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

‘Tis the season to relax on the sofa and consume a tin of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a batch of fresh holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the festive feeling, I marathoned as many new holiday releases as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, optimistically, on a positive note. This release is the only 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The musical trio find themselves stranded in the UK after finishing their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will certainly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is excellent for fans and a good start to the day.

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star cast a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s starring in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. One can imagine their response. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming side stories, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who encounters Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 develops as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

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

But after he is awarded an large festive windfall at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he finds out there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its main point—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the required cozy feelings.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a panel of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a dysfunctional American family who gather for the holidays—including other 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 stating: “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 mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new offering in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher