The 20 darkest Christmas movies

One of the earliest Christmas movies is on the darker side of things. That’s true despite co-starring Shirley Temple. Any movie with a plot synopsis that begins with, “A traumatized soldier and a woman on a break from serving her prison sentence” is not exactly keeping it light and breezy.

One of the quintessential Christmas films, though it was a flop at the time. The ending may be uplifting, but we can’t forget that the turning point of It’s a Wonderful Life comes when George Bailey plans to take his own life.

Raymond Chandler’s novel Lady in the Lake, one of his Phillip Marlowe stories, takes place in the middle of summer. The film adaptation moves the story to Christmas, though. It’s not typically the season for murder and film noir, but it was this time.

We did not include every single Christmas-centric horror film on this list because there have been many of them, though a lot of them are largely unknown. Black Christmas was not the first, but it was, for many years, the quintessential Christmas horror movie, and it’s been remade twice. By the way, the film was directed by Bob Clark, who also directed A Christmas Story. 

Yes, at its core, Trading Places is a 1980s comedy built around Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, some of the most gratuitous nudity in cinema history, and weird racial stuff. It’s also pretty dark. After all, two rich guys use Murphy and Aykroyd’s characters as puppets in a bet, ruining their lives. It’s a dark comedy, to be sure.

Another classic Christmas slasher. This one isn’t just set during the holidays. The murderer dresses up as Santa and goes on a killing spree on Christmas Eve. ‘Tis the season, we guess.

OK, this is another horror movie, but a much lighter one. Gremlins is a comedy as much as a horror movie (and the sequel, which rules, is a comedy with hints of horror). However, even the comedy is dark. Phoebe Cates’ story about why she doesn’t believe in Santa, anyone?

A Christmas Carol is not cheery in most iterations, though the Muppets do their best. However, “dark” would be too strong in many instances. Not for Scrooged. While it is a Bill Murray comedy, it’s also quite dark and often mean-spirited.

We are not here to litigate, you know, the well-worn question. All we will say is Die Hard is about Hans Gruber and his crew taking over Nakatomi Plaza and leaving Bruce Willis’ John McClane to thwart them. It’s one of the best action movies ever and a dark Christmas movie. Ho ho ho.

Though it was a mega-popular family film, Home Alone is undeniably dark. A young child is left behind by his parents, who are worried sick about it. Two criminals, bumbling though they may be, are planning to rob the kid’s home. The kid proceeds to violently torment the two criminals to an excessive degree. You watch Marv step on a nail and tell us this movie isn’t dark.

Sure, it’s a goth kid's dream and arguably too winking to be all that dark. However, America’s No. 1 spooky boy Tim Burton and director Henry Selick joined forces to craft a cult favorite that is at least dressed in the wardrobe of darkness. It’s self-consciously “dark” in its take on a Christmas movie, so we had to have it make the cut.

In the mid-‘90s, dark Christmas comedies became a thing. They mostly didn’t work. The Ref doesn’t work. However, this isn’t necessarily a list dedicated first and foremost to quality. It’s about darkness, and this comedy about hostages being taken at Christmastime certainly counts.

Jack Frost is weird, can’t land on a tone, and really hurt Michael Keaton’s career. It’s also pretty dark. A man dies and comes back as a snowman his son built. That’s some wild stuff. The darkness almost feels accidental, which is part of the tone issues.

In recent years, two things have happened related to Stanley Kubrick’s final film. One, it’s been reappraised as something approaching a masterpiece. Two, it has been declared a Christmas movie. If it is to be called a Christmas movie, it is definitely on the darker end.

Here is a dark Christmas comedy that worked better than others, like The Ref. This one got a sequel, after all. Billy Bob Thornton’s turn as a drunken criminal who gets a mall Santa gig as part of a score became fairly entrenched in the yuletide canon. This one made an impact.

Shane Black works Christmas into all his movies. He also exclusively makes violent action films. However, the level of Christmas varies from movie to movie. We went with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as the Black representation since it is more Christmas-y than others. Lethal Weapon would have worked, though he only wrote that one and did not direct it.

Frankly, of 2005’s Christmas crime movies, we prefer The Ice Harvest to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. It’s a little less overwrought and more of a tight, lean, nasty crime film. Also, Billy Bob Thornton is in it, so he gets to pull double duty.

The last of the horror films on this list doesn’t involve an evil Santa or a random murderer. No, the baddie is Krampus, the mythological figure that punishes the naughty around Christmastime. Krampus doesn’t settle for coal in the stocking. This one also has a bit of comedy, which plays nicely with the horror.

This movie is weird. It’s a bold swing in ways that are admirable and baffling in equal measure. We almost don’t want to say too much because there is a twist involved that is truly out there and almost makes Last Christmas worth seeing by itself. It turned out darker than we expected, to say the least.

Finally, Santa gets to be a violent action hero. This isn’t some Hulk Hogan in Santa with Muscles thing. This is David Harbour as the true blue Saint Nick showing up and getting his John Wick on. The fact this idea had never been synthesized so distinctly before Violent Night is a surprise, but the important thing is that it finally happened.