Binge-Watching This Year's Christmas Films: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.
It is the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a tin of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.
This year, a batch of new holiday movies aims to become part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even finding a spot alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).
Therefore, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I watched as many recent Christmas films as possible in a single day.
Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie
Kicking off, ideally, on a positive note. This release is the only 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.
The Jonas Brothers end up stranded in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”
The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the casual viewer, while fans will undoubtedly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.
It’s a journey of epic proportions.
It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is superb for fans and a good start to the day.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who will have to sit through it.
8.45am - Tinsel Town
Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star tricked into a "panto".
“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.
His Aladdin cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. One can imagine their response. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.
There are some hilarious moments, some heartwarming side stories, and the ensemble is excellent, too.
It’s the type of film that would be a bit tacky at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄
10.19am - Christmas Karma
Danny Dyer pops up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Is this a budding festive ritual?
This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits 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 sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Lunchtime: Stuffed
Before lunch for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”
But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a family trip 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 difference.
Fun while it lasts but not lasting.
Festive score: 🎄🎄
Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems
This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.
Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a guy in a literary haven who vows to show her a festive Paris.
A critic recently claimed this is the finest 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 lengthy discussion about Die Hard is very good too.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄
3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas
Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, regardless of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.
The answer is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a group of well-known experts and celebrities.
It’s gentle but sweet, and good viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄
4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.
Pfeiffer begins by referencing classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before declaring: “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 inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.
Festive score: 🎄🎄
6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret
The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.
It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.
In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
