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

‘Tis the season to relax on the sofa and consume a box of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a crop of fresh Christmas films strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the holiday mood, I watched as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, ideally, on a positive note. This film is the only 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio are stuck in the UK after finishing their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an evil Santa, who sings to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The banter between the arguing trio is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will no doubt notice lots of references 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 excellent for fans and a good start to the day.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older 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 Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. One can imagine their reply. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming storylines, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit cheesy at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer shows up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who collects Mr Sood, the modern take 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 unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a channel's holiday special—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 (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a family trip to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its core purpose—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 do a deal for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a fellow in a literary haven who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator 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 Christmas romance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is very good too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The secret is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known figures.

It’s low-key but sweet, and perfect viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the true 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 eventually comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but happily here’s a new offering in the packed genre of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a far-off wintery locale and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher