Marathon Viewing 2025's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

It is the time of year to relax on the couch and consume a packet of festive treats in front of a terrific flick, a bad movie, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a crop of latest holiday movies aims to become part of our seasonal watchlist—perhaps even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (we won’t debate it).

Therefore, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to get into the Christmas spirit, I marathoned as many new holiday releases as possible in a single day.

7.17am - A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, hopefully, on a positive note. This release is the only 2025 title on a famous website's list of the best 100 holiday films of all time.

The musical trio find themselves trapped in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their attempts are thwarted by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the bickering brothers is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while devotees will no doubt catch lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

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.

Next: A Star in Panto

Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland stars as a celebrity cast a "panto".

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has seen better days and whose agent has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their retort. Unless you’re not acquainted with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming sub-plots, and the ensemble is cracking, too.

It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at any other time of year, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the start of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Might this become 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 The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by the director of Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story develops as the miserly Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least different from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a problem when he’s so the focal point.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

12.04pm - Stuffed

There's just enough time for a major broadcaster's holiday special—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a family trip to Lapland.

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

Pleasant yet unmemorable.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

A Classy Netflix Romance

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the background—Christmas is the setting of the film rather than its raison d’etre—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.

High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she meets a man in a book store who vows to show her a festive Paris.

A commentator recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the past few years. That’s a bit of a exaggeration, but it is a Christmas romance with a dash of elegance and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a lengthy discussion about Die Hard is very good too.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, despite the efforts of his dad (starring 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 figures.

It’s understated but sweet, and good viewing while expecting Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: 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 opens by name-dropping 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 the concept, but in execution it’s really a combination of those forerunner films, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally takes center stage.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new entry in the crowded field of predictable, sentimental, cheesy—and utterly watchable—holiday fare.

It’s a story as familiar as can be: An American woman travels to a far-off wintery locale and ends up finding romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher