Marathon Viewing 2025's Festive Features: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to slob out on the sofa and devour a tin of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

As always, a batch of latest holiday movies strives to join part of our festive viewing—perhaps even finding a spot alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a vital public service to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many fresh festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, optimistically, on a high. This release is the exclusive 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.

The musical trio end up stranded in the UK after concluding their global concert series and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to declare they won’t get home until they “find their sibling bond.”

The back-and-forth between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the casual viewer, while followers will undoubtedly catch lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not an all-time classic, but is superb for fans and a solid start to the day.

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

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a celebrity tricked into a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their reply. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional British theatre traditions.

There are some great jokes, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit naff at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor shows up at the start of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Might this become a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who encounters Mr Sood, the modern take 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The classic narrative 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 cultural adaptation is at least different from all the others, but sadly he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s acting is lifeless—a major flaw when he’s so the focal point.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

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

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

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its main point—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a guy in a book store who offers to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently stated this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, despite the efforts 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 panel of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but sweet, and perfect viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

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

Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping classic festive films 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 concept, but in practice it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

6.43pm - A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but thankfully here’s a new offering in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.

It’s a story as old as time: An American woman goes on a quest to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher