National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) poster
1983 · comedy

National Lampoon's Vacation

Directed by Harold Ramis1h 39m1983
ElsewhereIMDb7.3127kRT94%Metacritic55TMDB7.12k
  • cosy
  • brisk
  • gentle
  • redemptive
  • intimate
  • funny
Movie DNA

Cosy, kinetic, gentle comedy, grounded in texture. Redemptive, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Clark Griswold is on a quest to take his family to the Walley World theme park for a vacation, but things don't go exactly as planned.

Our read · National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) reads as a cosy, kinetic, grounded comedy entry — gentle in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, redemptive in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
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The shape of National Lampoon's Vacation

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want classic disaster-road-trip laughs and Chevy Chase at peak exasperation.

ends bittersweetyou’ll be fine aftersteady all the waygrips by minute 3attention 2/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upnudityanimal harmcringe humiliation

Skip it tonightYou are squeamish about dead animals, skinny-dipping, or mean-spirited family chaos.

If National Lampoon's Vacation is your film
DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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