Binge-Watching This Year's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the time of year to relax on the sofa and devour a box of festive treats in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a crop of new holiday movies aims to become part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a high. This is the exclusive 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The musical trio are stranded in the UK after finishing their world tour and must return 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 familial spark.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while devotees will certainly pick up on lots of references as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not legendary, but is great for devotees and a positive start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who are obliged to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a pantomime.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing 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 pantomime co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. One can imagine their reply. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming 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 highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

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

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who encounters Mr Sood, the latest spin on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

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

But after he gets 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 finds out there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to return the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she runs into a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, despite the persuasion of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The truth is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s understated but endearing, and perfect viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a dysfunctional American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in execution it’s really a combination of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but happily here’s a new addition in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher