Every toy brand at Christmas sells the same promise: this box will make someone happy. LEGO’s 2026 holiday film, “The LEGO Holiday Workshop,” adds a confession. The gift is so much fun that the people who made it do not want to give it away. Created by Our LEGO Agency and directed by Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman, Better Man) through Partizan and Loveboat, the 74-second spot went up on the official LEGO Group YouTube channel on November 5, 2026, set to Daft Punk’s “One More Time.” It is loud, packed and very well made. It is also, for most of its running time, a catalogue wearing a party hat.
One brick, many departments
The film opens on Daft Punk minifigures racing through the snow toward a tiny glowing yellow door, joined by F1 Academy driver Esmee Kosterman and a pair of Yetis. They are late for work. The door opens onto a neon portal, and from there we follow a single red 2×4 brick as it bounces through the workshop’s departments. Yetis blast it with ice in Northern Lights. Thor, Doctor Doom and Mystique charge it up in Heroes. Engineers and two unicorns give it race-car speed in Vehicles. In Music it floats above a Daft Punk show on an LED pyramid stage before dropping into a yellow LEGO gift bag.
The structure is a relay race, and it is a smart one for a brand with this many licenses. The brick is the baton, and every hand that touches it is a product line. Gracey keeps the camera moving and the cuts tight, so the handoffs feel like momentum rather than inventory. Framestore’s animation keeps the slightly stepped, drop-frame movement that makes LEGO films feel built rather than rendered, and the lighting in the Music department is genuinely spectacular. If you only watch the first 40 seconds, this is the best-crafted toy ad of the season.
The farewell is the real idea
The problem is that the first 40 seconds have no stakes. A brick getting more powerful is not a story; it is a montage with a power meter. The spot only finds its heart when the gift bag is ready to leave. A crowd of minifigures, a Yeti, a unicorn, E.T., KPop Demon Hunters’ Derpy Tiger and the NINJAGO Twin Titans line up to wave it off, and the mood flips from rave to send-off. It is a funny beat because it is honest. Everyone who has ever bought a set “for the kids” knows exactly what those faces mean.
Then the film cuts to a real living room. A girl starts to unwrap her present, there is a thump at the window, and the workshop crew is pressed against the glass, unable to let go. “One More Time” kicks back in and they join the family on the floor to build. The endline, “Give the joy of LEGO bricks,” lands cleanly. The live-action ending is warm and the squished-faces gag is the one image people will remember. It is also the only part of the ad that is about people rather than intellectual property.
Daft Punk, as a brand partner
The music choice is both the spot’s engine and its tell. “One More Time” is a perfect fit for a brand built on rebuilding, and LEGO does not hide that this is part of a wider Daft Punk partnership. That means the duo are not just on the soundtrack; they are on screen twice, first as the commuters and then as the headliners. It works as energy. It works less well as storytelling, because the Music department is the one stop where the brick seems to pause so a product can take a bow. Gracey even cameos as his own minifigure, according to LBB, which is a nice in-joke and another reminder of how crowded the frame is.
That crowding is the central trade-off. LEGO’s strongest ads, from the old “Rebuild the World” films to the quieter Christmas spots, have usually trusted one child and one idea. This one trusts a license list. Marvel, E.T., KPop Demon Hunters, NINJAGO, F1 Academy and Daft Punk all get their moment, and each one shrinks the space left for the brick to mean anything beyond “we have a set for that.”
The verdict
“The LEGO Holiday Workshop” is expensive, joyful and technically excellent, and its last 30 seconds contain a genuinely good Christmas idea: the best gifts are the ones you want to keep, so share them. The first 40 seconds, though, are a gorgeous sizzle reel for the licensing department. It will sell sets, and the window gag will earn its rewatches. It just takes a while to remember that the people watching are families, not franchise fans.
Credits: Client: The LEGO Group (SVP Global Brand Development: Remi Marcelli). Agency: Our LEGO Agency (Global Creative Officer: Carlo Cavallone; Senior Director, Global Creative: Genevieve Hoey), with Keep It Stupid Simple. Production: Partizan London and Loveboat. Director: Michael Gracey. Director of Photography: Erik Wilson. Editor: David Spearing. VFX and animation: Framestore. Color: Company 3 London (Dominic Phipps). Sound: OPM London. Music: Daft Punk, “One More Time.” Film: 74 seconds, official LEGO Group YouTube, uploaded November 5, 2026. Credits per the LEGO Group, LBB, shots and Campaign.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
