Binge-Watching The Latest Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to relax on the sofa and consume a tin of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a crop of new Christmas films hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a high. This film is the exclusive 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stuck in the UK after concluding their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the non-fan, while devotees will undoubtedly 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 great for devotees and a solid start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who must sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their response. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming storylines, and the supporting actors is excellent, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the start of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the next movie straight. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters 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 the director of Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) convinces him spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to pay back the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she runs into a man in a literary haven who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Sixteen-year-old 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 reality.

The secret is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s low-key but endearing, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch 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 practice it’s really a mash-up of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—festive fodder.

It’s a narrative 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