Celebrate the Season of Wonder with Jonathan Haley's A Christmas Story: A Captivating Tale of Holiday Magic for Young Readers

Tammy: Love this movie. Bought this copy to take to my Mom's place for Christmas. She has never seen it

Canada on Sep 28, 2023

Amazon Customer: Still holds up after 40 years. This Yuletide classic is guaranteed to please any movie enthusiast. A laugh for all ages.

United States on Sep 20, 2023

Alicia: Nothing says Christmas like this classic movie. Came fast and no damage. This is a must get and see for the price

Canada on Dec 19, 2022

Gail Anderson: So many Christmas shows are about little girls but this one is just the best! It's a great family show and although it features the Red Ryder BB Gun it would have been every little boys dream who lived in the country during that era! Cowboys, horses and saving the world from outlaws......that's the real Wild, Wild West!

Canada on Dec 04, 2021

Beau RegardBeau Regard: Based upon at least one review which commented on the Special Features commentary, we were looking forward to viewing and re-viewing with commentary one of the gems among Christmas movies. The commentary option was no-where to be found on the disc menu. Amazon could not have been more cooperative with their agent kindly offering to send out another copy since she thought the disc might have been defective. As the pictures I have included show, the cover of the DVD clearly states that the disc includes "SPECIAL FEATURES". Once the disc is playing, it is quite evident from the disc menu that, unless the commentary has been hidden like some 'Easter eggs' on some dvds, there is definitely no commentary as explicitly stated on the cover. Had the disc specifically stated that it was the movie and only the movie, that's one thing. Since it specifically mentions the commentary, the result is disappointment.
So, if you are film-viewers like us and if you enjoy getting the insights of the filmmaker and the participants of the film, this version is not for you and for that erroneous statement on the packaging this edition of the dvd deserves a 1 star or less.
When taken into...

Canada on Jan 10, 2020

Jesse S.: Love this movie and watch it every chance I get.4/5 stars for the movie it's self...It's a Christmas classic and yes it has some scenes,language that parents might find offensive,especially for their young children...
This review is based on the Blu Ray version of the movie...Not the dvd version which I can't speak for because I've never owned it.
As far as picture quality goes their is some noticeable grain in the picture and at points you can see it flicker especially during darker scenes.
I don't know if it's a dvd to blu ray transfer or not...But for the picture quality while it's ok,it could be better....3/5 stars for picture quality.
Now for the all important audio quality...
You get a really basic mono Dolby Digital 1.0 audio track at only 192kbps.
I know that there really isn't any loud music scenes or really much of any music during the movie...But it's a shame to put a classic Christmas movie on Blu Ray with just a 1.0 Dolby Digital audio track...They should have released it in stereo or Dolby Digital 5.1 to give it more umph!
So for the audio quality I give that a 1/5 stars...Just doesn't do anything for me or enhance the audio track for the...

Canada on Jun 09, 2018

Clutch Cargo: More than 2600 reviews! How does one get useful information here about a specific product when amazon lumps together reviews of EVERY VERSION ever released, written over a span of decades??? We all know the movie itself and its many charms, and I would guess that the majority of folks shopping for A Christmas Story already like/love/LOVE it. So I will confine my comments to one specific product: The 2008 "Ultimate Collector's Edition", which ships in a metal canister and includes a string of "leg lamp lights" along with the Blu-ray disc. First, the disc: As a few others have pointed out, there's not much new here, compared with earlier DVD releases--just a commentary track, a few trailers and recycled special features from the 20th anniversary (2003) DVD release (still in standard definition). The main feature is a mediocre transfer with way more digital artifacts than should be present in an HD Blu-ray release. Still, I doubt that most viewers would notice or care--it's a nostalgia-soaked holiday feel-good movie, after all. The leg lamp lights are actually pretty well done--ten mini leg lamps about 3-3/4" tall that stretch out to nearly ten feet. Best of all, the legs themselves...

United States on Dec 19, 2014

Inspector Gadget: With all of the fondness I've read for this movie I was surprised that it's mainly an American thing. I've never seen A Christmas Story on TV or in stores in the UK. I doubt many people outside of the US know who Jean Shepherd is, or of his popular Ralphie Parker character. In fact, most people in general won't know that this movie is actually the fourth of (currently) seven featuring Ralphie.

Adapted from the book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, a collection of mostly Christmas-themed short stories, it remind me a lot of Christmas Vacation (adapted by John Hughes from his own Christmas '59 short story) in that it seems semi-autobiographic. But the adaptation of several stories gives the movie a sketchy feel, with a few that failed to resonate with me.

The main story has little Ralphie Parker (brilliantly played by Peter Billingsly), a kid with imagination and cynicism beyond his years, beg his parents, and Santa, for a BB gun while dealing with a series of eccentric events in 1940s Indiana. It made me laugh quite a lot, but mainly in the second half. The cosy Xmas atmosphere is lovely, and there's not a shred of anything unwholesome. But I just can't see...

United States on Dec 02, 2012

M. Hart: The 1983 film, "A Christmas Story", quickly became a holiday classic as viewers fell in love with its witty prose as narrated by Jean Shepherd (1921-1999), who wrote the novel upon which the film is based: "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash".
The film begins weeks before Christmas in the city of Terre Haute, Indiana circa 1934. A young Ralph 'Ralphie' Parker (Peter Billingsley) stares through the glass of a storefront window at the local department store to see what he wants most for Christmas, a Red Rider Be-Be Gun, and ponders the quandary of how to convince his parents to buy him one. He leaves various clues in the house for his parents to find about how wonderful and necessary the be-be gun is, but when his mother (Melinda Dillon, who received Oscas nominations for her roles in the 1977 film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and the 1981 film "Absence of Malice") asks him what he wants for Christmas during breakfast one morning, Ralphie excitedly blurts out, "I want an official, Red Ryder, Carbine-action, 200-Shot, Range Model, Air Rifle". His mother responds, "No, that's too dangerous. You'll shoot your eye out." Ralphie is crushed at hearing the common adult...

United States on Dec 03, 2002