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Summary In 1980s Chicago, a ten-year-old sets out on a quest to get the Christmas gift of his generation - the latest and greatest video game system.
Directed By: Michael Dowse
Written By: Kevin Jakubowski
8-Bit Christmas
66
6.6
Where to Watch
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Summary In 1980s Chicago, a ten-year-old sets out on a quest to get the Christmas gift of his generation - the latest and greatest video game system.
Directed By: Michael Dowse
Written By: Kevin Jakubowski
Where to Watch
Coming Soon
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 5 Critic Reviews
66
40% Positive
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
40% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
20% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 5 Critic Reviews
66
40% Positive
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
40% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
20% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Dec 1, 2021
The fantastically nostalgic, consistently funny, mischief-laden and genuinely touching 8-Bit Christmas (now on HBO Max) reminds me of A Christmas Story — with a touch of the storytelling device employed in A Princess Bride.
Nov 24, 2021
It’s a surprise contender for Best Christmas Movie of the last several years.
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 39 User Ratings
6.6
62% Positive
24 Ratings
24 Ratings
23% Mixed
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
15% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 39 User Ratings
6.6
62% Positive
24 Ratings
24 Ratings
23% Mixed
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
15% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
Nov 24, 2021
Melhor filme de Natal da atualidade!!! Pura nostalgia assistir a jornada das crianças tentando conseguir seu nintendo, Michael Down fez um ótimo trabalho com esse filme mas pena que não foi pro cinema. Winslow Fegley é um ótimo ator, super carismático e acertaram muito ao escolher ele para viver o personagem Jake (q eu amei), e eu fiquei muito feliz com o Neil no elenco. (todo elenco é carismático)
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Dec 3, 2021
8-Bit Christmas has a lot of heart, but the comedy struggles to stand out in a marketplace full of similar, established, holiday feature classics. Regardless, it offers enough of a unique spin on the genre to satisfy audiences — especially millennials.
Nov 24, 2021
When it isn’t fawning over roller rinks, “Goonies” posters, and Casio watches, 8 Bit Christmas (streaming on HBO Max) is a warm and refreshingly earnest holiday comedy.
Nov 24, 2021
8-Bit Christmas may have a more grounded approach to gamer culture than you'd expect, but it’s constantly beat by its own limited imagination.
Nov 29, 2021
Delightful, funny, perfect for kids without being too campy or corny. Really enjoyed this one.
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Dec 23, 2024
It was okay. It left little to no emotional impression, which probably isn't great for a Christmas movie. It's probably the most mediocre movie I've seen since Escape to Witch Mountain, and may even surpass it in that respect. I was left with a feeling of nothingness. There are various reasons for this: Overall, it feels like the passion for the project wasn't in what actually ended up composing the majority of the movie. The beginning of the film, with its video game antics and over-the-top villainous characters as relates to this, is generally quite good; it channels some of the 80s "cool" ridiculosity of The Wizard, but slightly more intentional this time. A sort of silly period piece. But the movie struggles to hold this energy throughout - It feels like that section, or at least that energy, was their inspiration for the movie and then they tried to stick in an emotional storyline that they had to force themselves to come up with. The movie is in no way bad: There are good jokes sprinkled throughout, the characters are largely competent, the acting is decent and good considering it's largely child actors, the dialogue is slightly unnatural but perfectly functional and not-at-all out-of-the-ordinary for a big-budget movie, and the score is solidly done. But nothing excels. Nothing keeps the movie afloat compared to the others. And speaking of its lack of focus, the movie simultaneously feels like it tried to fit in too many plotlines to resolve or feel satisfying and also like nothing is happening at any given time. It feels like they were going for something over-the-top, silly, and melodramatic (this is evidenced by the marketing), but the writing or any other of those previously-mentioned aspects simply aren't great enough to make it feel that way. Instead of feeling like "Oh no, haha, another crazy thing happened that's preventing them from reaching their goal!" it just feels like the writers needed something else vaguely interesting to fill up the standard runtime of a feature-length motion picture. This just about holds your attention for the majority of the film, which then leads to a climax. That climax is just about as anticlimactic as the sentence that introduced it. It attempts to subvert expectations for an emotional ending, but it doesn't work and falls empty and flat because we don't care about any of the characters. This is because they were given no time to develop throughout the movie as there were too many attention-holding events happening that the writers put in to make the feature-length plot. Are you starting to see the problem? The movie simultaneously feels like it could have been half-an-hour shorter and like none of its characters or plots have enough time given to be interesting. At the beginning we're introduced to a bunch of main sidekick characters who supposedly all have different wacky personalities, but none of them get time to be wacky or make an impression because we have to focus on the slightly-interesting main character and, occasionally in the midst of the constant, increasingly-disingenuous-and-detached-from-the-point gaming antics, his slightly-interesting relationship with his dad (whose actor portrays exactly the same character here as he did in the Wimpy Kid movies). Many of the interesting more gaming-related plotlines that were introduced are left unresolved, the characters are left unattached due to the emphasis on events, the events focus more on "child is performing slightly-entertaining actions" than the near-infinite possibilities offered by the subject matter, and the ending ends up feeling more like a minor broken promise after all of the decent events that seemed to be leading up to it than an emotional subversion because of this. Most of the jokes and sentences are as mediocrely-structured as the ones you're reading at the present, and land only slightly. It drags in a different manner than this paragraph, but an equally manageable one. The entire movie feels like an entertaining, alright, unthoroughly satiating experience that, despite what it may seem, I feel very little about. To me, this is the worst kind of movie: Not good, not bad, just... Okay. Mediocre. I could scarcely make it through the credits, which is unusual. A lot of this, I think, is because of the editing, which feels slogging and focuses mostly on a bunch of characters faces as they speak or move around environments; it feels like a Hallmark movie, in that way. The editing in the trailer, actually, was much more frenetic and interesting and professional and framed jokes in a way that made them actually land instead of just happening onscreen; over-the-top and a crazy love-letter like the movie wants to be. The trailer was incredibly impressive (it actually made me want to watch the movie, which is, strangely, quite a rare thing for trailers). The movie itself, however, was not. It was okay. I probably should have chosen Arthur Christmas.
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Dec 6, 2021
The only reason I wanted to watch this was for Neil Patrick Harris (gay adjacent), but turns out he plays a father recounting his childhood story, so he’s not on camera a lot. The focus is on his 10-year-old self in 80s Chicago, when he wanted a new Nintendo for Christmas. If you read this and think, “This sounds like Christmas Story,” you’d be right. It has the same rembunctuous energy and slightly wacky group of friends and family to add some character fun. On the down side, it’s not especially funny or clever, but for families looking for something new for the Holidays, this should work.
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Dec 26, 2023
Plot didn't make sense, and the ending didn't have any payoff. The movie has a hard time deciding whether it wants to tell a story or throw all the rules of storytelling out the window for a laugh.
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Nov 24, 2021
bad
[ bad ] adjective, worse, worst;(Slang) bad·der, bad·dest for 36.
not good in any manner or degree.
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Production Company
- Warner Bros.
- New Line Cinema
- Star Thrower Entertainment
Release Date Nov 24, 2021
Duration 1 h 38 m
Rating PG
Awards
PGA Awards
• 1 Nomination
The CAFTCAD awards
• 1 Nomination
Humanitas Prize
• 1 Nomination
