First World War · Christmas 1914
The Christmas Truce in Film, Music and Advertising
The Christmas truce of 1914 has been retold in a feature film, an opera, folk ballads, pop and heavy-metal songs, a supermarket advert, poems and plays. The best known is the film Joyeux Noël (2005). Here is what exists, and how close each comes to what the soldiers themselves wrote.
Which film tells the story of the Christmas truce?
The feature film is Joyeux Noël, written and directed by Christian Carion. It follows a French, a Scottish and a German unit on the same stretch of front, and each nation speaks its own language: French, English and German. Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann, Guillaume Canet, Daniel Brühl, Gary Lewis and Dany Boon lead the cast. Partners from France, Germany, Britain, Belgium and Romania made it together. It was shown out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In France it received six César nominations; in Germany it opened on 24 November 2005 as Merry Christmas.
Joyeux Noël (2005)
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How true is Joyeux Noël?
The framework is real. Carols across the lines on Christmas Eve, men meeting in no man’s land, the burial of the dead with a joint service, football, and an angry reaction from the commanders all appear in letters and diaries from 1914. The characters are invented, among them the opera singer and his partner who come to the front, and the film gathers on one stretch of front what happened in many different places. One change Carion made on purpose: by his account, a real cat that wandered between the trenches was arrested as a spy and shot. In the film it is only locked up, because the extras refused to act out the killing.
Other films and television
Television has returned to the truce more than once. The last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, ‘Goodbyeee’ (1989), recalls it as the men wait to go over the top. The Doctor Who Christmas special ‘Twice Upon a Time’ (2017) is partly set on Christmas Day 1914. A common mix-up: the TV film Silent Night (2002) with Linda Hamilton is not about 1914 but about Christmas Eve 1944 in the Hürtgen Forest.
Is there an opera about the Christmas truce?
Yes. Silent Night, with music by Kevin Puts and a libretto by Mark Campbell, is based on Carion’s screenplay. Minnesota Opera gave the first performance in Saint Paul on 12 November 2011, and in 2012 Puts won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for it. Like the film, it is sung mostly in English, French and German.
Silent Night – recording by Minnesota Opera
Songs about the Christmas truce
‘Pipes of Peace’ (1983), Paul McCartney: the video stages a truce in no man’s land.
‘Christmas in the Trenches’ (1984), John McCutcheon: a folk ballad told by an invented British soldier.
‘All Together Now’ (1990), The Farm: the Liverpool band’s song about the truce, its chorus set to Pachelbel’s Canon, reached number 4 in the UK. It later became a football anthem, and in December 2014 the Peace Collective re-recorded it as a charity single for the centenary.
‘Belleau Wood’ (1997), Garth Brooks: moves a truce story to Belleau Wood, which American readers know from a battle of 1918.
‘Christmas Truce’ (2021), Sabaton: the Swedish band released it as a single on 29 October 2021, followed by an animated video in December.
The Sainsbury’s Christmas advert (2014)
In November 2014 the British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s launched a Christmas advert made with the Royal British Legion. A young British soldier, Jim, and a German soldier, Otto, meet in no man’s land, play football and swap treats. A chocolate bar from the advert sold for £1, with 50p going to the Legion. The advert divided opinion. Some viewers found it distasteful to use the war to sell groceries, and 727 people complained to the Advertising Standards Authority. The authority decided not to investigate, because it judged the advert unlikely to cause serious offence.
Books, poems and plays
Carol Ann Duffy, ‘The Christmas Truce’ (2011): a long poem by the then Poet Laureate, published as an illustrated book with pictures by David Roberts.
Michael Morpurgo, The Best Christmas Present in the World: a children’s story in which a letter found in an old desk tells of the truce.
Phil Porter, The Christmas Truce (2014): a play first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, with the cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather among its characters.
The facts behind the stories
What the soldiers actually wrote, where the truce happened and what came after is on our page The Christmas Truce of 1914: what really happened
Whether there really was a football match is on Christmas truce football match: myth or fact?
The book: The First to Stand Up
The First to Stand Up – The Christmas Truce of 1914 and the Courage to Leave Our Trenches by Bernd Blasius tells the story of that night from the letters and records of the men who lived it, and asks what it means for the trenches we dig at our own tables.
Read a sampleMore about the book
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Sources
Checked on 1 November 2026.
- Wikipedia: Joyeux Noël
- filmportal.de: Merry Christmas
- Cinésérie: Joyeux Noël, l’incroyable histoire vraie qui a inspiré le film
- Wikipedia: Silent Night (opera)
- The Pulitzer Prizes: Kevin Puts
- Wikipedia: Christmas truce
- Wikipedia: All Together Now (The Farm song)
- Wikipedia: Silent Night (2002 film)
- Marketing Week: Sainsbury’s Christmas ad avoids ban despite 727 complaints
- Pan Macmillan: Carol Ann Duffy, The Christmas Truce
- Michael Morpurgo: The Best Christmas Present in the World
- Wikipedia: The Christmas Truce (play)