The best Christmas film of 2025 has arrived on Netflix and is already the most watched in the world, in 92 countries

A London department store is getting ready for the busiest night of the year, with full windows and crowded aisles. It is in this scenario that “Happy Heist!”, directed by Michael Fimognari and starring Olivia Holt, Connor Swindells and Lucy Punch, presents the unlikely alliance between two exploited workers who decide to turn their own workplace into the target of a Christmas robbery, balancing the urgent need for money with a risky attempt to regain some dignity.

Sophia sells perfumes and bags listening to increasingly unrealistic goals. She agrees to double shifts, cover for colleagues, smile at hostile customers, because she needs to pay rent and outstanding debts. Nick installs the store’s security system, spends nights messing with cables and codes, and trusts that he will be paid at the end of the job. When he discovers that he was simply ignored by his boss, he realizes that the entire job has turned into a default. They both reach the same practical and emotional conclusion: they were treated as disposable.

The decision to rob the store first comes as an outburst, almost a fantasy said out loud at the end of a shift. As they talk, however, the idea begins to take shape as a plan. Sophia knows the flows of the house, knows which doors are unlocked, at what times managers disappear for meetings and when stock remains most vulnerable. Nick masters the newly installed camera panel and alarms. Each has a piece of the puzzle. The motivation is clear, the obstacle too: neither of them has real experience with crimes.

The film then takes on the procedural axis. There are outlined steps, schedules, tests and discrete rehearsals in the middle of the routine. They decide to take advantage of the chaos of Christmas Eve, when the intense movement, the crowded carts and the loud music make any strict inspection difficult. To do this, they need to secure a getaway car, discover the best exit route, manipulate some cameras and, above all, hide what they are doing from colleagues and family. Each test reveals a new flaw. A door won’t open, a sensor beeps, an employee shows up at the wrong time.

As the plan gets complicated, the relationship between the two grows closer. The film works on the romance as a consequence of the crime in the making. Trust becomes as important an element as the security system codes. Sophia wonders how much she can believe in a man who lives on improvisation and technical promises. Nick is hesitant to commit to a partner who ultimately has more to lose if everything goes wrong. The conversations between them alternate between irony, seduction and small confessions about fear of failing again.

Michael Fimognari’s direction makes discreet choices to show this process. Planning scenes take place in tight spaces, such as warehouses, service corridors, narrow staircases. It is there that they decide on the details of the coup, always surrounded by boxes, hangers and equipment that remind them of the origins of the revolt. On the store floors, the colors are warm, the lights are bright, and the sound of Christmas jingles fills the environment. The more advertisements promise happiness and consumption, the clearer the contrast with frozen wages and job insecurity becomes.

Lucy Punch plays the boss who concentrates the story’s dislike. She only shows affection to important clients and investors, demands results in public and invents justifications for delaying payments. The character makes decisions that push the protagonists towards theft, denying minimal recognition or any reparation. At the same time, her constant presence in the environment creates a concrete risk: she moves around the sectors, asks questions, looks at reports, monitors sales figures. Any flaw in Sophia or Nick’s behavior could arouse suspicion prematurely.

The point of greatest dramatic risk occurs when external oversight appears by surprise, and the plan must be maintained or abandoned in a matter of minutes. Sophia is in the store, surrounded by customers and attentive supervisors. Nick is near the security panel, with access to footage that could give them away. They need to decide whether to move forward anyway, definitively compromising their own future, or whether to retreat, accepting the financial and moral loss. The film dedicates time to this hesitation, showing the expressions, the looks, the weight of the choice.

From a humor standpoint, “Happy Heist!” bets on awkward situations and small inversions of power. Employees discreetly mock the boss, demanding customers stumble, alarms go off at the wrong time. The jokes are rarely cruel, which keeps the film in a safe zone. When the script approaches a more acute criticism of precarious work, it takes a few steps back, inserts a joke, a witty phrase, a romantic situation. The result preserves the lightness expected of a Christmas comedy, but does not always take advantage of the material’s dramatic potential.

The romance between Sophia and Nick works best when it is anchored in class details. She knows how much each piece in the store costs in hours of her own labor. He calculates how much he lost due to the default and imagines how many home repairs he could pay for. Declarations do not appear in major speeches. They appear in brief sentences, in observations about customers who don’t look at employees, in comments about sleepless nights. When the two laugh together at an absurdity, the viewer understands that this complicity is as important as the money for the robbery.

In the end, the film balances predictability and curiosity. The viewer recognizes the structure of a Christmas romantic comedy, with its meetings, disagreements and moderate lessons, but also finds the portrait of a duo who decide to act against a concrete injustice, even if in the wrong direction. The store continues to shine, the windows remain full, the system continues to favor those in charge. What changes, at least that night, is the decision of two anonymous faces not to accept the role of decoration in the Christmas scene.