10 Snowy Movies That Feel Perfect This Time of Year

1. Fargo (1996)

• Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
• Writer: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
• Cast: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi

I love this darkly comedic crime thriller set in the desolate, snow-covered landscapes of Minnesota and North Dakota. It just has this eerie feeling as we see blood hit the snow. We follow a car salesman's harebrained scheme to have his wife kidnapped. Of course, it goes awry, leading to a series of increasingly bizarre and violent events. And the snow makes it all worse.

2. The Shining (1980)

• Director: Stanley Kubrick
• Writer: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson (Based on the novel by Stephen King)
• Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd

Long before the ending shot became a meme, this psychological horror masterpiece used snow to confine a writer and his family to the isolated Overlook Hotel for the winter. The endless snowfall seals them off from the world and transforms the grand hotel into a claustrophobic cage where sanity unravels, and ghosts appear.

3. Snowpiercer (2013)

• Director: Bong Joon Ho
• Writer: Bong Joon Ho, Kelly Masterson (Based on the graphic novel Le Transperceneige)
• Cast: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton

I love a post-apocalyptic genre movie. And in this movie, we see a world overrun by ice. The last remnants of humanity are confined to a perpetually moving train called the Snowpiercer. The world outside is a deadly, frozen wasteland, and the snow serves as a constant, unforgiving reminder of the catastrophe that created this class-divided society on rails.

4. Doctor Zhivago (1965)

• Director: David Lean
• Writer: Robert Bolt (Based on the novel by Boris Pasternak)
• Cast: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin

If you have four hours to kill, watch this movie. It's an epic romance set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution. And the inter here is no joke, with stalagmite icicles and blizzards every few minutes. The endless snow is a beautiful yet formidable force, mirroring the harshness and isolation of the times.

5. Groundhog Day (1993)

• Director: Harold Ramis
• Writer: Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis
• Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott

As a guy from Pennsylvania, I have to be a fan of this movie set in Punxsutawney during a perpetual snowstorm. Our weatherman protagonist, Phil Connors, is literally snowed in, which prevents him from escaping the small town and his monotonous fate as his day repeats itself and he learns quite a lot about the people around him.

6. The Hateful Eight (2015)

• Director: Quentin Tarantino
• Writer: Quentin Tarantino
• Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Tarantino doing a whodunnit in a snowbound haberdashery is such a great idea. The howling winds and blinding snow outside create an incredibly tense, isolated atmosphere, forcing a group of dangerous strangers to turn on each other in the confined space. And Tarantino's dialogue brings warmth to the whole thing.

7. Misery (1990)

• Director: Rob Reiner
• Writer: William Goldman (Based on the novel by Stephen King)
• Cast: James Caan, Kathy Bates, Richard Farnsworth

This might be the perfect snow movie. We have a guy locked in by a rabid fan as Blizzard has some hobbling keeps him pent up and writing. The snow acts as the perfect accomplice for the captor, sealing off the isolated house and making any chance of escape or rescue near impossible.

8. Let the Right One In (2008)

• Director: Tomas Alfredson
• Writer: John Ajvide Lindqvist (Based on his novel)
• Cast: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar

Set in a snow-covered Stockholm suburb in the 1980s, this is a beautiful and chilling horror film about the unusual friendship between a bullied 12-year-old boy and a vampire girl. This movie uses the snow to reflect the low light and allows us to stalk in the woods and to hide victims.

9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

• Director: Michel Gondry
• Writer: Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, Pierre Bismuth
• Cast: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst

Okay--this is a leap--I know it's not strictly a "snow movie," but the scenes on the frozen, snowy beaches of Montauk are among the film's most iconic and emotionally resonant. They hit the theme of a memory frozen in time.

10. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

• Director: Andrew Adamson
• Writer: Ann Peacock, Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely (Based on the novel by C.S. Lewis)
• Cast: Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell

As a kid, I loved these books. And this one was so fun to imagine the snow of a cold era and the white witch melting away as new arrivals enter a realm to challenge her, and as Aslan returns. Also, how cruel is it to have a perpetual state of winter but never Christmas?

Summing It All Up 

These wintery movies will leave you feeling cold...and warm. They all use snow as another character in the film and have such great cinematography that highlights it as well.

Are there any cold movies full of snow that you think should be on this list?