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

It is the time of year to slob out on the couch and demolish a box of mince pies in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a batch of latest Christmas films strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

So, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many new holiday releases as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

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

The musical trio find themselves stuck in the UK after finishing their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while fans will certainly pick up on 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 an all-time classic, but is great for devotees and a good start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. One can imagine their response. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some heartwarming side stories, and the rest of the cast 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.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor pops up at the outset 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 singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

Before lunch for a major broadcaster'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 (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he learns there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to pay back the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations 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.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she meets a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator recently claimed this is the best 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 required warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, regardless of the attempts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including other 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in practice it’s really a mash-up of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher