Devouring 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to slob out on the sofa and devour a box of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a batch of fresh holiday movies strives to join part of our festive viewing—maybe even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the festive feeling, I marathoned as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a high. This film is the only 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stuck in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the non-fan, while devotees will certainly notice lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who will have to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. You can guess their response. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming storylines, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer appears at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 classic narrative progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a fellow in a bookshop who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is very good too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in practice it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher