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

It is the time of year to relax on the couch and devour a tin of mince pies in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a batch of new seasonal stories strives to join part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, hopefully, on a positive note. This is the exclusive 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stuck in the UK after concluding their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song 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 non-fan, while devotees will certainly notice lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not legendary, but is superb for devotees and a solid start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity tricked into a pantomime.

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

His Aladdin fellow actors tell him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their reply. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming side stories, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at any other time of year, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

A familiar face pops up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who collects 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 the director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story develops as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is lifeless—a problem when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

There’s just one issue—he learns there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to return the difference.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to do a deal for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a dash of elegance and gives the required cozy feelings.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

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

The truth is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known figures.

It’s low-key but sweet, and good viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping Christmas classics 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 finally finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as old as time: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher