Superheroes, sinners and sequels: The ultimate guide to the most anticipated films of 2025

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: start getting excited about seeing some new movies on the big screen. If 2024 was a transitional blockbuster year as the US film industry fitfully dealt with the aftermath of creative talent strikes, the 2025 entertainment pipeline appears to be back up to full power. While it is easy to be cynical about Hollywood’s obsession with sequels, reboots and rehashes there are still some potentially thrilling prospects ahead, including the return of the biggest superhero of them all. So, faster than a speeding bullet, let’s run down 25 films that could define the year.

Things are gonna get hairy with Wolf Man (17 January), a contemporary version of the classic Universal Studios monster flick from writer/director Leigh Whannell, who did a very capable job updating similar vintage material with The Invisible Man in 2020. The great Mike Leigh (no relation) also returns with Hard Truths (31 January), the story of a prickly, self-sabotaging Londoner played by his Secrets and Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste.

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Looking to cause some Valentine friction between couples is the double-header of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and Captain America: Brave New World (both 14 February). In the former, Renée Zellweger’s lovesick heroine is now a widow trying to get back into the dating game. The latter sees the new Cap (Anthony Mackie) thrust into a violent political conspiracy targeting the US president (Harrison Ford).

Following their huge success with the Creed franchise and Black Panther, Michael B Jordan and director Ryan Coogler are taking a swing at a new genre with period horror Sinners (7 March) in which Jordan will play twins. There will be more brotherly bickering in Snow White (21 March), Disney’s latest effort in a lengthening conga line of “live-action” remakes, with the luminous Rachel Zegler from West Side Story unlikely to be upstaged by seven CGI-tweaked dwarves.

Like Snow White, A Minecraft Movie (4 April) places a bewildered human in a highly stylised realm… but since it is Jack Black with a big crazy beard this video game adaptation may well be worth a look. How do you follow up the first non-English language film to win the Best Picture Oscar? If you are Parasite director Bong Joon-ho you hire hunky weirdo Robert Pattinson to play various clones of himself in kooky sci-fi comedy Mickey 17 (18 April).

The baddies – or at least anti-heroes – of the Marvel universe get their chance to shine as a volatile super team in Thunderbolts (2 May), led by Florence Pugh’s eye-rolling assassin White Widow. After three decades of saving the world at the very last minute, Tom Cruise might finally be hanging up the rubbery face mask, at least judging by the subtitle of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (21 May).

Disney’s 2002 alien adoption animated comedy Lilo & Stitch (23 May) is next up for a remix: the original was set in actual Hawaii rather than some far-flung fairy kingdom so perhaps the energy and charm will remain intact in live action. Karate Kid: Legends (30 May) strives to combine the disparate worlds of the original 1984 film, the 2010 remake and Netflix’s wildly popular Cobra Kai series. A tall order but Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan are both on board.

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After her running and gunning as a capable Bond girl in No Time to Die, Ana de Armas takes the lead as a trainee assassin in moody spinoff From the World of John Wick: Ballerina (6 June). Hopefully it will be successful enough to warrant a sequel just so they get to call it Ballerina Tutu. Following the world-conquering box office haul of Inside Out 2, Pixar return with Elio (13 June), a comedy about an alien-obsessed 11-year-old boy who is accidentally beamed into space and promptly appointed Earth’s intergalactic ambassador

After a trilogy of excellent animated films, How to Train Your Dragon (13 June) is “doing a Disney” by trying out a live-action remake – at least Gerard Butler is on hand to embody his previous voice role as a burly Viking chieftain. They skipped the sequel 28 Weeks Later but director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland return to their sprinting zombie franchise with 28 Years Later (20 June) starring Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (plus a rumoured cameo by original 28 Days Later lead Cillian Murphy).

If you enjoyed how Top Gun: Maverick celebrated a careworn veteran showing those young ones a thing or two then F1 (27 June) is clearly trying to replicate that winning formula. Brad Pitt stars as a retired grand prix driver hired to mentor a wayward young talent. With filming having taken place at multiple F1 races last season it should at least look and sound authentic.

Jurassic World Rebirth (2 July) will be the seventh instalment in the popular prehistoric franchise but, as hinted by the title, plans to be a fresh start. Scarlett Johansson leads an entirely new cast with Gareth Edwards (director of Rogue One and impressive sci-fi fable The Creator) overseeing the rampaging dinosaur action.

Is the world ready to believe a man can fly, again? Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn is certainly hoping so as he relaunches the DC cinematic universe with Superman (11 July). Relative newcomer David Corenswet is pulling on the famous tights while Nicholas Hoult will play his nemesis Lex Luthor.

Marvel is also going back to basics with The Fantastic Four: First Steps (25 July) starring Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby as superheroic couple Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Woman. They are joined by Joseph Quinn (from Stranger Things and Gladiator II) as flying hothead the Human Torch and The Bear’s gravel-voiced grump Ebon Moss-Bachrach as brick-like bruiser The Thing.

After a furlough of 22 years Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are both back for Freakier Friday (8 August) – how will their added life experience affect the body-swap shenanigans? Downton Abbey 3 (12 September) will likely get a slightly more sophisticated title as its release date approaches; conversely Tron: Ares (10 October) might be more comprehensible if it was simply called Tron 3. Jared Leto is the dude being sucked into a neon-lit computer world this time round.

The emphatic success of Wicked: Part One means the stage is set for Wicked: Part Two (21 November) to deliver a rousing finish to the fairytale musical. And finally Avatar: Fire and Ash (19 December) will continue the Na’vi family saga on the sumptuous paradise planet of Pandora. The astonishing level of special effects required means you might reasonably expect the release date for this third of a proposed five Avatar film series to slip into 2026. But creator James Cameron will surely want to mark the 15-year anniversary of the first movie, which was originally released in the US on 18 December 2009. You should never bet against the king of the world.

All release dates are subject to change.

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