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

It is the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a box of festive treats in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a selection of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our festive viewing—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 separate the winners from the losers, and to find the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, hopefully, on a high. This film is the exclusive 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while followers will undoubtedly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who are obliged to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity tricked into a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. You can guess their response. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer pops up at the outset of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale unfolds 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 Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but sadly he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on 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 finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the remainder.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she meets a man in a bookshop who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, despite the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The answer is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known figures.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including other 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a mash-up of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new entry in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher