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A cold front is moving across my living room – snow, ice and everything (sometimes not so) nice. Winter weather can be quite dramatic, but also playful, romantic, nostalgic and scary! Here are nine movies that bring winter into the story in very different ways, playing up the many facets of this seasonal gift.
Comedy: “Groundhog Day” – A narcissistic weatherman, Phil (Bill Murray), goes on assignment in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, and cannot escape. He’s forced to live the same day – Feb. 2 – over and over again until he gets it right.
Action: “The Day After Tomorrow” – An instantaneous ice age cannot stop a geologist (Dennis Quaid) from rescuing his college-age son (Jake Gyllenhaal) who’s stuck above the freeze line. To get there, he’ll cross a frozen landscape on foot, if necessary. (Spoiler alert: It’s necessary.)
Horror: “The Shining” – Jack Nicholson is terrifying as a writer who takes his family to a remote Colorado resort to live as off-season caretakers. With winter closing in and a psychically sensitive son, it’s hard to tell who’s more haunted: the resort or the writer.
Western: “The Revenant” – Mauled by a bear, his son killed, then left for dead, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio, in an Oscar-winning performance) claws his way back through a wild and unforgiving climate to seek vengeance on the man who did him wrong.
Romance: “The Holiday” – Two women trade houses at Christmastime, each having sunk to the depths of heartbreak. One, a movie-trailer maven from LA (Cameron Diaz); the other, a writer from merry old England. You think they’ll find love and a healthier self-view? You betcha!
Scene from “Frozen” (Walt Disney Pictures photo)
Animated: “Frozen” – Queen Elsa’s magical gift is delicate enough to build a snowman (we love you, Olaf!) and disastrous enough to unleash permanent winter in Arendale. When she runs off to an ice castle in the mountains, her plucky, dedicated sis Anna enlists the local ice salesman as a guide and follows her, determined to heal Elsa’s frozen heart.
Thriller: “Wind River” – Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen star in this thriller about a Fish and Wildlife officer and an FBI agent investigating the death and sexual assault of an indigenous woman on an impossibly cold reservation in Wyoming.
Drama: “Titanic” – OK, yes, the Titanic set sail in spring (April), but a frozen mass definitely played a significant role in its demise. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play ill-fated lovers – one low born and one high-brow – on a voyage to America on the Unsinkable Ship.
Fantasy: “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” is set in winter – thanks to the terrible White Witch, who has cursed the land of Narnia to 100 years of snow and ice. Four siblings unexpectedly stumble into the kingdom through a door in a wardrobe, and must partner with mighty lion Aslan to regain control of the land and end winter.
© 2021 King Features Synd., Inc.
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