Marathon Viewing This Year's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to slob out on the sofa and consume a tin of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a crop of fresh Christmas films hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I watched as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a positive note. This is the exclusive 2025 title on a famous website's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band are trapped in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while devotees will no doubt catch lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who will have to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. One can imagine their reply. Except if you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit cheesy at another season, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the modern take 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 the director of Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There’s time for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he receives an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its main point—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. En route, she encounters a guy in a book store who promises to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is notable too.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s gentle but charming, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling American family who gather 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a mash-up of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher