The story of The Christmas Martian
The Christmas Martian unfolds on the most magical night of the year, when a spacecraft carrying an extraterrestrial visitor touches down near a small Northern Quebec town. Two local children discover something extraordinary—a Martian named Poo Flower has crash-landed, and he's dropped his flying wand. What starts as a curious encounter transforms into something far more ambitious: the alien invites the children aboard for a whirlwind journey around the globe. It's a premise that sounds like it could've sprung from a Saturday-morning cartoon pitch, yet director Bernard Gosselin committed it to film in 1971. The plot doesn't concern itself with hard sci-fi logic or narrative restraint. Instead, it leans into pure imagination—the kind where a holiday becomes a passport to anywhere.
Behind the making of The Christmas Martian
Bernard Gosselin directed this 63-minute feature during an era when Canadian cinema was still finding its footing on the international stage. The film brings together a cast of Quebec-based performers including Marcel Sabourin in the lead role as Poo Flower, alongside Catherine Leduc, François Gosselin, Guy L'Écuyer, Roland Chenail, Paul Hébert, and Louise Poulin-Roy. What's notable is how Gosselin assembled a genuinely theatrical ensemble—several of these actors had roots in Quebec's vibrant stage community, which lends the film a performative energy you don't always find in children's movies. The production itself was modest in scope and budget, but that constraint seems to have shaped its peculiar charm. There's no record of major box office success or awards recognition, which perhaps explains why The Christmas Martian has remained so obscure for decades. It's the kind of film that might've played a handful of Canadian television slots during the holiday season and then vanished into the vault. Yet it's precisely that obscurity that makes it fascinating to rediscover now.
What makes The Christmas Martian stand out
I keep coming back to something that's hard to articulate: this film doesn't apologize for being strange. The IMDb rating sits at 4.5 out of 10, which tells you something about how contemporary audiences and critics have received it. Yet that low score almost misses the point. The Christmas Martian isn't trying to be a polished, crowd-pleasing family film in the Disney mold—it's a genuinely weird artifact of early-1970s Canadian children's television sensibility. Sabourin's performance as an alien who speaks to children with earnest wonder has a disarming quality; he's not winking at the camera or playing for laughs. The film takes itself seriously in a way that's almost refreshing. There's also something quietly subversive about a Christmas story that pivots away from religious or commercial sentiment entirely, opting instead for cosmic adventure and cultural tourism. The production design—the spaceship, the wand, the costumes—all reflect a budget-conscious approach that somehow enhances rather than diminishes the strangeness. It's not slick. It's handmade. And that matters.
Where to stream The Christmas Martian online
The Christmas Martian is currently available to stream on Disney+, which is perhaps the most fitting home for this oddball holiday relic. You can check the "Where to Watch" widget at the top of this page for the most up-to-date availability across platforms in your region. Disney+ has increasingly mined its vault for obscure and cult titles, making it a treasure trove for people hunting down forgotten films from earlier decades. If you're browsing Movie OTT to track where specific titles are streaming, you'll find that availability shifts seasonally—especially around the holidays when services refresh their holiday-content libraries. The Christmas Martian's presence on Disney+ suggests someone at the company recognized its value as a curiosity piece, even if mainstream audiences haven't embraced it.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Who directed The Christmas Martian?
Bernard Gosselin directed this 1971 Canadian film. Gosselin was a Quebec-based filmmaker working during an interesting period of Canadian cinema history, though The Christmas Martian remains his most memorable work today.
Q: What year was The Christmas Martian released?
The film premiered in 1971, making it over 50 years old. It's a product of early-1970s Canadian television and theatrical release sensibilities.
Q: Where can I watch The Christmas Martian?
The Christmas Martian is available on Disney+. Check the streaming-availability widget on this page for the most current information in your region.
Q: How long is The Christmas Martian?
The film runs 63 minutes, making it a brisk, almost lean family feature that doesn't overstay its welcome.
Q: Is The Christmas Martian based on a true story?
No—it's an original screenplay about a fictional Martian who befriends children on Christmas Eve. It's pure imaginative fiction, not adapted from any existing source material.
Final thoughts on The Christmas Martian
Should you watch The Christmas Martian? That depends on what you're after. If you want a conventionally heartwarming holiday film with polished production values and a guaranteed emotional arc, look elsewhere. But if you're curious about cult oddities, forgotten Canadian cinema, or the peculiar intersection of sci-fi and Christmas storytelling, this is worth your time. It's a film that doesn't quite work by modern standards—the pacing is strange, the logic is loose, the acting is theatrical to a fault. And yet. There's something genuinely charming about its refusal to be anything other than what it is. For completeness, Movie OTT covers streaming availability across hundreds of titles, so you won't have to hunt manually for where things are playing. The Christmas Martian deserves to be seen as a historical artifact, a window into how different filmmakers approached children's entertainment before CGI and market research took over the process entirely.
