Marathon Viewing This Year's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the time of year to slob out on the sofa and consume a box of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a selection of new Christmas films aims to become part of our holiday traditions—potentially even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the holiday mood, I watched as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a good foot. This film is the only 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 concluding their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the casual viewer, while devotees will no doubt pick up on lots of references as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity tricked into a pantomime.

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

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. You can guess their response. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some very funny lines, some touching sub-plots, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor appears at the start of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters 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 well-known tale progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is visited 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 distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he learns there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she encounters a man in a book store who offers to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The answer 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 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 come back together for the holidays—including other acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning 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 unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new offering in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher