Synopsis
A Christmas Story (1983) is a beloved American holiday comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Bob Clark and based on Jean Shepherd's semi-autobiographical stories. Indiana, sometime in the 1940s. Nine-year-old Ralphie Parker wants exactly one thing for Christmas: a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. Every adult in his life delivers the same verdict: you'll shoot your eye out.
Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) wages a multi-front campaign — dropping hints at the dinner table, writing a school essay on the subject, working his way through a department store Santa. Meanwhile his father (Darren McGavin) battles a broken furnace and a neighbourhood dog pack, and wins a mail-order prize that turns out to be a lamp shaped like a woman's leg in a fishnet stocking. His mother (Melinda Dillon) endures both.
TBS has aired this film for 24 straight hours every Christmas Eve since 1997 — which tells you everything about what it means to American holiday culture. Clark captured something precise about the gap between a child's holiday expectations and the noisy, slightly broken reality of family life. Stream A Christmas Story (1983) online on iFILM.
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