Devouring 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the time of year to relax on the sofa and demolish a packet of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a selection of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside enduring classics 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 embrace the Christmas spirit, I binged as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, hopefully, on a high. This is the sole 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band are stranded in the UK after concluding their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “find their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will undoubtedly pick up on lots of easter eggs 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 solid start to the day.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit cheesy at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

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

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up 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 the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him spending the sum on a family trip 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 devise a plan for how to return the remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. En route, she meets a fellow in a book store who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the required cozy feelings.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s low-key but endearing, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering American family who gather 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 true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new offering in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher