If you want some action for the Christmas season, some movies can provide it!
Usually, Christmas movies are heartfelt films, usually comedy or romance. They can range from true classics to more modern takes to fill the airwaves. However, it's interesting how many action movies are set during Christmas time and how they use the season well. Sure, seeing gunfights or brawls may not fit the season, but some movies are great with it.
A few are well-known and sometimes classics in themselves, while others can be overlooked. Yet these 15 movies are all fun to watch because of how they use the Christmas season for their stories, and any action film lover can get a kick out of these unusual holiday treats.
Die Hard
What can be said about Die Hard that doesn't already convince you it's a Christmas classic? It's there in the setup, the music, the stellar fight scenes, and of course Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman's fantastic performances. It's obviously a Christmas film with the setting and the dialogue to match, and that is a reason it's still an action movie mainstay. So pop it on, settle in, and enjoy the ride of a lifetime that's never been topped.
Die Hard 2
It doesn't reach the height of the first film, but this 1990 sequel is still great. It helps that it's a snowy setting for Christmas as John McClane arrives in Washington D.C.'s Dulles Airport to pick up his wife. Of course, a pack of renegade military soldiers commander the place to free a drug-dealing dictator and only McClane can stop them.
Renny Harlin has a sharp eye for direction that aids the action, especially the famous "ejector seat" scene. There's also a nightmarishly realistic plane crash and some fun chases. Once again, Willis makes McClane a scrappy hero to root for, so it's as great a Christmas action film as the original classic.
The Long Kiss Goodnight
Speaking of Renny Harlin, check out his criminally underrated 1996 actioner starring his then-wife Geena Davis. She's Charlie, a woman who landed in a small town pregnant and with no memory of her past. She's settled into a good life as a mom until someone from her past reveals she was a secret agent and is now tied into a deadly attack.
Davis is a blast as Charlie morphs back to her tough gal persona with Samuel L. Jackson along for the ride as a P.I. helping her out. The action scenes are fun, like a gunfight on ice skates, and a surprising heart near the end. Overlooked in its time, it's far better appreciated as an action piece with Davis the reason it all works.
Reindeer Games
The Christmas theme is front and center in this 2000 film directed by John Frankenheimer. Ben Affleck is Rudy, a car thief just out of prison and mourning his late cellmate. He meets the man's crush (Charlize Theron) and before he knows it, they're having a steamy affair. Until her brother (Gary Sinise) forces Rudy to aid his gang in pulling a casino heist on Christmas Eve.
Double and triple crosses abound, along with a few fun plot twists. Affleck and Theron are both good in the leads and the final shootout is a wild affair. It may not be a classic Christmas tale, but the star power alone makes it more watchable than it deserves.
Silent Night (2023)
Few directors have influenced action movies like John Woo. The maestro returned to form in this 2023 thriller with Joel Kinnaman as a man rendered mute in a shootout that also killed his son. Over the next year, he trains himself with the ultimate goal of hunting down those responsible and taking them out on Christmas Eve.
The movie is notable for barely any dialogue, but Woo's direction speaks volumes. His unique style is on full display with the gun fights and chases and Kinnaman making for a darker hero. That "silent movie" aspect is a notable touch to make this another great entry in Woo's legendary resume of action films.
Violent Night
This 2022 entry was a surprise hit with critics and audiences alike. A pack of crooks take over a mansion on Christmas Eve to hold the rich owners hostage. By chance, an inebriated Santa Claus (David Harbour) shows up with one crook accidentally killing one of his reindeer. This has a ticked-off Santa taking it to the baddies to mark names off his "naughty list."
It's a nutty premise, but it works thanks to Harbour's performance, throwing himself into action scenes with glee and loving it. There are obvious references to movies like Home Alone before it turns into a completely insane romp. Don't take it seriously and it's a fun offbeat Christmas actioner that hopefully gets a sequel soon.
Lethal Weapon
The kickoff of the now-iconic action franchise series is notable in being darker than the sequels. It's a classic setup as veteran cop Danny Glover is paired with borderline loon Mel Gibson. The pair have great chemistry right off the bat as their investigation into a murder leads to drug dealers and a wild Gary Busey as a key baddie.
It is set at Christmas time, with the decorations and the season giving a melancholy air to Gibson's self-destructive behavior. There's also the brutal final fight between Gibson and Busey on a lawn filled with Christmas decorations. The sequels are also fun but lack the holiday spark that helped make the original a standard for action buddy cop movies.
Invasion USA
This is more of a "guilty pleasure" movie but a fun one. This 1985 thriller has Chuck Norris in all his '80s glory, facing a ruthless KGB agent (veteran baddie Richard Lynch) who's staging attacks to turn Americans against each other. That includes a gun battle in a Christmas shopping mall and other wild pieces. It's not a deep or smart film, yet it's fun seeing Norris kicking butt as only he can, so if one wants a shot of pure '80s Cannon Films cheese, this is perfect.
The Tower (2012)
This may be more of a disaster movie, yet plenty of action in this 2012 South Korean hit. A Christmas party at a 120-floor Seoul skyscraper goes awry when a helicopter crash ignites a massive fire. The action focuses on both the firefighters trying to stop the blaze and the civilians trapped inside, with a father desperately searching for his daughter. It's a tightly wound affair, a modern Towering Inferno with great effects. It also shows it's not just America that can make a great Christmas-themed action piece.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Shane Black basically wrote the template for the buddy action movie with Lethal Weapon. He also provides direction for this 2005 comedy. In the role that started his comeback, Robert Downey Jr is a former thief who accidentally stumbles into an audition and lands a job in Los Angeles. He's soon involved with a mystery teaming him with Val Kilmer's private eye.
The Christmas touches are nice in decoration and the overall story of redemption for two broken figures. Kilmer and Downey are terrific in their chemistry, and the plot takes unique turns while providing plenty of laughs and even parodying the action cliches Black created. While not a hit in 2005, it's a great directorial effort by Black.
Batman Returns
Tim Burton's 1992 sequel may be the best of the original Batman movies. The Christmas setting is obvious from the start as Batman (Michael Keaton) clashes with a gang at a huge tree lighting ceremony. He's soon set against the Penguin (Danny DeVito), Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), and a twisted billionaire (Christopher Walken), with the snowy setting adding to the mood.
It can be dark at times but also a striking film, with Pfieffer stealing the show as the slinky Catwoman. Batman at Christmastime is always intriguing and the following for this film make it a high point for the franchise.
Trancers
This cult 1984 film is more sci-fi, but the Christmas theme and setting are clear. Tim Thomerson is the awesomely named Jack Deth, a 23rd-century cop hunting a crook who can take over other people's minds. When the guy escapes to the 20th century, Deth possesses the body of an ancestor to hunt down him and his underlings at Christmas time.
It's a fun movie, never taking itself too seriously, and most notable for a then-unknown Helen Hunt as Deth's girlfriend. That includes the famed scene of her in a Santa outfit, watching in horror as he guns down a possessed Santa. The mini-franchise it created is forgettable, yet anyone who wants an odd and offbeat Christmas action film can enjoy it.
The Last Boy Scout
Somehow overlooked in Bruce Willis' long list of action films, this 1991 entry is pretty fun. Willis is a former Secret Service agent who's now a broken and boozing private eye. When his client (a young Halle Berry) is killed, Willis teams up with her boyfriend (Damon Wayans), an NFL player kicked out for gambling.
The pair have some wicked banter as they track a conspiracy that (in an oddly prescient plot) involves legalizing sports gambling. The Christmas setting isn't overt but adds more to the proceedings with a brisk pace and some truly funny lines for another fun Willis actioner.
I Come In Peace/Dark Angel
Whatever title you watch it by, this 1990 sci-fi action flick is a blast. Dolph Lundgren has one of his better roles as a jaded cop tracking someone who seems to suck the marrow from its victims. He's really an alien who uses humans for fluids that are like drugs in his world. Lundgren teams with an alien cop to hunt the creature down.
The Christmas setting is intriguing and gives us moments like the alien using his CD-like weapon to kill a victim at a Christmas tree lot. Lundgren has a good turn as the cop handling all this, and the movie has gained a huge cult following that makes it a wild Christmas watch.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
For years, Gorge Lazenby has been described as the "forgotten" 007. But his one outing as James Bond is now regarded as one of the best Bond films. Overlooked is that it's also a Christmas movie with the setting, a song and bits like Bond decorating a tree with a bevy of lovely ladies at his side.
The plot has Bond trying to stop Blofeld (Telly Savalas) from a crazy blackmail plot. What fans love more is the beautiful chemistry between Bond and Tracy (a never-better Diana Rigg), that's the most believable Bond romance ever. The infamously tragic ending caps off a tale that shows 007 can jingle the hall like no one else.