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18 Best Christmas Films and TV Adaptations 1977-1985

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These best Christmas films, from 1977 to 1985 are great DVD gifts for the season’s holiday celebration. Resources, facts and information include the year the film was released, film director, writers, leading stars, and brief summaries.

Christmas Films and Television (TV), Years 1977 to 1985

1. Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (1977), TV

Director: Jim Henson
Writers: Lillian Hoban and Russell Hoban
Stars: Muppets, voices of Jerry Nelson, Frank Oz, Marilyn Sokol

For a chance to win the cash prize of a talent contest for Christmas, a poor otter family risks all that is left of them.

2. It Happened One Christmas (1977), TV

Director: Donald Wrye
Writers: Philip Van Doren Stern (story) and Frank Capra (screenplay)
Stars: Marlo Thomas, Orson Welles, Cloris Leachman

An angel is sent back to earth to grant the wish of a woman whose life is coming despairingly in ruins. The angel shows teaches her the meaning of self-worth and makes her see the difference it makes to everyone if she is not born. This is a rework of the 1947 classic film “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

3. The Gathering (1977), TV

Director: Randal Kleiser
Writer: James Poe
Stars: Edward Asner, Maureen Stapleton, Stephanie Zimbalist, Rebecca Balding

A dying father poignantly pulls together his torn apart family for the last Christmas.

4. A Christmas to Remember (1978), TV

Director: George Englund
Writers: Glendon Swarthout and Stewart Stern
Stars: Jason Robards, Eva Marie Saint, Joanne Woodward

The setting is during the Great Depression. A grandson who grew up in the city moves to his grandparents’ farm and helps his granddad deliver a surprise present on Christmas Eve to their community church. The grandson is helped by a phantom stranger.

5. An American Christmas Carol (1979), TV

Director: Eric Till
Writer: Adapted by Jerome Coopersmith based on the classic novel of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
Stars: Henry Winkler, David Wayne, Dorian Harewood

It is Depression era in New England. One Christmas Eve, a miserly businessman, Benedict Slade, receives an overdue attitude adjustment when he is visited by three ghosts who resemble the people whose possessions he had seized to collect on unpaid loans. With influence from Charles Dickens’ classic novel A Christmas Carol, the three apparitions likewise force him off his mean ways, and like Scrooge, he becomes a caring and generous person. >

6. A Christmas without Snow (1980)

Director: John Korty
Writer of story and teleplays: John Korty
Stars: Michael Learned, John Houseman, Ramon Bieri

A divorced woman moves to a new city with her child as she tries to rebuild her life. She joins the choir of a local church but encounters a personality conflict with the choirmaster. As Christmas nears and the choir practice goes full swing, he pushes them all to their wits’ end. She is contemplating to quit the choir.

7. Christmas Mountain (1981)

Director: Pierre De Moro
Writer: Mark Miller
Stars: Mark Miller, Slim Pickens, Barbara Stanger, Brian Poelman

A cowboy comes to town at Christmas. He eats at a café but was unable to pay for his meal. The owner throws him to jail. Atop the town’s mountain called “Christmas Mountain” lives a family with a pregnant woman. The town’s people want to alleviate their guilt over the family. They bail out the cowboy and send him on an errand to bring food and some old clothes. Here on, cowboy’s life entwines with the townsfolk.

8. The Curious Case of Santa Claus (1982), TV Animated

Director: Robin Crichton
Writer: Bob Larbey
Stars: James Coco, Sabina Franklyn and Jon Pertwee

Narrated by Jimmy Durante

This is a story within a story. A psychiatrist (Pertwee) first attempts to “help” dear Santa Claus face reality. Along the way, he becomes a believer of Santa!

9. The Gift of Love: A Christmas Story (1983), TV

Director: Delbert Mann
Writer: Bess Streeter Aldrich based from her novella The Silent Stars Go By
Stars: Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury, Polly Holliday

Janet Broderick has had it with life. After experiencing stressful situations within a short time, including the failure of family business and loss of her mother, she becomes ill and falls into a deep sleep. Janet is brought back to her past of meeting her deceased loved ones. She hopes that during Christmas reunion with her beloved family, she finds an answer how to cope with her life challenges.

10. A Christmas Story (1983)

Director: Bob Clark
Writer: Jean Shepherd, novel and screenplay
Stars: Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Peter Billingsley

Nine year old Ralphie has to convince his parents, teachers and the Santa Claus of a department store that he is worthy of getting a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-Shot, Range Model “BB” Air Rifle as a perfect gift for Christmas. But as everyone reminds him throughout the movie, “You’ll shoot your eye out.”

11. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (1983), TV

Director: George Schaefer
Writer: Barbara Robinson, novel and screenplay
Stars: Loretta Swit, Jackson Davies, Anthony Holland

This is a television adaptation of Robinson’s novel The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It is about six unruly children who teach a whole church about the true meaning of Jesus Christ’s birth.

12. The Night They Saved Christmas (1984), TV

Director: Jackie Cooper
Writer: Jim Moloney
Stars: Jaclyn Smith, Art Carney, June Lockhart, Paul Le Mat

An oil company is exploring two Arctic sites for oil. Santa Claus is concern that the first site blasting will rock his North Pole village, but the second site blasting is even worse since it will destroy his home. Santa seeks help from a woman and her children to convince her husband who works for the company that the oil is in the first site. But along the way, Santa Claus is forced to reveal his secrets activities in delivering gifts around the world.

13. It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (1984), TV

Director: Peter H. Hunt
Writers: Frank Cardea and George Schenck
Stars: Mickey Rooney, Scott Grimes, Annie Potts, Barrie Youngfellow

Mike Halligan, a retired cop from Manhattan lives in California with his family. He decides to show his grandson a real white Christmas in New York. His grandson has never seen snow before. Sadly, Mike dies from a sudden heart attack. He makes concession with an Archangel in Heaven for him to return to Earth for a week until Christmas so he can show his grandson New York City’s wonderful seasonal snow.

14. A Christmas Carol (1984), TV

Director: Clive Donner
Writer: Roger O. Hirson (screenplay), based on the novel of Charles Dickens, same title
Stars: George C. Scott, David Warner, Susannah York

This is the all-time classic story of the old Victorian miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who was transformed from being mean to becoming a caring person. On Christmas Eve, he was visited by the ghosts of his former business partner, and the three ghosts of Past, Present and Future.

15. Santa Claus (1985)

Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Writers: David Newman and Leslie Newman
Stars: Dudley Moore, John Lithgow, Burgess Meredith, David Huddleston

The story is in two parts. The first part is set hundreds of years ago and describes how an old man is given immortality, becomes Santa Claus, and chosen to deliver toys to all the children around the world. The second part is set in the modern period, the now. Patch, the head elf, strikes out on his own and falls prey with an evil toy manufacturer who wants to capture the market of Santa Claus as well as eliminate him.

16. The Fourth Wise Man (1985), TV

Director: Michael Ray Rhodes
Writers: Henry Van Dyke (short story) and Tom Fontana
Stars: Martin Sheen, Alan Arkin, Eileen Brennan, James Farentino

Unfounded from the history of Christmas in terms of Jesus Christ’s birth, this is the story of the supposed fourth Magi, Artaban, who spends his life looking for Jesus his king.

17. The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus (1985), TV Animated

Directors: Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin Jr.
Writer: Julian P. Gardner based on the novel by L. Frank Baum
Stars: Earl Hammond, Earle Hyman and Larry Kenney

The Great Ak is trying to justify his desire to declare Santa Claus immortal before the council of the Immortals. To do this, he thinks he should to tell the detailed history of Santa Claus.

18. One Magic Christmas (1985)

Director: Phillip Borsos
Screen writers: Phillip Borsos and Barry Healey
Stars: Mary Steenburgen, Gary Basaraba, Harry Dean Stanton

The story provides impetus on the true meaning of Christmas through an angel who needs to show to a mother that it’s not just gifts or materialistic things that matter.

These Christmas films and TV adaptations are considered best in Hollywood from 1977-1985. They are timely for the festive season entertainment. DVDs can be rented out at video rental stores or online video rentals.

Resources of Best Christmas Films, 1977-1985

The Internet Movie Database (IMDB)

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