Not really, no · 2017
The Nativity told from the stable floor up, and pitched squarely at small children.
Rent or buy · Apple TV, Prime Video and more →The CineClaus Christmas score
Christmas in good measure.
A little magic in the making.
Five ingredients make the Festive Factor.
Open an ingredient to find out more.
What we ask: Take Christmas out. Does the plot survive? Worth up to 30 of the 100 points.
What we ask: How much of the running time is visibly Christmas? Worth up to 20 of the 100 points.
What we ask: How many kinds of Christmas icon turn up on screen: trees, lights, snow, carols and the rest? Worth up to 15 of the 100 points.
What we ask: Does the ending depend on what Christmas means: goodwill, family, redemption, belief? Worth up to 20 of the 100 points.
What we ask: Is it actually watched at Christmas in the UK? Worth up to 15 of the 100 points.
Warm in tone. Mild threat. A happy ending.
Festive Factor measures how Christmassy a film is. Five ingredients add up to 100: story (30), setting (20), seasonal details (15), emotional heart (20) and returning tradition (15).
Cosiness is a separate score for warmth of tone, sense of safety, visual comfort, a reassuring ending and how easily you can settle into it.
How the Festive Factor works →
The Star · Rental and purchase cost extra, separately from membership.
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A small donkey who dreams of escaping his dull life at a village mill breaks free and falls in with a young expectant couple on their long journey south. With a sheep who has lost her flock and an ambitious dove for company, he dodges a ruthless king's hunter and his two dogs, and the animals end up playing their own unsung part in the first Christmas.
The Nativity told from the stable floor up, and pitched squarely at small children.
The jokes are quick and kind, and a chase gives the long road some shape. Grown-ups will find it thin, and critics were cool on it at the time. What it does well is turn the first Christmas into a story a nursery-age child can follow, with a daydreaming donkey as the way in.
It fits comfortably into a weeknight, and belongs in the weeks of nativity play rehearsals.
Our take: four-year-olds upwards should cope: a hunter and his two dogs give chase, but the menace is mostly played for laughs and every animal ends up safe.
The faces in front of the camera, and the people who brought the story to life.
That tune you recognised. That score you loved. Take a little of the film into the rest of your Christmas.
Every track on the soundtrack album, in album order.
Try a song title or an artist.
Behind the music. John Paesano composed the score.
These are the songs and soundtrack we hold for the film, not a complete cue sheet, and they give no scene timings. Album track lists and durations come from MusicBrainz. Spotify and Apple Music links open the matched recordings; links marked Search open a search on that service. Album covers are each release's own, from the Cover Art Archive, credited under the cover.
wikidata.org ↗ (opens in a new tab) musicbrainz.org ↗ (opens in a new tab)
For the fans who stay after the credits.
Movie magic
The Star was the first collaboration between Sony Pictures Animation and Cinesite, whose studio handled the digital animation on a tight schedule.
Source: Cinesite ↗ (opens in a new tab)
On set
The film was developed under an earlier working title before it became The Star, and director Timothy Reckart came to it after an Oscar nomination for his stop-motion short Head Over Heels.
Each production story is linked to its source, in our own words. Ending details stay behind a spoiler reveal.
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