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

It is the season to slob out on the couch and consume a tin of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a selection of latest holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—maybe even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the festive feeling, I binged as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Kicking off, ideally, on a good foot. This release is the sole 2025 title on a famous website's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stuck in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while fans will certainly notice lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland stars as a Hollywood star roped into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. You can guess their retort. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming storylines, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer shows up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative develops as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “avoids Christmas.”

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

There’s just one problem—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.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she meets a man in a bookshop who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the required warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The secret is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a dysfunctional 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new addition in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher