Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to relax on the couch and consume a tin of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a selection of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even finding a spot alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the festive feeling, I marathoned as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, ideally, on a good foot. This is the only 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band find themselves stuck in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while followers will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who must sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor cast a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. One can imagine their retort. Except if you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming storylines, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at a different time, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story develops as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts 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 compelling and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

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 raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a fellow in a literary haven who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required cozy feelings.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is very good too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The answer is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who reunite 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in execution it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, 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 saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher