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

It is the time of year to lounge on the couch and devour a box of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a batch of latest holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—maybe 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 separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the holiday mood, I binged as many recent Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Kicking off, ideally, on a good foot. This is the exclusive 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the best 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 attempts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is amusing even for the uninitiated, while fans will certainly notice lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is great for fans and a positive start to the day.

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a "panto".

“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 Aladdin co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their reply. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching sub-plots, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer shows up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the latest spin on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by an actor from Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the spirits 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 regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

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

But after he receives an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to pay back the remainder.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. During her travels, she encounters a man in a bookshop who promises to show her a festive Paris.

A commentator recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s low-key but sweet, 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 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new entry in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—seasonal comfort food.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher