Binge-Watching The Latest Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and consume a packet of mince pies in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a batch of latest Christmas films strives to join part of our festive viewing—potentially 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 distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find 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, optimistically, on a good foot. This is the only 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves trapped in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the non-fan, while followers will certainly notice lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

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 are obliged to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His pantomime fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. One can imagine their retort. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching storylines, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit tacky at a different time, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer appears at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who collects Mr Sood, the newest interpretation on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by an actor from Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he receives an large festive windfall at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) convinces him splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he discovers there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to return the excess.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its main point—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. En route, she meets a man in a bookshop who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, despite the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The answer is out there, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee 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 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 finally comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but happily here’s a new entry in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher