Devouring The Latest Christmas Films: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the season to relax on the sofa and demolish a packet of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

This year, a batch of fresh Christmas films strives to join part of our festive viewing—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

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

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, optimistically, on a good foot. This release is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band end up trapped in the UK after wrapping up their global concert series and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their sibling bond.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is amusing even for the casual viewer, while fans will undoubtedly notice lots of references as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not legendary, but is excellent 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.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s performing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he retorts. You can guess their reply. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some very funny lines, some heartwarming storylines, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

It’s the kind of movie that would be a bit cheesy at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Is this a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters 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 filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story develops as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to return the excess.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—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 French chateau to do a deal for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a fellow in a literary haven who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert 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 dash of elegance and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Teenage 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 secret is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the guidance of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new entry in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: 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