Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a tin of festive treats in front of a great film, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a crop of latest seasonal stories strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

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

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a positive note. This film is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to declare they won’t get home until they “find their sibling bond.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland stars as a Hollywood star roped into a "panto".

“A panto-what?” 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 appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their retort. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming side stories, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters 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 visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

Before lunch for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—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 (played by Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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 main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to do a deal for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a man in a book store who promises to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

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

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

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 opens by name-dropping classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in practice it’s really a combination of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher