Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the time of year to lounge on the sofa and demolish a box of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

As always, a selection of fresh holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I binged as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a good foot. This film is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band are stuck in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while fans will undoubtedly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they endeavor 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.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor cast a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their response. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some great jokes, some touching side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor pops up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters 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 classic narrative unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the apparitions 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 unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a network's original festive film—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 (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The secret is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s gentle but sweet, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in execution it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as old as time: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher