Marathon Viewing This Year's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a tin of mince pies in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a batch of latest seasonal stories strives to join part of our festive viewing—maybe even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many recent Christmas films as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, ideally, on a high. This film is the only 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The musical trio find themselves stranded in the UK after finishing their global concert series 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 back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while fans will undoubtedly notice lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity roped into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. You can guess their reply. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching storylines, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer shows up at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Is this a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters 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 familiar story unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least distinct from all the others, but sadly he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a family trip to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

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

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is very good too.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is out there, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s understated but endearing, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in practice it’s really a jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but happily here’s a new addition in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

It’s a tale as old as time: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher