Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the time of year to relax on the couch and devour a tin of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

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

Therefore, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I watched as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

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

The popular band find themselves trapped in the UK after finishing their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the non-fan, while followers will certainly notice lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

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

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their reply. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming side stories, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

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 familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the spirits 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 regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch 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 £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a family trip to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to reimburse the excess.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a fellow in a bookshop who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the finest 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 heartwarming sensation.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 saying: “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 mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher