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

It is the time of year to lounge on the sofa and demolish a tin of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a batch of latest holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

So, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the festive feeling, I marathoned as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, ideally, on a good foot. This film is the sole 2025 title on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The musical trio find themselves trapped in the UK after finishing their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the uninitiated, 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 great for fans and a good start to the day.

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

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

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

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

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

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

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative unfolds 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 South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

Before lunch for a network's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him splurging the cash on a family trip 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 figure out how to pay back the remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she encounters a fellow in a bookshop who promises to show her a festive Paris.

A commentator recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication 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, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The secret is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a bickering American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the unsung 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 at last takes center stage.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—festive fodder.

It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher