Binge-Watching The Latest Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to lounge on the couch and consume a tin of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a crop of fresh seasonal stories strives to join part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a vital public service to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the festive feeling, I watched as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a high. This film is the exclusive 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio find themselves trapped in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the non-fan, while fans will no doubt catch lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their retort. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming storylines, and the ensemble 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: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face pops up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who collects 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 the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted 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 regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money 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 return the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she encounters a man in a bookshop who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory 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 the reality.

The truth is out there, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known figures.

It’s low-key but sweet, and good viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new entry in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a tale as old as time: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher