Memorable crime movies set during the Christmas season

Hans Gruber took over Nakatomi Plaza! On Christmas Eve! While this is an action movie where we spend much of our time with John McClane as he tries to stop the crime, clearly this is the quintessential Christmas crime movie. Also, maybe the quintessential action movie? “Die Hard” is great.

“The Ice Harvest,” a dark crime comedy starring John Cusack, felt like it was hoping to become Christmas counterprogramming. It’s got a cynical edge to it, which largely works but sometimes feels a little overindulgent. “The Ice Harvest” is good, to be fair, as it chronicles Cusack’s lawyer trying to escape Wichita in brutal weather on Christmas Eve after ripping off a mob boss.

You may know “Violent Night” as the movie where David Harbour plays a version of Santa Claus who beats people up. However, if you haven’t seen the movie you might not know why Santa is out there killing folks. The action is centered around the estate of a rich family who has gathered for the holidays, and a group of mercenary thieves have taken them hostage in their quest to get the loot they're after. Santa just happened to be there to hear the plea of the small child in the house.

If you’re the slasher in a slasher movie, it’s fair to say you are up to some criminal activity. “Black Christmas” is one of the proto-slashers that predates John Carpenter’s “Halloween.” Also, whenever it comes up, we like to mention that it was directed by Bob Clark, who also directed “Porky’s,” “A Christmas Story," and “Baby Geniuses.” Truly, a wild career. This is the era of horror film where being in a sorority didn’t tend to bode well, even during the Christmas season.

How did Tim Burton up the theatricality and bombast of “Batman” with the sequel? Throw Christmas into the mix in Gotham City, of course. Also, Michelle Pfeiffer in her famed Catwoman suit and Danny DeVito in the craziest version of Penguin to date. While “Batman Returns” was way too expensive and way too successful to be considered a cult classic, it is the equivalent of a cult classic within the parameters of big-budget comic book movies, at least.

We’re limiting Shane Black to one entry on this list, but as we noted he’s pretty much the king of including/shoehorning Christmas into movies. Black wrote the screenplay for “Lethal Weapon” — in fact, this is the script that broke him into Hollywood and led to him being one of the new faces of flashy screenwriting for a while. This action-comedy is one of the best examples of mismatched cops working together, but the L.A.-set story also takes place during Christmas season and ends on Christmas Day itself.

To the extent a film in 1947 could be brutal, “Kiss of Death” is brutal. It was edited and censored to keep it from being too brutal for the Production Code era, but this noir still hits hard. Richard Widmark’s turn as psychopathic criminal Tommy Udo earned him an Oscar nomination and is considered a template setter for that kind of character. All that, and it starts with a jewelry store robbery on Christmas Eve.

“Kiss of Death” wasn't the only ‘40s noir story to include the Christmas season. “Cover Up” is even more indebted to that time of the year. If you want to see the 1940s version of juxtaposing the Christmas season with murder and mystery, then “Cover Up” is the movie to see.

This is the Christmas counterprogramming movie that worked out. Two criminals, played by Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox, pull off the same score every year. They get a job in some department store in some town as Santa and elf, and then on Christmas Eve they rob it and take off. Of course, this time around there are complications, including Thornton’s inability to stave off his vices, which may blow the whole plan.

While it’s probably not criminal of the McCallisters to accidentally leave Kevin home alone over the Christmas holiday, Harry and Marv certainly are up to criminal activity. The meat of the movie, a massive box office success that has become a holiday staple, is the Wet Bandits trying to rob the McCallister home and running into the many tricks and traps of Kevin. Also, we don’t know what “stand your ground” laws are like in the Chicago suburbs, but it’s possible Kevin’s attempts to seemingly murder Harry and Marv may be criminal as well.

Christmas is mostly used in “Go” to add to the style and atmosphere. It’s a Doug Liman movie and he likes to shoot and cut films to be frenetic. That is a style that makes sense for the story of a down-on-her-luck grocery clerk who gets in way over her head when she decides to do a one-off drug deal to get rent money. It’s pretty solid, though the Christmas of it all does feel a bit tacked on.

“Red One” is so dumb. It’s dumb even by the standards of Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans movies. A jacked Santa Claus (J.K. Simmons) is kidnapped, so the head of North Pole security (Johnson) and a hacker (Evans, for some reason) team up to save Santa and, thus, Christmas. A Christmas witch is involved.

“The Ref” stars Denis Leary and the tone of the comedy is wholly attuned to Denis Leary, so you’re either likely to be on its wavelength or want to avoid it like a plague. Well, given that one of the other stars is Kevin Spacey, we’re all kind of avoiding it now. Leary plays a fast-talking, sardonic burglar who takes a family hostage on Christmas Eve as he tries to hide out from the police. The family was in the midst of squabbling and internal conflict, though, and Leary finds himself, well, refereeing their arguments.

Unfortunately, “Reindeer Games” was the final film from director John Frankenheimer before his death in 2002. It feels like the film is set during the Christmas season mostly to call it “Reindeer Games” and to have the main character be named Rudy (like Rudolph). One of the failed Ben Affleck action vehicles of his movie star heyday, Affleck plays Rudy, a recently-released convict who gets mixed up in a casino robbery in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

If you’ve seen “The Silent Partner,” it’s probably because you were looking for Christmas crime movies. That, or you’re Canadian, as this movie was produced in Canada and was a big success there. Not that it only existed north of the border, as both Siskel and Ebert gave it three-and-a-half stars. Elliott Gould plays a bank teller who realizes the Santa outside the bank collecting for charity plans to rob the bank. Gould decides to short the Santa, played by Canadian Christopher Plummer, leading Plummer’s character to seek revenge.

An expected trio play brothers in “Trapped in Paradise”: Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, and Nicolas Cage. Carvey and Lovitz are fresh out of jail and cajole their younger brother Cage to rob a bank in a small town. Unfortunately for them, they then crash their car and are stuck in the town until they can figure out an escape route. “Trapped in Paradise” was heavily panned at the time. Some have tried to reclaim it as a cult classic, but your mileage may vary.

“The Thin Man” is more of a holiday season movie, but it’s a classic of the era and spawned a franchise. Plus, people remember the Christmas scenes in the movie. Nick Charles is a retired private eye who was very successful. He retired when he married Nora, an heiress with money of her own. They drink, they quip, they party, and they love one another. During the holiday season, though, Nick is asked to help out on a case, which changes the circumstances for the Charleses. The directing is a little iffy, but only because it was 1934 and they were still figuring a lot of stuff out. Otherwise, “The Thin Man” holds up as a fun story with two delightful lead roles.