Marathon Viewing 2025's Christmas Films: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to relax on the sofa and demolish a tin of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a crop of latest seasonal stories aims to become part of our festive viewing—perhaps even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the festive feeling, I watched as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Kicking off, hopefully, on a high. This film is the sole 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The popular band find themselves stranded in the UK after finishing their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is amusing even for the casual viewer, while followers will certainly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star roped into a "panto".

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

His pantomime co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their reply. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming storylines, and the supporting actors is excellent, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the second consecutive movie. Is this a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) convinces him spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a fellow in a book store who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, regardless of the persuasion of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The truth is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s low-key but charming, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional American family who reunite for the holidays—including other 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in practice it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher