Binge-Watching 2025's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and consume a tin of festive treats in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a crop of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—maybe even joining the ranks alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Thus, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the holiday mood, I marathoned as many recent Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

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

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while fans will no doubt notice lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not legendary, but is excellent for devotees and a solid start to the day.

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

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

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. One can imagine their retort. Except if you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching storylines, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor pops up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 familiar story develops 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 distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

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

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) convinces him spending the sum on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the background—Christmas is the scene 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 dispatched to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she encounters a man in a book store who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the obligatory 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, regardless of the attempts 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 assistance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative 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