Cosy movies for cosy season

it's soup season. it's wooly hat season. it's curl up with Nicolas Cage season.

Nov 04, 2024

It’s officially cosy season in the place where I am. I know this because I wore my orange beret on my daily walk. The new guy in my local coffee shop said to me “that’s such an orange beret” to which I replied “thank you” as I understood this to be a compliment. He then went on to say some things that make me suspect he could be a conspiracy theorist, but it’s too early to tell. Further investigation is required.

The point is that inside me are two wolves. One is constantly in a pub garden next to the heater with a mulled cider in hand and hot water bottle1 in a tote bag. The other has lit every single candle in her possession, put her PJs on and is curled up with that same hot water bottle and a bowl of spicy butternut squash soup (home-made) ready to watch a very specific genre of film.

That’s right. I’m about to get cosy.

I thought it only fair to share the best cosy movies, what with being an expert on the subject. Cosy is not the same as comfort or nostalgia, by the way. Cosy is a somewhat indefinable quality that can be sensed but never really explained. Here, I’ll explain!

Cosy vs Comfort

A comfort movie is the species to the cosy movie’s genus. All cosy movies are comfort movies but all comfort movies are not cosy movies. The Guardian has a list of 52 comfort movies (don’t Google it, stay here!). Of those 52, only about 10% are cosy. Let me explain the difference using examples that follow arbitrary and nebulous rules but make sense to me. All of the below are comfort movies, but not all are cosy ones:

Ratatouille is cosy, but The Incredibles is not.

Just My Luck is cosy, but Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen is not.

The Lord of the Ringses are cosy, but the Chronicles of Narnia are not.

You see? No? Post any questions or confusion in the comments.

The Season Rule

It’s not all about the season, but it does play a role in making a movie cosy. All of the dance, cheerleading, gymnastics and roller derby flicks I love – often with “it” in the title e.g. Bring It On2, Stick It, Whip It – can’t be considered cosy because the summer vibes are simply too strong. See also Clueless, both Princess Diarieses, The Meg etc. Not being cosy doesn’t stop them being comforting as hell.

There are always exceptions, as you will see below. But there are also non-negotiables...

Non-negotiables

There isn’t a single cosy scary movie, because I personally hate horror films.
Cosy movies have to be watchable during all dark months, so those with an expiry date (Halloween, Christmas) are disqualified.
Harry Potters used to be cosy but have been expelled for obvious reasons.

So, anyway, here are some cosy movies to see you through these dark nights! This is absolutely packed with spoilers because cosy also means familiar, so you’ve probably already seen it. If you haven’t seen one of these films, that’s not my fault, but fair warning, either you’ll enjoy this or it’ll be complete gibberish.

Knives Out

Now that Chris Evans has been sent to prison for multiple homicide, his collection of chunky knits have been left unattended and I spend the afternoon thumbing through his wardrobe, eventually deciding that I’ll just take ‘em all. I neatly fold and pack them into nine suitcases, go to the kitchen and fill up the kettle. It’s strange, I think, while I wait for the water to boil. Two people have died in the last week and still I feel extremely optimistic about my future. How messed up is that? Three minutes later, I’m standing on the manor’s large front balcony, holding my steaming mug of tea and surveying the clan of greedy meanies below whose home I now own. They look up at me with disdain, but I do not care because I’m SO cosy in my new favourite jumper :)

Howl’s Moving Castle

Bacon and eggs in a pan, but make it Ghibli. I never want to eat anything more than I want to eat Ghibli food. I’m slowly adjusting to life as an elderly woman. My big house on legs is really handy and I have learned how to strongarm the anthropomorphic fire into making me breakfast. The weather is disgusting a lot, except when it isn’t. Unfortunately, my boyfriend-slash-magical-whinger melted into goo all over the kitchen because I accidentally dyed his hair. I’m considering hurling him out of a window while we’re moving and shacking up with the one-legged scarecrow who is really a handsome prince who keeps saving my life.

Twilight (all of them. Yes, even that one)

That autumn is always orange and golden is a myth as old as time itself. Sometimes it is grim. Sometimes it is a grey-ish, blue-ish, green-ish hue that looks wet even when it isn’t. If you live in England, or in Forks, Washington like me now, apparently, you will know that most of the time it’s not golden, it’s dank and raining. It has been a hard autumn for me so far. I have fallen in love with the whitest boy I’ve ever seen, who thinks I stink. He is physically repulsed by me and I like that, but what really sets him apart from all the other boys in school is that he’s a murderer and he took me on a special date into the mountains all alone to tell me that he could kill me too and really wanted to! I’m so special. I think one day I will marry him and bear his demon child, and my dad will be fine with it for some reason.

Death Becomes Her

My best friend is the most beautiful and youngest woman in the world. Side note, probably not important: I hate her and think she should die. We have the unfortunate fate of having to share a man, but neither of us really want him. What we actually want is to spend forever together (unless I kill her), and now with the help of a great new product, we can! For just three small payments of £299.99, you too could live forever! Life In A Bottle does what it says on the tin: just a few drops of this magic elixir and you and your beloved can also spend eternity locked in an endless skirmish to determine who is hotter. Side effects may include: dry skin, excessive violence, possible loss of limb and multi organ failure.

National Treasure

Everything I know about North American history I learned from Hamilton, woefully under-appreciated time travel series Timeless, and National Treasure (1 & 2). Now, that may lead you to think that I know very little about North American history but actually you would be right – we do not learn about that kind of thing at school in England, presumably because of the sharp sting of imperial shame, which there really should be more of. Anyway, my point is: I learnt about US presidents from the only man I trust with my education: Nicolas Cage. As payment for his tutelage, I have assisted Nicolas Cage in stealing the Declaration of Independence. We intend to frame and hang it above the loo in our downstairs bathroom (we have shacked up). No one will think to look for it there, so it will be totally safe. We curl up by the fire in our mansion and plan our next adventure, probably to Lanzarote or something.

Home Again

There are no warm jumpers in this movie because they’re in LA and I’ve heard weather doesn’t exist there. But you have to admit that watching three young men – only one of which I personally fancy (it’s Jon Rudnitsky for anyone who cares) – trip over themselves for Reese Witherspoon’s approval has year-round appeal. It makes me feel cosy in my heart. After letting these three guys crash in her pool house, for some reason, she falls for the tall, baby-faced, tech bro-looking one. Which is fine, because that means I can flirt with the Jon Rudnitsky one, who is kind and creative and useful and reliable and inspiring. I’m not in love with him, I just love a lot of things about him, like his face and his personality!!

Monsters Inc.

Nothing in the world – our world or the monster-inhabited world inside our wardrobes – is as cosy as James P. Sullivan. He is a walking hug and a giant cushion. I don’t know how anyone could ever find him scary, even when he does that big teeth thing.

If you have any cosy movies you recommend, share them in the comments and, if you say anything with Meg Ryan in it, you are giving me permission to say “yeah, duh”.