Every year-end, there are heated debates about what is the “best …. of Christmas”, especially among those who work in finance.
Last year, Home Alone, Die Hard, and Love Actually topped the Christmas movie rankings as polled by the 2025 Deutsche Bank Global Markets Survey. This year, the bank returned to the even more contentious topic of favorite Christmas songs.
At a global level, the bank’s 2026 Year Ahead Global Markets Survey found that Wham! won again, while regionally, Mariah Carey took the crown in the US, Asia, and the Rest of the World with All I Want For Christmas is You. The full list is in the report.
For the record, Jim Reid – who compiled and published the survey – writes that his top three would have been Wham!, The Pogues, and Joni Mitchell’s River, a smooth progression from the tacky to the tasteful.
In his last note of the year, Reid also listed his favorite TV series, film, and album of 2025: we except it below (full report here)
- 1. Slow Horses – The best TV series in the world at the moment. Well, until Rivals comes back! I try to model my management technique on Jackson Lamb, if not my personal hygiene.
- 2. Dept Q – A bit like Slow Horses in that it involves a grumpy, rude police boss with a complicated past. He is of course a tortured genius and the show is gripping.
- 3. Blue Lights – A brilliant Northern Ireland police drama on its third series with no drop off in quality and heart.
- 4. Mobland – Helen Mirren and Piers Brosnan do terrible Irish accents in this trashy but fun mob drama. It proved a little light relief when we watched it as Liberation Day rolled through!
- 5. SAS Rogue Heroes – Dramatised true story about an incredible bunch of elite soldiers who seemingly played a big part in the outcome of WW
- 6. The White Lotus – I disliked series 1. Series 2 and now series 3 were great. Not at all like my holidays! Apart from the arguments.
- 7. Karen Pirie – A Scottish police heroine who doesn’t play by the rules but gets results.
- 8. The Newsreader – A homage to the 1980s. Clever Australian program that follows actual global news stories from the period with a fictitious news studio narrative in a period where TV hosts were the anchors of our lives.
- 9. The Studio – Comedies tend not to be very good but this is an exception. Self-deprecating look at the life of a Hollywood studio boss. Seth Rogan plays the character you’d expect him to play. Cringeworthily funny.
- 10. The Beast in Me – Clare Danes gives her usual tour de force and provides all the usual facial expressions to go along with it. A very tense psychological drama. I was a bit scared.
- 11. All Her Fault – Sarah Snook is the magnetic force in this drama about a missing 6 year old boy.
- 12. Black Doves – my wife is not a huge fan of Keira Knightley! So I watched while travelling. Enjoyable nonsense.
- 13. The Diplomat – more enjoyable nonsense I watched while travelling as my wife believed the first series was too absurd to continue with.
Reid’s favorite film of the year was “The Ballad of Wallis Island” which was “a life affirming, quirky movie, about a washed up folk pop star who gets booked to do a private gig on a small island at a house of a recluse who won the lottery and bought a place there. It’s very good.”
His favorite album was Florence and the Machine – Everybody Scream. A dramatic, orchestral, melodic, and confessional mini masterpiece
Finally, for those looking for some light Christmas reading (while escaping from kids or maybe in-laws), DB published its Ultimate Guide to Long-Term Investing (Available to pro subs) which is designed to help everyone put their long-term finances on the firmest footing, which should be a good New Year’s resolution.
More in the full 2026 Year Ahead Global Markets Survey
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