Devouring This Year's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the season to relax on the sofa and demolish a tin of holiday pastries in front of a great film, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

Once again, a batch of latest holiday movies aims to become part of our festive viewing—potentially even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the holiday mood, I binged as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, hopefully, on a good foot. This film is the exclusive 2025 title on a famous website's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio are stuck in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the casual viewer, while followers will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star tricked into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His pantomime fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their response. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming storylines, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer pops up at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Is this a new Christmas tradition?

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 unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—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 difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. During her travels, she meets a guy in a literary haven who offers to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The truth is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s low-key but endearing, and good viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional 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 begins by referencing 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 practice it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, 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 tale as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher