Here's where to find A Christmas Story streaming online, and whether it's on Netflix, Hulu or Prime. The late Bob Clark had a very unique career, where he helmed classics in very different genres. Black Christmas is a 1974 horror that's considered a forebearer to slashers movies like Halloween or Friday The 13th and is still terrifying to this day. He later directed Porky's, a teenage comedy that became a surprise success and spawned several sequels, while he returned to the holidays again for A Christmas Story, which became an influence on The Wonder Years.
A Christmas Story is told in an episodic way and follows a young boy named Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) who really, REALLY wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. The movie was based on Jean Shepherd's book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, with Shepherd himself also providing narration for the adult Ralphie. A Christmas Story was a solid success during its 1983 release, but it has since evolved into a seasonal classic.
Being a Christmas favorite, A Christmas Story is easy to track down online. Unfortunately, the film isn't streaming on major services like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime currently, though it is streaming on HBO Max, according to JustWatch. It's also available to rent or purchase from services such as Google Play Movies, DirecTV, Vudu, Apple iTunes, Redbox and others. Rental prices start from $3.99, while the cheapest purchase price is Alamo On Demand at $12.99.
How A Christmas Story Became A Classic
A Christmas Story - which has its own Honest Trailer - is a movie that many discovered on TV or VHS, and then passed it down to their children over the years. Beloved as the movie is, Clark's sequel My Summer Story (AKA It Runs In The Family) is much more obscure. The movie arrived in 1994 - 11 years after the original - but outside of Shepherd returning as the narrator and Tedde Moore as Miss Shields, none of the original cast came back and it was a box-office bomb. The original also received another direct sequel in 2008 with A Christmas Story 2, which followed a teenage Ralphie.
A Christmas Story 2 is notable for casting Daniel Stern as Ralphie's father "The Old Man," which is either an homage to the way the original influenced The Wonder Years - where Stern acted as narrator - or Stern's role in the Home Alone movies or possibly both. That straight to DVD entry was poorly received and quickly forgotten, but in January 2022, it was confirmed that another sequel called A Christmas Story Christmas was coming to HBO Max. Billingsley will return as the grown Ralphie, and the Christmas Story sequel will take place in the '70s as he returns to his childhood home with his own children.