With January approaching and the first major snowstorm of the season behind us—well, for some of us, at least—it’s getting to be that time of year when cinephiles hunker down and binge-watch their own curated movie marathons. The winter season is very cinematic; the bitter temperatures, foggy breath, and snow-covered landscapes are often characters of their own in movies that take place in the dead of winter.

The Ice Harvest

This isn’t your typical Christmas movie, but, for audiences looking to send the holiday season off in sick, twisted style, look no further than The Ice Harvest. This criminally-underrated dark comedy tells the story of a shady lawyer who tries to swindle the local Wichita Falls mob boss out of his fortune on Christmas Eve.

Wind River

Director Taylor Sheridan burst onto the A-list in 2016 with his hit indie western, Hell or High Water. The following year, he switched locales from the arid Texas desert to the wintry Wyoming mountainside for the equally impressive Wind River.

As a mystery, it delivers all of the expected goods. But, what’s truly special about Wind River is its moving third act which takes place after the crime is solved, when a classic whodunit morphs into a meditative retelling of the classic “Cowboys and Indians” story.

Dead of Winter

The great Arthur Penn directs this mystery about A New York City actress lured into a sinister blackmail scheme under the guise of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to star in a major motion picture. Mr. Murray, her would-be “director,” takes her to his upstate mansion in the middle of a blizzard, where the shenanigans ensue.

This film is the ultimate slow burn, as the first hour is mostly exposition. But, for audiences with the patience for it, Dead of Winter is an effective wintry thriller that’s worth the time investment.

The Hateful Eight

The blizzard in writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight can rightly be billed the “ninth” character in the film. Tarantino is a stickler for details, and so the sound of the howling wind and the foggy breath of its miscreant antiheroes creates the perfect mood for this Civil War-era chamber mystery about eight strangers forced to take shelter in a remote cabin while they wait out the storm.

The Thing

Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight has been compared to the 1982 John Carpenter classic The Thing, and for good reason. They both star Kirt Russell, they both take place in bitter cold, snowy locales, and they’re both about a group of people trapped in a setting where perhaps no one is who they seem to be.

In this case, a team of stranded researchers is accompanied by a shapeshifting alien who inhabits its victims before killing them in horrifying fashion. The Thing is a true classic, though not recommended for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached viewer.