Winter Break is almost here and soon you’ll be able to finally relax. What better way to spend the break than watching movies with your family or friends? Here’s an extensive list of 39 movies from 13 different genres to watch over break.
Holiday:
Elf (2003, PG): A human who grew up in the North Pole travels to New York City to meet his dad after he finds out that he’s not actually an elf, and that his dad is on the naughty list.
Home Alone (1990, PG): A kid gets left home alone accidentally by his family when they go on vacation for the holidays, leaving him to fend off two burglars.
Planes Trains and Automobiles (1987, R): A man’s flight gets canceled, forcing him to get home to his family for Thanksgiving some other way. Mysteriously, he keeps running into a man he met in the airport and can’t stand.
Drama:
The 25th Hour (2002, R): A drug dealer in New York City gets caught by the police with drugs in his apartment and is given 24 more hours as a free man before he goes to prison.
Whiplash (2014, R): A young drummer’s experience in a hyper-competitive music college and his relationship with his abusive teacher.
Magnolia (1999, R): A few days in the lives of nine people in the San Fernando Valley who are a lot more connected than they think.
Comedy:
The Big Lebowski (1998, R): A group of friends, led by a bowling-loving slacker, help a rich man save his wife from kidnappers so that he can get a new rug.
Groundhog Day (1993, PG): A news anchor finds himself stuck in a time loop on groundhog day and learns a valuable lesson along the way.
Best in Show (2000, PG-13): A mockumentary (fake documentary) about different dog owners all preparing for a big dog show.
Horror:
Jacob’s Ladder (1990, R): A Vietnam veteran with PTSD starts seeing ghosts and soon learns that he isn’t the only one.
Alien (1979, R): In the future, a spaceship crew accidentally brings a deadly alien aboard their ship.
The Shining (1980, R): A man starts to go crazy after he signs up to be the caretaker of a haunted hotel in the winter with his family.
Romance:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, R): The story of the relationship between two people who attempt to forget each other with an experimental piece of new technology.
Tootsie (1982, PG): A failing male actor pretends to be a woman to get a role on a TV sitcom, but ends up falling in love with one of his co-stars, who he can’t tell his secret without jeopardizing his job.
Defending Your Life (1991, PG): Two people die and fall in love in an afterlife where you have to defend your life in a court case in order to prove that you’re worthy of moving on rather than returning to earth to live another life.
Action:
The Dark Knight (2008, PG-13): Batman and the police department try to take down the Joker as he causes havoc in the city of Gotham.
Die Hard (1988, R): A man is trapped inside a skyscraper that has been taken over by terrorists who hold everyone in the building hostage.
Mission Impossible Fallout (2018, PG-13): A group of secret agents have to stop a group of terrorists from detonating two nuclear weapons.
Thriller:
Sicario (2015, R): An FBI agent joins a special division of the government tasked with taking down a cartel lord however they can.
Silence of the Lambs (1991, R): An FBI trainee has to catch an active serial killer, but she needs the help of an incarcerated serial killer to do so.
Fight Club (1999, R): A materialistic insomniac leaves his life behind to start an underground fighting group with a man he met on a plane.
Documentary:
What’s My Name: Muhammed Ali (2019, Not Rated): A two part documentary about famous boxer and activist Muhammed Ali, constructed only of archived footage of Ali himself.
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019, Not Rated): The story of Elizabeth Holmes, the inventor of a new blood testing device who is the embodiment of the quote “fake it ‘til you make it.”
The Dawn Wall (2017, Not Rated): The story of two men trying to climb a massive wall in Yosemite, and all of their challenges along the way.
Crime:
Pulp Fiction (1994, R): The non-chronological story of two hitmen, their boss’s wife, and a boxer who ripped off the boss.
Zodiac (2007, R): The true story of a comic strip writer, a journalist, and a cop that all try and catch a serial killer in the Bay Area in the 60s and 70s.
Thelma and Louise (1991, R): Two women on the run from the law after one of them kills a man who tried to rape her.
Sci-Fi:
Ex Machina (2014, R): A man is invited to visit a billionaire inventor for a few days to test out the A.I. of an uncannily humanoid robot.
Minority Report (2002, PG-13): In the future, the law can predict when people commit a murder and they are arrested before it happens, but the chief of police flees when he himself is predicted of committing a murder (if you look closely you might see my dad in a Guinness ad).
Blade Runner (1982, R): A cop in a future Los Angeles is tasked with hunting down five escaped replicants, humanoid robots used for slave labor.
Family:
Paddington 2 (2017, PG): A talking bear named Paddington is framed for a robbery and goes to jail where he befriends a prison chief.
Wall-E (2008, PG): In a future earth covered in garbage, a lone robot is left to clean it up.
Soul (2020, PG): A jazz musician dies and goes to a pre-life where souls are eventually assigned to humans, but he tries to make it back to his body on earth.
History:
Blackkklansman (2018, R): The true story of a black cop and a Jewish cop infiltrating the KKK by sending in the Jewish as an informant.
JFK (1991, R): A deep dive into the investigation of President John F Kennedy’s assassination and the many conspiracies surrounding it.
1917 (2019, R): A seemingly unedited look at the experiences of two soldiers fighting on the front lines during World War I.
Western:
Django Unchained (2012, R): A German bounty hunter frees and works with a former slave to collect bounties on people and free his partner’s wife from a cruel slave owner.
Unforgiven (1992, R): An old bounty hunter and his partner work to hunt down a man who disfigured a prostitute.
The Revenant (2015, R): The winter story of a man crossing the country who gets attacked by a bear and left for dead by his team.
Such a well thought out list! I love paddington bear!!
Yeah I forgot to mention Paddington 2 blows all the other movies out of the water.
I also just saw Midsommar and that was really good.