Devouring 2025's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to slob out on the sofa and consume a box of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a batch of fresh Christmas films strives to join 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 distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the Christmas spirit, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a high. This release is the only 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The popular band end up trapped in the UK after finishing their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will undoubtedly catch lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor cast a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His Aladdin co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their retort. Except if you’re not acquainted with traditional British theatre traditions.

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

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 familiar story progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted by the spirits of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the remainder.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the decorations and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a guy in a bookshop who offers to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the required warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, in spite of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

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

It’s gentle but charming, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer begins by referencing 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 real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher