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

It is the season to relax on the couch and consume a packet of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a selection of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the festive feeling, I watched as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a high. This release is the sole 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The musical trio end up trapped in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who bursts into melody to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the casual viewer, while followers will no doubt notice lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is great for devotees and a good start to the day.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who are obliged to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity roped into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His pantomime fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. One can imagine their retort. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming side stories, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor shows up at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

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

Mr Sood is played by The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted 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 unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

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

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he learns there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the remainder.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the background—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she runs into a man in a book store who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, in spite of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The answer is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known figures.

It’s gentle but charming, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before declaring: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the packed genre of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher