A Sofa-Bound Sleigh Ride Through This Year’s New Christmas Movies

The festive season invites glorious laziness, encouraging viewers to sprawl on sofas, inhale mince pies, and embrace films ranging from brilliant to wonderfully awful. Each year delivers hopeful new Christmas releases aspiring to join classics like Home Alone, Elf, or the endlessly debated Die Hard.

To perform a seasonal public service, I spent a single day binge-watching as many new holiday films as possible, sorting turkeys from crackers. The marathon began optimistically, fuelled by tinsel, low expectations, and a sincere desire to feel at least mildly Christmassy.

One early highlight stars the Jonas Brothers, stranded in Britain after a world tour and desperate to get home for Christmas. An evil, singing Santa blocks their journey, forcing them to rediscover “brotherly magic” via planes, trains, and general chaos, with banter carrying the fun.

Another cheerful entry casts Kiefer Sutherland as a fading action hero accidentally trapped in a British pantomime. Confusion over Buttons, traditional call-and-response jokes, and a wildly stacked supporting cast create something daft, warm-hearted, and perfectly suited to December indulgence.

Danny Dyer reappears, launching insults again, this time in a musical spin on A Christmas Carol. Kunal Nayyar plays Mr Sood, an Indian-heritage Scrooge visited by flamboyant festive ghosts, though a lack of charisma dulls an otherwise intriguing reinterpretation of Dickens’ familiar morality tale.

The BBC’s modest festive offering follows a grumpy man persuaded into a Lapland trip after receiving an accidental bonus. Financial panic ensues, yet the film remains cosy, gently amusing, and ultimately forgettable, with Christmas atmosphere humming softly in the background rather than dominating the story.

Romance arrives via a glossy trip to France, where an ambitious executive sent to buy a champagne business discovers Parisian Christmas charm. Snow, fairy lights, bookshops, and even a Die Hard debate combine to deliver tasteful escapism and reliably warm, fuzzy seasonal feelings.

The day ends happily with unapologetically cheap, cheesy fare set in the Scottish Highlands. Caprice Bourret’s publisher heroine finds romance, castles, and family secrets, proving that shamelessly formulaic Christmas films often deliver the strongest festive buzz of all.