Marathon Viewing This Year's Holiday Movies: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.

It is the season to slob out on the sofa and consume a packet of festive treats in front of a good movie, a bad movie, or one that’s awesomely awful.

As always, a crop of latest seasonal stories strives to join part of our festive viewing—potentially even finding a spot alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

So, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I watched as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, hopefully, on a high. This film is the exclusive 2025 movie on a famous website's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The popular band find themselves stuck in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who bursts into melody to announce they won’t get home until they “find their familial spark.”

The banter between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the uninitiated, while devotees will no doubt pick up on lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is excellent 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.

Late Morning: Tinsel Town

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor roped into a pantomime.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose manager has tricked him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.

His pantomime co-stars let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their retort. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

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

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at another season, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

An actor appears at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second consecutive movie. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who encounters Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 classic narrative unfolds as the miserly Mr Sood is visited by the spirits 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 regrettably he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is flat—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a major broadcaster's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum 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 determine how to pay back the difference.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those Christmas films where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a French chateau to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. En route, she runs into a guy in a book store who promises to show her a festive Paris.

A commentator recently claimed this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - 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 truth.

The answer is to be discovered, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s understated but endearing, and good viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a bickering American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing 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 true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in reality it’s really a combination of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last finds her strength.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new addition in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—holiday fare.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman journeys to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher