Your Webb movie critic was way off base this season — and actually, he’s kinda happy about that.

For months I’ve been predicting that the new Santa Claus action-comedy Red One was going to make a pile of money; but it pretty much flopped on opening weekend (a mere $34 million on a budget roughly six times that) — and critics trashed it. So at the last minute, I scrapped my plans and instead, I took a young friend to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

Wise move.

Compared to Red One’s dismal 33% at Rotten Tomatoes, Pageant — adapted from a beloved 1972 book that had already been filmed once for TV — notched a whopping 91%. That’s especially impressive considering that the film is so quiet, so old-fashioned, so unabashedly sentimental and so overtly Christian — I still can’t figure out how the heck they pulled it off.

Folks, this movie is an instant classic — a true heart-grabber: powerful, funny, convincing and utterly legit. Despite its simplicity and heart-on-the-sleeve approach, there’s scarcely a false note anywhere.

Robinson’s straightforward story involves a small town and its annual Christmas pageant; on the 75th anniversary of this well-patronized event — and in the sudden absence of its long-time director — a young mom volunteers to oversee the show, in which her own school-age kids will perform. At the same time, a virtually motherless gaggle of notorious troublemakers — the Herdmans — manage to get cast in all the major roles (Mary, Joseph, Angel, Wise Men). And this despite their fearsome reputation for setting fires, stealing lunches, smoking cigars and beating up classmates.

That’s really the entire plot, and in our chaotic modern world, its tensions and worries feel a bit subdued — perhaps even dated; but really, that’s part of the movie’s charm. Like so many emotions surrounding Christmas, there’s a strong note of nostalgia in the seventies setting — and the film’s production design has broadened this by occasionally invoking both the look and feel of the classic holiday movie A Christmas Story. (One early scene along a fenced-in alley looks for all the world like it borrowed a set right out of that 1983 gem.)

So that’s one reason this Pageant works. But truth to tell, the lion’s share of its success rests on the sturdy shoulders of a young actress named Beatrice Schneider; she plays Imogene Herdman, the tribe’s oldest child and de facto mother-figure.

Somehow this total newcomer manages to exude an utterly compelling blend of authority, menace and bravado, together with vulnerability, melancholy and a soulful yearning to see herself differently — to become, as it were, like the Virgin Mary, whom she will play in the show.

And for the record, when you see solid work by child performers — which is the case across the board here — you can look not only at the actors, but also the director. In this case, that would be Dallas Jenkins, who has had global success bringing the New Testament to vivid and authentic life in his hit series The Chosen.

That same aura of authenticity suffuses nearly every scene in Pageant. Aided by adult actors Judy Greer and Pete Holmes (as the directorial mom and her husband), the simple story moves forward with a self-assured dignity that is frankly amazing. In the hands of some lesser director, the whole thing could easily have come off as cloying, annoying and possibly even silly.

But the only whiff of artificiality arrives in the epilog, with the long-awaited appearance of Gilmore Girls’ Lauren Graham in what is essentially a cameo. By this time, the film’s potent emotions have done their work, and in the coda, the whole thing verges on overstaying its welcome.

But it’s nice to see how everyone turned out — especially the final notes about what happened to each Herdman later in life.

As for the movie’s handling of religious and spiritual matters: Jenkins manages this with the same guileless, unashamed simplicity he brings to The Chosen. In this case, it likewise recalls the conviction and power of Linus reading from the Bible in A Charlie Brown Christmas; since there’s nothing flashy or cutting-edge there, you can’t quite figure out why it works. But it does.

Not sure Best Christmas Pageant will assume the same classic status as that 1965 Peanuts program; but it comes close. Don’t wait for streaming; get your kids an early gift and take them all to see it.