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The 20 best Christmas movies of all time – readers' picks

What did Monitor readers choose as the best Christmas movie (or TV special) of all time?

15. 'The Nativity Story'

Jaimie Trueblood/New Line Cinema/AP
'The Nativity Story' stars Oscar Isaac (l.) and Keisha Castle-Hughes.

  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

The 2006 film directed by Catherine Hardwicke is a live-action version of the story of the birth of Jesus, with "Whale Rider" actress Keisha Castle-Hughes starring as Mary, "Inside Llewelyn Davis" actor Oscar Isaac as Joseph, and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Elizabeth, Mary's cousin and the mother of John the Baptist. The movie relates the Biblical story from Mary being told that she will give birth to Jesus to Joseph and Mary escaping with their baby to Egypt.

Actor Ciarán Hinds, who portrayed King Herod in the film, later starred as Julius Caesar on the HBO TV series "Rome."

Hardwicke told Cinema Blend she was fascinated when she found out that some posit Mary's age at the time of Jesus's birth to have been 13 or 14.

"What if any of my nieces or anyone that I know was put into the circumstance where everybody else scorned them, nobody believed them?" Hardwicke said. "It just started drawing me in. I just wanted to explore that like what would it feel like to be going through this journey, this amazing journey, and how do you find that inner faith to continue?"

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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