Need a break from holiday movies? Try these

The final image of 3 Days of the Condor, a freeze frame of Robert Redford looking back over his shoulder through a crowd of carolers, created a lasting memory from when I first saw the film as a child. This 1970s thriller is so action-packed it’s easy to forget it’s set during the winter holidays. The late Redford plays a CIA “reader” who discovers clues to a conspiracy hidden in a pulp fiction novel. Max Von Sydow plays the assassin hired to silence him.

The Will Smith vehicle Enemy of the State is a heavy-handed Tony Scott-directed thriller whose plot hinges on a video tape mistaken for a holiday gift. As is often the case, Gene Hackman is the best part of this film, which contains many allusions to The Conversation.

I’m not sure how I got in the habit of watching Alfred Hitchcock’s sinisterly suspenseful film every holiday season. Perhaps it has something to do with the film’s focus on, shall we say, uncomfortably close familial relations. The film follows suburban teenager Charlotte (played by the always excellent Teresa Wright) who slowly comes to the realization that her visiting Uncle Charlie is harboring a dark secret. The famous garage sequence is sure to stick with you.

As soon as the first cold front hits, I get the urge to watch John Carpenter’s body horror extravaganza. Adapted from John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There? (and originally adapted for the screen in 1951 as one of the many science fiction texts that channeled Cold War paranoia), Carpenter’s film about a shape-shifting alien who terrorizes the inhabitants of an Arctic research station has it all: gross-out practical effects, a flamethrower-wielding protagonist, and Wilford Brimley. You’ll never look at a defibrillator the same way again!

Perhaps I’m cheating with this one since Christmas does play an important set piece throughout this film’s first few minutes. But I would be remiss if I didn’t include something from one of my favorite filmmakers. Female Trouble, like many John Waters works, is not for the faint of heart. The late Divine plays a teenage runaway who turns to a life of sensationalist crime. Every line of dialogue is the funniest sentence I’ve ever heard — a script that only the Pope of Trash could write.

Described by one reviewer as “a five-star movie about forbidden love,” Todd Haynes’ Carol is a gorgeous study of surfaces in 1950s New York.  When I think of Carol I think of Cate Blanchett’s red lipstick, the pine-bright scent of newly-cut holiday trees, a quiet glove draped on a department store counter, or the plush, velvety seats of a cocktail bar.  It’s a quiet film about two women who fall in love and, against all odds, it doesn’t end badly. Intoxicating!

Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor turn up the heat on the winter holidays as they sashay around L.A. in Sean Baker’s never-too-sweet Tangerine. The pair of first-time Black trans actresses — playing roles in the same sex industry they work — agreed to star after the director conceded to Taylor’s demand that the story be "very real" and also “very funny” because no one needs “a theater full of crying people.” Tangerine is the even-rowdier ancestor of Baker's Oscar-dominant Anora and a fabulous choice for a season that's too often inimical to queer existence. The ecstatic raw energy bursting from every hyper-saturated shot is a jolt of critical queer hope.

For an erotic counterpoint, see Stanley Kubrick's polarizing lonely-man-in-the-city saga Eyes Wide Shut. While Tom Cruise leads the odyssey, Nicole Kidman is the true broken soul of this dark night of the heart (in that monologue, or the absolutely perfect final line...). A tinge of surrealistic horror may feel like just the mood when cheer can no longer stave off the holiday melancholy.

Shot primarily in crisp black & white, Frank Pickell's monochromatic approach allows viewers to experience how ski photographer Oskar Enander shoots the slopes. He is color-blind, but despite that, his images burst with bold colors, encouraging us to see snow and light and love in ways we could not imagine.

Watch SKI PHOTOGRAPHER on YouTube

I am a hopeless romantic with a fondness for snow globes, so it’s no wonder I adore Steve Moore’s simple, animated love story, THE INDESCRIBABLE NTH. Narrated by Christopher Cary, with the sweetest score courtesy of Bennie Wallace, this fractured fairy tale tracks a young man’s desire to find just the right person to hold his heart.

Watch THE INDESCRIBABLE NTH on Vimeo

Most families are problematic, but there’s love at their cores. Rachel Harrison Gordon chronicles this artfully in BROKEN BIRD, a tale of a teen splitting time between and mixing the cultures of her divorced parents. Indigo Hubbard-Salk's joyous end-credit celebration of her inherited halves perfectly embodies the spirit of the season.

Watch BROKEN BIRD on Vimeo