Looking ahead to 2025, here are the 45 films of all genres – from horror to comedy to drama and more – we reckon you really shouldn’t miss.
Special mentions:
Firstly, the movies you won’t be seeing, but want to namecheck. Our rules were that we didn’t want to include films that had screened, but not made it to the UK yet (with the exception of British films). Hence – sorry Kevin – the next Horizon film isn’t on the list. There’s stuff we’re watching for release dates too: Above The Below, Mother’s Pride, All Of You, and such like. We acknowledge too that there’s a Michael Jackson biopic that you won’t find below. Plus superhero films that don’t really need our help, so we limited ourselves to one or two of those.
Instead, here’s the 45 films firmly on our radar for 2025…
45. Avatar: Fire And Ash
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to Pandora, James Cameron returns with the continuation of what is quickly turning into the most profitable film franchise since someone worked out you can make $7.7m from an out-of-copyright Winnie The Pooh slasher. This time, the Sully crew say hello to the ‘Ash People’, a society of Na’vi who might be a bit less cheerful than the various shades of blue we’ve encountered so far, as those pesky humans continue to get up to all sorts of mischief. Will there be more space whales? We hope there’ll be more space whales. – James Harvey
44. The Thursday Murder Club
Murder mysteries are back in vogue of late (see second Knives Out sequel Wake Up Dead Man later in this list), and here comes a particularly fun-sounding one. Adapted from Richard Osman’s best-selling novel, The Thursday Murder Club is about a bunch of well-to-do retirement home residents who end up trying to solve the mysterious death of a local property developer. It’s written and directed by Chris Columbus, features Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan among its cast, and it’s heading to Netflix. Expect a thoroughly zesty evening’s entertainment. – Ryan Lambie
43. Deep Cover
A bunch of actors are hired by the police to improvise their way into gangland London in an upcoming thriller starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, Ian McShane, Paddy Considine, Nick Mohammed and Sean Bean. It’s directed by Tom Kingsley, who’s perhaps best known for his work on such hit TV comedies as Stath Lets Flats and Ghosts. Intriguingly, its script is co-written by Colin Trevorrow, who made the charming comedy Safety Not Guaranteed before he got sucked into the blockbuster machine with the Jurassic World movies. Will Deep Cover be this year’s Hit Man – another comedy thriller about undercover work? No idea. We aren’t psychic. Why are we asking ourselves these questions? Sigh. – RL
42. A Working Man and Mutiny
Take your pick, chums, Two Jason Statham action films are on the slate for 2025, and it’s hard to split. Firstly, The Statham reujnites with The Beekeeper director to shoot an old Sylvester Stallone script. The resultant film is Levon’s Trade – now retitled A Working Man – and that’s due in March. Later in 2025 meanwhile is Mutiny, shot in the UK with Plane director Jean-François Richet at the controls. Both will be unmissable. Both will have to go some to match the sheer entertainment levels of The Beekeeper. – Simon Brew
41. Fantastic Four
We’ll be honest, this one completely took us by surprise. Even we, huge Wes Anderson fans and cine-asts that we are, had no idea there’d already been a follow-up to Fantastic Mr Fox, let alone two of them. We’ve got plenty of time to catch up though, because the fourth installment in the stop-motion franchi… What was that? It’s a Marvel movie? Based on the most famous family in comic book history? It might not have anything to do with foxes? Oh. It does have an intriguing-looking sixties setting and a whole load of good-will behind it, though, so might be worth a watch regardless. – JH
40. The Naked Gun
Pinch of salt, obviously, but early word of test screenings suggests the reboot of The Naked Gun might actually be half decent. Liam Neeson takes the lead role, bumbling where Leslie Niesen bumbled before. What lifts this is the team behind it: director Akiva Schafer made the sublime Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, one of the flat-out funniest films of the last decade or so. His Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie too was a huge surprise. Write his Naked Gun off at your peril. – SB
39. Fools
Guy Jenkin has plenty of form in comedy, not least his work in Drop The Dead Donkey and Outnumbered. He’s written and directed a new comedy now by the name of Fools, which sees Karen Gillan in the role of Queen Mary I. Alongside Jim Broadbent, Patsy Ferran and Brenda Blethyn, Fools is flying a bit under the radar at the moment, but from the outside looking in, this has real pedigree to it. – SB
38. Zootropolis 2
It’s a little disheartening that Disney and Pixar are mostly focusing on sequels, but who wouldn’t want a sequel to 2016’s Zootropolis? Ginnifer Goodwin voiced a bunny dreaming of becoming a police officer while Jason Bateman lent his voice for a hustling fox as they went about solving a case involving predatory animals becoming… well, predators. No news on what the sequel might be about, but we’re very excited to return to Zootropolis. – ML
37. Fackham Hall
The fact that Fackham Hall is co-written by Jimmy Carr is what’s given this upcoming British comedy some profile so far. Filmed in the north of England, in a year when the third and final Downton Abbey movie lands, Fackham Hall is giving the period drama the spoof treatment. British cinema has done this before, with Stiff Upper Lips, and there’s plenty to aim at. Jim O’Hanlon is directing, with a cast including Thomasin McKenzie, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Katherine Waterston and Emma Laird – SB
36. Gerard Butler
How do you separate all of these? The mighty Butler has a pair of sequels to really good movies coming out in 2025. Den Of Thieves 2 kicks the year off, a follow-on to the hugely enjoyable heist thriller original. And then a really strong 2020 surprise was Greenland, that skipped cinemas due to pandemic-y stuff, but performed well enough elsewhere to get a sequel. That too arrives this year. Plus! Gerard in the flesh appears in the live action How To Train Your Dragon as well. Geostorm 2 next please, Gez. – SB
35. The Ballad Of Wallis Island
Here’s a British comedy about a dream music gig going very, very wrong. Wisely following the indie movie path and setting the story on a private island. That’s where a lottery winner books his favourite musician – who, er, he once had a relationship with – for a private concert. Then the weather hits. Tim Key and Tom Basden wrote the script, with the pair lining up alongside Carey Mulligan in the cast. James Griffiths directs. – SB
34. Elio
A new Pixar film feels a bit of an event and Elio is no exception. Elio is a kid who loves aliens and is actively trying to get kidnapped by those. His dream comes true and he’s off on an intergalactic adventure after being mistaken as Earth’s leader. Honestly, at times point, we firmly believe Elio would be a better leader than what we’ve got now. Turning Red’s Domee Shi is co-directing with Madeline Sharafian and Coco’s Adrian Molina. – ML
33. Time Travel Is Dangerous
There’s no arguing with that title, is there? Time travel really is a dangerous business. You could accidentally step on a butterfly and wipe out all life on Earth, for example. It sounds as though there’s all sorts of hijinx to look forward to in Time Travel Is Dangerous, though – it’s a British mockumentary comedy about a couple of ne’er-do-wells who sneak around different periods in time, nicking stuff the then sell in their bric-a-brac shop. Johnny Vegas, Sophie Thompson and Jane Horrocks are among the cast, and the word from festivals is that this is all a lot of fun. As such, it earns a spot on the list. – RL
32. Peaky Blinders
Bringing the main Peaky Blinders story to an endpoint, the movie version of the hugely successful show has now wrapped filming. Cillian Murphy leads the ensemble, working from Steven Knight’s script. It’s unlikely to see a cinema, sadly, but Netflix is bankrolling the feature. It’s an important film too for the Birmingham area in the West Midlands. Thanks to the relatively new Digbeth Loc facility, it’s the first time Peaky Blinders has been able to shoot in the area the show is actually set in. Plot details under wraps for now, but it’s poised to be one of the biggest British films of the year. – SB
31. The Amateur
James Hawes made his directorial debut with the impressive One Life, after notching up plenty of acclaim for TV work. It’s him you’ve got to the thank for the opening episodes of Slow Horses, for instance, and Christopher Eccleston’s wonderful ‘just this once’ moment in Doctor Who.
The Amateur is his second feature, and it instantly looks like the kind of thriller squeezed out usually by the Hollywood system. Rami Malek leads the cast, and filming was done in two blocks in the end due to SAG strikes. We finally get the end result in 2025. – SB
30. The Scurry
A real stand-out of 2022 was the British golf comedy The Phantom Of The Open. Directed by Craig Roberts, from Simon Farnaby’s script, it had a fair amount of steel beneath its charming surface, and for Roberts, continued his successful migration from acting to directing.
2025 sees him shepherding killer squirrels in a horror comedy by the name of The Scurry. Rhys Ifans, Ella Purnell, Paapa Essiedu and Antonia Thomas lead the ensemble, with pest controllers tackling a routine job that becomes, well, not so routine… – SB
29. The Running Man
Yes, Arnold Schwarzenegger already starred in a highly quotable and fun film of the same name in 1987. Director Edgar Wright is said to be going back to Stephen King’s original source novel for this new adaptation, though, which this time stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards, a financially desperate chap who ends up on a game show where contestants are hunted down on live television. Will it be quite as downbeat as King’s book (published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman)? We’ll have to wait and see. Wright’s a dab hand when it comes to action, though, so it’ll surely be one of 2025’s more propulsive films, however it turns out. – RL
28. Fuze
David Mackenzie directed one of this writer’s favourite films of the 2010s – that being the thriller/western Hell Or High Water. While it’s impossible to know whether Fuze will scale those heights, any crime thriller from Mackenzie is worth looking forward to. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Sam Worthington and Gugu Mbatha-Raw are among the cast in a plot that involves a bank heist which takes place while an unexploded World War II bomb is defused in the middle of London. Fuze also sees Mackenzie reunited with cinematographer Giles Nuttgens, so we should be in for another good-looking genre film. – RL
27. Hamnet
Chloé Zhao followed her devastating Nomadland with Marvel’s Eternals, which came and went without much fanfare. Hamnet will find the Oscar-winning director back on low-key dramatic ground. Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley star as William and Agnes Shakespeare who are trying to cope with the death of their son, the titular Hamnet. The film is based on Maggie O’Farrell’s fictional novel and if Zhao’s previous films are anything to go by, we’re in for quite an emotional rollercoaster. – ML
26. A Simple Favor 2
Paul Feig has come close to making a follow-up to one of his films before. For a while, he was working on The Heat 2, while there was regularly chatter about Bridesmaids 2 as well. His first follow-up though is actually set to be A Simple Favor 2, a follow-on to the well-liked twisty thriller of 2018. Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick both return, and early whispers suggest a very worthwhile second chapter. It’s due on Prime Video in the spring. – SB
25. Superman
Bwah bwah bwah bwah… Bwah, bwah, bwah, bwah bwah bwah bwah, BWAH, BWAH-BWAH! John Williams might have been nowhere near the first DC Studios project from James Gunn, but his shadow lies heavy on the Man of Steel’s latest reincarnation. Thankfully, he has super-strength, so he can probably deal with it. Originally called Superman: Legacy, the sub-title was dropped, Social Network-style, but the story is still set to follow David Corenswet’s young Supes as he tries to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his found-family on Earth. Heading to a multiplex faster than a speeding bullet (amazing what you can do with full-fibre) on 11th July. – JH
Read more: Superman trailer | Has James Gunn secretly made a team-up film?
24. The Last Disturbance Of Madeline Hynde
Kenneth Branagh has already proved his gleefully spooky credentials with 2023’s Poirot mystery, A Haunting In Venice, and by the sounds of this title, he might have just got the horror-adjacent bug. Described as “a psychological thriller”, the prolific Belfast director’s next project has Jodie Comer attached as the lead, but we really don’t know much else. How many disturbances has our heroine had? Is the character a thinly-veiled analogue for Guardian columnist Marina Hyde? We simply don’t know. -JH
23. Presence
A new Steven Soderbergh film is always a cinematic event in itself, but a Soderbergh horror film? Shot from the perspective of a ghost? Well, that’s something else entirely. Haunted house films tend to follow the same, slightly tired formula, but Presence could really be something special and revitalise the genre. Judging from the trailer, we’re in for a spooky, creepy horror movie and we can’t wait. – ML
22. The Magic Faraway Tree
When Simon Farnaby gets behind a typewriter, the Horrible Histories star rarely seems to miss. After penning such family favourites as Paddington 2, Wonka and The Phantom Of The Open, his next project is an adaptation of a beloved Enid Blyton series. We didn’t have “The Magic Faraway Tree film will tap into children’s post-pandemic anxiety” on our Moonface bingo card, to be honest, but, according to director Ben Gregor, that’s just what we’re getting. Oh, and Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy and Nicola Coughlan are in it, too. British cinema is back! – JH
21. Jurassic World: Rebirth
Sure, Jurassic World: Dominion proved to be a bit of a disappointment, but it’s hard not to be excited by another Jurassic World film. Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey lead an ensemble cast, who will encounter some very cool, CGI dinos, we’d imagine. Gareth Edwards is directing, which makes Rebirth all the more exciting. After all, across his four previous feature films, the man hasn’t really missed, has he? – ML
20. Predator: Badlands
This writer is still very salty about Dan Trachtenberg’s The Predator prequel Prey not getting a full cinema release. Thankfully, Trachtenberg’s next Predator film will be heading into cinemas. Predator: Badlands will star Elle Fanning in a story about two sisters travelling the wasteland and making a terrible discovery about their own past. Trachtenberg has also reportedly filmed another Predator film in secret and it’s due to be released before Badlands, but there’s no other information on that available at the time of writing. – ML
19. Alto Knights
Given it was delayed from last year, may as well copy the entry over from last year’s list! It read:
Barry Levinson makes rare forays behind the camera, but Alto Knights – previously known as Wiseguys – sees the Oscar-winning director back on a film set. He’s attracted Robert De Niro to the lead role of his film too, which comes from the pen of Nicholas Pileggi. Pileggi of course penned Goodfellas, which was also previously known as Wiseguys, so he’s making a bit of a habit of this.
The film is a story of competing mob bosses, and De Niro – greedy bugger – seems to be playing both of the lead roles here. It’s also a movie that’s take around five decades to get to the screen, having originally been considered all the way back in the 1970s. It’s senior Hollywood here tackling what could and should be a compelling mob drama. – SB
18. Drop
Christopher Landon’s previous horror films, such as Freaky and Happy Death Day, have leaned heavily on comedy, but his next film sounds genuinely unnerving. Meghann Fahy plays a widowed single mother on a date when she begins to receive anonymous messages to her phone with disturbing instructions she must follow or her young son and his babysitter will be killed. Landon has an impressive ability to make the most out of a simple premise so we should be in for a dead good time. – ML
17. Havoc
Gareth Evans is one of the most interesting action filmmakers working today. The Raid and The Raid 2 are both modern classics of the genre and Evans tipped his toes into more of a horror vibe with Netflix’s Apostle but Havoc will see him return to do what he does best. Starring Tom Hardy, Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker, Havoc will follow Hardy’s detective on a mission to save a politician’s son while uncovering the ugly underbelly of the city. – ML
16. The Bride!
In one of two Mary Shelley-inspired films out next year (Netflix pulled out of production in favour of Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein, instead), Maggie Gyllenhaal’s remake of 1935 Universal Pictures classic Bride Of Frankenstein is heading to cinemas via Warner Bros in September. Reuniting the director with her The Dark Knight co-star, Christian Bale, and with the ever-excellent Jessie Buckley in the titular role, the The Lost Daughter director’s sophomore feature has us all excited – and not just because the only correct way to pronounce the name involves shouting. – JH
15. Roofman
Derek Cianfrance hasn’t made a film since 2017’s The Light Between Oceans, but that’s all due to change in 2025 as the director adapts the bizarre real life story of Jeffrey Manchester who broke into several McDonalds restaurants via – you guessed it! – their roofs. Channing Tatum is on board to play Manchester and will be joined by Kirsten Dunst, Ben Mendelsohn and Peter Dinklage among others. We’re intrigued to see how the director combines his usual melancholic style with such a premise. – ML
14. F1
Vroom, and indeed, vroom. Joseph Kosinski’s first film since the blood-pumping Top Gun: Maverick follows Brad Pitt’s Sonny Hayes, a Formula One driver convinced to come out of retirement to mentor a rookie prodigy (Damson Idris) on how to drive a very noisy vehicle really, really fast. Sound familiar? Yes. Are we kid-on-Christmas-morning excited? Absolutely. See it on a screen so big your head is flattened into a seat cushion. – JH
13. Materialists
Celine Song has made another film? Say no more. After shattering hearts across the globe with 2023’s utterly perfect Past Lives, Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal star in the writer-director’s spin on the rom-com genre, which sees a match-maker, her ex-boyfriend and a wealthy businessman collide in New York City. A24 is distributing Stateside, with Sony handling the rollout internationally – we’ll be buying tickets just as soon as we have a release date. – JH
12. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Benoit Blanc is back for this third murder mystery. Well, we assume it’ll be another murder mystery in the vein of Knives Out and Glass Onion, but director Rian Johnson has kept the details of Wake Up Dead Man quite close to the chest. We can say for sure that Benoit Blanc will once again be immaculately dressed as he solves whatever crime he is hired to investigate. – ML
11. The Monkey
What do you get when you combine Stephen King, Theo James and Osgood Perkins? A bloody good horror film, I hope. Longlegs director Perkins adapts King’s 1980 short story and James has been tapped to play twins who begin to experience strange deaths around them after discovering a toy monkey in their attic. We’re sure this will be a very stress-free watch with a happy ending, just like Longlegs. – ML
10. Warfare
Alex Garland, having raised the roof with his 2024 war thriller Civil War, returns to similar material, albeit on a smaller canvas. Co-directed and co-written with Ray Mendoza, a former soldier who served as a consultant on Civil War, Warfare is about Mendoza’s own recollections of the Iraq War in 2006. Starring Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and more besides, it’s said to be a wartime thriller shot almost entirely in one confined location, perhaps a little bit like John Carpenter’s exploitation-era classic, Assault On Precinct 13. Count us in. – RL
9. The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
An animated feature, featuring Warner Bros’ beloved characters, with a premise seemingly inspired by 1950s-era Red Menace invasion films? It all sounds tremendous. Unlike the ill-fated Wile E Coyote Vs Acme, another Looney Tunes-connected project, The Day The Earth Blew Up has survived the murderous impulses of current Warner boss David Zaslav, and for that alone we’re grateful. The early buzz from festival screenings is that the finished film – directed by Pete Browngardt – is a real treat. Hence why it’s riding high on our list of our most anticipated 2025 motion pictures. – RL
8. 28 Years Later
Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later feels much less groundbreaking today than it did in 2002. That’s mostly because the film was an anomaly then, kickstarting an entirely new wave of zombie films. Gone were the slow walkers of George A. Romero, replaced by hordes of the infected, raging on as the rest of humanity is trying to find safety, and potentially even a cure. 28 Years Later will, unsurprisingly, take place years after the original and its first sequel 28 Weeks Later and Cillian Murphy is confirmed to be coming back to reprise his role as Jim from the first film. Boyle is directing once again and has collaborated on the script with old pal Alex Garland. – ML
7. Christmas Karma
I can’t pretend to have had much interest in seeing another adaptation of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, but Gurinder Chadha’s first film since her terrific 2019 movie Blinded By The Light has just reversed that. A contemporary telling of the tale, that appears to have a musical edge too, Christmas Karma shot in 2024, and I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that a release somewhere around November or December is on the likely side. – SB
6. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Tom Cruise once again dices with death – perhaps for the last time, if the trailers and title are anything to go by – in the latest of his globe-spanning thrillers. The Final Reckoning is the second half of 2023’s Dead Reckoning, which means it’ll see Ethan Hunt and his team engage in a final showdown with a sentient computer intent on taking over the world. Expect stunts, explosions and maybe one or two tears before bedtime. – RL
5. Mickey 17
It’s faced delays, rumours of director-studio clashes and delays (again), but Bong Joon-ho’s next directorial outing after the Oscar-winning Parasite is finally on its way. Robert Pattinson stars as a down-on-his-luck cog in the corporate machine, performing deadly manual tasks before a machine spits out an identical doppelganger with (most of) his memories intact. In true Moon style, things don’t quite go to plan, and Mickey 17 comes face-to-face with his numerical younger brother… – JH
4. Frankenstein
There have been many, many previous attempts to turn Mary Shelley’s seminal work of proto science fiction into a movie, including James Whale’s classic, Kenneth Branagh’s 1990s version, and 2015’s Victor Frankenstein – an adaptation nobody talks about all that much these days. The latest take on the material, however, is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, a director who knows a thing or two about monsters and Gothic horror literature. The all-star cast includes Oscar Isaac as the scientist Victor Frankenstein; Jacob Elordi as his monster (a handsome chap, as he’s described in Shelley’s text) and the likes of Mia Goth (nominative determinism there), Charles Dance and the gravel-voiced Ralph Ineson in supporting roles. It’s going to be a corker isn’t it? Surely. – RL
3. The Battle Of Baktan Cross
What might just be Paul Thomas Anderson’s biggest film yet is barreling into cinemas in August, pairing the American cinema darling with Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall and a genre description containing three of our favourite words (crime-drama-thriller, apparently). Rumoured to have been inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 political satire, Vineland, the film might be a wry look at America’s great post-60 comedown into the presidencies of Nixon and Reagan. Then again, it might not. Sneaky scoundrels, these filmmaker-types. – JH
2. Die My Love
Last time Jennifer Lawrence played a mother struggling with her mental health, the result was Darren Aronofsky’s singular horror film Mother!, but this time, the actress teams up with Lynne Ramsay. Die, My Love is adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s novel and Lawrence will be joined by Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte in the film in which Lawrence’s mother finds herself in the throttles of postpartum depression, which sends her into psychosis. Let’s hope no babies get devoured in this one, but we can’t make any promises on that. – ML
1. Sinners
The air of secrecy surrounding writer-director Ryan Coogler’s latest film has been such that, until relatively recently, it didn’t have a title. Sinners, as it’s since been named, is one of a surprisingly large number of vampire movies we’ve seen leap out of the crypt in recent months; its ranks include Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, Salem’s Lot, Abigail, Slay and probably some others we’ve forgotten about. And wasn’t Christopher Nolan rumoured to be directing a vampire flick at one stage? But we digress. Coogler’s film is a period piece set in the Deep South, with regular collaborator Michael B Jordan playing twin brothers who find an evil (probably toothsome) presence in their old hometown. Coogler’s one of the most talented currently working; the trailer looked ace. Our fangs are ready. – RL
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