Marathon Viewing This Year's Holiday Movies: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the time of year to slob out on the sofa and demolish a packet of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a batch of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—perhaps even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the Christmas spirit, I watched as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a good foot. This is the sole 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stranded in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to declare they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will undoubtedly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a pantomime.

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

His pantomime cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts 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 unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

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

There’s just one issue—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 remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow 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.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to do a deal for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a man in a bookshop who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the necessary cozy feelings.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s gentle but sweet, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in execution it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

It’s a narrative as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher