20 essential classic holiday films to watch this year

A Christmas Story (1983)

I didn’t see A Christmas Story until I was a teenager, and I’ll always wonder what I missed by not seeing it as a kid. In talking to others, many have cited A Christmas Story as representative of their own holidays growing up.

Set in the 1940s, A Christmas Story follows Ralphie (Peter Billingsley), who desperately wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Nearly everyone tells him “you’ll shoot your eye out,” but Ralphie won’t rest until he’s got it.

Based on the novel by Jean Shepard, A Christmas Story has a central plot, but it’s really more a series of vignettes that revolve around Christmas. The humor is finding the ways all families relate to each other. Everyone remembers the big puffy coat their mother made them wear during the winter, or the infamous bully who made their life hell, or that time they put their tongue on a lamp post and it stuck. Ralphie’s quest for a BB gun seems simple, but for him it’s a life or death situation, showing how desperate every kid feels to have that one coveted thing they believe they can’t live without…even if it might actually be dangerous. In the end, aren’t we all Ralphie?

Rent on Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, and Vudu.