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

‘Tis the season to lounge on the sofa and demolish a box of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a selection of latest holiday movies hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to get into the holiday mood, I watched as many new holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a positive note. This is the only 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up trapped in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the casual viewer, while fans will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is excellent for devotees and a solid start to the day.

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity roped into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and older action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. One can imagine their response. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some great jokes, some touching side stories, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit cheesy at a different time, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator 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 filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a network's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—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 excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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 main point—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a man in a literary haven who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the persuasion of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

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

It’s gentle but charming, and good viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes 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 takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

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

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher