Devouring This Year's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

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

This year, a selection of new seasonal stories hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—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 noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the holiday mood, I watched as many new Christmas films 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 famous website's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after finishing their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will certainly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is superb for fans and a positive start to the day.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who will have to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor roped into a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. One can imagine their reply. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

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

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face pops up at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the second consecutive movie. Is this a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the modern take 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

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

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. En route, she meets a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the guidance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

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

So that’s the concept, but in practice it’s really a mash-up of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher