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

It is the season to lounge on the sofa and consume a box of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a selection of fresh Christmas films strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a vital public service to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the holiday mood, I binged as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a good foot. This is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The popular band are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while devotees will undoubtedly catch lots of easter eggs as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor cast a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older star Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. You can guess their retort. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming side stories, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the second consecutive movie. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s 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 sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a man in a bookshop who vows to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, in spite of the efforts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is out there, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s understated but sweet, and perfect viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

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

Pfeiffer begins by referencing classic festive films 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 premise, but in execution it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: 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