Devouring This Year's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a packet of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a selection of fresh seasonal stories hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—potentially even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I binged as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a positive note. This release is the only 2025 title on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves trapped in the UK after concluding their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while followers will certainly pick up on lots of easter eggs 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 devotees and a solid start to the day.

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their response. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer shows up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 well-known tale unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future, 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 charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the remainder.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a fellow in a bookshop who vows to show her Christmas in 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 Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is notable too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The truth is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known figures.

It’s gentle but sweet, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a dysfunctional 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 classic festive films 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 the concept, but in reality it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher