Marathon Viewing 2025's Holiday Movies: The Hits, The Misses, and The Guilty Pleasures.
It is the season to slob out on the couch and demolish a tin of holiday pastries in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.
Once again, a crop of latest holiday movies hopes to be part of our festive viewing—potentially even finding a spot alongside beloved favorites like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).
Thus, in a noble effort to distinguish the gems from the coal, and to find the festive feeling, I watched as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.
Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie
Kicking off, hopefully, on a high. This film is the exclusive 2025 title on a well-known aggregator's list of the top 100 festive features of all time.
The musical trio are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must make it back for Christmas. Their endeavors are hampered by an villainous Saint Nick, who sings to announce they won’t get home until they “find their brotherly magic.”
The back-and-forth between the bickering brothers is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while fans will undoubtedly notice lots of in-jokes as they try to get back using every mode of travel possible.
It’s private planes, trains and automobiles.
It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is superb for devotees and a solid start to the day.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their relatives who will have to sit through it.
Late Morning: Tinsel Town
Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a movie actor cast a traditional British stage show.
“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “difficult” and ageing action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose manager has misled him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.
His Aladdin cast-mates inform him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he protests. One can imagine their response. Unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.
There are some very funny lines, some touching storylines, and the rest of the cast is brilliant, too.
It’s the sort of feature that would be a bit naff at a different time, but is a highly enjoyable at Christmas.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄
Mid-Morning: Christmas Karma
Danny Dyer pops up at the start of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Could this be a budding festive ritual?
This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who picks up Mr Sood, the modern take 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 progresses as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is visited by the ghosts of Christmas yesterday, today, and tomorrow, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.
This South Asian reinterpretation is at least different from all the others, but regrettably he’s not very compelling and Nayyar’s performance is wooden—a major flaw when he’s so central to everything.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄
Lunchtime: Stuffed
There's just enough time for a network's original festive film—which stars Guz Khan as a endearingly grumpy man who “isn't big on Christmas.”
But after he is awarded an £8,000 Christmas bonus at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) talks him into splurging the cash on a vacation to Lapland.
There’s just one problem—he finds out there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to devise a plan for how to reimburse the remainder.
Pleasant yet unmemorable.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
1.12pm - Champagne Problems
This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the background—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels cosy and festive all the same.
High-powered businesswoman Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is sent to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. During her travels, she runs into a guy in a bookshop who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.
An expert recently stated 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 warm and fuzzy feels.
The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is very good too.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄
Mid-Afternoon: Finding Father Christmas
Sixteen-year-old 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 the reality.
The answer is out there, and Chris embarks on a quest to find it with the assistance of a group of well-known scientists and personalities.
It’s low-key but sweet, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄
4.39pm - Oh. What. Fun.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a dysfunctional American family who come back together for the holidays—including other acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.
Pfeiffer opens by name-dropping holiday staples 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 what this is, but in practice it’s really a mash-up of those aforementioned movies, at least until Pfeiffer’s character eventually finds her strength.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Evening: A Scottish Christmas Secret
The day’s gone downhill, but happily here’s a new addition in the crowded field of cliched, saccharine, over-the-top—and utterly watchable—festive fodder.
It’s a story as old as time: An American woman journeys to a far-off wintery locale and ends up stumbling across romance.
In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
