Devouring 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 poor film, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a crop of fresh Christmas films hopes to be part of our festive viewing—potentially even finding a spot alongside enduring classics 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.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, ideally, on a good foot. This film is the only 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stuck in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will undoubtedly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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 relatives who must sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor tricked into a pantomime.

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

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. One can imagine their retort. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming side stories, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor appears at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who encounters 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 the director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is notable too.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

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 otherwise.

The secret is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a group of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but endearing, and perfect viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 real champions of the holidays—moms.”

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new entry in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher