Marathon Viewing 2025's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the time of year to relax on the couch and demolish a packet of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a crop of latest holiday movies strives to join part of our festive viewing—maybe even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Therefore, in a vital public service to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the festive feeling, I marathoned as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, optimistically, on a positive note. This is the sole 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band end up stranded in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the non-fan, while fans will certainly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who are obliged to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their response. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some touching side stories, and the ensemble is excellent, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer shows up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters 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 well-known tale progresses as the tight-fisted 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 central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

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

But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to reimburse the excess.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. On the way, she meets a fellow in a bookshop who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory heartwarming sensation.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a group of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s understated but sweet, and perfect viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: 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 utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a story as old as time: An American woman goes on a quest to a far-off wintery locale and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher