Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the time of year to lounge on the sofa and demolish a packet of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a selection of fresh seasonal stories hopes to be part of our festive viewing—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a high. This film is the exclusive 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the non-fan, while devotees will no doubt notice lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

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

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their reply. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some very funny lines, some touching storylines, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor pops up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the latest spin on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to return the remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the scene 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 dispatched to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she encounters a fellow in a bookshop who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s understated but charming, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who reunite for the holidays—including other acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning Christmas classics 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 the concept, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as old as time: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher