The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024)
December 9, 2025
BLU-RAY DISC REVIEW:
Lionsgate;
Comedy;
Box Office $40.05 million;
$19.98 DVD, $24.99 Blu-ray;
Rated ‘PG’ for thematic material and brief underage smoking.
Stars Judy Greer, Pete Holmes, Molly Belle Wright, Lauren Graham, Beatrice Schneider, Kirk B.R. Woller, Mason D. Nelligan, Kynlee Heiman, Lorelei Olivia Mote, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Matthew Lamb, Essek Moore.
Based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Barbara Robinson, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever delivers a sentimental reminder about the true meaning of the holiday season.
Director Dallas Jenkins, a specialist in faith-based content best known as the creator of the popular crowdfunded series “The Chosen” about the life of Jesus, relates in the bonus materials that he had been pushing to adapt Robinson’s book for 15 years before finally getting his chance. He certainly makes the most of his opportunity.
The story is told with a Stand By Me-style flashback structure in which an adult reflects upon growing up, and thus is presented with the quaintness of a child’s memory. The setting is the 1970s in a small snowy town called Emmanuel, which is known for two things — an annual Christmas pageant, and a pack of six unruly children named the Herdmans who torment all the other kids and aren’t above arson and petty larceny when it suits them.
With the 75th anniversary of the pageant coming up, the local church group is under extra pressure to make it perfect. But when the woman who always arranges the pageant is sidelined due to injury, the task falls upon Grace (Judy Greer), who is determined to make the pageant the best it’s ever been simply because no one believes she can.
What she didn’t count upon was her son, after the Herdman’s steal his school lunch, taunting them by saying he gets all the snacks he wants at church.
This prompts the Herdman siblings to crash the church food drive and demand free cake, prompting the pastor to put them in Sunday School, where they learn about the pageant.
The eldest Herdman, Imogene (Beatrice Schneider), becomes intrigued by the idea of play-acting as someone else, as if it’s a pathway to erasing her family’s reputation. So she bullies all the other kids into not volunteering so that she can play Mary and her siblings can take all the other major parts.
It’s a premise that seems tailor made for slapstick, but Jenkins instead aims for something more heartwarming and sincere.
The other parents become horrified at the Herdmans’ involvement, convinced the pageant will be a disaster. They prefer to see the same stodgy pageant every year, the event having become more about community pride and the egos of the parents whose children are involved, obsessed with everything being by the book. Grace, on the other hand, has gained a fresh perspective on the story of the Nativity after the Herdmans question how an innkeeper could force a woman to give birth in a barn, so she continues to support their participation.
However, Imogene becomes wistful about the idea of being something more than a town menace, and begins to question if she’s worthy of playing Mary. In seeing Imogene’s willingness to learn about who Mary was, Graces’ daughter Beth (Molly Belle Wright), whose future self is narrating the whole thing, becomes convinced that the only way to make the pageant mean anything is for the Herdmans to be in it. As the town outcasts, the Herdmans even being in the pageant makes it a poignant parallel for the plight of Mary and Joseph it depicts, which Grace and Beth realize is the very point of what Christmas is supposed to be about.
Extras available on the disc and digital editions include seven-and-a-half-minutes of decent deleted scenes, a seven-minute blooper reel, the film’s trailer, and five featurettes with about a half-hour of behind-the-scenes material. These include an eight-minute “Director’s Diary” with Jenkins’ anecdotes from the set; the five-and-a-half-minute “Herding the Kids,” about the challenges of working with child actors; the six-minute “All About the Pageantry: Creating the Look,” about crafting the film’s costumes and production design to give it a timeless feel; the six-and-a-half-minute “Legacy of the Christmas Pageant,” in which the filmmakers and cast members look back on their own experiences being in Christmas pageants; and the seven-minute “The Least of These,” which delves into the inspirational messages of the movie.
The Blu-ray and DVD versions also include an insightful audio commentary with Jenkins and producer Kevin Downes.
The digital version from Fandango at Home also includes an exclusive five-minute “Directing The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” featurette.
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