Devouring 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the time of year to lounge on the couch and demolish a tin of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a crop of fresh holiday movies aims to become part of our seasonal watchlist—maybe even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the holiday mood, I marathoned as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, hopefully, on a high. This release is the exclusive 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band find themselves stranded in the UK after finishing their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the non-fan, while fans will no doubt pick up on lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is superb for devotees and a solid start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. One can imagine their retort. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming side stories, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the next movie straight. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 unfolds 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 unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

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

But after he receives an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a man in a bookshop who offers 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 exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the required cozy feelings.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The truth is out there, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a dysfunctional American family who reunite for the holidays—including other 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher