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

It is the time of year to lounge on the sofa and devour a packet of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a selection of latest seasonal stories strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even joining the ranks alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Kicking off, ideally, on a high. This film is the exclusive 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The musical trio are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will undoubtedly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who will have to sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a pantomime.

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

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching storylines, and the supporting actors is excellent, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver 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 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 sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is lifeless—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the environment 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 country estate to do a deal for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a guy in a literary haven who promises to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the persuasion 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 guidance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling 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 holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in practice it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new entry in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman journeys to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher