Devouring 2025's Holiday Movies: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.
It is the season to slob out on the sofa and consume a packet of festive treats in front of a great film, a awful feature, or one that’s so bad it’s good.
As always, a batch of fresh holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—potentially even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).
Therefore, in a noble effort to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the holiday mood, I watched as many new Christmas films as possible in a single day.
Early Morning: A Very Jonas Christmas Movie
Starting, optimistically, on a high. This is the exclusive 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the top 100 holiday films of all time.
The Jonas Brothers are stranded in the UK after wrapping up their world tour and must return for Christmas. Their attempts are hampered by an evil Santa, who breaks into song to state they won’t get home until they “rediscover their sibling bond.”
The repartee between the squabbling siblings is amusing even for the uninitiated, while followers will certainly 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 superb for fans and a solid start to the day.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their family members who will have to sit through it.
Late Morning: Tinsel Town
Famous performer Kiefer Sutherland has been cast as a celebrity cast a "panto".
“A panto-what?” asks Sutherland’s “temperamental” and aging lead Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has misled him into thinking he’s appearing in prestigious English theatre.
His pantomime co-stars tell him he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he retorts. It's easy to predict their response. That is, unless you’re ignorant of traditional panto catchphrases.
There are some hilarious moments, some cockle-warming side stories, and the ensemble is cracking, too.
It’s the type of film that would be a bit tacky at a different time, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.
Festive score: 🎄🎄🎄🎄
A New Spin on Scrooge
An actor appears at the beginning of this film, too, calling someone a mug for the next movie straight. Could this be a new Christmas tradition?
This time, he’s a singing black cab driver who collects 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 familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is haunted 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 unfortunately he’s not very charismatic and Nayyar’s performance is flat—a major flaw when he’s so the main character.
Festive score: 🎄🎄
Lunchtime: Stuffed
Before lunch for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a charmingly cantankerous character who “isn't big on Christmas.”
But after he receives an large festive windfall at work, his wife (starring Morgana Robinson) talks him into blowing the money on a family trip 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 determine how to return the excess.
Enjoyable but forgettable.
Festive score: 🎄🎄
1.12pm - Champagne Problems
This is one of those holiday movies where the festive trappings are in the setting—Christmas is the scene of the film rather than its core purpose—but it feels comfortable and seasonal all the same.
High-powered businesswoman Sydney (played by Minka Kelly) is assigned to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a sparkling wine company. En route, she runs into a guy in a book store who vows to show her the holidays in the City of Light.
An expert recently stated this is the finest new Christmas film of the last several seasons. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a hint of sophistication and gives the necessary warm and fuzzy feels.
The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is very good too.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄
A Charming Quest
Young Chris, played by Lenny Rush, continues to believe in Father Christmas, regardless of the efforts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.
The truth is to be discovered, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a group of well-known figures.
It’s gentle but sweet, and ideal viewing while anticipating Santa to visit.
Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄
Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the mother of a quarrelling American family who gather for the holidays—including other acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.
Pfeiffer starts by mentioning classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the true heroes of the holidays—moms.”
So that’s the premise, but in reality it’s really a jumble of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character at last takes center stage.
Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄
Formulaic Fun
The day’s gone downhill, but thankfully here’s a new addition in the packed genre of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and highly entertaining—seasonal comfort food.
It’s a tale as well-worn: An American woman travels to a distant snowy land and ends up discovering romance.
In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher
