It’s worth saying up top: The best winter movies aren’t necessarily about the holidays.
It happens to the best of us. One day you’re settling down in front of your television set, or sliding your laptop over your abdomen, or bringing your enormous smartphone up toward your face, and you think, Hey, ’tis the season—or almost, anyway—it might be fun to watch a holiday movie! And then the next thing you know you’ve glutted yourself with holly jolly “content,” and if you see another childhood TV star playing a winsome baker entering another gingerbread competition in a fictional town that claims to be in Colorado or Vermont (but really looks a heck of a lot like Vancouver) only to meet a dashing business executive who happens to have designs on developing that same beloved small town into—gasp—a “ski resort,” well! You may in fact throw your screened device out the nearest window. Call it the Christmas-cookie effect: One can be fun, but overindulge and nausea has been known to occur.
But look, you say, I’m already wearing my soft pants and my enormous knit and my extremely cute at-home socks, and I really have no intention of stepping outside for any sort of entertainment, even if it is Oscars-bound. That’s fine! The good news is, there’s a happy medium between making a big show of heading out for the cinema and settling in for treacly, cavity-inducing holiday fare! You can watch something that’s wintry and fun but completely unrelated to Santa Claus or Hanukkah gelt or poinsettias or presents. And you’re not even being Grinch-y! There are wintry movies out there that are also just really good movies, regardless of the fact that they may be set in Hallmark’s favorite season. So put down the colored icing, step away from the baking sheet, and train your focus this way. (Consider it something like a palate cleanser.) Without further ado, here are 27 of the best winter movies that have nothing to do with the holidays. You’re welcome!
