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

It is the time of year to slob out on the couch and devour a tin of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a crop of latest holiday movies hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, optimistically, on a good foot. This is the only 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band end up stranded in the UK after concluding their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while followers will no doubt catch lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, 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 are obliged to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland stars as a Hollywood star cast a traditional British stage show.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has deceived 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 retorts. One can imagine their response. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching side stories, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor pops up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the next movie straight. Is this a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 well-known tale unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to reimburse the remainder.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the background—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she encounters a guy in a book store who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is very good too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The answer is out there, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer begins by referencing 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 practice it’s really a combination of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new addition in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher