Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the time of year to slob out on the sofa and devour a packet of mince pies in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a crop of fresh Christmas films hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—potentially even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the holiday mood, I watched as many recent Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a positive note. This is the exclusive 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves trapped in the UK after concluding their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly pick up on lots of references as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who must sit through it.

8.45am - Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a celebrity roped into a pantomime.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His pantomime fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their retort. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming side stories, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face appears at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Is this a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “isn't big on Christmas.”

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

There’s just one issue—he finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, despite the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a bickering American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher