Publication Date: 11-30-2025

A Grand Ole Opry Christmas (2025) review

Dir. Clare Niederpruem

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★

As a purveyor of contemporary Christian cinema and animated films from lower-budget studios, my bandwidth for bad movies, while admittedly high, is pretty much capped with those two facets of entertainment. I tend to steer clear of the Hallmark Christmas Industrial Complex, for one, due to the overabundance of holiday movies I enjoy and still have yet to see, and the fact that a great number of critics, including Alonso Duralde, one of my favorites, tackles those pictures with more rigor and enthusiasm than I ever could.

Every now and then, a Christian Mingle or a Lost Holiday catches my eye, and I’ll carve out a two-hour block of my time to see the latest in network TV yuletide fare. I stumbled upon A Grand Ole Opry Christmas a couple hours before its Hallmark Channel premiere on Thanksgiving weekend. My love of country music compelled me to give it a whirl, low expectations and all.

While surely not the most rancid piece of holiday drivel likely to be released by the company (which averages approximately 30 new Christmas movies a year), A Grand Ole Opry Christmas did, more than once, made me recall what Hank Williams III once said about the storied Nashville institution: “the Grand Ole Opry ain’t so grand anymore.” These days, if you’re an artist with just a couple of notable records under your belt, you’ll be invited to perform on the Opry stage. And if you’re a company willing to make a feature-length advertisement for one of Music City’s biggest tourist attractions, you’ll surely be welcomed with open arms, especially if you’re willing to have more-than-one character remark about how the venue is “a special place” where magic and dreams come true.

Songwriter Gentry Wade (Nikki DeLoach), daughter of the late country singer Jett Wade (Rob Mayes) – one-half of the duo Winters & Wade – has a shot to perform one of her dad’s songs at the Opry, but doing so would bring up a plethora of terrible memories. She takes a seat in one of Opry’s church pews, which flashes her (and us) back to 1995, along with her lifelong friend, Mac (Kristoffer Polaha), a country music label executive who can spot talent but hasn’t bothered to learn the history of the medium. The two, inexplicable, wander around mid-1990s Nashville where Gentry is able to see her father again and learn why he decided to walk away from a global tour that would’ve continued to propel Winters & Wade into superstardom.

For us Sex and the City fans, Gentry and Mac’s relationship, while not very believable from a chemistry standpoint (the actors feel as if they’re on two different wavelengths and don’t generate many tender moments together), does echo that of Carrie Bradshaw and Big in the first half of the film.

If you’re a country music fan such as myself, you tolerate the storyline (which is pure hokum, if you couldn’t already tell) and stay for the abundance of cameos. Brad Paisley is the biggest name of the bunch, with multiple songs featured in the film, mostly when Winters (James Denton) & Wade are on stage. Awkward lip-syncing ensues when Paisley’s new Christmas ballads “Leave the Christmas Lights On For Me” and “Falling Just Like the Snow” play. Also in tow is Megan Moroney, Jamey Johnson, Drew Baldridge, and Mickey Guyton, and on the old school side, Bill Anderson, Rhett Akins, Pam Tillis, Suzy Bogguss, T. Graham Brown, and Riders in the Sky.

The contrivances predictably run amok. The narrative shift backwards to 1995 takes some getting used to, especially given the ludicrous transportation of Gentry and Mac in time. There had to be a more linear way to tell this story that didn’t involve anything more than framework.

Excluding a couple musical numbers, there is one solid scene, and that comes when Jett Wade must confront his singing partner about why he would rather skip a globetrotting tour and instead spend time with his wife and daughter. The conviction on Mayes’ face sells the scene from the jump, particularly when he asks an associate of his if his parents were present during some of the biggest moments of his childhood and how he’d remember those times if they weren’t. For a moment at least, A Grand Ole Opry Christmas gets to the heart of the material, but even when it’s playing things safe, as all of these movies do, it’s treacly, inoffensive, and entirely forgettable.

Starring: Nikki DeLoach, Kristoffer Polaha, Rob Mayes, James Denton, Shanon Lawrence Rita, Brad Paisley, Megan Moroney, Jamey Johnson, Drew Baldridge, Mickey Guyton, Bill Anderson, Rhett Akins, Pam Tillis, Suzy Bogguss, and T. Graham Brown. Directed by: Clare Niederpruem.