Devouring The Latest Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the time of year to lounge on the couch and devour a tin of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a selection of latest holiday movies aims to become part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, ideally, on a high. This release is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The popular band find themselves trapped in the UK after concluding their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while fans will certainly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

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

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. You can guess their reply. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming storylines, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Could this be a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Lunchtime: Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a family trip to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she encounters a fellow in a book store who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, despite the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is out there, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known figures.

It’s low-key but sweet, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

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

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning 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 real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in practice it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

It’s a narrative as well-worn: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher