Binge-Watching This Year's Holiday Movies: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the season to slob out on the couch and devour a tin of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

As always, a crop of fresh holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the festive feeling, I watched as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, hopefully, on a positive note. This film is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stuck in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while devotees will undoubtedly notice lots of references as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is excellent for devotees and a good start to the day.

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the ensemble is excellent, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face shows up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There’s time for a network's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) convinces him splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to return the remainder.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a man in a book store who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

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

It’s gentle but sweet, and perfect viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering American family who reunite 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new entry in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher