Marathon Viewing This Year's Festive Features: 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 terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.
As always, a crop of latest seasonal stories strives to join part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).
Thus, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the holiday mood, I binged as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.
Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie
Beginning, optimistically, on a positive note. This film is the exclusive 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.
The Jonas Brothers are stuck in the UK after finishing their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”
The banter between the arguing trio is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees 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 a timeless masterpiece, but is superb for fans and a positive start to the day.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who must sit through it.
8.45am - Tinsel Town
Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity cast a traditional British stage show.
“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.
His Aladdin co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional British theatre traditions.
There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the ensemble is excellent, too.
It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit naff at another season, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄
Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma
An actor shows up at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Could this be a budding festive ritual?
This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who encounters Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 classic narrative unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.
This South Asian reinterpretation is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a problem when he’s so the focal point.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Noon: A BBC Special
Before lunch for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “avoids Christmas.”
But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.
There’s just one issue—he finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to reimburse the remainder.
Fun while it lasts but not lasting.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄
A Classy Netflix Romance
This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.
High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to do a deal for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a fellow in a literary haven who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.
A critic recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance 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: 🎄🎄🎄
3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas
Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.
The secret is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.
It’s understated but endearing, and perfect viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄
4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.
Pfeiffer begins by referencing Christmas classics 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 what this is, but in reality it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last takes center stage.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret
The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.
It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.
In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
