Binge-Watching This Year'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 festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a selection of new holiday movies aims to become part of our festive viewing—potentially even finding a spot alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I marathoned as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a high. This release is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The musical trio end up stranded 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 breaks into song to state 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 followers will no doubt catch lots of easter eggs as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is great for fans and a positive start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who must sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity tricked into a "panto".

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer shows up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator 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 haunted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to pay back the remainder.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

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

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. During her travels, she meets a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is very good too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, despite the attempts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a dysfunctional 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 unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in reality it’s really a mash-up of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new offering in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as old as time: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher