“Deserves to be in the Favorite Christmas Movies pantheon!” –Salon

A surprisingly smart, knowingly over-the-top, endlessly quotable action movie inexplicably set at Christmas? You know you’re watching a Shane Black-scripted joint! While Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Lethal Weapon tend to get more Christmastime love, The Long Kiss Goodnight is the true jewel in Black’s yuletide-action crowd. Somehow both opening and closing with Christmas parade scenes, TLKG is Black’s action-packed ode to finding yourself during the holidays. Directed by Renny Harlin, Goodnight stars Harlin’s then-wife Geena Davis as schoolteacher Samantha Caine, who lives an average suburban life — until she begins having strange memories of unexplained violence and discovers that she has physical skills that she never imagined. Hiring private detective Mitch Hennessey (Samuel L. Jackson at his ) to probe into her past, Samantha discovers that she’s a well-trained government assassin who went missing after suffering a bout of amnesia and that her former handlers want her back in their employ.

“As opposed to other actors and actors, he enjoys watching his own movies. You’re motherfucking right I do. I enjoy my movies. My favorite movie of mine to watch? Long Kiss Goodnight.” -Samuel L. Jackson