Devouring This Year's Christmas Films: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

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

Once again, a batch of fresh holiday movies 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 (don’t start).

Therefore, in a vital public service to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to get into the holiday mood, I watched as many fresh Christmas films as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a high. This is the only 2025 title on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band end up stranded in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is amusing even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not legendary, but is excellent for devotees and a solid start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity tricked into a pantomime.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in renowned British drama.

His pantomime fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. You can guess their retort. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming side stories, and the supporting actors is excellent, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face 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 musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative develops as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its main point—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. En route, she meets a man in a literary haven who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The truth is out there, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known figures.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch 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 starts by mentioning 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 unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last takes center stage.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

It’s a story as old as time: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher