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

‘Tis the season to relax on the couch and demolish a box of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a selection of latest seasonal stories hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—maybe even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the holiday mood, I binged as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

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

The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after finishing their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while devotees will certainly notice lots of references as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not an all-time classic, 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 are obliged to sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

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

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their retort. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional British theatre traditions.

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

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

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 an actor from Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) convinces him splurging the cash on a holiday 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 devise a plan for how to return the difference.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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 core purpose—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a guy in a literary haven who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old 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 otherwise.

The truth is somewhere, and Chris sets out 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 anticipating Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in practice it’s really a combination of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher