Merry Christmas
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: March 3, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
With a cast of Scottish, German and French actors all speaking their own language, writer-director Christian Carion has fashioned a deeply moving and uplifting piece. Read full review
90
VarietyLisa Nesselson
A period drama marbled with humor, bold gestures and bittersweet consequences. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Joyeux Noël is gritty and disturbing with its extended scenes of war and destruction. It also is emotional, even a touch sentimental. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Though it's not the great film "Grand Illusion" is, and though it may strike some as a little schmaltzy, it still has some of that earlier film's deep feeling and empathy for soldiers trapped in the jaws of war and for the joys of Christmas--for believers and non-believers alike. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
It's a profoundly moving story of -- yes! -- the human spirit rising above horrible circumstances, and simultaneously a work of nostalgia for the gentlemen's war that marked the end, or the beginning of the end, of Christian Europe's world domination. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverMelissa Levine
But except for a few missteps, the movie is so beautifully and sensitively rendered in its particulars, in its characterizations of soldiers and officers, and in its dramatization of a nearly miraculous event, that the result is an affecting piece of cinema. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
The movie isn't perfect – Spielberg-slick, its power is sometimes dampened by melodrama that overstates its message – but it is compelling and thought-provoking and topical as hell. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
If audiences are hesitant to believe that the fraternization in this film really happened, it will be because of the storytelling, not the story. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle Smith
An intense but fairly brief battle scene near the start reminds us of the unique horrors of this war. But the hokey music played over it hints that the film is going to try too hard to touch us. And it soon does. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Its sentimentality is muted by the thought that this moment of peace actually did take place, among men who were punished for it, and who mostly died soon enough afterward. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It takes an extraordinary film on the order of Joyeux Noel to make it all suddenly vital, immediate and human. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It makes for a fascinating exploration of the human experience. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
For a few fleeting hours, they unlearned those lessons of childhood, laying down their arms to pick up their common humanity. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The overall saga is moving, the performances are first-rate, the production values (which do not rely on the usual cartoonish CGI effects) are strong, and Carion captures the special insanity of stalemated trench warfare with an unusual horrific flair. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Carion's cri de coeur is at once a historical chronicle, an ode to the European Community, and a not-so-veiled critique of a 21st-century war. Read full review
70
Village VoiceJessica Winter
Carion is no Jean Renoir, but he does strike an appealingly low key of tender, faintly goofy affinity between the combatants. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Joyeux Noël finishes up as no more than a garden-variety tearjerker, neatly packaged for Oscar candidacy. It's not hard to see why the French chose this inoffensive weepie as their nominee for best foreign-language film, when they might have had Jacques Audiard's far superior, if more difficult, "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" or Arnaud Desplechin's "Kings & Queen." Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The uncomplicated humanism of Joyeux Noël, with its Christmas message of peace, feels at once irrefutable and refreshing. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Based on a true story, the movie was nominated for an Oscar as best foreign film; some might castigate its unabashed sentimentality, but I found myself moved, especially when I recalled that this was supposedly the war to end all wars. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Though a painless time-passer, Joyeux Noël ultimately contributes little to the venerable anti-war genre beyond its curious message that to some degree, war is hell because it prevents soldiers from making really neat friends and pen-pals from different counties. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Merry Christmas is long and ponderous, but for a few moments, its heavy hand is refreshingly light and agile, and you feel something other than frustration. Read full review
63
PremiereKelly Borgeson
Joyeux Noel is no gritty war film; this is more of a Christmas miracle movie, full of melodrama. Carion juggles a large, multicultural cast, and few of the characters stand out; most are there to represent the types who pop up in your standard war-movie battalions. Read full review
60
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
The first two-thirds of Joyeux Noel are strangely inert, but the film ends with a moving and surprisingly sophisticated meditation on the definition of moral duty. Read full review
50
The New York TimesStephen Holden
If the film's sentiments about the madness of war are impeccably high-minded, why then does Joyeux Noël, an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, feel as squishy and vague as a handsome greeting card declaring peace on earth? Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
You can't go wrong with an uplifting, anti-war story like this, but director Christian Carion trowels on the schmaltz, and the movie's emphasis on Christian values actually seems to spell doom for solving today's conflicts with the Middle East. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
It's a heart-warmer, a well-meaning movie that sets out to wring a modern message (and preferably some tears) from a famous but largely forgotten moment in history. Read full review
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