Binge-Watching 2025's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to relax on the couch and demolish a tin of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a batch of latest seasonal stories strives to join part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics 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 find the holiday mood, I marathoned as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a good foot. This is the exclusive 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio are stuck in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is amusing even for the non-fan, while fans will no doubt pick up on lots of references as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who must sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their retort. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming side stories, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face appears at the start of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, 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 charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a significant issue when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There’s time for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

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

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the difference.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she meets 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 past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is very good too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Young 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 reality.

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

It’s gentle but charming, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

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

So that’s what this is, but in execution it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

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

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher