Marathon Viewing This Year's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the sofa and devour a packet of festive treats in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a selection of latest seasonal stories aims to become part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the festive feeling, I watched as many new holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a high. This film is the sole 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves trapped in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the non-fan, while followers will certainly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star cast a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. One can imagine their retort. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer pops up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects Mr Sood, the latest spin on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he receives an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the excess.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to do a deal for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a guy in a book store who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, despite the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The secret is to be discovered, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s low-key but sweet, and perfect viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as old as time: An American woman journeys to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher