Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to slob out on the couch and devour a tin of mince pies in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a batch of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the festive feeling, I marathoned as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, ideally, on a good foot. This film is the exclusive 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band are trapped in the UK after finishing their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly catch lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is superb for devotees and a positive start to the day.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who are obliged to sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a Hollywood star tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. One can imagine their response. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit cheesy at a different time, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer shows up at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to return the difference.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she encounters a fellow in a bookshop who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the necessary cozy feelings.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, despite the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The truth is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s low-key but charming, and perfect viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before declaring: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new addition in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

It’s a narrative as old as time: 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