Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to relax on the couch and demolish a box of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a poor film, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a batch of fresh seasonal stories hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—maybe even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Therefore, in a vital public service to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the Christmas spirit, I binged as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, hopefully, on a good foot. This film is the sole 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The popular band are stranded in the UK after concluding their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while devotees will undoubtedly notice lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is great for devotees and a positive start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their reply. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit tacky at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer shows up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a family trip 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 determine how to reimburse the difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she runs into a fellow in a bookshop who vows to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is very good too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The secret is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a bickering 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 opens by name-dropping holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “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 jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher