ethan Randall ask Santa Leslie Nielsen to help reunite their estranged parents, Harley Jane Kozack and Jamey Sheridan. However, Chicago fare collector Sandra Bullock needs something more than a seasonal miracle to solve her problems in Jon Turteltaub's While You Were Sleeping (1995) after passenger Peter Gallagher is left comatose after a Christmas Day mugging and she lets his family believe that she is his fiancée.

Musician Michael Keaton doesn't manage to pull through after a Christmas car crash in Troy Miller's Jack Frost (1998). But, a year later, he gets a chance to spend some time with son Joseph Cross after his spirit animates a snowman. An unexpected turn of events also sees Wall Street bachelor Nicolas Cage wake up in unfamiliar surroundings after a brush with guardian angel Don Cheadle in Brett Ratner's The Family Man (2000). While Cage is surprised to find himself married with two kids, Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis are so blighted by empty nest syndrome when their daughter joins the Peace Corps that they decide to cancel their festivities and go on a Caribbean cruise in Joe Roth's Christmas With the Kranks (2004).

Their neighbours have other ideas, however, and rallying round is also the theme of Mike Mitchell's Surviving Christmas (2004), as advertising executive Ben Affleck offers James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara $250,000 to pose as his family so he can spend the holidays in his old childhood home. A clash of personalities also lies at the heart of Thomas Bezucha's The Family Stone (2005), as uptight Manhattan executive Sarah Jessica Parker comes to Thayer, Connecticut to spend Christmas with Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson, the down-to-earth parents of boyfriend Dermot Mulroney.

It's been so long since Loretta Devine saw children Idris Elba, Regina King and Sharon Leal that she has to get to know them all over again in Preston A. Whitemore II's This Christmas (2007) and Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon have to endure plenty of awkward moments when they decide to visit all four divorced parents - Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and Mary Steenburgen - in Seth Gordon's Four Christmases. The atmosphere is equally tense, as Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Roussillon welcome children Anne Consigny and Mathieu Amalric back to Roubaix for a family reunion in Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale, while sons John Leguizamo and Freddy Rodriguez join Puerto Rican parents Alfred Molina and Elizabeth Peña for an uncomfortable Chicago Christmas in Alfredo De Vitta's Nothing Like the Holidays (all 2008).

When children Austin Lysy, Drew Barrymore, Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale find excuses not to come home for Christmas, widower Robert De Niro sets out to visit them in Kirk Jones's Everybody's Fine (2009), a remake of Salvatore Tornatore's 1990 film of the same name, which boast a specially written song by Paul McCartney, as does Roger Mainwood's Ethel and Ernest (2016), which was adapted from a book by Raymond Briggs, the genius behind such perennial festive favourites as Dianne Jackson's The Snowman (1982), Dave Unwin's Father Christmas (1991) and Hilary Audus's The Snowman and the Snowdog (2012).

Rags the dog (voiced by Steve Martin) despairs that John Goodman and Diane Keaton are making a mistake in planning to divorce after hosting one last perfect family get together in Jessie Nelson's Christmas With the Coopers (2015). And widowed waiter Danny Glover also has a struggle on his hands, when he seeks to persuade bickering siblings Kimberly Elise. Gabrielle Union, Romany Malco and Jessie Usher to cease hostilities for five days in David E. Talbert's Almost Christmas (2016).

Heartwarmers

There's nothing like a dash of sentiment to warm the Christmas cockles and two corny festive ditties feature prominently in a pair of Hugh Grant vehicles. Grant has been living off the royalties of 'Santa's Super Sleigh' since son Nicholas Hoult was a child in Chris Weitz's adaptation of Nick Hornby's About a Boy (2002), while Bill Nighy is hoping for a hit with 'Christmas Is All Around' in Richard Curtis's Love Actually (2003), in which Grant plays the prime minister falling for assistant Martine McCutcheon and Emma Thompson receives the worst gift possible from feckless husband Alan Rickman.

Set in New York, Chazz Palminteri's Noel (2004) also employs a multi-story format, as Penélope Cruz and Paul Walker struggle to preserve their relationship, widower Alan Arkin goes in search of his late wife, Marcus Thomas seeks solace in hospital and Robin Williams urges Susan Sarandon to take care of herself, as well as her ailing mother. The focus also shifts between various characters in the trenches and visiting the Western Front in Christian Carion's Oscar-nominated Joyeux Noël (2005), which reimagines events surrounding the celebrated Great War truce on Christmas Day in 1914. Heading much further back in time, three films recall the very first Christmas morning: Catherine Hardwicke's The Nativity Story (2006), Coky Giedroyc's The Nativity (2010) and Timothy Reckart's The Star (2017), with the latter being a charmingly animated account of the birth of Jesus that centres on the adventures of a donkey named Bo, Ruth the sheep, Dave the dove and three wisecracking camels called Felix, Cyrus and Deborah.

Having met online, Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz also decide to follow their stars by striving to change their luck with men by swapping homes in Nancy Meyers's The Holiday (2006). While Winslet's wedding writer bumps into Jack Black in Los Angeles, Diaz's workaholic executive enjoys the slower pace in Surrey with her new friend's brother, Jude Law. A cosy abode is also central to Michael Campus's Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage (2007), as artist Jared Padalecki is inspired by mentor Peter O'Toole to produce a painting to help save mother Marcia Gay Harden's home. Progress also disconcerts the Victorian villagers of Gladbury in John Stephenson's The Christmas Candle (2013), as electric lighting and a new vicar threaten the tradition about an angel bestowing miraculous power upon a candle produced in a local shop.

But, while not everyone will respond to some good, old-fashioned religion, surely no one can resist the cute kittens causing an allergic Father Christmas plenty of problems in Glenn Miller's Santa Claws (2014) or the canine stars of Robert Vince's Santa Buddies (2009) and The Search for Santa Paws (2010), and Joe Clarke's Merry Woofmas (2015).

Something for the Little Ones

With every child in the country trying not to be naughty but nice, there's a decent possibility that they will be grateful for the opportunity that a good movie affords them to keep out of mischief. Tim Allen headlines three droll ways of holding the attention of restless tinies, as a rooftop accident sees him donning the famous red suit in John Pasquin's The Santa Clause (1994), finding himself a new wife in Michael Lembeck's The Santa Clause 2 (2002) and preventing Jack Frost from pinching Christmas in the same director's The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006).

Sticking with the Santa theme, college student Jonathan Taylor Thomas gets stuck in the California desert in a Santa suit in Arlene Sanford's I'll Be Home for Christmas (1998). Doubtless Will Ferrell would have realised that he was not the real thing, as he reveals that he knows Santa personally in Jon Favreau's Elf. However, things at the North Pole have become so strict in LeVar Burton's Blizzard (both 2003) that a young reindeer (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg) risks being thrown out of the magic village because of her friendship with aspiring 10 year-old skater, Zoe Warner.

An unnamed boy makes some new friends and gets to meet Santa in person when he climbs aboard The Polar Express (2004), which was adapted by Robert Zemeckis from a much-loved Chris Van Allsburg book using the latest motion-capture technology. Two more wishes are granted in Harvey Frost's Single Santa Seeks Mrs Claus (2004), as Dominic Scott Kay's letter to Santa proves just the thing the old man's son, Steve Guttenberg, has been hoping for while he waits to inherit the family business. And another relative comes out of the woodwork in David Dobkin's Fred Claus (2007), as surly repossession agent Vince Vaughn arrives home just as brother Paul Giamatti is facing the prospect of Christmas being shut down because it doesn't meet the exacting standards of a sneering efficiency expert.

Of course, Santa appeals to kids of all ages. But those who prefer a little grottiness in the grotto will make a beeline for Billy Bob Thornton's Willie T. Soke, who has forged a nefarious partnership with dwarf assistant Marcus Skidmore (Tony Cox) so that they can rob a Phoenix shopping mall in Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa (2003) and cheat a Chicago charity in Mark Waters's Bad Santa 2 (2016). However. their criminous efforts pale beside those of Gary Sinise and his gang, who rope Ben Affleck (who is regretting assuming his old cellmate's identity) into donning a Santa suit to participate in a casino robbery in John Frankenheimer's Reindeer Games (aka Deception, 2000).

Moving into the realm of Yuletide animation, Pumpkin King Jack Skellington also assumes a Santa disguise after he learns all about the festive traditions after stumbling out of Halloween Town in Henry Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). But, while he attempts to deliver presents to the children of the world. Mr Grimm sets out to sabotage the annual delivery when he replaces Granny Rose as Santa's assistant in Enzo D'Alò's How the Toys Saved Christmas (1996). A calf born on Christmas Day longs to help Santa by flying like one of his reindeer in Roy Wilson's Annabelle's Wish (1997), while a Jack Russell Terrier teams up with a penguin in Steve Moore's Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999) to get the better of a grumpy postman who is tired of lugging his festive mailbag.

Casper and his uncles, Fatso, Stinkie and Stretch, face the prospect of being expelled from Ghostdom unless they can scare at least one resident of Kriss, Massachusetts in Owen Hurley's Casper's Haunted Christmas (2000), while a young reindeer named Niko needs to overcome his own fear of heights so he can help pull Santa's sleigh in Michael Hegner and Kari Juusonen's The Flight Before Christmas (2008). Some of the favourite characters have festive adventures in Scott Heming's Curious George: A Very Monkey Christmas (2009) and Mark Baldo's Barbie: A Perfect Christmas (2011). Meanwhile, Santa's youngest son has to deliver a forgotten present in Sarah Smith's Arthur Christmas (2011), while Nicholas St North joins forces with Jack Frost, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman to defend childhood from Pitch Black in Peter Ramsey's Rise of the Guardians (2012).

Remakes and Sequels

Novelties always go down well at Christmas, but so does the tried and trusted and film-makers have been resorting to bankable festival formula since the first flickers. In recent times, Richard Attenborough followed in the bootsteps of Oscar winner Edmund Gwenn in playing Kris Kringle in Les Mayfield's reworking of Miracle on 34th Street (1994), while Penny Marshall's The Preacher's Wife (1996) saw Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston and Courtenay B. Vance take the roles created by Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven in another 1947 monochrome delight, Henry Koster's The Bishop's Wife.

Some stories seem destined to be made again and again, with Chuck Jones's 1966 cartoon classic, Dr Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, getting a live-action makeover courtesy of Ron Howard and Jim Carrey in The Grinch (2000) and Scott Mosier and Yarrow Cheney recasting the visuals in computer-generated 3-D for The Grinch (2018), which has Benedict Cumberbatch becoming the second Brit to voice the green grouch after the legendary Boris Karloff.

But the most remade festive narrative has to be ETA Hoffman's 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King', which has been dusted down and reimagined for Toshiyuki Hiruma and Takashi's The Nutcracker (1995), Harold Harris's Nuttiest Nutcracker (1998), Owen Hurley's Barbie in the Nutcracker (2001), Tatiana Ilyina's The Nutcracker and the Mouseking (2004), Eric Till's The Christmas Nutcracker, Spike Brandt's Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale (both 2007), Andrei Konchalovsky's The Nutcracker, the unsigned Angelina Ballerina: The Nutcracker Sweet (both 2010), Eduardo Schuldt's The Nutcracker Sweet (2015), and Lasse Hallström and Joe Johnston's The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018). And that's not mentioning the many versions of Tchaikovsky's beloved ballet that are available to rent from Cinema Paradiso.

As for the sequels, where else should we start than with Chris Columbus's Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), in which Macaulay Culkin returns as Kevin McCallister and promptly sets off to the Big Apple without parents John Heard and Catherine O'Hara, but with vengeful crooks Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in tow. Parents John Travolta and Kirstie Alley have to get used to chatty canines Rocks (Danny DeVito) and Daphne (Diane Keaton) after their son asks Santa for a pet in Tom Repelewski's Look Who's Talking Now (1993), while Monica Calhoun comes to regret inviting husband Morris Chestnut's old gang for Christmas dinner after 14 years apart in Malcolm D. Lee's The Best Man Holiday (2013), as Regina Hall and Melissa De Sousa, the respective wife and girlfriend of Harold Perrineau and Terrence Howard, simply don't get along.

Having dealt with alpha mothers Christina Applegate, Annie Mumolo and Jada Pinkett Smith in Jon Lucas's Bad Moms (2016), Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn have similar misgivings about spending the holidays with mothers Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines and Susan Sarandon in the same director's A Bad Moms Christmas, while feuding stepdads Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg have doubts about asking fathers John Lithgow and Mel Gibson to join them in celebrating the season in Sean Anders's Daddy's Home 2 (both 2017). At least they don't have to face the children of St Bernadette's Primary School in Coventry, who have driven teachers Martin Freeman, David Tennant and Martin Clunes to gibbering distraction under the watchful eye of director Debbie Isitt in Nativity! (2009), Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger (2012) and Nativity 3: Dude, Where's My Donkey? (2014). However, you'll have to venture out to the cinema to see what the kids to do Simon Lipkin in Nativity Rocks! (2018).

You'd Better Watch Out

Once upon a Christmastime, festive chillers were classy ghost stories like the BBC's productions of Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) and The Signalman (1976), as well as the eerie delights contained in the BFI's The MR James Collection (2012). Director Grant Harvey attempts something similar in A Christmas Horror Story (2015), which uses radio DJ William Shatner to link creepy tales set in the fictional town of Bailey Downs (note the nod to Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, 1946). In the main, however, audiences prefer psycho Santas going on the rampage in pictures with punning titles like Yule Be Sorry.

Take David Steiman's Santa's Slay (2005), which stars former WWE wrestler Bill Goldberg as a demon who has been spreading cheer for the last thousand years because he lost a bet with an angel over a game of curling. But the crazed killer stalking sheriff Malcolm McDowell's town is all-too-manically human in Steven C. Miller's Silent Night (2012), which loosely reworks Charles E. Sellier, Jr.'s controversial 1984 slasher, Silent Night, Deadly Night. College student Ashley Mary Nunes is also faced with unmasking a slaughtering Santa when she comes home for the holidays in Todd Nunes's All Through the House (2015).

Sorority girls and a babysitter are respectively targeted in Glen Morgan's Black Christmas (2006) and Chris Peckover's Better Watch Out (2016). But Jason Hull put a new twist on holiday horror by reviving the Austro-Bavarian terror who hunts down naughty children in Krampus: The Christmas Devil (2013) and Krampus: The Devil Returns (2016). Subsequently, Robert Conway cashed in on the concept with Krampus: The Reckoning (2015) and Krampus Unleashed (2016), while James Klass and Eddie Lengyel respectively provided a fresh slant with Mother Krampus (aka 12 Deaths of Christmas, 2017) and Mother Krampus 2: Slay Ride (2018).

Michael Dougherty has made the best fist of conveying the sinister mood of this malevolent sprite in Krampus (2015), which starred Toni Collette and Adam Scott, which played up the myth's Germanic origins. And Europe has also contributed a couple of rousing horrors in the form of Dick Maas's Sint (aka Saint) and Jalmari Helander's Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (both 2010). Set on 5 December, the former dwells on the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas and his helper Zwarte Pieten to show the benevolent 15th-century bishop going rogue, while the latter centres on the Finnish figure of Joulupukki, as the son of a reindeer herder becomes convinced that all is not right with the iconic Lapland peak, Korvatunturi, after a British research team drills into the rock.

Christmas Chuckles

Making merry can be an exhausting business and it isn't always possible to see the funny side. That's when you need a Christmas comedy like Nora Ephron's Mixed Nuts (1994), a Hollywood remake of Jean-Marie Poiré's Santa Claus Is a Stinker (1982), which sees Steve Martin and an all-star cast give up their Christmas Eve in Venice, California to run a suicide hotline called Lifesavers. Thief Denis Leary could probably do with their number after encountering the seriously dysfunctional Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey while burgling their Connecticut home in Ted Demme's The Ref, although brothers Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey prove no more adept at robbery when they break into the bank in Paradise, Pennsylvania in George Gallo's Trapped in Paradise (both 1994).

A Christmas parade and a car crash leads Geena Davis to recover her memory as her criminal past catches up with her in Renny Harlin's The Long Kiss Goodnight, while Arnold Schwarzenegger plays another parent prepared to do whatever it takes, as he goes in search of a Turbo Man toy for son Jake Lloyd in Brian Levant's Jingle All the Way (both 1996). Supermarket checkout girls Sarah Polley and Katie Holmes find themselves out of their depth when they agree to sell some drugs to make their rent payment in Doug Liman's Go (1999), a festive frolic that also weaves in stories about a couple of soap actors and a trio of friends heading to Las Vegas. Meanwhile, mall security guards Ice Cube and Mike Epps go on a hunt for the Santa who burgled their apartment in Marcus Raboy's Friday After Next (2002).

There's a chance to catch up with some old friends as Randy Quaid and Miriam Flynn get shipwrecked while heading to a South Pacific getaway in Nick Marck's National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure (2003), while another vacation fails to go the way it's planned in Paul Feig's Grounded (2006), which sees Dyllan Christopher and Dominique Saldaña billeted in a room for unaccompanied minors after a blizzard stops all flights out of Hoover International Airport in Washington, DC.

An accident with a private jet lands Ryan Reynolds near his hometown in New Jersey in Roger Kumble's Just Friends (2005), where he runs into Amy Smart, whose rejection of him as an overweight teenager turned him into an unrepentant womaniser. It's a Christmas tree that goes up in smoke during another festive reunion, as John Cho teams up again with slacker buddy Kal Penn in Todd Strauss-Schulson's A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (2011), while Omar Gooding puts the future of father Keith David's Christmas tree business in jeopardy in trying to further his own career as a music manager in David Raynr's One Bad Christmas (aka Christmas in Compton, 2012). And selling trees affords New Yorker Paul Giamatti a chance to rebuild his life after coming out of jail in Phil Morrison's Almost Christmas (2013). However, when partner Paul Rudd does a bunk, he needs the help of no-nonsense customer Sally Hawkins to avert disaster.

Joel McHale wishes someone would deliver him from the grimmest of fates when estranged father Robin Williams insists on joining him on an eight-hour road trip to fetch a forgotten present in Tristram Shapeero's A Merry Christmas Miracle (2014). The search is confined to New York in Jonathan Levine's The Night Before (2015), as Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anthony Mackie seek the location of the legendary Nutcracka Christmas Eve Party. However, fun is very much at a premium in Josh Gordon's Office Christmas Party (2016), as TJ Miller responds to sister Jennifer Anniston closing down the Chicago branch of Zanotek by persuading co-workers Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn and Kate McKinnon to host a big bash to win a contract with financier Courtney B. Vance. Bryan Cranston is dead against another merger in John Hamburg's Why Him? (2016), as he discovers that daughter Zoey Deutch's wholly unsuitable boyfriend, James Franco, is planning to propose over the holidays.

Festive Settings and Scenes

As we saw in the article on Christmas Past, films that seem to have little to do with the festive season often have unexpected connections to the holidays. For example, the faux glamour of the Manhattan smart set casts a tinsel glow for Princeton student Edward Clements in Whit Stillman's Metropolitan (1990), which earned the debuting director an Oscar nomination for his witty script.

Screenwriter Shane Black has a fondness for giving his action movies a Yuletide setting, as in the case with Tony Scott's The Last Boy Scout (1991), which sees shamus Bruce Willis team up with disgraced quarterback Damon Wayans to expose a racket trying to fix American football games. The same year saw Steven Spielberg send Robin Williams and his family to London for a Christmas vacation in his updating of JM Barrie's swashbuckling Peter Pan saga, Hook.

The trauma of being abandoned in the snow as a baby sends Oswald Cobblepot towards the dark side and prompts The Penguin (Danny DeVito) into an unholy alliance with department store owner Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) in Tim Buron's Expressionist Xmas fantasy, Batman Returns (1992). The movie that Arnold Schwarzenegger is making at the start of John McTiernan's Last Action Hero (1993) has a Christmas setting. But we did warn you about Shane Black and his festive penchant.

Back in the 1950s, writer CS Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) meets Joy Gresham (Debra Winger) for the first time when he invites her to spend Christmas with him in Oxford in Richard Attenborough's Shadowlands (1993) and the eternal winter created by the White Witch (Tilda Swinton) gives a bleakly unfestive feel to Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), which was adapted from the first of Lewis's beguiling religious allegories. However, Father Christmas (James Cosmo) still manages to put in an appearance to give Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) the gifts they need to help restore Aslan the lion. And don't forget the date that Frodo and his companions leave Rivendale on their quest in the first part of Peter Jackson's adaptation of another epic by an Oxford don, JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).

The setting is equally bleak in Twelve Monkeys (1995), Terry Gilliam's reimagining of Chris Marker's masterpiece, La Jetée (1962), which sees Bruce Willis and Madeleine Stowe strive to prevent a deadly virus from being unleashed during the run-up to Christmas. Self-preservation is also the name of the game for the piglet destined for the festive table, who warns Farmer Hoggett (James Cornwell) that his sheep are in danger in Babe (1995), George Miller's enchanting take on Dick King-Smith's children's classic. However, cop Guy Pearce puts his neck on the chopping block when he agrees to testify in the 'Bloody Christmas' case in Curtis Hanson's adaptation of James Ellroy's pulp bestseller, L.A. Confidential (1997).

A Christmas party does much to shape Kurt Russell's destiny in Paul WS Anderson's sci-fi actioner Soldier (1998), while Tom Hanks makes a festive discovery about online pen pal Meg Ryan in Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail (1998), which will doubtless remind everyone that Ryan first heard Hanks on the radio during the holiday period in the same director's Sleepless in Seattle (1993). When not Christmas shopping in New York with Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise is the one experiencing somnambulistic reveries in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999), while John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale meet for the first time over a pair of black cashmere gloves in Bloomingdale's in Peter Chelsom's Serendipity (2001).

The item of clothing that catches the eye of our heroine (Renée Zellweger) in Sharon Maguire's Bridget Jones's Diary is the novelty Christmas jumper sported by Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). But there's no faulting the way in which Christmas is celebrated at Hogwarts in Chris Columbus's version of JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (both 2001), although a troubled childhood has ruined the season for Leonardo DiCaprio in Steven Spielberg's biopic of Frank Abagnale, Catch Me If You Can (2002).

Time for a little more Shane Black, as he writes and directs Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which sees Hollywood actor Val Kilmer introduce hapless thief Robert Downey. Jr. to the dubious festive pleasures of Tinseltown. Frozen roads means that there are no easy ways out for shady lawyer John Cusack and confederate Billy Bob Thornton when they make a $2 million Christmas Eve snatch from boss Randy Quaid in Harold Ramis's amusing tale of bungling villainy, The Ice Harvest. And, just to think, if they'd been in New York instead of Wichita, Kansas, they could have gone to witness Jack Black's demonstration of the Eighth Wonder of the World in Peter Jackson's reworking of King Kong (all 2005).

Christmas may be coming, but hitmen Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell have little time for goodwill in Martin McDonagh's pitch dark comedy, In Bruges (2008). Retired CIA black-ops maverick Bruce Willis gets a dose of the festive blues in Cleveland, Ohio in Robert Schwentke's Red (2010), while the Christmas party sequence in Tomas Alfredson's adaptation of John Le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) is bleak enough to make the most fervent teetotaller turn to drink. Also spare a thought for Idris Elba, as he tries to lighten the mood in December 2093 with a little Christmas tree in Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012).

A festive dance competition brings Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence closer together in David O. Russell's version of Matthew Quick's novel, Silver Linings Playbook (2012), while New York housewife Cate Blanchett comes across shopgirl Rooney Mara in the toy department of Frankenberg's in the weeks before Christmas 1952 in Todd Haynes's Carol. Carols and snow are very much in evidence in the opening scenes of Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World, while the giant, sewer-dwelling reptile known as Pikadon in Sion Sono's wonderfully wacky kaiju outing. Love & Peace (all 2015), grants office drone Hiroki Hasegawa's festive wish to become a rock star, despite him accidentally flushing his pet down the loo.