Marathon Viewing The Latest Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to relax on the couch and devour a box of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a batch of new holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—maybe even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I marathoned as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, ideally, on a good foot. This release is the only 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while fans will no doubt catch lots of references as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not legendary, but is great for fans and a positive start to the day.

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star cast 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 representative has misled him into thinking he’s starring in renowned British drama.

His pantomime cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their reply. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming side stories, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

A familiar face shows up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the next movie straight. Could this be a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the modern take 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 the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops 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 unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he receives an large festive windfall at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him splurging the cash on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

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

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. En route, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who offers to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, in spite of the attempts of his dad (played by 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 scientists and personalities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before saying: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in execution it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new offering in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as old as time: 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