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

It is the time of year to slob out on the sofa and devour a tin of festive treats in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

As always, a batch of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a vital public service to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the festive feeling, I binged as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, ideally, on a positive note. This is the only 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band find themselves stuck in the UK after concluding their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the casual viewer, while devotees will undoubtedly catch lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a celebrity tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. You can guess their retort. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some touching sub-plots, and the supporting actors is excellent, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who encounters 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 the director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative develops as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a significant issue when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him splurging the cash on a family trip to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she meets a man in a book store who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s understated but sweet, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering American family who come back together for the holidays—including other acclaimed actress 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 declaring: “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 combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new entry in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher