Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the time of year to slob out on the sofa and consume a box of mince pies in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a selection of latest Christmas films strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the festive feeling, I marathoned as many recent Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a high. This is the only 2025 title on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band find themselves stranded in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will certainly pick up on lots of references as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor roped into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. You can guess their reply. Except if you’re unfamiliar with traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer pops up at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Is this 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 stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

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

There’s just one issue—he learns there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to pay back the difference.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the background—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she meets a man in a book store who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

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

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in reality it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher