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

‘Tis the season to relax on the couch and devour a tin of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a crop of new holiday movies strives to join part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a vital public service to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the holiday mood, I binged as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, hopefully, on a good foot. This film is the exclusive 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stuck in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will undoubtedly catch lots of references as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. You can guess their reply. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 classic narrative progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is lifeless—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall 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 error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to return the difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she runs into a man in a book store who promises to show her a festive Paris.

A commentator recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the persuasion of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is out there, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in execution it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher