Marathon Viewing This Year's Festive Features: The Good, The Bad and The So-Bad-It's-Good.

‘Tis the time of year to lounge on the sofa and consume a tin of festive treats in front of a good movie, a awful feature, or one that’s terrible yet terrific.

This year, a batch of latest holiday movies aims to become part of our holiday traditions—maybe even finding a spot alongside timeless staples like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Thus, in a noble effort to sort the crackers from the turkeys, and to find the festive feeling, I marathoned as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Beginning, hopefully, on a positive note. This film is the sole 2025 movie on a well-known aggregator's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The Jonas Brothers find themselves stranded in the UK after wrapping up their international trek and must make it back for Christmas. Their efforts are hampered by an malevolent Father Christmas, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is enjoyable even for the casual viewer, while devotees will no doubt pick up on lots of in-jokes as they attempt to get back using all transportation available.

It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is excellent for devotees and a solid start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who are obliged to sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

Hollywood star Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a Hollywood star cast a traditional British stage show.

“A panto-what??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and ageing star Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose agent has tricked him into thinking he’s performing in renowned British drama.

His Aladdin fellow actors inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.

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

It’s the type of film that would be a bit tacky at another season, but is a great entertainment at Christmas.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

10.19am - Christmas Karma

Danny Dyer appears at the outset of this film, too, insulting someone for the second film in a row. Could this be a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects Mr Sood, the latest spin 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 progresses as the miserly Mr Sood is confronted by the apparitions of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This Indian Scrooge is at least unique from all the others, but sadly he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s acting is lifeless—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

There’s 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 gets an large festive windfall at work, his wife (played by Morgana Robinson) talks him into spending the sum on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one snag—he finds out there was an mix-up with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to pay back the remainder.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

1.12pm - Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the setting 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 sparkling wine company. On the way, she runs into a guy in a literary haven who offers to show her a festive Paris.

A commentator recently declared this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a Christmas romance with a hint of sophistication and gives the obligatory warm and fuzzy feels.

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

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

3.29pm - Finding Father Christmas

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

The truth is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the assistance of a panel of well-known scientists and personalities.

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

Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄

4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who come back together for the holidays—including fellow 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 stating: “They need to make a movie about the unsung heroes 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 eventually finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret

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

It’s a narrative as well-worn: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher