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

‘Tis the time of year to lounge on the sofa and devour a tin of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

Once again, a crop of new holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a vital public service to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into 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 positive note. This film is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up trapped in the UK after concluding their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “find their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while followers will undoubtedly pick up on lots of references as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. You can guess their retort. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts 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 sadly he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) convinces 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 devise a plan for how to return the difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a guy in a literary haven who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Sixteen-year-old 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 sets out to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known figures.

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including other acclaimed actress 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in practice it’s really a jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher