We have always watched the same New Year’s films every year. However, sometimes it is necessary to put DVCs of “Irony of Fate” and “Home Alone” on the shelf and find something new. Here is a list of films in the New Year’s Eve and Christmas mood, which you might not notice when scrolling through the thematic collections.
1. “Trapped in Paradise”, 1994. Director: George Gallo
Bill Firpo arrives in the provincial town of Paradise on Christmas Eve. He’s an honest restaurant manager, but the brothers whom Bill picks up from prison on Christmas Eve morning aren’t. Convicts Dave and Alvin Firpo tricks Bill into robbing a bank. In the absence of an alarm and the ever-sleeping guard doing their job the crime can be committed successfully. But a problem immediately arises: how to leave a small town with a huge amount of money, if a snowstorm is raging on the street, and the police are already seeking after robbers?
2. “Klaus”, 2019. Director: Sergio Pablos
To educate a lazy and spoiled son, the owner of the postal empire sends him to Smirensburg, located in the far north. Jesper is instructed to set up a postal service in the city and process at least 6,000 letters a year to prove his independence to his father and return home. However, the city does not accept the new postman very cordially, and it seems that no one has heard of sending letters there. But everything changes when Jesper meets a mysterious lone lumberjack named Klaus. Who, as it turns out, keeps a lot of old toys at home and is willing to handing them out to the bored children of Smeerensburg.
3. “The Apartment”, 1960. Director: Billy Wilder
Baxter is a humble employee of an insurance company. To speed up his career progression, he lends the keys of his apartment to colleagues and even his boss to retire with their mistresses. Baxter’s plan works until he meets Fran, his boss’s secret lover. A new feeling is born between the characters, and Christmas night puts everything in its place.
4. A Very Murray Christmas, 2015. Director: Sofia Coppola
Bill Murray is planning a brilliant TV show for Christmas, with celebrity guests and a packed program. But the plans are thwarted by an unexpected snowstorm which led to the absence of the eminent guests. However, in the snow-covered New York hotel where the show is scheduled and where Bill is so unsuccessfully stuck, there are a lot of random people. And Bill still manages to throw a party, just for a different audience and with new entertainment.
5. “8 Women”, 2001. Director: Francois Ozon
The family gathers at an estate in the French outback to celebrate Christmas. But upon arrival, the guests find the owner of the house murdered in his bedroom. 8 women, each of whom is somehow connected with a dead man, begin their investigation. At the same time, they are all under suspicion, because each had the motive to commit a brutal murder. The darkest family secrets begin to unfold in the house, and the identity of the killer becomes the main Christmas entertainment.
