Devouring The Latest Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to relax on the couch and devour a tin of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

As always, a selection of new Christmas films aims to become part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

So, in a helpful attempt 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.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Kicking off, optimistically, on a positive note. This is the only 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The popular band find themselves stuck in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the non-fan, while followers will no doubt pick up on lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older star Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His pantomime cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their reply. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming storylines, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor pops up at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters 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 the director of Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, 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 charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch 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 receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a vacation 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 reimburse the excess.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a fellow in a bookshop who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, in spite of the efforts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The secret is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer begins by referencing classic festive films 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 practice it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new entry in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a tale as old as time: 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