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

It is the season to lounge on the sofa and demolish a packet of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a crop of new holiday movies aims to become part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, optimistically, on a good foot. This release is the sole 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band find themselves trapped in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the casual viewer, while fans will no doubt catch lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star cast a "panto".

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. You can guess their retort. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur 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 familiar story develops as the miserly Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There’s time for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he learns there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to pay back the remainder.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she encounters a man in a book store who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the required cozy feelings.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, despite the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but sweet, and good viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

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

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

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a mash-up of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but happily here’s a new offering in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—festive fodder.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher