Devouring The Latest Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to lounge on the couch and devour a packet of mince pies in front of a terrific flick, a awful feature, or one that’s awesomely awful.

Once again, a selection of latest holiday movies aims to become part of our festive viewing—perhaps even earning a place alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (don’t start).

So, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to get into the festive feeling, I marathoned as many fresh holiday releases as possible in a single day.

Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie

Beginning, ideally, on a high. This is the sole 2025 title on a famous website's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must get home for Christmas. Their endeavors are hindered by an villainous Saint Nick, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”

The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is amusing even for the non-fan, while fans will certainly notice lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using every mode of travel possible.

It’s a journey of epic proportions.

It’s not legendary, but is great for fans and a solid start to the day.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who are obliged to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland appears as a movie actor tricked into a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.

His pantomime cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “No I'm not,” he protests. One can imagine their response. Unless you’re ignorant of traditional stage call-and-response.

There are some very funny lines, some cockle-warming storylines, and the ensemble is brilliant, 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: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer appears at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the second film in a row. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a musical taxi operator who picks up Mr Sood, the newest interpretation 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 well-known tale unfolds as the stingy Mr Sood is haunted by the apparitions 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 sadly he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a significant issue when he’s so the main character.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a channel's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “doesn’t really do Christmas.”

But after he gets an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) persuades him splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.

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

Fun while it lasts but not lasting.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

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

Ambitious executive Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a country estate to do a deal for a champagne business. During her travels, she encounters a man in a book store who offers to show her a festive Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a festive dalliance with a dash of elegance and gives the required cozy feelings.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

Teenage Chris, played by Lenny Rush, refuses to stop believing in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him otherwise.

The secret is out there, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a team of well-known experts and celebrities.

It’s gentle but sweet, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the head of a dysfunctional American family who reunite for the holidays—including fellow 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 declaring: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s what this is, but in execution it’s really a jumble of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally comes into her own.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

The day’s waned in quality, but happily here’s a new offering in the saturated market of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

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

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher