25 movies to look out for in 2025, from Superman to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein

Predicting what you’ll be seeing in the cinema over the next 12 months is no easy task. Take our 2024 preview, which was led by the Joker sequel, spoke glowingly of Jerry Seinfeld’s then-secret Netflix film about Pop-Tarts and included the immortal sentence: “Could Amy Adams’s recent career woes be turned around by Nightbitch?”. Sorry, Amy – we may have cursed you there.

But that’s all part of the fun with these lists, which are often based on nothing but vibes – plot descriptions that sound particularly intriguing, stars and filmmakers with solid track records, the presence of Richard Osman.

That said, 2025 does look strong on paper, with new films from Paul Thomas Anderson, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Lee and Danny Boyle in the pipeline, as well as fresh, promising takes on The Naked Gun, Frankenstein and The Fantastic Four. (Marvel and DC, by the way, are no longer dominating the release schedule, which is a bit of a relief.)

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And we didn’t quite have the space to squeeze in Knives Out 3, Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man with Glen Powell, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan’s belated Freaky Friday sequel, the Jordan Peele-produced horror movie Him, and (if we’re lucky) the new films by Wes Anderson and cult provocateur Gregg Araki. Or any one of the five movies due for release next year that star Charli XCX, who’s traded Brat Summer for… Act Summer?

To whet your appetites for 2025, here are our 25 most exciting films scheduled for UK release next year.

Presence

This experimental haunted house movie from Steven Soderbergh drew raves at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2024, and will finally hit cinemas next month. It revolves around a fractured family (led by Lucy Liu) who move into a home already occupied by ghosts – what makes Soderbergh’s film particularly distinct is that it’s told from the camera POV of the entities themselves. Sounds spooky, right? Uncut Gems star and all-round It-girl Julia Fox is also involved, playing the estate agent who sells Liu’s family the house from hell – which is a very Julia Fox thing to do, frankly. (24 January)

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

We already did the “Oh my God they killed off Colin Firth!” discourse when Helen Fielding published her original Mad About the Boy book back in 2013, but expect it to come around again in February once the film adaptation hits cinemas. Renée Zellweger is back – as a grieving, recently widowed Bridget – as is Hugh Grant, alongside a pair of newcomers for Bridget to romance. One is a much younger man played by One Day’s Leo Woodall, the other a more age-appropriate teacher played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. (13 February)

Mickey 17

Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up to Parasite has been completed since December 2022, which is the kind of trivia that – if this were any other movie – may give you pause. But there’s long been a sense that Warner Bros doesn’t quite know how to sell Mickey 17, by all accounts a zany, expensive sci-fi comedy about a clone (Robert Pattinson, doing a funny voice) determined to stay alive despite being bred to be disposable. Wouldn’t it be cool if, despite the “impending mess” optics, this is one of the great pleasures of 2025? (7 March)

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Sinners

Remember when trailers used to give nothing away? When they used to lure viewers in by tantalisingly revealing clues as opposed to giving away every single plot point? Ryan Coogler does; the promotion for the Black Panther director’s new film is a masterclass in intrigue. Horror movie Sinners follows a pair of troubled twins, both played by Coogler’s Creed lead star Michael B Jordan, who discover a “greater evil” upon returning to their hometown. So far this is all we know about the plot – and that’s exactly how we like it. (18 April)

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

The actual plot of this fantasy romance remains under lock and key, but at least one rumour circulating is that it involves Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie taking a trip into their respective histories via a magical satnav. Yes, this sounds potentially ghastly, but Farrell and Robbie are a strong pairing while A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is the latest film from celebrated director and essayist Kogonada, whose previous movies (the romantic, architecture-minded Columbus and the sci-fi film After Yang) have earned devoted fans. Let’s wait and see before judging too harshly! (9 May)

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

The most recent Mission: Impossible had the misfortune of coming out a week before Barbie and Oppenheimer smashed up the summer 2023 box office, meaning many may have skipped it entirely. But these remain great, expertly frantic action spectacles, and next summer’s eighth entry in the franchise – which seems likely to be its last – is worth a punt, too. It looks set to pick up where the seventh film left off, with Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt battling an evil AI and doing lots of running with Hayley Atwell. Expect more face-swapping and absolutely ludicrous stunt work. (21 May)

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​​28 Years Later

When news of a new 28 Days Later sequel arrived, even Cillian Murphy seemed surprised. But, as quickly as the Rage-infected hordes first popped up in the 2000 apocalyptic horror, surprise led to excitement. After all, Danny Boyle, who directed the original, is back behind the camera (well, an iPhone 15), co-writing with Alex Garland. Heading up the new cast are Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes, who will all return for two more sequels, which – calm yourselves – will also star Murphy. (20 June)

Untitled Trey Parker/Kendrick Lamar comedy

Rumours have swirled for a few years now about this top-secret film, which marks one of the year’s most unexpected collaborations: Parker is best known as the co-creator of South Park and Team America, and Lamar is arguably the greatest living rapper. Together they’ve made this unsurprisingly chaotic-sounding comedy movie, in which Lamar plays a history museum worker who discovers the ancestors of his girlfriend (believed to be played by Heretic’s Chloe East) once owned his. Shot in secret last summer, expect it to be a smash at the box office. (4 July)

Superman

James Gunn, DC’s newly appointed head honcho alongside Peter Safran, has been feverishly working behind the scenes to steer the comic book studio’s “extended universe” to long-awaited critical and commercial success. Rather him than us. But his own time to step up arrives in July, with his brand new iteration of the Man of Steel. Of course, a revamp needs a new face – Henry Cavill is out and David Corenswet is in, with Rachel Brosnahan playing intrepid if lovestruck reporter Lois Lane. You’ll believe one of them can fly. (11 July)

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Deadpool said it best in this year’s Deadpool & Wolverine when he joked that he was joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) “at a bit of a rough moment”. And while Marvel might be happy to admit this in a pithy fourth wall-breaking one-liner, 2025 certainly feels like a make-or-break year for the studio. That its future rests on the shoulders of a quartet of superheroes whose big screen track record has been as rusty as a bag of nails is slightly comedic. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach are the latest actors to play the Fantastic Four, and the film – based on a leaked trailer – at least seems more vibrant than most MCU releases in a while. We say hopefully. (25 July)

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The Naked Gun

Pamela Anderson’s first foray into dramatic acting – Gia Coppola’s scrappy, moving The Last Showgirl – is out in February, but word on the street (or, well, among occasionally reliable Film Twitter “insiders”) is that she completely steals the show in her next major film. This reboot of the Leslie Nielsen series of police spoofs stems from Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer, with Anderson playing a femme fatale who becomes entangled with Liam Neeson’s detective. Schaffer has been responsible for some of the funniest comedies of the last decade – among them Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and the surprisingly delightful Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers – so chances are this will similarly be a riot. (8 August)

Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson project

The filmmaker behind modern masterpieces including There Will Be Blood and Magnolia makes movies in such secrecy that it’s tricky to sift fact from fiction. What we do know about his forthcoming 10th film is that it stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Scary Movie’s Regina Hall and Sean Penn, and that it has far and away the highest budget – a rumoured $140m (£111m) – Anderson has ever been given for one of his movies. Its summer release also suggests that this is a major blockbuster rather than an arthouse drama. Rumours have swirled for a few years that it’s inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s chaotic novel Vineland, about Sixties radicals through the decades, but that may be untrue; likewise, the recent claim that it’s been titled the not-exactly-thrilling The Battle of Baktan Cross. Whatever the truth, though, we’ll obviously be seated on opening day. (8 August)

The Bride!

Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! may have taught us that nothing is more alienating to audiences than an unnecessary exclamation mark at the end of a film title, but Maggie Gyllenhaal clearly hasn’t taken it to heart. Her follow-up to her brilliant Olivia Colman drama The Lost Daughter is this otherwise drool-worthy period horror film, in which Jessie Buckley plays the Bride of Frankenstein. Christian Bale, Penelope Cruz, Annette Bening and Gyllenhaal’s brother Jake also star. (26 September)

Roofman

Derek Cianfrance kicked off the 2010s with two major indie hits, the heartbreaking Blue Valentine and the haunting The Place Beyond the Pines. His follow-ups, though, were less eventful, with both the Michael Fassbender/Alicia Vikander drama The Light Between Oceans and the Mark Ruffalo mini-series I Know This Much Is True seeming to evaporate upon impact. Roofman, at least on paper, could mark a real comeback. It’s based on the true story of a prolific McDonald’s thief who hides out in a toy shop and falls in love with a single mum, with Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Peter Dinklage, LaKeith Stanfield and Juno Temple all on the cast list. (3 October)

Bugonia

Emma Stone reportedly shaved her head for her fourth collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos, which serves as his remake of the 2003 South Korean sci-fi comedy Save the Green Planet!. It’s about a pair of conspiracy nuts (Jesse Plemons and cult comedian Stavros Halkias) who kidnap Stone’s character, the CEO of a pharmaceutical conglomerate, after they become convinced that she’s an alien in disguise. Whether this will be Lanthimos in more commercial mode (à la Poor Things) or balls-to-the-walls bonkers mode (à la Kinds of Kindness) remains to be seen. (7 November)

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Avatar: Fire and Ash

However much pressure you feel in 2025, lend a thought to James Cameron, who has raised the bar so high with the Avatar franchise, it’s virtually impossible to surpass it. The director’s gamble paid off in grand-standing fashion when sequel The Way of Water became the third highest-grossing film of all time in 2023, sitting just two spots behind the 2009 original. If you hadn’t heard, there’s another three films on the way (yes, three), and the latest will be released next December; if it doesn’t crack the all-time top five, you just know there’ll be those bad-faith types deeming it a failure. Regardless of your stance on Cameron dedicating a third of his life to Avatar, you have to give him credit for turning his vision into cinema’s most globally bankable events – and it’ll feel off if Fire and Ash doesn’t hit the same. (19 December)

After the Hunt

Luca Guadagnino is surely cinema’s busiest filmmaker, with After the Hunt arriving fast on the heels of his Challengers and Queer, and presumably just before his impending remake of American Psycho. Likely hitting the festival circuit next year, this psychological thriller was pitched around Hollywood as “Tár set in the world of academia”, with a number of A-list women reportedly fighting to play the main character. Guadagnino eventually cast Julia Roberts – an actor who more than deserves another incredibly juicy dramatic role – as a university professor whose star pupil (The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri) makes a shocking allegation about one of her closest colleagues (Andrew Garfield). If that trio of actors isn’t scintillating enough, Guadagnino regulars Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny also appear. Give it to me now. (TBC)

Die, My Love

Unbelievably, it’s been almost 10 years since Lynne Ramsay’s last film, the pulsating revenge thriller You Were Never Really Here. In 2025, the Scottish director is back with a Martin Scorsese-produced adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s dark comedy novel, Die, My Love, which stars Jennifer Lawrence as a new mother driven to the edge by her parenting duties while living in a rural community with her husband (Robert Pattinson). Those who have read the 2017 novel have said that shades of David Lynch pervade it, and Ramsay seems like exactly the right person to bring its shocks to life. (TBC)

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Frankenstein

An adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein directed by Guillermo del Toro? Sign us up. The latest version of the story will star Oscar Isaac as the mad scientist, with Jacob Elordi – worlds away from Saltburn – stepping in to replace Andrew Garfield, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts, as his monstrous creation. This particular adaptation has been rattling around Del Toro’s mind since 2007 and, while it feels like a shame that it’ll be shunted to Netflix, the Mexican director has long established himself as someone whose work you’ll watch no matter its form of delivery. (TBC)

Gazer

Electrician-turned-filmmaker Ryan J Sloan’s debut (co-written by and starring his partner Ariella Mastroianni) is a striking cult hit in waiting – a paranoid thriller with Alfred Hitchcock and Christopher Nolan running through its veins. The quiet thriller, following a woman who struggles to perceive how much time has elapsed, wears its influences on its sleeve but in a way that brings its highlights to the fore. We saw Gazer at Cannes, and it’s an accomplished first feature made independently by two movie enthusiasts with no formal training in screenwriting or directing. The result is a mystery drama oozing in confidence. (TBC)

Happy Gilmore 2

Adam Sandler once admitted that he stopped reading reviews after the harsh criticism he received for 1995 comedy Billy Madison – but that means he likely missed out on the love for his goofy golf movie Happy Gilmore, which remains one of his best films (alongside Punch-Drunk Love, Uncut Gems and, ahem, Little Nicky). Sandler will be hoping to emulate the success with a Netflix sequel. Christopher McDonald is back as Gilmore’s golfing rival Shooter McGavin (exciting) and there’ll be cameos from Eminem and Travis Kelce (not so exciting). (TBC)

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Highest 2 Lowest

Any film that encourages people to seek out Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film High and Low is a win by us. A remake of the drama is arriving in the spring – and if that’s not enough to lure you in, let us inform you that it will be directed by Spike Lee. It follows a businessman on the verge of a buyout that’ll see him gain control of the company he works for, who discovers his employee’s son is being held for ransom by kidnappers. Should he use his life savings on saving the child instead of furthering his career? That’s the question this thinking person’s crime film asks, with Denzel Washington playing the role originally assumed by Kurosawa regular Toshiro Mifune. (TBC)

Outcome

What is a preview of the next 12 months in film without some incredibly wild and disgustingly early Oscar predictions, too? So hear us out: Best Actor Academy Award for Keanu Reeves in 2026? Outcome, which will be released late next year, is a big, splashy black comedy from writer-director Jonah Hill in which Reeves plays a movie star being blackmailed over a historic infraction, and who ventures back to his hometown to find the person responsible. Freshly un-retired Cameron Diaz, Nineties comedy staple David Spade and recent Twitter villain Ivy Wolk co-star, and this Apple TV+ production marks Reeves’s first semi-serious film role in what feels like an age. And much like his recurring collaborator Sandra Bullock in the late Noughties, Reeves seems as if he’s in a position where he’s so well liked in the industry that Oscar will come running at the first acceptable opportunity. Outcome, then, could very well be his The Blind Side – only, ideally, less problematic. We’d put a tenner on it at least. (TBC)

The Thursday Murder Club

The rise and rise of Richard Osman – and the cosy murder mystery genre – will continue in 2025. His novel The Thursday Murder Club was ripe for an adaptation after becoming a bestseller in 2020, and it was Steven Spielberg of all people who swooped in to give him a leg up. Backed by the director’s Amblin Entertainment, and released by Netflix, the film follows a group of pensioners – played by Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie and Pierce Brosnan – as they try to solve a murder in a retirement village. We’re certain this will become an essential Sunday afternoon viewing experience. (TBC)

Untitled Noah Baumbach project

Absolutely nobody knows what Baumbach’s next film is about, only that it’s being released via Netflix and has been described as “a funny and emotional coming-of-age film about adults” – which suggests something more along the lines of his Oscar-winning 2019 dramedy Marriage Story than his Oscar-skipping 2022 shrug White Noise. British actor Emily Mortimer co-wrote the film’s script, which is speculated to be set across multiple countries, and its ensemble cast needs to be seen to be believed: George Clooney, Greta Gerwig, Laura Dern, Adam Sandler, Riley Keough, Jim Broadbent, Jamie Demetriou and Isla Fisher are just some of the people involved. (TBC)