Star in the Night (1945)
Star in the Night is a 25-minute film that won an Academy Award for Short Subject. It's not hard to see why - despite a simple premise, it's sweet, clever, and surprisingly touching, even 75 years later. That's not to say it doesn't contain a few aspects that aged poorly - they cast a white actor as a Mexican character, and an Italian character's accent is comically bad - but if you can overlook these issues, it's remarkably progressive in several respects. The story is a modern (well, modern for 1945) retelling of the nativity in a motel in the middle of a desert in America on Christmas Eve. It starts with three cowboys riding across the desert at night. They're carrying a bunch of toys they just bought on a whim. Then, in the distance, they see a star. Not a literal star, mind you: a gaudy, light-up display advertising a model. The main character is the owner, who's having trouble getting the star to work. He meets a hitchhiker, and the two argue abou...