Christmas movies: The best festive films for 2016

published 22 November 2016

As the year comes to a close and the nights draw in, the film studios bring out their big guns to woo the crowds. Our list of the top films is designed to keep everyone entertained, whether you're a sci-fi buff, a romance junkie, a historical adventure enthusiast or a lover of black comedy.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

The second in a series of annual releases from the Star Wars franchise, Rogue One is a stand-alone "anthology" film that takes place in the Star Wars universe but follows characters who are not part of the central narrative. Felicity Jones and Diego Luna star as Rebel Alliance fighters on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's ultimate weapon of mass destruction. With Riz Ahmed, Forest Whitaker, Mads Mikkelsen and Ben Mendelsohn as the sinister Orson Krennic, the director of advanced weapons research for the Imperial Military.

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Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt star in this highly-anticipated sci-fi epic. They play Jim and Aurora, two space commuters accidentally released from their hibernation pods 30 years into a 120-year journey to establish a colony on a faraway planet. The two fall for each other and face spending the rest of their lives on board until they discover the ship is malfunctioning. Along with a robot bartender played by Michael Sheen, Jim and Aurora must try to save themselves and the 5,000 sleeping passengers on board.

There are plenty of Christmas-themed hi-jinks in this comedy starring Jennifer Aniston as a Scrooge-like chief executive who tries to shut down the branch office of her hard-partying brother Clay (TJ Miller). Chief technical officer Josh (Jason Bateman) attempts to rally his co-workers into hosting an epic office Christmas party in an effort to land a big client who will save their jobs. Predictably, the party gets way out of hand. Co-stars Kate McKinnon, Olivia Munn and Jamie Chung.

This is definitely not a family film, but one to cheer those who find the holiday season cloyingly sentimental. Bad Santa 2 is a follow-up to the 2003 cult hit starring Billy Bob Thornton as foul-mouthed, hard-drinking misanthropic department store Santa Willy Soke, who teams up with his ill-tempered helper Marcus to rob a charity on Christmas Eve. Co-stars Kathy Bates, Tony Cox and Christina Hendricks.

Justin Kurzel's much-awaited adaptation of the historical adventure video game is set in the same universe as the Creed games but features an original story. Michael Fassbender stars as career criminal Callum Lynch, who is rescued from a death sentence by a mysterious corporation that forces him to participate in a scientific programme, where he relives memories of an ancestor who lived during the Spanish Inquisition. Lynch's memories reveal the story of an age-old conflict between the Order of Templars and the Assassins and the role he must play in the ongoing struggle.

A splash of sunshine to warm up the chilly New Year period, this charming musical romantic comedy stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as star-struck hopefuls in Tinseltown. The film conjures up a bygone era of song, dance and romance, with its bittersweet tale of aspiring actress Mia (Stone) and old-school jazz musician Sebastian (Gosling), who fall in love but struggle to reconcile their romantic ideas with their ambitions.