Marathon Viewing 2025's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.
It is the season to lounge on the couch and devour a packet of holiday pastries in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.
This year, a selection of fresh Christmas films strives to join part of our festive viewing—maybe even earning a place alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).
Therefore, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to embrace the Christmas spirit, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.
7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie
Beginning, ideally, on a good foot. This is the only 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the best 100 Christmas movies of all time.
The Jonas Brothers end up trapped in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”
The back-and-forth between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the non-fan, while followers will no doubt pick up on lots of references as they try to get back using all transportation available.
It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.
It’s not legendary, but is great for devotees and a good start to the day.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who must sit through it.
Next: A Star in Panto
A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland appears as a celebrity roped into a "panto".
“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and older lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in renowned British drama.
His Aladdin fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their response. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.
There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, too.
It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit cheesy at another season, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄
A New Spin on Scrooge
Danny Dyer shows up at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Could this be a fresh holiday staple?
This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up 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 the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story progresses as the stingy Mr Sood is visited by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.
This cultural adaptation is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a problem when he’s so central to everything.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
12.04pm - Stuffed
There's just enough 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 gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.
There’s just one issue—he discovers there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the difference.
Enjoyable but forgettable.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems
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 warm and holiday-like all the same.
Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she meets a guy in a bookshop who promises to show her a festive Paris.
A commentator recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a stretch, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary cozy feelings.
The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is notable too.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄
3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas
Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, in spite of the persuasion of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.
The answer is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known experts and celebrities.
It’s gentle but charming, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄
4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a dysfunctional 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the real champions 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 comes into her own.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret
The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new entry in the crowded field of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and strangely compelling—holiday fare.
It’s a narrative as old as time: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.
In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
