Devouring 2025's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to relax on the couch and consume a box of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

As always, a batch of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even joining the ranks alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the festive feeling, I binged as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, hopefully, on a high. This release is the only 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stuck in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while fans will no doubt catch lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not legendary, but is excellent for devotees and a positive 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

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor cast a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s starring in renowned British drama.

His pantomime cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their retort. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer pops up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the modern take 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 well-known tale develops as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she runs into a guy in a literary haven who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the attempts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s low-key but endearing, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling American family who reunite for the holidays—including other acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman goes on a quest to a far-off wintery locale and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher