Devouring 2025's Holiday Movies: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the season to slob out 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 crop of fresh holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—potentially even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a vital public service to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the holiday mood, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a high. This release is the only 2025 title on a famous website's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band find themselves trapped in the UK after finishing their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while followers will certainly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who must sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their reply. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching storylines, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face pops up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the next movie straight. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects 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 familiar story progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she runs into a guy in a bookshop who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The truth is out there, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known figures.

It’s gentle but endearing, and good viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling American family who reunite for the holidays—including other 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

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 strangely compelling—holiday fare.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher