Watch Taika Waititi’s new Disney Christmas movie, in full

Russell Baillie

Arts & entertainment editor·New Zealand Listener·

20 Nov, 2025 10:15 PM2 mins to read

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Taika Waititi’s parallel advertising career steams on with another commercial in which the Kiwi director delivers something that looks and feels like a movie – Best Christmas Ever, his second seasonal short film for Disney.

As well as Disney, to which he has previous movies ties, past Waititi
international commercial clients have included Coca-Cola, Mountain Dew (in which he cast singer Seal as a seal), Sky TV in the UK, and American television network NBC in an ad which featured Donald Trump among many other of the channel’s then stars (see below).

At home, he’s directed and sometimes appeared in, notable ads for Air New Zealand, NZ Tourism, Steinlager, Waka Kotahi, and Vodafone.

Best Christmas Ever is Waititi’s second seasonal short for Disney short movie after last year’s The Boy and the Octopus. The new movie references to Toy Story and Lilo and Stitch, and features the voice of John Goodman who voiced a character in the Monsters Inc. movies.

Goodman voices a doodle which comes to life for a little girl after Santa misreads her Christmas wish-list.

“What makes this story uniquely Disney is the fact that it’s set in the world of a kid. It’s a kid and her new best friend, navigating the complex world together, and doing it just with the power of friendship and imagination,” Waititi said in a Disney statement.

The film’s blend of animation, kids, and an adorable creature follows a template set by his The Boy & the Octopus from 2024. That film had a few nods to past Disney films but one early shot looks like Waitit was paying tribute to the 1985 New Zealand movie, The Silent One. You can watch it here:

Back in 2012, having just made his second NZ feature Boy and still largely unknown in the US, Waititi was hired to make an epic musical promotion for NBC to screen during that year’s Superbowl. The casting and the making of the advertisement became its own story in Vanity Fair a decade later. You can watch it here:

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