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

‘Tis the season to lounge on the couch and consume a box of mince pies in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a crop of latest holiday movies strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the holiday mood, I binged as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

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

The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the non-fan, while followers will certainly catch 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 excellent for devotees and a good start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging star Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has deceived him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. One can imagine their reply. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming storylines, and the supporting actors is excellent, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor appears at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. 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 The Big Bang Theory’s 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 cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting 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 assigned to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she meets a man in a book store who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, in spite of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The secret is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping Christmas classics 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 concept, but in practice it’s really a mash-up of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher