My most (and least) anticipated UK cinema releases of 2025
Expectations are all over the map this year!
All UK release dates are sourced from IMDb, and are correct as of January 18th 2025.
Should any surprise changes of titles, or future rescheduling of dates occur (like, for instance, Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 getting delayed for the umpteenth time, or James Cameron’s third Avatar film potentially needing to be pushed back another year or two to allow more time to cook in the VFX-rendering oven), then please forgive the obsolescence of any such nullified information herein…
Nosferatu
(dir. Robert Eggers)
January 1st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Rather high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Aside from the generally glowing critical consensus it’s accrued during its release so far, I was always going to want to see a Nosferatu adaptation from Robert Eggers, the same man who brought us The Witch and The Northman. Add to that the prospect of a star-studded cast featuring Willem Dafoe as Van Helsing, Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, and Lily-Rose Depp doing something, anything, better than the disastrous HBO/Sam Levinson/The Weeknd calamity, The Idol, and I’m altogether hopeful this’ll prove to be a thrillingly chilling horror experience.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite.
We Live In Time
(dir. John Crowley)
January 1st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Moderately curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
A romantic drama pitting together the über-charismatic talents of Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield? Sounds eminently appealing and watchable to me.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Moderate, but it won’t be the end of the world if I miss the theatrical run.
Nickel Boys
(dir. RaMell Ross)
January 3rd 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Very high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
I haven’t seen so much as a trailer, nor anything more than a few stills from the film, but the impressively superlative reputation I’ve seen Nickel Boys accumulate from a broad swathe of reviewers over the last couple of months has set my expectations higher than it might be possible for the film to meet. Then again, perhaps it really will be that good after all. Only one way to find out…
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite (even if its release isn’t in as many cinemas, nor with as many showtimes, as would’ve been personally convenient, but I’ll make it work).
A Real Pain
(dir. Jesse Eisenberg)
January 8th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Relatively high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
The reviews have been predominantly very positive, but besides the curiosity over seeing Jesse Eisenberg’s second directorial effort, I’m also eagerly open to seeing Kieran Culkin deliver another amazing performance that by turns charms my socks off (as he did in Scott Pilgrim vs the World), and rips my heart out (as he did in Succession).
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Moderate-to-definite.
Babygirl
(dir. Halina Reijn)
January 10th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
The presence of Nicole Kidman and Antonio Banderas in the cast, and the brouhaha stirred among many reviewers whose opinions are so polarised around the film’s quality, is enough to pique my attention. Mostly, though, I’m just interested in hearing the new score from Cristobal Tapia De Veer, who’s one of my favourite composers. But outside of those aspects, Babygirl’s familiar plot and themes don’t quite have a strong enough pull on my interests to make seeing it on the big screen an absolute top priority. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Ambivalent.
Maria
(dir. Pablo Larraín)
January 10th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Vague shrug.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Angelina Jolie giving an acclaimed performance portraying famed opera singer, Maria Callas… in a biopic penned by Peaky Blinkers scribe, Steven Knight… helmed by Jackie and Spencer director, Pablo Larraín? That’s certainly enough boxes ticked to get Maria on my radar. Whether or not I find the time and opportunity to see it in cinemas, however, is a matter of half-hearted interest that I could take or leave.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Ambivalent.
A Complete Unknown
(dir. James Mangold)
January 17th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
The balls that James Mangold must have. To deliver a straightforwardly conventional music biopic of Bob Dylan in the year of our lord 2024 (released in the UK in 2025), even though Todd Haynes did a more interesting Dylan biopic in 2007 with I’m Not There, and even though Mangold’s previous music biopic two decades ago, the Johnny Cash-focused Walk The Line, got nuked into virtual irrelevance by Jake Kasdan’s genre-defining-and-dismantling 2007 parody, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, whose definitive ruination of music biopic tropes was so devastating, that it included a Bob Dylan spoof which has parodically pre-empted Mangold’s A Complete Unknown by 17 years! And yet, despite all the odds against it, maybe the presence of Timothée Chalamet as Dylan could be enough to make A Complete Unknown worthwhile after all?
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Ambivalent.
Here
(dir. Robert Zemeckis)
January 17th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Depressingly low.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
It’s a Robert Zemeckis film, reuniting him with the cast and crew who together gave the world Forrest Gump over 30 years ago, for a film filled with technical gimmicks like widespread actor de-agings, and shooting the entire story from a single locked-off shot’s perspective across millions of years of time. On paper, extremely intriguing. In reality, Here is likely (and per the reviews I’ve seen, certainly) to be yet another in Zemeckis’ long line of disappointments over the past couple of decades as he’s struggled to recapture the magic touch he once had. Really, it sounds as though I’d be better off rewatching Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and David Lowery’s A Ghost Story, to see aspects of this film’s concept done more effectively, and without the uncanny valley distractions of the CGI de-agements of Tom Hanks’ and Robin Wright’s faces.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Very low, bordering on non-existent.
Wolf Man
(dir. Leigh Whannell)
January 17th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Moderately high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Given the excellence of Leigh Whannell’s previous couple of films in the writer/director’s chair - 2018’s Upgrade, and 2020’s The Invisible Man, which was the second-to-last film I saw just before all cinemas were closed down by the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic - I’m hoping that Wolf Man, the latest entry in his re-imaginings of the Universal Monsters movies of yore, will continue his streak of quality genre cinema.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Almost definite.
Presence
(dir. Steven Soderbergh)
January 24th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly intrigued.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
A ghost story, told entirely from the first-person-POV of the ghost, as directed by Steven Soderbergh, from a script by David Koepp hopefully back in his Stir of Echoes supernatural-thriller saddle? Sign me up!
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Moderate-to-high.
The Brutalist
(dir. Brady Corbet)
January 24th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Very high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Have you heard even a fraction of the absurdly abundant acclaim The Brutalist has been getting for months now? If it’s anywhere near as good as so many have proselytised, I’m in for a mighty treat.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite (albeit not in any 35mm or 70mm film screenings, alas).
Companion
(dir. Drew Hancock)
January 31st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Being an “A.I. gone bad” sci-fi psychological thriller, produced by Barbarian’s Zach Cregger, featuring Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher? Could be pretty good! (Though to be perfectly honest, after seeing her in last year’s Heretic, it would be a lie to say I’m not a fair bit infatuated with Sophie Thatcher’s incandescent beauty, and so seeing her on the big screen again so soon sounds like a couple of hours well spent, even if the film could turn out to be meh.)
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Reviews-dependent.
Hard Truths
(dir. Mike Leigh)
January 31st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
A new Mike Leigh film, reuniting him and Marianne Jean-Baptiste again after Secrets & Lies so very long ago? Consider me sold.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Moderate, and cinema availability depending.
Saturday Night
(dir. Jason Reitman)
January 31st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
From what I’ve heard of it, Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night sounds worryingly like a propagandist hagiography rewriting the early history of Saturday Night Live to make certain people look better than they were, and other people look worse, all the while making the long-running comedy show out to be of greater cultural importance and genius than it perhaps deserves. It also sounds like a shambolic mess of a film. And yet, if I am to see it, it’ll be entirely because of its cast, including The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle swapping out playing a young Steven Spielberg to playing a young Lorne Michaels, and Licorice Pizza’s Cooper Hoffman, whose performance I’ve glimpsed via that viral clip where you can poignantly see the reincarnation of mannerisms from his late father, Philip Seymour Hoffman.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Ambivalent.
September 5
(dir. Tim Fehlbaum)
February 6th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Cautiously curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
As an extra cinematic perspective covering the events of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre - previously documented in Kevin Macdonald’s One Day in September, and Steven Spielberg’s Munich - the idea of September 5 focusing on the news media’s moral responsibility and culpability in what happened on that fateful day is intriguing. Where I feel trepidatious about the film is in the worry it might not have the political nuance needed - especially nowadays in the age of Israel’s genocide of Gaza - to explore the reasons leading up to how and why the massacre happened. It all depends on September 5’s execution of what it chooses to focus on, of course, so maybe the final product won’t be as tone deaf, if not outright harmful, as I fear it could be in the wrong hands. Right now, it remains to be seen, in every sense of the word.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Mild-to-medium.
Love Hurts
(dir. Jonathan Eusebio)
February 7th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
The beloved Oscar-winning Ke Huy Quan, getting his very own bespoke action movie in the mould of John Wick and Nobody, courtesy of the same teams behind those very films, sounds like it could be a jolly fun romp. He already proved his action bonafides in Everything Everywhere All At Once, benefitting from his many non-acting years as a stunt choreographer, and Love Hurts looks like it’s going to put him and his particular set of skills front and centre. Whether or not the film properly capitalises on this, or merely coasts by on the coolness of its concept without putting in the effort to make the story interesting or the comedy funny (such was the case with this creative team’s earlier effort, Violent Night), won’t be known until it comes out. Still, any amount of Ke Huy Quan is welcome overall.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Reviews-dependent.
Captain America: Brave New World
(dir. Julius Onah)
February 14th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Morbidly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Marking a 17-year-belated return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for multiple characters not seen since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, there’s a lingering intrigue I feel in seeing that Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross, and Tim Blake Nelson’s bulbous-headed Leader, are being brought back for Captain America: Brave New World, which also marks the first theatrical appearance of Anthony Mackie as the star-spangled shield-thrower. Notionally, seeing Harrison Ford (taking over for the late William Hurt in the Thaddeus Ross role) play a President again must be a treat for Air Force One fans, while his much-ballyhooed CGI turn as Red Hulk looks silly enough to be somewhat fun. But honestly, I don’t think anybody’s confidence is high in believing this film could possibly be good, given what’s felt like years of innumerable rewrites, reshoots, re-edits, and the constant thorn in its side from the inclusion of Sabra, whose comics lore is that she’s a superhero mutant who’s also an Israeli agent of Mossad. Given Disney-Marvel’s counterproductive, paradoxical urge to make this ostensible political-conspiracy-thriller be as apolitical as possible, and in light of how far Israel’s public perception on the world stage has plummeted due to their well-documented genocidal destruction of Gaza, they’ve decided to alter Sabra’s backstory in Brave New World to make her a former Black Widow, with no ties to Mossad whatsoever.
Still, they can’t erase the memory of this evergreen page from the comics that makes the rounds on social media over and over again, for obvious eternally topical reasons:
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Ambivalent, and reviews-dependent.
Memoir of a Snail
(dir. Adam Elliot)
February 14th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
I’ve seen a bit of positive buzz for the film here and there, so maybe I’ll make a beeline to whichever cinema will be playing it.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Mild-to-moderate.
The Monkey
(dir. Osgood Perkins)
February 21st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Moderately high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
After his work in The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House, and last year’s Longlegs, I’ll always be curious to see the latest nightmares Osgood Perkins chooses to conjure.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Almost definite.
I’m Still Here
(dir. Walter Salles)
February 21st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Relatively high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
The critical consensus and awards hype for I’m Still Here (not to be confused with the Casey Affleck-directed, Joaquin Phoenix-starring 2010 film of the same name) gives me cause to expect good things from this.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Moderate-to-definite, cinema availability depending.
The Last Showgirl
(dir. Gia Coppola)
February 28th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Moderately curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Reviews have been indicating that this film sees Pamela Anderson getting the revelatory chance to perform in a role that takes her seriously as an actor, in a filmography that has long boiled her down to barely more than the sum of her looks and her body. From what I’ve heard, this results in The Last Showgirl being a moving showcase for the hitherto untapped potential of Anderson’s talent, that allows her a potential exciting new beginning in her career going forward if she so chooses.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Moderate, and cinema availability depending.
The Legend of Ochi
(dir. Isaiah Saxon)
March 7th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Moderately curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
A24 branches out into the realm of family-friendly fantasy adventure, via a practical effects-driven tale involving an unbearably adorable animatronic puppet creature to tug at both the heartstrings, and the cute-aggression receptors of the brain. Also, Willem Dafoe is there, because the man is never not working.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Reviews-dependent.
Novocaine
(dir. Robert Olsen & Dan Berk)
March 14th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Jack Quaid makes his second appearance in the 2025 cinema release schedule, in Novocaine (unrelated to the 2001 Steve Martin film of the same name). This fun-looking action-comedy jaunt sees Quaid as a man unwillingly thrust into the role of ass-kicking saviour of his kidnapped love interest (Prey’s Amber Midthunder), with the notable edge that he has a condition that allows him not to feel any physical pain. Based on a very real medical phenomenon (congenital insensitivity to pain, or CIP), any time I’ve seen it or its cousin condition of CIPA (congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis) used as a plot point in TV shows in the past - whether in an episode of House, or most memorably, as the feature of a one-off villain played by Robert Knepper in an episode of The Blacklist - it’s always captured my imagination, so Novocaine’s premise is like catnip to me.
(N.B. - I hope it goes without saying that this isn’t meant to minimise the struggles that real sufferers of CIP/CIPA endure in reality, but merely that the idea of it in storytelling form is fascinating to me, especially as someone who has the opposite problem of living with chronic pain, you know?)
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Moderate to high, reviews-dependent.
Black Bag
(dir. Steven Soderbergh)
March 21st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly intrigued.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
A second Steven Soderbergh film has hit the 2025 release slate! I know next to nothing about Black Bag, besides the presence (har har) of Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in the cast, David Koepp yet again on screenwriting duties, and that it’s maybe another heist caper type of film for Soderbergh in the vein of his Ocean’s trilogy, or Logan Lucky. In light of how insanely fast the man’s turnaround is for making movies, the quality of his output often fluctuates unpredictably, so who knows if this’ll be good or not. But hey, considering that a decade ago, Soderbergh claimed he was retiring from directing movies altogether (which he reneged on within what felt like a matter of months), it’s nice that he’s still so dedicated to plying his trade so frequently for us audiences to continue to see.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Reviews- and cinema availability-dependent.
Wise Guys - a.k.a. Alto Knights
(dir. Barry Levinson)
March 21st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
A new contender for my Letterboxd list of films whose titles differ between the US and UK, Barry Levinson’s Alto Knights reaches Britain’s shores under the more generic title of Wise Guys - a mob movie based on true events, written by GoodFellas’ Nicholas Pileggi, starring Robert De Niro as not just one, but two mob bosses, with him acting alongside himself as different characters! How novel. Will this elder Levinson joint have the juice to be worth a watch? Or will it be another lacklustre effort from a director whose best work was decades ago, and whose nepo-baby son, Sam Levinson, hogs the limelight more often nowadays, for better and (mostly) for worse?
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Reviews- and cinema availability-dependent.
The Woman in the Yard
(dir. Jaume Collet-Serra)
March 28th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
The director of Orphan reunites with his Carry-On cast member, Danielle Deadwyler, for a Blumhouse horror movie that grabs my attention simply with its striking image of a spooky woman in black that harkens to one of my favourite ghost stories of all time, Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black. Though I suspect that The Woman In The Yard likely won’t hold a candle to the quality of any iteration of The Woman In Black, and will be probably just another generic Blumhouse spookfest that makes a quick profit, disappoints critics and audiences, then vanishes from the public consciousness as swiftly as it arrived. But who knows? I’m open to being surprised.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Reviews-dependent.
Mickey 17
(dir. Bong Joon-Ho)
April 18th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Very high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
It’s a satirical sci-fi comedy from Bong Joon-Ho, the director of Parasite and Snowpiercer, starring Robert Pattinson doing another silly voice as he plays multiple versions of a singular character. How could I not be excited?
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite (assuming they don’t change the release date yet again).
Sinners
(dir. Ryan Coogler)
April 18th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Relatively high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
With the likes of Fruitvale Station, Creed, and two Black Panther films under his belt, Ryan Coogler now making his very own original horror movie - with his longtime muse Michael B. Jordan back in tow - is something I’m practically chomping at the bit to see.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Almost definite.
Thunderbolts*
(dir. Jake Schreier)
May 2nd 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Vague shrug.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, and David Harbour among the rogue’s gallery of D-list Marvel characters that seemingly amounts to the MCU’s equivalent of DC’s Suicide Squad, maybe Thunderbolts* [sic] could be fun. Beyond that, I have no expectations one way or the other.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Ambivalent, and reviews-dependent.
Final Destination: Bloodlines
(dir. Zach Lipovsky & Adam B. Stein)
May 16th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
It’s been 14 years since the last entry in the Final Destination series came and went, and even though 2011’s Final Destination 5 brought the franchise to a neat close (and a shot of much-needed redemption after the travesty of 2009’s The Final Destination), we are long overdue another satisfyingly silly dose of Death’s hijinks in crafting preposterously elaborate means of killing people who escaped his clutches in some grand spectacle of mass destruction. Plus, Final Destination: Bloodlines will mark the final time we’ll get to see a performance from the late Tony Todd, who returned to the role of sinister mortician William Bludworth that he’d portrayed in three out of the five original films, which is more than enough cause to see Bloodlines, even if there’s a chance it may not live up to the best of its predecessors. But hey, as long as it’s any degree better than the aforementioned dismal fourth entry, I can live with that.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Moderate, but also reviews-dependent.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
(dir. Christopher McQuarrie)
May 21st 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Very high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Any new Mission: Impossible movie is a top-tier blockbuster event, particularly for someone such as myself, who’s been a fan of this series and following every new instalment for almost as long as I’ve been alive. But after 8 films across close to 30 years, Tom Cruise’s time as Ethan Hunt is coming to a bittersweet end. Undoubtedly, writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, his Cruise muse, and the rest of the cast and crew who’ve been with the franchise for so long, will collectively make sure that Mission: Impossible goes out with a bang. I absolutely cannot wait.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite (and for sure in 4DX).
Ballerina
(dir. Len Wiseman)
June 7th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Ana de Armas was a scene-stealing joy in her all-too-brief appearance in Daniel Craig’s final James Bond film, No Time to Die. Now, at long last, she gets her time to shine as the ass-kicking lead in the John Wick spin-off, Ballerina (also known by the more ungainly mouthful of a title that reeks of cynical SEO optimisation, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina). While there’s some concern as to whether it can hold its own against the primary Keanu Reeves-led films it’s branching off from - given reports of most of the film getting redone by months of extensive uncredited reshoots from original series director Chad Stahelski, prompting speculation that he felt it necessary to improve upon whatever material was first shot by Underworld and Die Hard 4.0 director Len Wiseman - it will nonetheless still be cool to see further exploration of the Wick-iverse through a different character’s eyes, even though Ana de Armas’ adventures will see the returns of series stalwarts Ian McShane, and Reeves himself (incidentally making this the third time Reeves and de Armas will have starred in a movie together, after Eli Roth’s Knock Knock, and Gee Malik Linton’s Daughter of God, which was later editorially butchered and released under the unimaginative title of Exposed). Sadly, Ballerina will also be the final posthumous performance we’ll get to see from the late Lance Reddick, which is enough reason by itself to see the film in his honour.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Almost definite.
28 Years Later
(dir. Danny Boyle)
June 20th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Very high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
I have literally been waiting 18 years for the long-promised third film in the 28 Days Later series to materialise. 23 years have elapsed since Danny Boyle’s groundbreaking first instalment, and 18 since Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s underrated follow-up, 28 Weeks Later. So, as a latent-but-ardent super-fan of this series since my childhood and adolescence, it is extremely gratifying to know that 28 Years Later is imminently, finally arriving on our proverbial doorsteps. And as part of a new trilogy of films being made back-to-back, no less!
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite.
F1
(dir. Joseph Kosinski)
June 27th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski turns his immersively practical high-octane filmmaking chops from the world of jet fighter planes, to the world of Formula One racing, bringing Brad Pitt in tow to drive a real race car, and capturing every racer character’s driving with IMAX cameras from right within their cockpits, putting us right in the driver’s seat with them. Even if this film’s characters and story don’t wind up as gripping as they were in Top Gun: Maverick, you can bet that at least the racing sequences in F1 are going to be exhilaratingly stupendous.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Almost definite (and definitely in 4DX).
Superman
(dir. James Gunn)
July 11th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
James Gunn’s work hasn’t steered us wrong very often over the last 20-odd years. Writing the first two live action Scoody-Doo films; penning the screenplay to Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake; writing and directing his own original feature films in the form of 2005’s Slither, and 2010’s Super; of course there’s his MCU work with the Guardians of the Galaxy series; and there’s his DCEU work with 2021’s The Suicide Squad, followed by the first season of Peacemaker. Now he’s the co-head of Warner Brothers’ DC Films division, and he’s been granted the keys to the kingdom to make his very own Superman film, harkening the official arrival of the new DCU. Scrapping almost the entire continuity of DC movies established in the Snyderverse between 2013 and 2023, and starting over from scratch, it’ll be interesting to see how Gunn adjusts his idiosyncratic style to fit the wholesome earnestness and idealism inherent to Clark Kent. But even if I’m not yet fully sold on the visual style (which the Superman trailer informs us that Gunn’s carried over from the unusual cinematography tactics adopted by him and DOP Henry Braham from The Suicide Squad onwards), I have faith in Gunn’s longstanding knack for understanding the humanity of his characters, and mining profound emotional poignancy from their situations, and their dynamics with other people. The man knows how to tell a damn good story, and he knows what makes Superman interesting, so I’m hoping that supersedes any bugbears I might have about the look of the film. Plus, this Superman has Krypto the Superdog, so five stars are warranted for that decision alone.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
(dir. Matt Shakman)
July 25th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Mildly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Will somebody - can anybody - FINALLY bring the Fantastic Four to the big screen in a successful capacity for once? Will the MCU’s take on the foremost found family royalty in Marvel Comics history at long last break the adaptational curse they’ve been beset by for decades? Or will this make Tim Story’s duology of Fantastic Four films in the 2000’s look like masterpieces by comparison? It’s anybody’s guess until The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theatres, and answers these questions once and for all.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Ambivalent, and reviews-dependent.
The Battle of Baktan Cross
(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
August 8th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Moderate-to-high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
It’s a new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, my dudes. Need I say more?
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite.
Saw XI
(dir. Kevin Gruetert)
September 27th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Moderately high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Not only is it a new Saw movie, but it may also be a direct continuation of the inbetweenquel storyline set forth by 2023’s unexpectedly-but-deservedly acclaimed Saw X, following the still-living John Kramer/Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) in whatever other grisly escapades he got up in the narrow timeframe between Saw and Saw II that Saw X was working within the confines of. Will we see the return of the despicably evil Cecilia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund), looking to get revenge on John, who in turn will doubtlessly devise yet more devious traps to ensnare her in? Place your bets now, and let the game begin.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite.
Tron: Ares
(dir. Joachim Rønning)
October 10th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Vague shrug.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
I have one reason, and one reason only, to remotely ponder the possibility of going to see Tron: Ares, and that is the tantalising proposition of its soundtrack being done by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who are taking the attention-grabbing step of composing the score under their Nine Inch Nails band moniker, rather than with their own names as they’ve done ever since their Oscar-winning work on The Social Network. Beyond that, the inclusion of Jared Leto as the top-billed title character thoroughly dampens any substantive spark of interest I could’ve once hypothetically had.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Ambivalent-to-low, and reviews-dependent.
Black Phone 2
(dir. Scott Derrickson)
October 17th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Is this sequel to The Black Phone more motivated by the first film’s financial success than it is by any narrative necessity to expand upon that one-and-done story? Yes. Does it need to exist? No. Yet am I still curious to see the return of characters from a film I really really liked, and which ranked rather high among my favourite releases of 2022? Yes, I am. In particular Ethan Hawke and his panoply of terrifying masks, and Madeleine McGraw’s foul-mouthed kid psychic. Maybe there’s still some meat on the bones of Joe Hill’s original story left to pick clean after all?
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Almost definite, but reviews-dependent.
Predator: Badlands
(dir. Dan Trachtenberg)
November 7th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
As of the time of writing, I still haven’t seen Dan Trachtenberg’s acclaimed Predator prequel, Prey. But now that he has two further films set in the Predator universe coming soon to a theatre near you/me this year - one being Predator: Badlands, and the other a whole other separate, as-yet-untitled Predator film he shot in secret, and which is set to come out at an undetermined time before Badlands - I certainly have an abundance of extra motivation to get around to crossing Prey off my watchlist before the year is through.
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Almost definite.
The Running Man
(dir. Edgar Wright)
November 7th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Highly curious.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Edgar Wright directing a new adaptation of Stephen King’s Richard Bachman-era dystopian novel, The Running Man, replacing the 80’s campy excesses of the previous 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, and putting his own kinetic and technically astute directorial spin on the proceedings? Boy oh boy, this has oodles of potential to become a (ahem) runaway hit, and the vastly superior version of King’s book, even if it’s likely going to drop Arnie’s magnificent line: “I hope you leave enough room for my fist, because I'm going to ram it into your stomach, and break your goddamn spine!”
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Almost definite.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
(dir. James Cameron)
December 19th 2025
ANTICIPATION LEVELS:
Very high.
CAUSE FOR INTEREST:
Despite him dropping in many people’s estimations due to his disappointing pro-A.I. proclivities, James Cameron is still the man whose filmmaking and storytelling instincts were strong enough to make the first Avatar, and Avatar: The Way of Water thirteen years later, both gross over 2 billion dollars apiece. Frankly, given the generationally protracted length of time that passed between the first two films, I’m surprised the third instalment is on its way so soon (presuming it doesn’t get pushed back between now, and its ostensible late-December release date). I mean, sure, I know The Way of Water was shot back-to-back with Fire and Ash between 2017 and 2020, so they’ve had the raw materials to finish this third film with a far quicker turnaround… but still, I’d grown accustomed to expecting exceptionally long waiting times for new films in Cameron’s monumental sci-fi franchise to manifest in reality. What are the chances that Avatar: Fire and Ash could reach the same outrageous box office heights of its predecessors, and that it won’t be a case of diminishing returns, critically and commercially? Well, they always say to never bet against James Cameron, so we’ll keep judgement day at bay until the proper time comes…
LIKELIHOOD I’LL GO SEE IT:
Definite (and in 3D, and 4DX while we’re at it).
I am of the same mind regarding the new Tron. I spent a while thinking, "If you can't reunite Daft Punk for this, then there are no factors making me need to see this." Then they announced NINE INCH NAILS and I was like, "DAMMIT."
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com