Devouring This Year's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the time of year to relax on the sofa and demolish a tin of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a crop of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—maybe even joining the ranks alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the holiday mood, I marathoned as many fresh Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, hopefully, on a good foot. This film is the exclusive 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band are trapped in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the non-fan, while followers will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not legendary, but is great for fans and a solid start to the day.

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor cast a "panto".

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has deceived him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their reply. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit tacky at a different time, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer pops up at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a budding festive ritual?

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 the director of Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “avoids Christmas.”

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

There’s just one snag—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to pay back the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the background—Christmas is the environment 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 dispatched to a country estate to do a deal for a champagne business. During her travels, she meets a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the necessary cozy feelings.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, in spite of the attempts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s low-key but sweet, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a dysfunctional American family who come back together for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee 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 the concept, but in execution it’s really a mash-up of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher