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

It is the season to lounge on the couch and consume a box of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a selection of new Christmas films aims to become part of our festive viewing—maybe even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a vital public service to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a positive note. This release is the exclusive 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will no doubt catch lots of references as they try to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older star Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. You can guess their reply. Except if you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the next movie straight. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to return the excess.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. During her travels, she runs into a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the persuasion of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The answer is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the expert help of a group of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but charming, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping Christmas classics like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in practice it’s really a mash-up of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally 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 formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher