These are the top 10 films to get excited about in 2025

(Picture: Disney/Universal/Paramount)

This year has been an eye-opening one for movies, from the blockbuster wins for Disney with Deadpool & Wolverine, Moana 2 and the record-breaking Inside Out 2 to the musical magic of Wicked enchanting the box office and the surprise success of legacy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

But there have also been the shock flops of Joker: Folie à Deux and Francis Ford Coppola’s comeback failure Megalopolis keeping us on our toes.

The hotly anticipated Gladiator II completed 2024’s Barbenheimer double bill ‘Glicked’, while we all had some daft fun with Twisters, were shocked silly by the likes of The Substance and Longlegs and are still witnessing the dramatic behind-the-scenes fall-out from hit Colleen Hoover adaptation It Ends With Us.

As ever, the cinema business remains one tricky to predict but there’s plenty of major films lining up for release soon – including in an impressively stacked January.

From the new Oscar front-runner made for under $10,000,000 (£7.9m) and dubbed 2025’s Oppenheimer to the return of a much-loved rom-com heroine, a live-action animation remake that’s not from Disney and a truly terrifying sequel for a British horror classic, there’s plenty to look forward to.

Here’s a look at some of the biggest, boldest and most talked about films set for release in 2025…

The Brutalist 

While Venice Film Festival was the scene of many a cinematic surprise back in September, The Brutalist was perhaps the biggest.

Whispers that it would be the breakout-hit of the festival spread like wildfire, with my screening of them movie held at its biggest venue and jam-packed to the rafters – and it absolutely lives up to the hype.

Adrien Brody stars as László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant who leaves behind the horrors of his past in post-World War Two Europe for a new life in America.

Directed by Brady Corbet, the movie co-stars Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones and Joe Alwyn and was made on an impressively miniscule budget of under $10million. Despite that, its scope is truly epic – filmed in VistaVision to match its period setting, the film offers a fresh perspective on the American Dream that spans decades, countries and lives.

The Brutalist is in cinemas from January 24.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy 

While some may have been uneasy at the prospect of Bridget’s return for a fourth outing following sequels of varying quality, the trailer for Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy seems to suggest we needn’t fear.

Based on novelist and Bridget creator Helen Fielding’s novel of the same name, Mad About the Boy sees our chaotic heroine navigating life as a widow and mum of two following the death of Mark Darcy (Colin Firth)(weep).

But while this suggests a heavier nature to the movie, its first trailer has offered an intriguingly fun competition for her affections between toyboy Roxster (Leo Woodall) and her kids’ teacher Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), as well as a glimpse at back-from-the-dead rogue Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant).

Director Michael Morris has teased ‘a different version of Bridget’ for the movie, given all the changes in her life.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy hits cinemas on February 13.

Snow White

While it may not be for the most positive of reasons, Snow White has certainly generated enviable column inches over the past couple of years as Disney’s latest live-action ‘reimagining’ of an animated classic.

Snow White was the studio’s first feature-length animation, and one that revolutionised the genre upon release in 1937.

The remake’s star Rachel Zegler has come under fire for both her ethnicity and expressing her opinion about the original, while Disney has come under fire for expectations of a woke rewrite and also from actor Peter Dinklage for its decision to spotlight a ‘backwards’ story.

There’s also been confusion over if there would actually be dwarves in the film – reports of ‘magical creatures’ initially surfaced, before the CGI versions were unveiled in its first trailer in the summer and promptly branded ‘nightmare fuel’.

Zegler is undoubtedly a talented singer and actress and Gal Gadot is seemingly having a whale of a time as the Evil Queen, but we’ll all finally get to cast our judgements on Snow White come spring.

Snow White releases in cinemas on March 21.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

The eighth instalment of the Mission: Impossible franchise has already teased star and stunt junkie Tom Cruise dangling from a plane in its first trailer, among other daring escapades.

Whether or not this actually proves to be the last movie in the series – Cruise is still keen to keep going – remains to be seen, but the action films have enjoyed an enviable return to, and then continuation of, form in recent outings.

The sprawling supporting cast now includes Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Pom Klementieff, Hannah Waddingham and Angela Bassett.

A continuation of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (and renamed), all we can assume so far is that Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his IMF team will continue to fight against the advanced, self-aware rogue AI threat the Entity.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is set to launch in cinemas on May 21.

How to Train Your Dragon 

A rip-roaringly popular animated movie adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s book series initially, 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon spawned two sequels, five short films and three TV series.

Now it is of course – apparently – time for a live-action remake of the fantasy film, a first for studio DreamWorks.

Gerard Butler is reprising his role as Viking leader Stoick the Vast, and the movie has perfectly recreated the rather adorable dragon Toothless in up-to-date CGI, so some fans may question the point of this exercise.

However, its recently released trailer showcases some stunning locations and visuals in its tease of Toothless and Stoick’s awkward son Hiccup’s (Mason Thames) fateful first meeting.

How to Train Your Dragon is in cinemas from June 13.

28 Years Later

Expectations are through the roof for this horror sequel, a follow-up to the Danny Boyle zombie flick 28 Days Later from 2002, which offered Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy his breakthrough role.

28 Weeks Later was released in 2007, but fans are buzzing to see Boyle back on board as director, as well as a new cast including Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes.

Murphy is back too, with fans losing their minds over a rogue potential spotting in the trailer (later disproved) for the first in a three-film arc.

The use of a distinctly unsettling 1915 recording of Rudyard Kipling’s poem Boots also appears to have scared people just the right amount so they’re ready to return to the franchise’s post-apocalyptic panic.

28 Years Later hits cinemas from June 20.

Superman

There’s been a lot of change over at DC Studios recently, with James Gunn and Peter Safran spearheading an overhaul of its strategy and flagging movies since 2022.

Chief among these was the retooling of Superman, written and directed by Gunn himself, who let previous star Henry Cavill go (after a much-hyped return cameo in Black Adam).

The retro-inspired reboot stars David Corenswet in the titular role, alongside Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor.

A lot is riding on its success as the first film in the DC Universe (DCU), a soft rebooting of the older DC Extended Universe, while the rebranded DC Elseworlds also exists and is represented by Matt Reeves’s The Batman films with Robert Pattinson (and the very likely now-finished Joker films from Todd Phillips), among other projects. Confused? Us too.

Superman releases in cinemas on July 11.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

(Picture: Amy Sussman/WireImage)

Skipping over to Marvel for another comic book movie, this new version of the Fantastic Four is an intriguing spin on the genre and this family-esque unit of superheroes.

This is desperately needed given the last two onscreen iterations of this group were not considered successful, but this time director Matt Shakman is overseeing a period piece set in the 1960s and an alternative universe.

He’s also working with the cooler-than-usual quartet of Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards and Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, with Joseph Quinn playing her brother Johnny and Ebon Moss-Bachrach cast as Ben Grimm.

Serving as the official launch film of Phase Six of the MCU, there’s a lot riding on this to rescue Marvel’s recent run of poorly performing films, both critically and financially.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set to launch in cinemas on July 25.

Michael 

(Picture: Caz Conboy/Lionsgate/Universal Pictures)

This is the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic, starring the late chart-topping icon’s nephew, Jaafar Jackson, as him in his debut film role.

The 28-year-old singer and dancer has wowed fans already with his jaw-dropping likeness to the late Jackson in a billowing white shirt and aviator sunglasses in the first officially-released still from Michael.

It’s set to follow MJ’s life from childhood star with the Jackson 5 in the 60s and 70s through to the final weeks before his death in 2009, aged 50.

Michael also features Oscar nominee Colman Domingo as his father Joe, Nia Long as his mother Katherine, Miles Teller and Kat Graham.

Michael is in cinemas from October 3.

Wicked: For Good

(Picture: Universal Pictures)

Good news! She’s (not yet) dead! Following Wicked: Part One’s triumph at the box office – as well as swathe of glittering reviews – it would have been remiss to not include the upcoming sequel here.

Exactly a year later, we’ll be getting what equates to the second act of the Broadway musical as we re-visit Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Ariana Grande (Glinda) following the dramatic events of the first film’s climax (i.e. Defying Gravity).

Jon M. Chu has already proven he’s a modern-day master at movie musicals, so it’s expected to be more of the high-quality same – and potentially releasing after the original has had chance to garner an Academy Award nomination or win – or several.

Wicked: For Good hits cinemas on November 21.

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