Devouring This Year's Festive Features: 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 great film, a poor film, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

Once again, a selection of fresh Christmas films aims to become part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

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

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, ideally, on a high. This release is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio find themselves stuck in the UK after finishing their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an evil Santa, who bursts into melody to state they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the casual viewer, while followers will undoubtedly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 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 Hollywood star roped into a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His pantomime fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their reply. 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 highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer appears at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted 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 compelling and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a channel's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a fellow in a book store who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, despite the attempts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee 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 real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s taken a dip, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman goes on a quest to a distant snowy land and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher