Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

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

As always, a batch of new Christmas films hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even finding a spot alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the Christmas spirit, I binged as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a good foot. This release is the exclusive 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is amusing even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who must sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star tricked into a "panto".

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. One can imagine their response. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit cheesy at a different time, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face pops up at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 well-known tale develops as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, 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 wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he receives an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a vacation 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 figure out how to reimburse the remainder.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to do a deal for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a fellow in a book store who promises to show her a festive Paris.

A commentator recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing 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 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 anticipating Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

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

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher