Binge-Watching This Year's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

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

As always, a crop of new Christmas films hopes to be part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

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

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a high. This film is the only 2025 title on a famous website's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are trapped in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while devotees will undoubtedly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland stars as a Hollywood star cast a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. One can imagine their response. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching storylines, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor pops up at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?

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 a star of Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he learns there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to reimburse the remainder.

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. During her travels, she encounters a guy in a bookshop who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is notable too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The answer is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known figures.

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 come back together for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing 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 true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in practice it’s really a jumble 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 waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—festive fodder.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher