Binge-Watching This Year's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.
It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a tin of festive treats in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.
This year, a crop of latest seasonal stories hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).
Thus, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the Christmas spirit, I binged as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.
First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick
Starting, hopefully, on a positive note. This film is the only 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.
The popular band find themselves stranded in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”
The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly catch lots of in-jokes 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 devotees and a solid start to the day.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who will have to sit through it.
Next: A Star in Panto
A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a Hollywood star roped into a "panto".
“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and ageing star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.
His pantomime co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.
There are some very funny lines, some touching storylines, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.
It’s the type of film that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄
Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma
A familiar face pops up at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Is this a fresh holiday staple?
This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Mr Sood is played by The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story progresses as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.
This cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄
12.04pm - Stuffed
There’s time for a major broadcaster's original festive film—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 (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a vacation to Lapland.
There’s just one issue—he learns there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to return the remainder.
Fun while it lasts but not lasting.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄
Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems
This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.
Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. En route, she meets a man in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.
A commentator recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the required warm and fuzzy feels.
The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is notable too.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄
3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas
Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the efforts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.
The truth is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.
It’s low-key but sweet, and good viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄
Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.
Pfeiffer begins by referencing Christmas classics 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 the concept, but in practice it’s really a mash-up 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 taken a dip, but happily here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.
It’s a narrative as well-worn: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.
In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
