Binge-Watching 2025's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.
It is the season to relax on the sofa and consume a tin of mince pies in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.
As always, a crop of new holiday movies hopes to be 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 distinguish the gems from the coal, and to embrace the festive feeling, I watched as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.
Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie
Starting, ideally, on a high. This is the exclusive 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 festive features of all time.
The musical trio find themselves stuck in the UK after concluding their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are hindered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to declare they won’t get home until they “rediscover their familial spark.”
The repartee between the squabbling siblings is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while followers will undoubtedly pick up on lots of easter eggs as they try to get back using any means of transport necessary.
It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.
It’s not legendary, but is great for devotees and a positive start to the day.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.
Late Morning: Tinsel Town
Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor roped into a traditional British stage show.
“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and ageing lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in high-class London stage.
His Aladdin fellow actors let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. One can imagine their response. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.
There are some great jokes, some touching side stories, and the ensemble is excellent, too.
It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at any other time of year, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄
Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma
An actor shows up at the start of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Is this a budding festive ritual?
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 an actor from Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the filmmaker behind Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.
This South Asian reinterpretation is at least distinct from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is flat—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄
Noon: A BBC Special
Before lunch for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”
But after he receives an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him spending the sum on a vacation to Lapland.
There’s just one issue—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to figure out how to return the remainder.
Enjoyable but forgettable.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄
1.12pm - Champagne Problems
This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations 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.
Driven corporate star Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to do a deal for a champagne business. During her travels, she runs into a man in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.
A commentator recently claimed this is the best new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a hint of sophistication and gives the required heartwarming sensation.
The scene with a detailed conversation about Die Hard is particularly strong too.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄
A Charming Quest
Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts of his dad (starring James Buckley) to tell him the truth.
The truth is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.
It’s low-key but endearing, and perfect viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄
Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including other acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.
Pfeiffer starts by mentioning Christmas classics like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”
So that’s the premise, but in practice it’s really a jumble 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 packed genre of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and strangely compelling—seasonal comfort food.
It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman journeys to a picturesque cold country and ends up finding romance.
In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
