=10: Wake Up Dead Man & Frankenstein (release dates: TBC)

The two heavy-hitters from Netflix for next year kick off the list. First, we’ve got Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig (coming off of a career-best performance in Queer) reuniting for the third Knives Out mystery that seems to be taking Benoit Blanc to a quaint English village, with another star-studded ensemble that this time includes Josh O’Connor, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, and plenty more. Second, Guillermo del Toro finally gets to take his own crack at Frankenstein, a story that has clearly informed great swathes of his career, with Oscar Isaac as the creator and Jacob Elordi as his monster. Expect del Toro’s trademark gorgeous set design, grotesque violence, and empathy for the tragic creature in spades.

9: Bugonia (release date: Nov 7)

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone’s fourth collaboration in a row is a remake of 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet, in which the CEO of a major company (Stone) is kidnapped by two conspiracy-addled men who believe that she is part of an alien scheme to take over the world. It’s a fittingly bonkers premise for this fearless director-star duo and with a pretty awards-friendly release date in November, it looks likely to be closer to the comedic romp stylings of Poor Things or The Favourite than the pure sexual nihilism of Kinds of Kindness.

8: After the Hunt (release date: TBC)

Most directors might take a break after putting out two five-star movies in one year like Luca Guadagnino did with Challengers and Queer in 2024, but Hollywood’s busiest auteur has no interest in slowing down – I’d expect we see After the Hunt make its initial bow at the 2025 edition of the Venice Film Festival. A MeToo-inspired thriller about a professor, played by Julia Roberts, dealing with the fallout of a serious accusation made against a colleague, it’s got a punchy premise and great supporting cast (Andrew Garfield! Michael Stuhlbarg! Ayo Edebiri! Chloe Sevigny!), but the real thrill here is the early test-screen report that Roberts’s lead performance is apparently the best of her career.

=7: Sinners (release date: Mar 7) + 28 Years Later (release date: Jun 20)

Two real horror blockbusters are heading our way in the first six months of 2025, and both of them look both cool and creepy as hell. First up is Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, 1930s American Deep South-set vampire thriller with Michael B Jordan on double duty as twin brothers, before Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return to the 28…Later franchise with 28 Years Later, which has one of the most gripping trailers I’ve seen in a good long while. With blood, gore, and scares aplenty promised by both, and 28 Years Later in particular looking like a real surefire hit, these two look to be some of next year’s great communal experience movies.

=6: Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning (release date: May 23) + F1 (release date: Jun 27)

Top Gun Maverick was my favourite film of 2022, and now 2025 has both its star and director returning to big screens for more dizzying, death-defying, IMAX-worthy stunts. First up is the eighth and possibly final Mission Impossible, Tom Cruise saying goodbye to his nearly 30-year-old franchise as Ethan Hunt continues his fight against Dead Reckoning‘s AI villain across the globe, from deep beneath a frozen ocean to atop a World War 2-era plane flying through the mountains. Later in the year we have Joseph Kosinski’s F1, repeating his Maverick trick of cameras-in-cockpits, only this time for F1 cars instead of fighter jets, promising a whole film of heart-in-mouth speed and danger.

=5: Superman (release date: Jul 11), Fantastic Four First Steps (release date: Jul 25), Avatar Fire and Ash (release date: Dec 19)

The real Big Boy blockbusters of next year are, to my eyes, these three. James Gunn reboots Superman with actual hope and light and Golden Age-inspired casting in the form of David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan as Clark and Lois, leaving behind the turgid and dour Snyderverse. Then, the most exciting MCU project in years comes along in the shape of the Fantastic Four reboot, with a ’60s setting and some incredible casting (best in show for me: Ralph Ineson as the planet-eater Galactus) that gives it a real *identity* beyond its genre stablemates. Finally, the year closes out with the third (of five) Avatar, this time introducing us to new tribes of Na’vi from both the sky and the ashes. No one’s better than James Cameron at effects-driven blockbuster action and that inevitable Quaritch redemption storyline is just gonna be magic.

4: The Way of the Wind (release date: TBC)

We’ve been waiting a mighty long time for Terrence Malick – modern cinema’s greatest spiritualist – to finally finish up post-production on his life of Jesus story and now, apparently, it’s ready for 2025 (if these rumours are true, expect it to make its first bow at Cannes). Malick has been grappling with the works of Christ for his entire career, and The Way of the Wind feels like it’s shaping up to be a real culmination of all his fascinations. The Bible is hardly uncharted territory for movies, but now that it’s finally in Malick’s hands, expect something genuinely transcendent.

3: Die My Love (release date: TBC)

The first Lynne Ramsay film in eight years should be all you need to know to get very, very excited for Die My Love. Add to that a story of a mother, played by Jennifer Lawrence, with postpartum depression that transforms into a full-blown psychosis against a husband played by Robert Pattinson (who has three movies out next year after a long hiatus from live-action cinema) and you’ve got something both tantalising and terrifying in equal measure. Ramsay has an almost-unmatched capacity to drill down into the headspaces of the frightening and disturbed and here she’ll be aided by the most exciting duo of lead actors in any movie next year. After winning Best Screenplay there in 2017 for You Were Never Really Here, expect this to land at Cannes.

2: The Battle of Baktan Cross (release date: Aug 8)

Possibly instead actually called The Bad Hombres of Baktan Cross or One Battle After Another, all that really matters about The Battle of Baktan Cross is that it’s the new Paul Thomas Anderson. Oh yeah, and it stars Leonardo DiCaprio. And PTA has somehow managed to convince/trick Warner Bros into giving him a nine-figure budget and a run in IMAX cinemas in a primo summer release date. And it might be an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. There isn’t a single piece of information about this film that isn’t ludicrously exciting, even as plenty of it remains shrouded in mystery. After a real dearth of quality blockbusters in 2024, 2025 looks set to deliver big on that front, but there’s nothing that will compare to this come the chock-a-block summer months.

1: Marty Supreme (release date: TBC, Christmas Day in America)

With all that waxing lyrical about the new PTA, what 2025 release could possibly be more exciting? How about the follow-up from the director of undoubtedly the greatest movie of the past 10 years, Uncut Gems. Yep, Marty Supreme is the latest from Josh Safdie (brother Benny has his own hands full with the still-intriguing but less exciting Dwayne Johnson-starring MMA biopic The Smashing Machine also in 2025), and it looks to be doubling down on all the ingredients that made Uncut Gems so great while adding plenty of its own flavour. New York setting? Check, though here it’s the late ’50s rather than 2012. A big-time star performance at its centre. Check, with Timothee Chalamet stepping into Adam Sandler’s shoes. An offbeat sporting theme? Check, Chalamet is here playing Marty Reisman, the greatest American ping-pong player of the ’50s. And a bizarro supporting cast? Check: Gwyneth Paltrow (as the love interest), Tyler the Creator, magician Penn Jillette, legendary New York director Abel Ferrara, and Shark Tank star/current US trade war with China advocate Mr Wonderful. It’ll be bizarre, it’ll be chaotic, it’ll be hilarious, and it’ll probably be the best movie of 2025.