Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a packet of festive treats in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a selection of new Christmas films strives to join part of our festive viewing—maybe even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

So, in a vital public service to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the Christmas spirit, I binged as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, hopefully, on a good foot. This film is the sole 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band find themselves stranded in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “find their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while followers will undoubtedly pick up on lots of references as they try to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

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

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their retort. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching side stories, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer shows up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up 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 classic narrative unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a family trip 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 devise a plan for how to reimburse the remainder.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to do a deal for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a man in a book store who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Sixteen-year-old 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 to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s understated but endearing, and perfect viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 premise, but in practice it’s really a combination of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last takes center stage.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher