Binge-Watching This Year's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the time of year to relax on the couch and devour a packet of festive treats in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a selection of latest holiday movies strives to join part of our festive viewing—maybe even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I watched as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, hopefully, on a good foot. This film is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band are stuck in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “find their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the non-fan, while fans will no doubt notice lots of references as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is excellent for devotees and a solid start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who are obliged to sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their response. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer shows up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the modern take on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to pay back the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she runs into a guy in a literary haven who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is notable too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, regardless of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the guidance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s understated but charming, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing Christmas classics like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in practice it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a far-off wintery locale and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher