Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

‘Tis the season to relax on the couch and devour a packet of festive treats in front of a great film, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a selection of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a vital public service to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the holiday mood, I marathoned as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a positive note. This is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band end up stranded in the UK after concluding their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while followers will undoubtedly notice lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. One can imagine their response. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming storylines, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit naff at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the modern take 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 well-known tale unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

Before lunch for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the background—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. During her travels, she runs into a man in a literary haven who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

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 (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known figures.

It’s understated but charming, and ideal 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 come back together for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress 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 comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman goes on a quest to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher