Devouring This Year's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

‘Tis the season to relax on the sofa and devour a packet of festive treats in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a crop of latest holiday movies strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the festive feeling, I binged as many recent holiday releases as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, ideally, on a positive note. This is the exclusive 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers end up stuck in the UK after concluding their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the casual viewer, while devotees will certainly pick up on lots of in-jokes as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. It's easy to predict their retort. Except if you’re unfamiliar with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some great jokes, some touching side stories, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the start of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who picks up 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s acting is wooden—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a network's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an large festive windfall at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she meets a guy in a book store who vows to show her a festive Paris.

A critic recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story 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

Sixteen-year-old 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 secret is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known figures.

It’s understated but charming, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother 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 opens by name-dropping Christmas classics 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 practice it’s really a jumble of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher