Devouring 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to lounge on the sofa and devour a tin of mince pies in front of a great film, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

Once again, a crop of new Christmas films aims to become part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I watched as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a good foot. This film is the exclusive 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio end up stuck in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is amusing even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not legendary, but is great 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

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a celebrity cast a "panto".

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

His pantomime co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their response. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face pops up at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a network's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring 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 return the difference.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a man in a literary haven who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A commentator recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The secret is to be discovered, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but sweet, and perfect viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

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

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher