Marathon Viewing This Year's Christmas Films: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a box of mince pies in front of a great film, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a crop of new holiday movies strives to join 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).

So, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the Christmas spirit, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, ideally, on a good foot. This release is the only 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while fans will no doubt pick up on lots of references as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is great for devotees and a good start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who are obliged to sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland stars as a Hollywood star roped into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s starring in renowned British drama.

His pantomime co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their retort. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming storylines, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the start of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Could this be a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

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

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

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to pay back the difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to do a deal for a champagne business. En route, she meets a fellow in a literary haven who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts 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 panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in practice it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

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

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher