Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to slob out on the sofa and demolish a tin of festive treats in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a batch of new holiday movies aims to become part of our festive viewing—maybe even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

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

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, hopefully, on a positive note. This film is the sole 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

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

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

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

His Aladdin fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their retort. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming storylines, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face pops up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects Mr Sood, the newest interpretation on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by an actor from Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts 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 unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

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

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he learns there was an error 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.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she runs into a man in a book store who vows to show her a festive Paris.

A commentator recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary cozy feelings.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, regardless of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

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

It’s gentle but sweet, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother 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 holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a mash-up of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher