Binge-Watching 2025's Holiday Movies: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to relax on the couch and consume a tin of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

Once again, a batch of fresh holiday movies hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to embrace the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, hopefully, on a positive note. This release is the sole 2025 title on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio find themselves trapped in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the non-fan, while devotees will no doubt pick up on lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who are obliged to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a traditional British stage show.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their reply. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit tacky at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the next movie straight. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There’s time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to return the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she encounters a guy in a book store who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The secret is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known figures.

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a dysfunctional American family who reunite 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 saying: “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 combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher