Devouring 2025's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to slob out on the couch and consume a box of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a selection of fresh Christmas films hopes to be part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

So, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to embrace the festive feeling, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, ideally, on a good foot. This is the sole 2025 title on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio are trapped in the UK after concluding their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the non-fan, while devotees will no doubt pick up on lots of easter eggs 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 loved ones who must sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a pantomime.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and older star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their retort. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming side stories, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face appears at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Is this a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters Mr Sood, the modern take 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 familiar story unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least different from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he discovers there was an error 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.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the background—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 sent to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the required cozy feelings.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known figures.

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling 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 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 premise, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new addition in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and highly entertaining—festive fodder.

It’s a tale as old as time: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher