Marathon Viewing 2025's Christmas Films: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to slob out on the couch and demolish a packet of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a crop of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our festive viewing—maybe even finding a spot alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Thus, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the Christmas spirit, I watched as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, hopefully, on a high. This is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stuck in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while devotees will no doubt notice 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 fans and a good start to the day.

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their response. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 familiar story progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited 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 unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

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

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to do a deal for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a man in a literary haven who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, in spite of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known figures.

It’s understated but endearing, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new addition in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—festive fodder.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher