Devouring 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to slob out on the couch and demolish a box of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a crop of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—potentially even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I watched as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a good foot. This is the only 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The musical trio find themselves stranded in the UK after concluding their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an evil Santa, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while fans will no doubt notice lots of references as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star cast a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. You can guess their retort. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some touching side stories, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects 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 the director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative develops as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited 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 sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is lifeless—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

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

But after he receives an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a family trip 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 figure out how to return the difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. During her travels, she meets a fellow in a literary haven who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

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 otherwise.

The secret is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a team 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 head of a quarrelling American family who gather 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher