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

It is the season to relax on the sofa and devour a box of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a crop of new Christmas films hopes to be part of our holiday traditions—maybe even finding a spot 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 embrace the holiday mood, I binged as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, ideally, on a high. This is the sole 2025 entry on a famous website's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio end up trapped in the UK after concluding their international trek and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”

The banter between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will undoubtedly catch lots of references as they attempt to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

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

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

Next: A Star in Panto

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a celebrity tricked into a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates tell him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. You can guess their reply. Except if you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

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

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at a different time, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the beginning of this film, too, insulting someone for the next movie straight. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who picks up Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 develops as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the spirits of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least distinct from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is lifeless—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There's just enough time for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) convinces him blowing the money on a family trip to Lapland.

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

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a country estate to negotiate a purchase for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a fellow in a book store who vows to show her Christmas in Paris.

A commentator recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a festive dalliance with a touch of class and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

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

The truth 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 anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer starts by mentioning 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 what this is, but in reality it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

It’s a story as old as time: 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