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

It is the season to relax on the couch and consume a tin of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a selection of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even joining the ranks alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a vital public service to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to get into the festive feeling, I binged as many recent Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, optimistically, on a good foot. This release is the only 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stuck in the UK after finishing their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the casual viewer, while followers will certainly notice lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is great for devotees and a good start to the day.

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a Hollywood star roped into a "panto".

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

His pantomime fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. One can imagine their response. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up Mr Sood, the modern take on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story develops 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 cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to return the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a fellow in a book store who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The secret is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s gentle but charming, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling 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 Christmas classics 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 the premise, but in practice it’s really a jumble of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as old as time: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher