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

It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a box of mince pies in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a crop of latest seasonal stories aims to become part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I watched as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, hopefully, on a high. This is the exclusive 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band end up stranded in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while devotees will undoubtedly pick up on lots of references as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. One can imagine their retort. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching side stories, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

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 The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an large festive windfall at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. En route, she encounters a man in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer 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 endearing, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping 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 real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in practice it’s really a mash-up of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally finds her strength.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new entry 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 picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher