Binge-Watching 2025's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and consume a box of festive treats in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a selection of new holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—maybe even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the holiday mood, I binged as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a high. This is the sole 2025 title on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The popular band are trapped in the UK after finishing their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while fans will certainly notice lots of references as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s starring in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their retort. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some touching side stories, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up 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 the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions 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 unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the backdrop—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. En route, she meets a man in a book store who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the required warm and fuzzy feels.

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, despite the persuasion of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known figures.

It’s low-key but endearing, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping Christmas classics like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

It’s a story 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