Sightlines · a viewing thread

Grace in the Dead of Winter

A run of cold-season films where a lonely or cynical soul, snowbound and nearly out of hope, stumbles into connection — watch them across one dark week.

Among the most-loved films ever made: three are outright crowd favorites and none is demanding, while the two older romances are gentle, essential classics that ask nothing of a viewer but reward everyone.

• It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
• The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
• The Apartment (1960)
• Groundhog Day (1993)
• Die Hard (1988)
• Scrooge (1951) — The overlooked Christmas-Eve redemption you forgot you saved — Alastair Sim's grasping, shut-off Scrooge thaws into human warmth exactly as these snowbound cynics do, and it's the gentle essential to finally pull down alongside It's a Wonderful Life and The Shop Around the Corner.