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

It is the time of year to lounge on the couch and consume a tin of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a batch of fresh Christmas films aims to become part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Thus, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to embrace the festive feeling, I marathoned as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Kicking off, ideally, on a positive note. This is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the non-fan, while followers will undoubtedly catch lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor roped into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s starring in high-class London stage.

His pantomime co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their response. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some heartwarming side stories, and the supporting actors is excellent, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer shows up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Is this a new Christmas tradition?

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 unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but sadly 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 major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a family trip to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he learns there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to return the excess.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow 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 (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to do a deal for a champagne business. During her travels, she runs into a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling American family who reunite for the holidays—including other 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in execution it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a tale as old as time: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher