Devouring 2025's Christmas Films: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to lounge on the sofa and devour a tin of festive treats in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

As always, a crop of new holiday movies aims to become part of our seasonal watchlist—maybe even joining the ranks alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a vital public service to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the festive feeling, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a good foot. This film is the only 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The popular band find themselves stuck in the UK after finishing their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while devotees will undoubtedly pick up on lots of references 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 great for devotees and a positive start to the day.

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland appears as a Hollywood star tricked into a pantomime.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing star Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. One can imagine their retort. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming side stories, and the rest of the cast is cracking, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor pops up at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who encounters 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 filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

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 large festive windfall at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he learns there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the difference.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. During her travels, she meets a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently claimed this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the required warm and fuzzy feels.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is notable too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, despite the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The answer is somewhere, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known experts and celebrities.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new offering in the saturated market of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher