No More Waiting: Let’s Roll Out the Festive Films

Now that Halloween is well behind us, the shops are suddenly full of lights and decorations and Christmas is in the air. The weather is getting steadily worse and the nights are drawing in, so there’s no point fighting it anymore. Just stick on a festive film and revel in winter: it’s time to inject some cheer, whether from a long-standing favourite or a fresh seasonal treat.

We really do mean “fresh” as well: the last few years have seen a host of new Christmas film and TV appearing under all our trees. For example, you could check out Last Christmas, written by and featuring Emma Thompson (Cruella, Good Luck to You Leo Grande). It stars Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, The Amazing Maurice) and Henry Golding (Monsoon) as a young couple who form an undeniable connection as he tries to encourage her past her Christmas cynicism – but they may be keeping secrets from one another. There’s a similarly romantic vibe to This is Christmas, where two young commuters played by Kaya Scodelario (The Gentlemen, Wuthering Heights) and Alfred Enoch (Harry Potter, The Critic) decide to throw a Christmas party that will bring together all their fellow travellers – if only they can inspire everyone to contribute in time.

The locomotive theme continues in the inventive Last Train To Christmas, where Michael Sheen (Good Omens, The Queen) time-travels by walking between carriages on his way home for the holidays, and figures out a way to change his life for the better as he moves up and down the train. And whatever it is about rail travel continues in Your Christmas Or Mine?, where two college sweethearts swap platforms at the station and each end up visiting the other’s family for Christmas. That stars Asa Butterfield (Sex Education, Flux Gourmet) and Cora Kirk (Midsomer Murders). There’s even a sequel, Your Christmas Or Mine 2, where the two families end up in the wrong holiday accommodation too for some charming Christmas laughs.

If you prefer to fly for the holidays, look to delightful animation like Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas, where Shaun must rescue his little cousin (and help save Christmas) in an Aardman favourite. Aardman also made Robin Robin, the story of a robin who wants to prove herself as, er, a mouse. Look, it all makes sense to her, and the fun cast includes Richard E. Grant (Withnail & I, Saltburn) and Gillian Anderson (The Fall, Scoop). And of course both build on the foundation of the studio’s Arthur Christmas, where three generations of the Santa family have to work together to make Christmas happen.

Or there’s The Night Before Christmas In Wonderland, where Santa – voice by Gerard Butler (Greenland, Plane) – has to save Wonderland from the Queen of Hearts (Emilia Clarke again), who has banned the holiday. That Christmas is a portmanteau tale about the inhabitants of a small town – and Brian Cox’s Santa – as they attempt to make Christmas work despite a horrific storm taking out all the power and most of the supplies. If you prefer something that really leans into the magic of the season, A Boy Called Christmas is a sort of Christmas origin story about elves, magical hidden lands and giving. It features Sally Hawkins (Submarine, The Lost King) and Toby Jones (Detectorists, Mr Bates vs. The Post Office).

If you don’t quite have time for a full movie, you could try the most Christmassy of the Doctor Who Christmas specials, Joy to the World, with Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education, The Roses) facing a time-travel mystery that comes to a poetic ending. Or if you’re a little more cynical, try Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, which essentially reverses Dickens’ original story when a kindly Victorian man learns the value of, er, being a bit of a Scrooge. Then, to experience your heart growing three sizes back to normal, play The Grinch: Christmas Adventures from Outright Games, and save (or steal) Christmas from Whoville.

Of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg as Christmas films go. We haven’t even mentioned classics like Love Actually or Scrooge: A Christmas Carol, or Christmas-set films like In Bruges, Carol or The Lion In Winter. If you like your turkey more like jerk chicken, try Aml Ameen’s (Kidulthood) romantic comedy Boxing Day, about a big-shot musical success coming back to his family for Christmas and reconsidering what he left behind. Or maybe you want to really lean into some existential despair, and flush it all out of your system, with Silent Night, where Keira Knightley (Black Doves, Pride & Prejudice) and Matthew Goode (Dept. Q, Belle) try to have one last perfect Christmas before the end of the world. After that, try to boost your spirits back up with Genie, the star-studded offering from writer Richard Curtis (Love Actually, Blackadder’s Christmas Carol) with Melissa McCarthy trying to help Paapa Essiedu’s (I May Destroy You, The Outrun) stressed out Bernard.

It's all Christmas-ier than a reindeer wrapped in tinsel and dancing on holly, quite frankly. However gloomy the weather or the news, and however stressful your own holiday preparations are, there’s something to watch here that will buoy your spirits and restore your faith in the season. Ho-ho-ho, merry Christmas to us all!