Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to relax on the couch and consume a packet of mince pies in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a selection of fresh holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—maybe even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a vital public service to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the Christmas spirit, I watched as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a positive note. This is the sole 2025 title on a popular review site's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The popular band find themselves trapped in the UK after concluding their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is amusing even for the non-fan, while fans will undoubtedly catch lots of references as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not legendary, but is excellent for fans and a good start to the day.

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star tricked into a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their response. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 familiar story develops as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted 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 sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to reimburse the difference.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. En route, she meets a guy in a literary haven who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is very good too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, regardless of the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

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

It’s understated but sweet, and good viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning 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 what this is, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher