Marathon Viewing This Year's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a box of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a batch of fresh seasonal stories strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—maybe even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a good foot. This release is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after concluding their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while devotees will undoubtedly catch lots of references as they try to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity tricked into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His pantomime fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their retort. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit cheesy at another season, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer appears at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the second consecutive movie. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters 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 miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to return the difference.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the background—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its main point—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a man in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, in spite of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s understated but endearing, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher