Binge-Watching This Year's Christmas Films: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the season to relax on the couch and demolish a box of mince pies in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a batch of latest seasonal stories strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—maybe even earning a place alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the holiday mood, I watched as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a positive note. This release is the only 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stuck in the UK after finishing their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is great for devotees and a good start to the day.

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor cast a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s starring in renowned British drama.

His pantomime cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their response. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. 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 an actor from Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted 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 different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to pay back the remainder.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a man in a literary haven who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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 otherwise.

The secret is to be discovered, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known figures.

It’s gentle but charming, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer begins by referencing classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman journeys to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher