Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to relax on the couch and demolish a tin of festive treats in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a selection of fresh seasonal stories strives to join part of our seasonal watchlist—potentially even joining the ranks alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the festive feeling, I marathoned as many new festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, optimistically, on a positive note. This release is the sole 2025 entry on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The musical trio are stranded in the UK after concluding their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while devotees will no doubt pick up on lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is excellent for devotees and a good start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

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

“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. You can guess their reply. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor shows up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug 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 familiar story develops as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) convinces him spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one issue—he finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to pay back the difference.

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 background—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its main point—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to do a deal for a champagne business. On the way, she runs into a man in a literary haven who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Young 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 truth is out there, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the expert help of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a dysfunctional 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 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 premise, but in practice it’s really a combination of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s waned in quality, but fortunately here’s a new addition in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

It’s a tale as old as time: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher