The Gold Rush (1925)

  This spans like three holidays so it's pretty good for this transition period between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Unless you are a godless heathen who already has a tree up.  You sicken me.

A gold rush brings prospectors of all stripes up to the harsh wilderness of Alaska to try their luck, including an intrepid Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin).  He faces starvation, attempted murder, frostbite, and heartache pursuing his dreams.

It is wild watching this movie from damn near a century ago portraying only a generation back.  It's set in 1898 which was less than 30 years from when it was filmed.  Imagine how modern they thought they were.  And now we're looking back three times as much distance and it seems insanely far away.  

Also, everyone in this movie is wearing real fur.  And there's a real bear.  Insane.  

Story-wise, this isn't great.  It's very simple, more a series of vignettes than a throughline.  The love story in particular didn't work for me.  The technical aspects of film-making and the setups of the physical comedy gags, however, are astonishingly good.  They are why Chaplin is so highly regarded despite being a d-bag.

The Criterion Channel has the restored 1925 version as well as the 1942 re-release Chaplin re-edited.