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

‘Tis the time of year to relax on the couch and consume a box of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a crop of fresh Christmas films strives to join part of our festive viewing—potentially even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a positive note. This is the sole 2025 title on a popular review site's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The musical trio are stuck in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The banter between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while devotees will certainly notice lots of easter eggs as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is superb for devotees and a good start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 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 Hollywood star roped into a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. One can imagine their retort. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer pops up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the tight-fisted 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 unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she meets a guy in a book store who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is very good too.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

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

It’s understated but charming, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in execution it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

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

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher