Charity Christmas ads have a hard job in a season ruled by supermarket spectacle: they need the same emotional pull on a fraction of the budget, and they cannot hide behind a celebrity or a bag of shopping. Oxfam’s “The List,” created with Bristol independent Happy Hour and directed by Sasha Nathwani, takes the quiet route. It is a 90-second film about a nine-year-old boy, a Christmas list tied to a balloon and a housing estate that decides to answer it. It launched on November 9, 2026, across TV and digital, and the film is on Happy Hour’s official YouTube channel.
A wish list that is not what it seems
The story is simple. Neel writes his list at a small desk in his room, ties it to a balloon and lets it go from the balcony of his block of flats. The next morning the list is found, and the neighbours get to work: they sew, mend and dig through second-hand shelves to make or find each item on it. Members of Oxfam Tooting’s weekly Sewing and Sanctuary group knitted the scarf and the patchwork blanket that appear in the film, a nice piece of real-world casting that ties the story to the charity’s shops.
The whole film is built so you assume Neel is asking for himself. On Christmas Day the presents arrive, and he carries them next door to a young mum and her little girl. That is the reveal. A super then puts the story in a bigger frame, “Nearly half the world still live in poverty,” before the closing question: “If a gift could change the world, what would be on your list?” The call to action is a search for Oxfam The List, an interactive alternative wish list where people can ask for donations, Oxfam Unwrapped gifts, ethical products or pre-loved books, clothes and music.
Long lenses and real places
Nathwani’s direction is the film’s biggest asset. He has said he shot mostly on long lenses and watched from a distance so the story could unfold naturally, and you can feel that restraint. Faces are caught through doorways and across corridors, the palette is cold blue and concrete grey with small pools of warm lamp light, and the Loughborough Estate in South London is shown as it is, not dressed up as a Christmas card. A soft piano score does the rest. There is almost no dialogue, and the film does not need any.
Amraaj Dhiman is very good as Neel. The final exchange at the door works because he underplays it: a small, slightly shy smile rather than a big moment. The young mum’s reaction is held just long enough, and the little girl with the guitar gives the scene the warmth it has been saving up for 70 seconds.
Where it falls short
The problem is that the twist is not new. A child who seems to be waiting for presents but is really waiting to give one is a structure UK audiences know by heart, most famously from John Lewis’s “The Long Wait” in 2011, and Christmas advertising has leaned on it many times since. Happy Hour’s Matt Cooper argues the easy version would end with Neel opening his presents, and he is right, but the generous version is now almost as familiar. Anyone who has watched a few years of UK Christmas ads will see the door scene coming.
The bigger issue is the jump at the end. The film spends 75 seconds on neighbourly kindness on one estate, then cuts to a World Bank statistic about global poverty. It is a true and important line, but the story has not built a bridge to it. Mending a blanket for the family next door and fighting inequality around the world are both Oxfam’s business, yet the film treats them as the same idea and hopes the audience fills in the gap. The balloon also asks for a fair amount of goodwill: a list floats off and somehow reaches exactly the right people overnight.
The verdict
“The List” is honest, well cast and beautifully observed, and its refusal to wrap poverty in festive gloss makes it stand out next to this year’s big retail epics. The reveal is borrowed and the move from local kindness to global poverty is clumsy, but the film earns its emotion with craft rather than volume, and it gives Oxfam a clear, ownable action in the alternative wish list. A solid charity spot that is braver in its look than in its story.
Credits: Client: Oxfam (Head of Brand and Creative: Alya Al-Khatib). Creative agency and production: Happy Hour (Head of Creative: Matt Cooper; Account Director: Isobel Jarvis). Director: Sasha Nathwani. Cast: Amraaj Dhiman as Neel. Digital experience: Wholegrain. Media: The Kite Factory. Shot on the Loughborough Estate, South London, with Oxfam Tooting’s Sewing and Sanctuary group. Film: 90 seconds, also cut to 60 and 30 seconds. Credits per Oxfam, Happy Hour and LBB.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
