Holiday movie recs from Dutch Deadline

thank you and happy holidays!

I just wanted to send a quick note to say happy holidays and thank you so much for subscribing. Your interest and encouragement keeps this labor of love going. I would’ve quit the project long ago if it weren’t for your support.

If you know anyone else who might be interested, spread the word.

I’ll be taking a few weeks off. Unless something spicy happens and I can’t stop myself...

In the meantime, here are my favorite holiday movies.

Fijne kerstdagen en gelukkig nieuwjaar! 🥂🎄

Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges (2008) is one of my favorite films of all time. It takes place in the days before Christmas in Bruges, a Christmas-ish Belgian city at any time of the year. It’s about two gangsters reckoning with a failure at their last job, and it’s a masterclass in the balance between comedy and tragedy. Which adds up, because McDonagh got his start as a playwright. Colin Farrell (I love Colin Farrell) and Brendan Gleeson are both brilliant in it.

Extra Credit: Martin McDonagh brought Farrell & Gleeson back together for The Banshees of Inisherin, one of 2022’s best films.

Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), about a man who gets embroiled in an underground sex club that he can’t escape, might not immediately spring to mind as a holiday movie, but it also takes place over the holidays and “Christmas peeks from every corner of practically every scene.” It stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, who were married at the time.

Tom Cruise is currently a little underrated because he’s been busy with the Mission Impossible franchise for so many years, and the Katie Holmes marriage fiasco didn’t help, but I think he’s one of the greatest actors of all time. If you want to see what I mean, fire up Jerry Maguire (1996).

In The Holdovers (2023), Paul Giamatti stars as a curmudgeonly boarding school teacher who gets stuck on campus over the holidays with the kids who have nowhere else to go. The director, Alexander Payne, is one of our best, and was also responsibly for Sideways (2003), and Election (1999), two of my other all time favorite films.

The best actual Christmas-movie-Christmas-movie ever is Last Holiday (2006), staring Queen Latifah and LL Cool J, about a department store saleswoman who quits her job and blows her savings on a glamorous trip to Europe after finding out that she has a terminal illness. Delightful.