Devouring This Year's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to relax on the sofa and consume a box of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a crop of fresh seasonal stories strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even joining the ranks alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the holiday mood, I binged as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a high. This release is the only 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stranded in the UK after concluding their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the casual viewer, while followers will undoubtedly catch lots of references as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor roped into a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His pantomime co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their reply. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer pops up at the outset 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 musical taxi operator who encounters Mr Sood, the modern take 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 filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale 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 South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—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) talks him into blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. During her travels, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The answer is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning holiday staples 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 practice it’s really a mash-up of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

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