Binge-Watching This Year's Holiday Movies: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a box of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a crop of new seasonal stories hopes to be part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the Christmas spirit, I watched as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a good foot. This release is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 holiday films of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stuck in the UK after concluding their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an evil Santa, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while devotees will certainly notice lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor tricked into a pantomime.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose agent has deceived him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

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

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

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face pops up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Could this be 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 a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the background—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its main point—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to do a deal for a champagne business. En route, she encounters a man in a literary haven who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is particularly strong too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, despite the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

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

It’s understated but sweet, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Star-Studded Family Drama

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional 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 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 unsung 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 finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new entry in the packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher