Binge-Watching 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the time of year to relax on the sofa and devour a tin of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a poor film, or one that’s awesomely awful.

As always, a crop of new seasonal stories aims to become part of our holiday traditions—potentially even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I binged as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, ideally, on a high. This is the exclusive 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio are stranded in the UK after concluding their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is great for devotees and a good start to the day.

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor tricked into a pantomime.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their response. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming sub-plots, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit tacky at any other time of year, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the second consecutive movie. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

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 develops 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 Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he learns there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to pay back the difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

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

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she runs into a man in a literary haven who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, despite the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s gentle but charming, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning holiday staples 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 the concept, but in execution it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher