10 Movies You Forgot Were Set At Christmas
5. Brazil
Terry Gilliam's Brazil is a masterful sci-fi dystopian satire beyond all compare, but what's less discussed is that it's also one of the weirdest Christmas films ever.
About a dozen verbal references are made to the film's Christmas setting throughout, in addition to numerous glimpses of basically all the traditional Christmas iconography - trees, decorations, and so on.
And yet the most prominent visual nods to the season are bookended at the beginning and end of the movie.
Firstly, when Archibald Buttle (Brian Miller) is arrested in his home, the Buttle household is adorned by a Christmas tree and other decorations, while the family's young daughter asks her mother how Father Christmas will be able to visit them without their home having a chimney.
And near film's end, after Sam (Jonathan Pryce) is arrested, he wakes up in his cell greeted by Mr. Helpmann (Peter Vaughan) dressed in a Santa Claus uniform, confirming Brazil to be one of the most truly nightmarish depictions of Christmas-time ever committed to film.