It’s cold everywhere right now. Outside on the street and inside on our screens. It’s better on screens, isn’t it? In fact there’s just something about freezing winterscapes that makes for effective locations for films and TV shows, as well as thematic ideas around isolation, alienation and survival.
In just the past few months, we’ve had A Murder at the End of the World, an almost-good Disney+ show in which Emma Corrin slouched around Iceland as a Gen-Z hacker/sleuth, but the real deal has now arrived in the form of True Detective: Night Country.
Set in the Arctic Circle, in the weeks when the sun never rises, the series brings the very best of the cold setting to bear: hostility, beauty, isolation from the rest of the world, resultant claustrophobia and insanity, supernatural forces emerging from the freezing fog and big jackets. In celebration, here are the best freezing scenes on screen:
NB for the purposes of sanity, Christmas films are not included (sick of those), nor are space films, which technically feature extreme cold, and plenty of death in a freezing void, but for brevity’s sake, we’ll keep everything on planet earth.
20. Dracula: Prince of Darkness – Dracula’s death scene
The second Hammer Horror featuring Christopher Lee as the bloodsucker with so much of a towering erotic charge that he was described by one critic as a “walking penis”. Anyway, the demise of Dracula in this particular film was not by stake or sunlight, he simply fell through the ice on the moat outside his castle. Sounds quite lame but Lee sells it well. The big frozen willy.
19. The Grey – Liam versus the wolf
The best Liam Neeson action film that isn’t Taken 1, 2 or 3, this has the big man leading a group of plane crash survivors in Alaska trying to fend off a pack of wolves. Only Neeson could match a starving wolf for intensity, and in the final face-off, man versus animal, there’s a sense of him preferring death in the jaws of a canine to a fireside chat with any human.
18. The Last Detail – The park BBQ
Hal Ashby’s brilliant Seventies caper from the golden era of US movie brats. Written by Robert Towne, this has Navy officers Billy “Badass” Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and Richard "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young) escorting Randy Quaid’s young seaman, Meadows, across the States to a naval prison in Maine. The kid’s been sentenced to eight years for stealing $40 from the charity box run by the base commander’s wife.
As the older sailors grow to like him and become incensed by the severity of his sentence, they decide to give him a good time en route before he’s put away. One of the great American cold films, this reaches a climax in snow-covered Boston when the pair treat Meadows to a barbecue in the freezing park, cooking hot dogs on sticks as they shiver. Off looking for more wood, Meadows suddenly makes a break for freedom. The pair chase him down and lay into him. No further word between them is said, heartbreakingly.
Here, the cold is all about the gritty chill experienced by outcasts, about street life, cheap thrills where you can get them, and warm bonds won against harsh brutalities. Also, it has kept men wearing peacoats for nearly 50 years.
17. Empire Strikes Back – the AT-AT attack
Alright, we’ve broken the rule already, but it’s not the cold of space that’s deadly here, it's the cold of the ice planet Hoth. OK? Anyway, the AT-AT attack on the rebel base is many fans’ favourite sequence in all the films. Course it is, the the hush of the snowy landscape makes the perfect drama for the arrival of the AT-ATs. A nod also to the bit where Han has to stuff an unconscious Luke into the belly of a dead Taun-Taun. Bet there’s some erotic fan fiction about that somewhere.
16. Game of Thrones – The Wall is breached
The giant ice wall – called The Wall – protecting the Kingdom of the North from the wilderness beyond, was one of Game of Thrones’ most memorable locations. Watched over by a team of grim-faced night watchmen – called The Night’s Watch – who are suspicious of the good looks of new arrival Jon Snow, bastard son of Sean Bean's Ned Stark. Lots of mileage in the first seasons of the show came from worrying about what the hell was lurking out there in the ice, not just wildlings but the mythic White Walkers. Of course they weren’t myths at all, they were real, and resembling the love children of Boris Johnson and Robert Kilroy-Silk. The best moment came during their attack on the Wall, the white walkers emerging out of the Haunted Forest with their new army of the undead, which wasn’t great for the Night’s Watch. But when their leader the Night King emerged on the back of the undead dragon Viserion, it was frozen urine in the pants time. Spectacular set-up for winter arriving in the Seven Kingdoms.
15. Titanic – Rose kills Jack (basically)
It’s 26 years since James Cameron won Best Director at the Oscars for Titanic, and shouted from the stage, “Look at me, I’m king of the world.” Some of us who bore witness to that are still cringing from it. In the years since, people mostly remember the film from the ending – no not the sinking of the ship, but the bit where Kate Winslet’s Rose tries – but doesn’t try that much – to let Leo DiCaprio’s Jack onto her bit of live-saving flotsam. Jack freezes to death in the water. Rose kisses him goodbye, cracks his fingers open, lets him go into the water, and then gets rescued. You could forgive her, if it weren’t for the fact that Cameron himself had detailed a way through such a predicament in which both people survive, in his earlier film.
14. The Abyss – the resuscitation
…yes where, May Elizabeth Mastrantonio, trapped in a flooding lab at the bottom of the sea, convinces Ed Harris to wear the last oxygen tank and to let her drown, reasoning that the freezing water will keep her frozen in stasis, so he would have a chance to swim her out to the main lab and resuscitate her. Which is exactly what happens! Er, why didn’t Rose think of that? Like, "Jack, you’re the stronger swimmer, let me die in the water then swim me to a boat and resuscitate me later." But no, she just looked after herself, didn’t she? Bloody millennials.
13. The Sopranos – ‘Pine Barrens’
One of the most loved Sopranos episodes, written not by David Chase but Terence ‘Boardwalk Empire, Wolf of Wall Street’ Winter and directed by Steve Buscemi. It’s the one where Christopher and Paulie go off into the woods to bury a Russian gangster they think they’ve killed, except he's actually not dead. The pair get him to dig his own grave with a shovel, only for the Russian to hit them with it and run off. Paulie shoots him. But he still disappears. The pair search for him but only succeed in getting impossibly lost. For all the gangster grit, this episode is really about a classic odd couple scenario, with the pair wandering frozen through the snow and blaming each other for it. A hoot.
12. The Revenant – the bear 'rape'
More survival in a snowy wilderness action, vividly put across in Iñárritu's classic of the genre. Bizarrely, much of the discourse around the film seemed to be about whether or not DiCaprio’s character was raped by a bear. Having watched it many times closely – not in a weird way – I can say he definitely is not. The thing just kind of snatches at his buttocks and legs. Anyway, it’s bloody cold throughout this film, not at all fun. Hostility, harshness, the cold brutality of life on earth, all of that is covered in the perfect viewing experience for a late Sunday morning, sat next to a radiator.
11. The Ice Storm – the death
Ang Lee’s excellent adaptation of Rick Moody’s book uses the ice storm as a metaphor for familial distancing, of generational and marital chill, contrasted with hot selfish carnal acts. We start with Tobey Maguire’s train coming to a halt after a power cut; he’s on his way back to his family, where his parents are caught up in affairs and a bit of swinging. One of the most harrowing scenes of cinema comes when we later learn of the reason for the blackout, as Elijah Wood’s character romps through the ice storm on his own, playing on swings and sliding down roads, until a powerline falls nearby. Impossible to watch after you become a parent. But not as impossible as…
10. Frozen – Let it Go
It’s a film that’s hard to love after you have been press-ganged into watching it 100,032 times by your child. As a parent, you learn of the different ages of children: pre-Frozen (nice), Frozen era (hell), and post-Frozen (nice). That said, it’s a great film. But still, I’d rather be non-raped by a bear in a frozen wilderness than watch it again.
9. Where Eagles Dare – the attack on the Nazi castle
I’ll be straight with you: at first I had Doctor Zhivago here, David Lean’s masterpiece. But the reality is, I’ve watched Where Eagles Dare 50 more times and for sheer cinematic kicks in the snow, I’d choose Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton gunning down Nazis over Omar Sharif and Julie Christie not snogging. Watching the attack on the Nazi-occupied castle, with the cable car, Clint trying to pass as a Nazi officer, and lots of scowling is basically the pinnacle of many of our lives. At least, for a certain generation.
8. Fargo – Marge on the crime scene
The original film is still the highwater mark of detecting in the cold, with Frances McDormand’s heavily pregnant Marge on the hunt of some bungling, but dangerous, killers in snowbound Minnesota. The scene of her inspection of the bodies in the snow, coffee in hand, and on the verge of “barfing” due to morning sickness, is a mini-classic within this classic.
7. The Killing - the jumper
The Killing kickstarted our Nordic noir obsession, perhaps even our entire current era of prestige gloomy TV. Just being set in Scandi countries means the cold is inevitable, but there was something in the chill of the murder that fit the landscape, and the edgy guessing game of who was the real killer. With Sarah Lund, we had a detective on a mission, but one wearing a big woolly jumper – a symbol of her working on the side of humanity. Or possibly an advertorial deal with Boden.
6. The North Water - the tooth bit
Feels like people don’t talk about this show as much as they should. Directed by Andrew Haigh, whose latest film, All of Us Strangers, is getting nominated for awards before it's even out, this has Jack O’Connell as a ship’s doctor taking on Colin Farrell’s monstrous Drax (Farrell piled on the pounds for the role) onboard a whaling ship. Christ, it’s bleak, but in all the best ways. After there’s a rape-murder onboard, there’s a brilliant scene of O’Connell inspecting the genitals of the crew, culminating in a tense scene where Drax is examined and a human tooth is found in a wound in his arm. Yuck.
5. The Terror – all of it
Another ships-trapped-in-the-Arctic drama, this time a drama based on the true story of the naval vessels The Terror and the Erebus, heading out on a doomed voyage in 1845, during which all crew members vanished. The show puts a highly effective supernatural spin on things, but this is really about the performances: Jared Harris as Crozier, Ciaran Hinds as Franklin, Adam Nagaitis as the dastardly Hickey. It’s too good.
4. Groundhog Day – the ice sculpture
Bill Murray is doomed to repeat the same day over and over again until he learns to be nice. The film seems to grow in stature every year, and it really seems timeless, thanks to that age-old question for us meat machines: what do you choose to do with your life? Old romantics adore the moment towards the end where he reveals the ice sculpture he’s done of Andie MacDowell’s face: “I know your face so well, I could have done it with my eyes shut.” Aww.
3. Ice Station Zebra - all of it
They don’t make em like this anymore. Well, actually they do, in fact they can’t stop making them like this. It’s basically the template for most of the above films and shows, right up to True Detective. John Sturges directs Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine and Jim Brown in story of a nuclear submarine crew trying to rescue scientists on a weather station in the Arctic. But all is not what it seems and a double-crossing son of a gun must be found out. A classic of cold war paranoia that is essentially most of our lives online now.
2. The Shining - frozen Jack
Kubrick’s legendary horror, adapted from Stephen King’s novel, was of course hated by Stephen King, who felt the film was “cold” whereas his book was “hot”, as borne out by their respective endings: King’s version ended in a fire, Kubrick’s with ice. King, of course, was wrong: whereas his book took on the heated rage at the heart of alcoholism, Kubrick was more interested in the chill at the heart of the American family. Jack, Shelley and Danny can barely communicate even at the beginning, and the violence of American ancestry - seen as echoing ghost-like through time - remains right in the heart of American life. The cold is used to great effect here of course, with the Overlook hotel snowed off in the winter, leaving the family isolated. Of course, it also provides a saving grace: Danny leads his dad off into the outdoor maze, where he manages to evade the axe-wielding maniac by walking back through his footprints in the snow, and going a different way. Jack becomes lost and trapped; come morning, frozen solid. Straight from a fairytale nightmare.
1. The Thing - the whole thing
Is this the greatest cold film ever? Yes. It may well be the best horror film ever. John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing From Another World (also very good, until the man-in-a-suit monster turns up), is one built on paranoia. Once again, we have isolation, this time in an Arctic science station, where a weirdly smart dog runs into the camp, pursued by a Norwegian scientist yelling warnings. Of course his warnings aren’t in English, so the Americans shoot him. Big mistake. The dog is actually a shape-shifting alien, who can change into people too. So, as the film goes on, there's the question of who is a human, and who is an alien? Kurt Russell has to figure it out as the weather closes in. As with all the best cold dramas here this closes people into a space to show mistrust, alienation and a revulsion about other humans. No wonder it strikes a chord with us Londoners…
