Devouring This Year's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to relax on the sofa and devour a packet of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a crop of latest Christmas films strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many recent Christmas films as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, hopefully, on a positive note. This release is the exclusive 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are trapped in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who sings to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their brotherly magic.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will certainly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity tricked into a "panto".

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

His Aladdin co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their reply. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming side stories, and the supporting actors is cracking, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a family trip 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 devise a plan for how to return the remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she encounters a guy in a literary haven who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s low-key but sweet, and good viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in execution it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but happily here’s a new entry in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a story as old as time: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher