10 Classic Christmas Films That Actually Came Out In The Summer

John Landis's 80s take on The Prince And The Pauper conceit of a rich man/poor man switch is set across a few days in the Christmas and New Year period. And it features Dan Aykroyd crashing a Christmas party and wielding a gun while dressed in the world's rattiest Santa outfit.

Not just that, though, Trading Places also has strong festive themes of how there are more important things than material ones and the miraculous elevation of a man who once had nothing, only this time he's a wisecracking Eddie Murphy.

That Trading Places is obviously a film that belongs at Christmas rather than just one set then has long been acknowledged by the Italians, for whom the movie is a Christmas TV fixture, shown every year on Christmas Eve.

Studio Paramount obviously never got that memo, though, as they originally put the movie out in June 1983.