Binge-Watching This Year's Holiday Movies: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

It is the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a box of festive treats in front of a great film, a bad movie, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a batch of new holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—maybe even joining the ranks alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the holiday mood, I binged as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Starting, ideally, on a positive note. This film is the exclusive 2025 movie on a popular review site's list of the greatest 100 Christmas movies of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after finishing their global concert series and must return for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered 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 squabbling siblings is enjoyable even for the non-fan, while devotees will undoubtedly pick up on lots of references as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

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

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

8.45am - Tinsel Town

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity tricked into a traditional British stage show.

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

His Aladdin co-stars inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he retorts. One can imagine their reply. That is, unless you’re not acquainted with traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some hilarious moments, some touching sub-plots, and the rest of the cast is excellent, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit tacky at any other time of year, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

An actor pops up at the outset of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the next movie straight. Is this 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 Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The well-known tale develops as the miserly Mr Sood is haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This cultural adaptation is at least distinct from all the others, but sadly he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s portrayal is wooden—a problem when he’s so the main character.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There’s time for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “avoids Christmas.”

But after he gets an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) persuades him splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he finds out there was an error with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to pay back the remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the tree, fairy lights and snow are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she encounters a man in a bookshop who promises to show her the holidays in the City of Light.

An expert recently stated this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the necessary heartwarming sensation.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, despite the attempts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

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

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a quarrelling American family who reunite for the holidays—including other Oscar nominee 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 saying: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the concept, but in reality it’s really a jumble 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 taken a dip, but happily here’s a new addition in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and highly entertaining—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a tale as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up stumbling across romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher