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

It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a tin of festive treats in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a selection of latest Christmas films strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

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

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a positive note. This is the exclusive 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stranded in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to announce 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 no doubt catch lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is great for fans and a positive start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. You can guess their reply. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

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

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer shows up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the latest spin on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by an actor from Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the stingy 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 captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a family trip 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 devise a plan for how to pay back 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 setting—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its main point—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a fellow in a literary haven who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is very good too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, despite the attempts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

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

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping Christmas classics 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 what this is, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally 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 packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

It’s a story 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