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

It is the season to slob out on the sofa and demolish a box of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a selection of latest seasonal stories aims to become part of our festive viewing—potentially even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I marathoned as many fresh Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a good foot. This film is the exclusive 2025 title on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stranded in the UK after concluding their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The banter between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while followers will no doubt notice lots of references as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has deceived him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. You can guess their reply. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming side stories, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer pops up at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is lifeless—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch 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 sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a family trip to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he discovers there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to pay back the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its main point—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a man in a bookshop who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The truth is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known figures.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new entry in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher