Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the season to lounge on the sofa and devour a tin of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a crop of new holiday movies aims to become part of our holiday traditions—maybe even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the holiday mood, I marathoned as many fresh Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Kicking off, hopefully, on a good foot. This is the only 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The musical trio are trapped in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is amusing even for the non-fan, while fans will undoubtedly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not legendary, but is superb for fans and a positive start to the day.

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity cast a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has deceived him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their reply. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming 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.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor appears at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a budding festive ritual?

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 a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There’s time for a network's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. During her travels, she meets a guy in a literary haven who offers to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required cozy feelings.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The secret is out there, 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 endearing, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new offering in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher