Binge-Watching 2025's Christmas Films: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to slob out on the sofa and consume a packet of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a poor film, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a crop of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—maybe even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many fresh Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, hopefully, on a high. This release is the only 2025 title on a famous website's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will undoubtedly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who will have to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor cast a "panto".

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His pantomime fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their reply. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face shows up at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects 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 unfolds 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 distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

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

There’s just one snag—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the excess.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she runs into a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently claimed 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 obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

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 low-key but sweet, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a dysfunctional American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing 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 real champions of the holidays—moms.”

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but happily here’s a new entry in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher