Binge-Watching This Year's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the time of year to lounge on the sofa and demolish a box of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a batch of latest Christmas films hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

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

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

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

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stuck in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the non-fan, while devotees will certainly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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 relatives who must sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star roped into a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His pantomime fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. You can guess their response. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching sub-plots, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story develops as the miserly Mr Sood is haunted by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster'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 (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he finds out there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to return the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the required warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a extended debate 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 efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s gentle but sweet, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning 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 real champions 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 eventually comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new entry in the packed genre of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: 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