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

It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a box of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a selection of latest holiday movies hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—maybe even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a vital public service to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to get into 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, hopefully, on a good foot. This release is the sole 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band end up trapped in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an evil Santa, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while fans will no doubt pick up on lots of references as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity cast a pantomime.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their retort. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some very funny lines, some touching side stories, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit naff at another season, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor shows up at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who picks up Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, 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 charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s 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 gets an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he discovers there was an error 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: 🎄🎄

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 comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a French chateau to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she runs into a fellow in a book store who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Teenage 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 secret is out there, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known figures.

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in reality it’s really a mash-up of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new addition in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher