Devouring The Latest Holiday Movies: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

‘Tis the time of year to relax on the couch and devour a tin of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a poor film, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a crop of fresh holiday movies hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even earning a place 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 embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a high. This film is the only 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band are trapped in the UK after finishing their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The banter between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while followers will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star cast a "panto".

“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 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 retorts. You can guess their retort. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

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

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the spirits 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 regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum 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 figure out how to pay back the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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 raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to do a deal for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a fellow in a literary haven who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, despite the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The answer is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer begins by referencing 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 unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher