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

‘Tis the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a box of festive treats in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a selection of fresh holiday movies aims to become part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the festive feeling, I watched as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a high. This is the only 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while devotees will undoubtedly pick up on lots of references as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity roped into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and older action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre.

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

There are some very funny lines, some touching side stories, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

A familiar face appears at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Is this a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters Mr Sood, the modern take on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the spirits 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 regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is lifeless—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him 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 devise a plan for how to reimburse the remainder.

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 setting—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its main point—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is assigned to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a man in a bookshop who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

A critic recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, in spite of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but endearing, and perfect viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping holiday staples like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in execution it’s really a combination of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last takes center stage.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher