From Deadpool’s potty mouth to The Substance’s girl gore and Emilia Pérez’s dance moves, 2024 showed just how the cinema still thrills. But hold up: 2025 looks set to be even more mighty, with some major movie stars fronting some tasty-looking treats. Horrors, comedies and blockbusters will all be jostling for your attention, so get your diaries at the ready – here are 20 films that you need to see over the next 12 months.
Barnstorming blockbusters
Captain America: Brave New World
Release date: February 14
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Liv Tyler
‘New’ is right, as Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson – AKA The Falcon – takes on the mantle of Captain America vacated by Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers in this latest Marvel outing. If that ain’t enough to get you drooling, what about Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus Ross transforming into Red Hulk? Oh yes.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Release date: May 21
Starring: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg
Arms pumping as he sprints for his life, the stunt-loving Cruiser is back for one final outing as super spy Ethan Hunt as this long-running espionage series draws to a close. With the many of the core cast returning, should you choose to accept it… this will be the action movie to end them all.
Jurassic World Rebirth
Release date: July 2
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali
The Jurassic franchise is the gold standard of monster movies and this reboot brings in an all-new cast, including Scarlett Johansson as an operations expert on a top-secret dinosaur mission. Better yet, David Koepp – screenwriter of the original Jurassic Park – and Godzilla director Gareth Edwards team up behind the scenes. Roar-some.
Superman
Release date: July 11
Starring: David Corenswet, Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Brosnahan
With 250 million views on its first day, the teaser for James Gunn’s Superman reboot became the biggest trailer in the history of DC and Warner Bros. So it’s safe to say hopes are sky-high, as David Corenswet takes over the Man of Steel. Nicholas Hoult as Supe’s nemesis Lex Luthor will be a blast too.
Avatar: Fire And Ash
Release date: December 19
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver
Bet against director James Cameron at your peril. The first two Avatar movies each grossed more than $2billion at the box office, so you can expect the third outing in this epic sci-fi to post similar numbers. David Thewlis joins the cast, as blue once again will be the warmest colour.
Ace animations
Memoir Of A Snail
Release date: February 14
Starring: Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver
Australian stop-motion animation genius Adam Elliot (Mary And Max) returns with this tale of twins, separated in their early years in the 1970s. With Succession’s Sarah Snook voicing Grace and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Gilbert, it’s a quality cast set to bring to life a tragicomedy that has that magical cross-generational appeal in spades.
Flow
Release date: March 1
Starring: N/A
A critical hit when it bowed in Cannes last year, this homespun animation looks destined for greatness in the awards season, telling a beguiling tale of a cat that navigates its way through the wilderness after a great flood. A near-silent meditative work of sheer beauty, it’s better than a thousand YouTube cat videos. Flow also just unexpectedly won a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature.
A Minecraft Movie
Release date: April 4
Starring: Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Emma Myers
The ever-popular Minecraft video game gets its own movie, with Jack Black starring as an expert crafter while Jason Momoa features as one of four misfits pulled into the Overworld through a mysterious portal. With Napoleon Dynamite’s director Jared Hess set to bring the funnies this live-action/CG anime hybrid looks mine-blowing.
Musical maestros
A Complete Unknown
Release date: January 17
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Edward Norton
The irrepressible, iconic Bob Dylan takes centre stage in this early-years biopic from James Mangold (who already nailed Johnny Cash in Walk The Line) that takes audiences up to the legendary moment the freewheeling folk singer went electric. Timothée Chalamet digs deep as Dylan in a performance that’s already being touted as an Oscar hopeful.
Becoming Led Zeppelin
Release date: February 5
Starring: Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones
First screened as a work-in-progress in 2021 at the Venice Film Festival, this documentary charting the early years of Led Zeppelin finally gets to screens. There’s never been a proper Zep doc before, and with the surviving band members all interviewed for this film alongside never-before-seen archive footage, this is nothing less than essential. Rock on.
Michael
Release date: October 3
Starring: Jaafar Jackson, Miles Teller, Colman Domingo
Michael Jackson gets a long-awaited biopic, spanning from The Jackson Five to his death in 2009. The King Of Pop’s nephew Jaafar Jackson plays him in a neat bit of casting and while you can expect this film to avoid any controversial elements of the singer’s private life, you know this will be a thriller.
Scary Movies
Presence
Release date: January 24
Starring: Lucy Liu, Julia Fox, Chris Sullivan
Steven Soderbergh (Traffic) has two movies out this spring. Before espionage thriller Black Bag however comes this mouthwatering chiller about a family convinced they are not alone when they move into a new home. Lucy Liu stars as the tightly-wound mother trying to keep it together.
28 Years Later
Release date: June 20
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes
Oppenheimer Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy returns to the character he played 23 years ago in zombie classic 28 Days Later. Reuniting with director Danny Boyle, Murphy’s Jim is thrown into a story where survivors of the rage virus live on an isolated island. Likely to scare the bejesus out of you.
M3GAN 2.0
Release date: June 27
Starring: Allison Williams, Jenna Davis, Violet McGraw
Creepy doll alert! A surprise hit in 2022, M3GAN tapped into our rising fears about AI with its story about a sophisticated robotic companion gone bad. Everyone’s back for this under-wraps sequel – moved into a prime summer release slot – including Jenna Davis, who so brilliantly voices M3GAN.
Comedy gold
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy
Release date: February 14
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant
Looking for a Valentine’s Day date movie? Look no further as Renée Zellweger is back as Bridget Jones – no longer a singleton but with a new boyfriend (One Day’s Leo Woodall) 20 years her junior. With the return of familiar faces including Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, it’s what Februarys were made for.
Untitled Trey Parker / Matt Stone / Kendrick Lamar / Dave Free project
Release date: July 4
Starring: TBC
South Park’s co-creator Trey Parker directs, collaborating here with his partner Matt Stone, musical icon Kendrick Lamar and record producer Dave Free on what is destined to be the most controversial laugh-fest of the year. The cast is top secret, but it’s been described as a “slave comedy”. Expect fireworks.
The Naked Gun
Release date: August 1
Starring: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser
One of the most hilarious comedy franchises of the 1980s and ’90s gets a reboot as Liam Neeson takes over the role as Detective Frank Drebin, so memorably played by the king of deadpan Leslie Nielsen. Mercilessly spoofing the crime genre, there’s even a role for hot-again Pamela Anderson.
Arthouse heaven
The Brutalist
Release date: January 24
Starring: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce
Brady Corbet’s epic look at a fictional postwar immigrant architect, played by Adrien Brody, already scooped multiple Golden Globes last night (January 5)and more awards seem certain for this critical darling. It comes with a bum-numbing three-and-a-half-hour (including interval) run time alongside stellar performances from Brody and Guy Pearce.
Mickey 17
Release date: March 7
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette, Mark Ruffalo
It’s been delayed by a year but that only whets the appetite further to see the return of Korean director Bong Joon-ho, with his first movie since the magnificent Oscar-winning Parasite. Robert Pattinson stars as an ‘expendable’ who goes into space to colonise an ice planet. Cult classic status beckons.
Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson event film
Release date: August 8
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro, Alana Haim
Leonardo DiCaprio teams up for the first time with director Paul Thomas Anderson in what is rumoured to be the There Will Be Blood maestro’s most commercial project yet. Which explains the August release date and the fact it’ll be shown in IMAX cinemas. Otherwise details are hush-hush. Consider us very intrigued.
*all release dates are for the UK