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

It is the time of year to lounge on the couch and devour a box of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a batch of fresh holiday movies aims to become part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a vital public service to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to get into the holiday mood, I watched as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a high. This release is the only 2025 title on a popular review site's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band end up trapped in the UK after finishing their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The banter between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while followers will no doubt catch lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

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 relatives who must sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

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

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older 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 fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. You can guess their retort. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer pops up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 familiar story develops as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a major broadcaster'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 (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he finds out there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the difference.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the setting—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 dispatched to a vineyard to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she runs into a guy in a literary haven who vows to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the necessary cozy feelings.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is very good too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

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

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering 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 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 unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new entry in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and highly entertaining—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: 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