Marathon Viewing This Year's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

‘Tis the season to relax on the sofa and devour a box of festive treats in front of a great film, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a crop of fresh Christmas films strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the Christmas spirit, I watched as many fresh Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, optimistically, on a good foot. This release is the exclusive 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band are trapped in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to declare they won’t get home until they “find their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while followers will no doubt pick up on lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity roped into a traditional British stage show.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His pantomime fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their response. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching storylines, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up 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 well-known tale develops as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling 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 holiday special—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) convinces him splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she meets a guy in a book store who promises to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The truth is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a bickering 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 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 unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher