A Christmas Story (1983)

Directed by

Bob Clark

Genre

comedy film, Christmas film

Country

United States, Canada

Runtime

1h 33m

Rated

PG

Rating

7.2 of 10 from 1,434 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young boy named Ralphie Parker wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas in 1940s Indiana. The film shows his family's chaotic and funny attempts to make it through the holiday season.

nostalgicwhimsicalwarmplayfulgentle humorcozysweetfamily-oriented

What happens

A Christmas Story is a 1983 Christmas comedy film directed by Bob Clark and based on the 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd, with some elements from his 1971 book Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters. It stars Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, and Peter Billingsley, and follows a young boy and his family's misadventures during Christmastime in 1940. It is the first installment in the Parker Family Saga. A Christmas Story was released by MGM/UA Entertainment Co. on November 18, 1983, and received positive reviews from critics. The film grossed $19.2 million on a $3.3 million budget. Filmed partly in Canada, the film earned two Canadian Genie Awards in 1984. Widely considered a holiday classic in the United States and Canada, it has been shown in a marathon annually on TNT since 1997 and on TBS since 2004 titled "24 Hours of A Christmas Story", consisting of 12 consecutive airings of the film from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day. In 2012, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film spawned three sequels. The first, My Summer Story (originally released as It Runs in the Family), also directed by Clark, was released in 1994. The second, entitled A Christmas Story 2, was released straight to DVD in 2012. A third sequel, entitled A Christmas Story Christmas, was released on HBO Max in 2022 and features most of the original cast returning. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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