Marathon Viewing The Latest Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and consume a packet of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

As always, a crop of new holiday movies strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

So, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the festive feeling, I binged as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a high. This is the only 2025 title on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band find themselves stuck in the UK after concluding their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is amusing even for the uninitiated, while fans will no doubt catch lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who must sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity roped into a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and older lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. You can guess their reply. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some touching sub-plots, and the supporting actors is excellent, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

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

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the modern take 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 familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “avoids Christmas.”

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

There’s just one problem—he discovers there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to return the difference.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she meets a fellow in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

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

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning Christmas classics like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “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 forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher