Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.5

A Christmas Story 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Hey, I can finally read the end credits!

Reviewed by Randy Miller III November 13, 2022

Fast approaching its 40th birthday, Bob Clark's A Christmas Story is, in this reviewer's opinion, one of the proverbial 800-lb. gorillas of holiday entertainment, a perpetually watchable and endlessly enjoyable slice of Americana that blurs the line between nostalgic attachment and great filmmaking. How do you even critique this thing? We all know it by heart, whether through worn-out VHS tapes growing up, TBS' annual 24-hour marathon (a Christmas tradition since 1997), DVD, Blu-ray, or all of the above. You can now add 4K to that list: Warner Bros. has finally, finally dragged this film into the 21st century with a terrific new master that makes it shine like a brand-new Red Ryder.

For a synopsis of the film -- as if you need one -- please see our review of the 2006 Blu-ray, a disc re-released several times during the past 16 years. Perhaps the only actual upgrade A Christmas Story ever got on Blu-ray was the the 30th Anniversary Steelbook, which featured the same worn-out DVD-era master but added lossless audio.

A Christmas Story 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A modest hit in theaters upon its November 1983 release, A Christmas Story established its current long-standing legacy through endless TV broadcasts and robust VHS/DVD sales so, unsurprisingly, we've been conditioned to think it just isn't supposed to look all that pretty. But while it thankfully preserves the film's intentionally gauzy aesthetic that mimics its nostalgic 1940s setting, Warner Bros.' new 4K master of A Christmas Story passes the "wow factor" test with flying colors as its clean, stable, and film-like appearance will make die-hard fans feel like they're watching it for the first time. Depth, fine detail, color saturation, black levels, and just about everything else is improved here, thanks of course to a fresh new scan of its unspecified source material (the original negative, surely?) and substantially better encoding technology -- the best this film got on home video until now was a VC-1-encoded DVD-era master squeezed onto a single-layered Blu-ray. When applied to a disc with nearly triple the real estate, this 2160p, HDR10-enhanced transfer simply has all the room in the world to breathe and the results are unsurprisingly spectacular.

Fundamentally, the nuts and bolts of 4K -- disc space, encoding, resolution -- provide the biggest visual boosts for A Christmas Story this time around, although the HDR10 metadata layer certainly adds a few attractive but authentic visual flourishes that won't go unnoticed. Holiday lights, bright primaries, the colorful classroom setting, Santa's North Pole display at the department store, wrapped Christmas gifts; these highlights and more are given new life thanks to noticeably cleaner color saturation, which also extends to deeper black levels and brighter whites, neither of which falls victim to crush or blooming. A Christmas Story's intentionally filtered appearance is preserved and improved thanks to much more dialed-in contrast levels that, on lesser formats, reduced the light film grain and fine gradients to a mushy, noisy mess. Any softness or other hiccups that remains are likely baked in to the source material.

As mentioned earlier, the included Blu-ray (which is the source for this review's screenshots) stems from the same newly-remastered image, just downsampled to 2K and without the modest benefits of HDR enhancement. Image detail, textures, black levels, and everything else meets or exceeds expectations for the format; aside from trace instances of macro blocking, this is about as perfect a standard HD release as you can get. It's a proportionately solid silver-medal winner that's still leaps and bounds above previous home video editions and, for that reason alone, makes this combo pack worth picking up for Blu-ray fans too -- sadly, this disc is not available separately, at least for now.

A Christmas Story 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Considering A Christmas Story's modest source material, I wouldn't be surprised if this DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio track sounded more or less identical to the lossless upgrade featured on -- and until now, exclusive to -- Warner Bros.' 30th Anniversary Steelbook. But I don't own that disc... and new 4K film scans frequently squeeze more juice out of audio elements too, so it's safe to say this quaint but satisfying split mono track is either tied for first or edges ahead. At the very least, it's certainly a bit more impactful than the old Dolby Digital mixes of yore with reasonably crisp audio, good overall balance, and very little straining at the high end. Under the circumstances, I doubt it'll ever sound better.

Optional subtitles, including English (SDH), are included during the main feature and applicable extras.

A Christmas Story 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This two-disc release ships in a dual-hubbed keepcase with phoned-in cover artwork, a matching slipcover, and a Digital Copy redemption code. Bonus features are mostly identical to the 2006 Blu-ray (and its many variants), although two vintage supplements have been resurrected from other less common editions.

4K DISC (Movie and Bonus Feature)

• Audio Commentary - A vintage track with director Bob Clark and actor Peter Billingsley.

BLU-RAY DISC (Movie and Bonus Features)

• Audio Commentary - Same as above.

• KINDA NEW! Christmas in Ohio: A Christmas Story House (21:15) - Previously exclusive to the now out-of-print 30th Anniversary Steelbook, this fun little 2013 documentary concerns the real A Christmas Story house; its owner since 2004, Brian Jones, and actor/tour guide Ian Patrella ("Randy") speak about buying the original house, un-renovating it to match its on-screen appearance, amassing a memorabilia museum, and more. Candid stories about the film's history and production are shared, too. Good stuff if you haven't seen it already.

• Another Christmas Story (18:18) - Cast/crew members talk about the film and its impact on their lives.

• Daisy Red Ryder: A History (5:18) - All about the blue-steel beauty.

• Get a Leg Up (4:35) - A tribute to everyone's favorite lamp.

• "Flash Gordon" Deleted Script Pages (3:11) - A self-playing gallery, now in HD.

• The Leg Lamp Spot (0:49) - Only $169.95!

• KINDA NEW! Jean Shepherd Original Radio Reading (2 clips, 68:57 total) - Last found on the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, these vintage Jean Shepherd short stories -- "Duel in the Snow, or Red Ryder Nails the Cleveland Street Kid" and "Flick's Tongue" -- have been resurrected in glorious Dolby Digital 2.0.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:10)

A Christmas Story 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bob Clark's A Christmas Story is an American tradition at this point... and if you know someone who absolutely loathes it, then you probably don't need that kind of negativity in your life. Warner Bros.' long-overdue 4K edition finally grants the film a much-needed face lift with fantastic 4K visuals and a newly-minted Blu-ray to boot. Add in the lossless audio not offered on most older Blu-ray editions and even two rescued bonus features and you've got as definitive a home video package as it's ever received. Highly Recommended, whether you're currently set up for 4K or not.