After the challenges of a global pandemic and a variety of industry strikes, 2025 looks set to be the first year that cinema is fully back in action since 2019. What is noticeable is the scaling back of superhero films and a few less franchises. Sure, Marvel and DC have some big hitters (respectively, Captain America and Superman reboots), and Disney will see a live-action Snow White. There’s also a Mission: Impossible to contend with, as well as another Avatar. There will always be sequels or remakes, from The Running Man and Freakier Friday to Ballerina and another Knives Out whodunit. But there are also a slew of titles not related to a previous release, popular toy or hit game. It’s a riskier bet – audiences taking a chance on something new – but one that reaps the reward of feeling fresh and surprising. So, here’s the pick of 2025’s releases so far.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Don’t be fooled by the title. Christopher McQuarrie, the Oscar-winning writer of The Usual Subjects (1995) and writer-director of the last three instalments in this series has already confirmed that another two M:I films are in the pipeline. And if part one of this particular story, 2023’s Dead Reckoning, didn’t quite hit the commercial and critical high of the filmmaker’s earlier Rogue Nation (2015) and the thrillingly entertaining Fallout (2018), The Final Reckoning remains one of the year’s major blockbuster attractions. And from the teaser trailer, the action quotient – Tom Cruise’s at his death-defying best – looks set to outdo anything that has come before.
In cinemas 21 May.
Nickel Boys
In 2018, RaMell Ross directed the Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a portrait of a predominantly Black community in the southern US state of Alabama. In the place of conventional storytelling, Ross allowed the progression of seemingly unconnected shots to build a moving portrait of lives in this world. He employs a similar structure in his feature debut, an adaptation of double Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel, about life for Black boys in a brutal reform school. Restrained in its depiction of violence on screen, it is nevertheless a shocking – and sadly all-too-timely – account of racial segregation, harassment and prejudice.
In cinemas 3 January.
Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson
When he’s not working with Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio has his pick of the finest filmmakers at work today: Christopher Nolan with Inception (2010), Clint Eastwood with J. Edgar (2012), Quentin Tarantino with Django Unchained (2013) and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), Baz Luhrmann with Romeo + Juliet (1996) and The Great Gatsby (2013), and Alejandro G Iñárritu, who helped the actor to his first Oscar win, with The Revenant (2015). (Sadly, there’s no sign of a female director on Leo’s horizon.) It’s no surprise, then, that DiCaprio has joined Paul Thomas Anderson on what some sources are referring to as The Battle of Baktan Cross. Little is known about the film, save for it possibly being an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland (1990) – it would be the director’s second adaptation of the author’s work, after 2014’s Inherent Vice. But the cast is stellar. Alongside DiCaprio is Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, Regina Hall and Alana Haim, the breakout star of Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021).
In cinemas 8 August.
Untitled Noah Baumbach
The secrecy surrounding Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film pales against that of Noah Baumbach’s. The title, like the plot, has been kept under wraps. What we do know is that the screenplay is co-written by the director and actor Emily Mortimer, who appears alongside Eve Hewson, Adam Sandler, George Clooney, Laura Dern, Riley Keough, Isla Fisher, Greta Gerwig and Alba Rohrwacher, who is so captivating as Maria Callas’ housemaid in Maria (2024).
Coming soon to cinemas.
Julie Keeps Quiet
Stories of alleged abuse within the youth sports world are rife, and there have been a fair few recent dramas that grapple with real-life and fictional stories. Leonardo Van Dijl’s feature directorial debut aims for something different. When a coach at an elite tennis academy is suspected of abusive behaviour and the students there are encouraged to speak up, Julie (a terrific Tessa Van den Broeck) is notable for remaining quiet. Soon, her silence attracts suspicion and hearsay. Has she remained quiet because of trauma, an unwillingness to implicate someone who has played a significant role in her life, or because she still remains under their sway?
In cinemas 7 March.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc is back in yet another whodunit. Creator Rian Johnson returns as writer-director, and as with his previous two outings he has amassed an absurdly starry cast: Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Cailee Spaeny, Joshes O’Connor and Brolin, Mila Kunis, Glenn Close and Daryl McCormack, to name a few. A Knives Out mystery looks set to become a regular feature on the film calendar, which is good news for its large legion of fans. Meanwhile, Johnson is also set to return to the Star Wars universe (he directed 2017’s The Last Jedi) with a whole new and original trilogy. But for admirers of Johnson’s earlier features, like Brick (2005) and Looper (2012), it would be great to see him balance his franchise work with the more low-key, offbeat films that established his reputation.
Coming soon to cinemas.
Flow
If you’ve seen Latvian animation filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis’ feature debut Away (2019), you’ll have some idea of what to expect from this immersive drama. His work employs gaming technology to create a richly detailed and singular aesthetic, whose surface imagery belies the depth of the world he draws us into. Flow follows Cat, a solitary creature who, after the destruction of their habitat by a flood, is forced to work in tandem with other animals in order to survive. Made without dialogue, the film is a resplendent, yet unsettling, cautionary tale about an environment under threat.
In cinemas 21 March.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
It’s been a while. And the world has changed. But one constant remains: Bridget Jones’ life is never, ever going to go to plan. It’s nine years since the last instalment of this series and much has happened. (Although the less you know the better.) Renée Zellweger returns to the role she made very much her own. And Hugh Grant is back as Daniel Cleaver, after his no show in 2016’s Bridget Jones’ Baby. It’s co-written by author Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer and Abi Morgan, which offers hope that the film won’t return to the creative and comedy nadir of the Thai jail scene from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004).
In cinemas 13 February.
Ballerina
For all those despondent at (SPOILER ALERT!) John Wick’s eventual demise at the end of the fourth instalment of his titular and deliriously silly action adventure, fear not. When a franchise makes that much money, Hollywood doesn’t let a character’s death get in the way of a perfectly healthy revenue stream. So, we have Ballerina. Ana de Armas’ Eve takes centre stage this time. The size of Reeves’ role is as yet unknown but, like him, Eve is a vengeful soul, a ballet ingénue out to destroy the people who killed her family. As she showed in the Havana sequence of the 2021 Bond film No Time to Die, de Armas is not only adept at action, she manages to balance kicks with character. As for the film itself: think Atomic Blonde (2017) by way of Swan Lake.
In cinemas 6 June.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Like his friend and fellow Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, Mohammad Rasoulof has regularly courted the opprobrium of his country’s censors and security forces. He is best known in the UK for his powerful 2013 drama Manuscripts Don’t Burn, but his latest will likely raise his profile further. It’s one of the writer-director’s best films. His focus is a family presided over by a civil servant who has recently been promoted to Inspector – the person who interrogates anyone who has been arrested. When an important object goes missing in his house, the man decides to turn his professional talents onto his wife and daughters. Rasoulof came up with the idea while serving time in prison in 2022. It is inspired by the growing women’s movement in Iran and, with its coruscating portrait of a corrupt regime, it is one of the most important films of the coming year.
In cinemas 7 February.
Sinners
Ryan Coogler teams up with star Michael B Jordan for their fifth collaboration (if you include the actor’s brief appearances in 2022’s Wakanda Forever) and first horror. Set in the Jim Crow Deep South in the 1930s, the film sees Jordan play two brothers with a chequered past, hoping that their return home will lay to rest their former misdeeds, only to find that life in the world they once knew has taken an unsettling turn. The Coogler-Jordan partnership has proven rich to date, with one of the best Marvel films (2018’s Black Panther), a stunning reboot of the Rocky franchise (2015’s Creed) and a powerful social drama about a real-life event (2013’s Fruitvale Station). From the footage released so far, Sinners looks set to continue their successful partnership.
In cinemas 7 March.
28 Years Later
It’s not quite 28 years since director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland teamed up for their landmark and rule-breaking (zombies can run!) genre classic 28 Days Later (2002). After a 2007 sequel that didn’t feature the original production team, Boyle and Garland are back. Since the original, Boyle has expanded his range, which includes a multiple Oscar-winning film (2008’s Slumdog Millionaire), while Garland has himself become a filmmaker, with the impressive Ex Machina (2014), Annihilation (2018) and last year’s of-the-moment, country-in-crisis thriller Civil War. Not much is known about the film, save for it starring Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. But much is expected of it.
In cinemas 20 June.
F1
Joseph Kosinski, director of the 2022 global hit Top Gun: Maverick, has suggested that his Brad Pitt vehicle will be the defining motor-racing film. Some might argue that’s hardly a challenge as the bar has never been that high. Grand Prix (1966) and Le Mans (1971), two of the defining films of the motor-racing genre, had some fantastic on-circuit sequences but were mostly dull away from the track. Ron Howard’s Rush (2013), James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari (2019) and the silly but entertaining Gran Turismo (2023) fared better. In the new film, Pitt plays a champion who comes out of retirement to mentor Damson Idris’ prodigy. Kosinski is a technician par excellence, but the film will need to rely on Top Gun screenwriter Ehren Kruger to truly be firing on all cylinders.
In cinemas 27 June.
Bugonia
With his third film in less than three years, Yorgos Lanthimos teams up with his Poor Things (2023) and Kinds of Kindness (2024) star Emma Stone for this adaptation of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 Korean satire Save the Green Planet! Kindness co-star Jesse Plemons also appears in the story of two eco-activists who kidnap the CEO of a corporation, believing she is an alien hell-bent on destroying Earth. Written by Will Tracy (Succession and 2022’s The Menu), it’s perfect material for Lanthimos, who has carved a niche as mainstream English-language cinema’s most outré filmmaker. And Stone’s work with him has shown her game for any role, no matter how extreme.
In cinemas 27 November.
Freakier Friday
Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis return as sparky mother and daughter Anna and Tess Coleman, who they first played in the 2003 remake of the 1976 Jodie Foster personality-switch comedy. The recent Christmas comedy Our Little Secret (2024) has hinted at the possibility of a Lohanaissance, so hopes are high for a big screen comeback with this sequel, which brings another generation of Colemans into the comic mix. Add Curtis’ late career flourish, following her sardonic turn in the first Knives Out (2019) and Oscar-winning performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), and all the signs point towards a potential cross-generational breakout hit.
In cinemas 8 August.
The Fire Inside
Boxing films are two-a-penny. Good boxing films less so. And good films about female boxers are even rarer. Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (2004) was an admirable effort – and a rare example of the Best Picture Oscar going to a low-key B movie – while Karyn Kusama’s Girlfight (2000) was all scrappy ebullience, with Michelle Rodriguez giving a charismatic breakout central performance. So, this portrait of real-life fighter Claressa ‘T-Rex’ Shields is a welcome addition. As a cinematographer, Rachel Morrison shot Mudbound (2017), Black Panther (2018) and Seberg (2019). As a TV director, she helmed episodes of The Morning Show (2021) and The Mandalorian (2023). Her feature debut is written by Moonlight and The Underground Railroad director Barry Jenkins, and stars Ryan Destiny as Shields and a show-stopping Brian Tyree Henry as her coach. It’s a classic aspirational, wrong-side-of-the-tracks drama.
In cinemas 7 February.
The Running Man
In the original 1987 adaptation of this Stephen King short story, Arnold Schwarzenegger played the hero cop who, framed for a crime he didn’t commit, is forced to become the prey in a deadly chase that’s the highest-rating show on TV and a military state’s main tool in suppressing the discontent of a nation. Glen Powell picks up the mantle for Edgar Wright’s remake. It’s the perfect vehicle for the Hit Man (2023) and Twisters (2024) star, and for Wright, whose kinetic energy will likely serve the story’s pulpy origins well.
In cinemas 21 November.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Titanic (1997) was mooted as James Cameron’s folly. It became the most successful film ever made. Avatar (2008) was regarded as the work of a filmmaker whose decision to halt shooting until technology had caught up with his vision saw him ridiculed, until the movie became a box-office behemoth. Then, with Avatar: The Way of Water, against the naysayers who believed Cameron was in a creative cul-de-sac, the filmmaker did it again. He returns to Pandora with this third instalment of the sci-fi saga. It’s unlikely to win him any screenwriting awards – Cameron is a laureate of image, not language. What’s most impressive is the way he manages to draw from us a feeling of childlike wonder at the environments he creates. And, as the film’s title suggests, the action has moved away from the aquatic world and towards warmer climes.
In cinemas 19 December.
Presence
There’s something there. You can feel it. You just can’t prove it. That’s the classic set-up of the haunted house strain of horror. Steven Soderbergh – the director of Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), Out of Sight (1997), Oceans 11 (2001), Magic Mike (2012) and Logan Lucky (2017) – returns with this admirably pared-back take on supernatural thriller, about a family who move into an old house and suspect that they are not alone. It stars Lucy Liu and Julia Fox, and was written by David Koep, who previously scripted and directed the scary-as-hell thriller Stir of Echoes (1999). The closest Soderbergh has previously come to this genre is his 2018 psychological thriller Unsane, but as a filmmaker who can seemingly turn his hand to any topic, often from a fresh angle, expect something new within this traditional set-up.
In cinemas 24 January.
Along Came Love
Katell Quillévéré may not be the best-known French filmmaker, but with her features Love Like Poison (2010), Suzanne (2013) and Heal the Living (2016), she has proven herself an outstanding writer-director. Along Came Love is set in the aftermath of World War II and focuses on the burgeoning relationship between a young waitress and mother (Anaïs Demoustier), whose past she is trying to hide, and a well-to-do student (Vincent Lacoste) whose own life exists in a state of denial. From there, Quillévéré explores the characters’ lives over years and the arrival of someone who threatens their world.
Coming soon to cinemas.
