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

It is the season to relax on the couch and demolish a tin of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a batch of fresh seasonal stories aims to become part of our festive viewing—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to get into the festive feeling, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, hopefully, on a high. This release is the only 2025 title on a famous website's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stranded 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 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 non-fan, while fans will undoubtedly notice lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor roped into a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His pantomime cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their response. Except if you’re unfamiliar with traditional British theatre traditions.

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

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit cheesy at a different time, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the modern take on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an large festive windfall at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings 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.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a fellow in a literary haven who vows to show her a festive Paris.

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

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, despite the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is out there, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the expert help of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering American family who gather for the holidays—including other 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 the concept, but in reality it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman goes on a quest to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher