Devouring This Year's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and consume a tin of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

Once again, a batch of fresh Christmas films aims to become part of our festive viewing—perhaps even finding a spot alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

Thus, in a vital public service to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I binged as many fresh Christmas films as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Kicking off, optimistically, on a positive note. This film is the sole 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band find themselves trapped in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to state they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is amusing even for the uninitiated, while devotees will no doubt pick up on lots of easter eggs as they attempt to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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

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

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor roped into a traditional British stage show.

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and older star Brad Mack, who has hit a rough patch and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s starring in renowned British drama.

His pantomime co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Oh no I’m not,” he protests. One can imagine their retort. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some heartwarming storylines, and the supporting actors is brilliant, too.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor pops up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a fresh holiday staple?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who collects 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 director of Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale progresses as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts 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 compelling and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

Before lunch for a channel's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to pay back the difference.

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to negotiate a purchase for a sparkling wine company. En route, she encounters a fellow in a bookshop who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

A critic recently declared this is the best 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 obligatory cozy feelings.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the persuasion of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is somewhere, and Chris ventures forth to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s understated but endearing, and perfect viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a bickering 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 opens by name-dropping holiday staples 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 the concept, but in execution it’s really a combination of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new entry in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a narrative as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher