This year, theaters will be packed with welcome distractions like Academy Award-winner Cillian Murphy’s return to the big screen, in one of his most famous film series; another Knives Out mystery; and Brad Pitt linking with Top Gun: Maverick's director for his own shot at a meta-textual blockbuster about cementing legacies.
Presence (January 17)
While prolific genre-hopper Steven Soderbergh has skirted the edges of horror in films like Unsane and Contagion, the festival favorite Presence–a haunted-house movie shot from the POV of the ghost, with Lucy Liu and Julia Fox among the haunted—marks his first both-feet foray into the genre. And if that's not enough Soderbergh for you in Q1, he's also got the spy drama Black Bag, starring Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender and Marisa Abela, rolling out in March.
Captain America: Brave New World (February 14)
Really, looking forward to a Marvel film, in this economy? Sure, why not: Brave New World’s trailer called back to the trust-no-one aesthetic of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which may indicate that Brave New World will right the ship after a few years of stormy weather for the MCU. It also has Harrison Ford in it, and it's just funny to think that he now knows what the Red Hulk is.
Mickey 17 (March 7)
Not to sound hyperbolic, but we have literally been waiting years for Mickey 17, Bong Joon-ho's follow-up to 2019's Oscars sensation Parasite. The existential sci-fi comedy—which was supposed to come out in March 2024, and has since seen its release date bumped five times—stars Robert Pattinson as a series of expendable clones on an interstellar mission to colonize a new planet. Conceptually it sounds like a bit of a head-ringer, but true R-Patz heads know that Pattinson + space weirdness (see also: High Life) is your best entertainment value.
Sinners (April 18)
Black Panther and Creed director Ryan Coogler's next project is said to be a genre film, although what genre has yet to be officially revealed. (Rumor has it vampires are involved.) What we know: It's about twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) who arrive in a small town looking to put their pasts behind them, and that doesn't work out quite as planned. The trailer, while no more revealing, looks pretty sick.
Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning (May 23)
We do not for one second believe the “final” in the title means anything, except from a marketing standpoint. If we know one thing in our hearts about Tom Cruise, it's that this man does not want to die at home in bed surrounded by his loved ones; if indeed he must go at all, he wants to die while playing Ethan Hunt in a Christopher McQuarrie film, possibly by crashing a plane into another plane or doing something equally ridiculous that could be done more safely (but not more viscerally, perhaps) in CGI. Which is fine, because these movies are great. This is Mission: Impossible film number eight, marketed as the one to which everything (from the Rabbit's Foot to the poor bastard at the Pentagon who gets his coffee spiked with emetics in the first film) has been leading up; it's Tom versus a malevolent A.I., and the real winner will be us.
F1 (June 27)
Lewis Hamilton produced this Lewis Hamilton F1 racing drama, directed by the same guy who directed Top Gun: Maverick and starring Brad Pitt as a former driver getting back in the seat to take on the best there is, alongside rising star Damson Idris. The perennially-excellent Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem, and Tobias Menzies are also involved. Guys who got really into F1 after watching Drive to Survive are going to love it. But given the aforementioned ingredients, chances are everybody else will, too.
Check out the rest of our most-anticipated 2025 movies here.
