Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a packet of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a batch of latest Christmas films aims to become part of our festive viewing—maybe even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the festive feeling, I watched as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a good foot. This release is the sole 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after concluding their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The banter between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while fans will certainly catch lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who must sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a celebrity roped into a pantomime.

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

His pantomime co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their retort. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit tacky at a different time, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “avoids Christmas.”

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

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. En route, she encounters a guy in a book store who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is very good too.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, in spite of the persuasion of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The answer is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in practice it’s really a jumble of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher