The best upcoming movies in 2025

The first Accountant, released way back in 2016, has morph from also-ran action thriller to minor cult classic over the years; it shouldn’t have been good, but it was. That being said, we were still a little shocked to see the announcement of this full-blown sequel, which reunites Ben Affleck’s Christian Wolff (mercurial accountant to the criminal underworld and sometime elite sniper) with Jon Bernthal’s Braxton Wolff (trained killer and security specialist – and Christian’s estranged brother). Yes, the plot seems pretty daft and by-the-numbers (no pun intended), but the interplay between the brothers looks more than enough to carry the film to its undoubtedly bloody and bullet-strewn conclusion.

Release date: 25 April 2025

An Avengers-style team of superheroes made up of misfits, scoundrels and barely reformed villains? Yes, we’ve seen this before (twice!) with D.C.’s Suicide Squad films, but Thunderbolts* is Marvel’s own take on the sub-genre – with all that that entails, for better or worse.

With the MCU’s star seemingly on the wane following a succession of disappointing releases, there’s a lot riding on this film. Can it bring back the franchise’s good old days, or has the whole cinematic universe become so convoluted, generic and ‘safe’ that it’s simply collapsing in on itself in an artistic version of the Big Rip?

And no, we don’t really know what the title’s asterisk is for – but we imagine we’ll find out once we’ve seen the film.

Release date: 2 May 2025

A prolific film franchise that goes back almost 30 years – with the same lead actor?! Love them, hate them or generally just find them a bit middling, there’s no denying that the Mission: Impossible movies are blockbusters of the highest order. And in a time where such movies are increasingly scarce, there’s something about a big marquee release that genuinely gets is excited for a trip to the cinema.

This is the eighth M:I movie, and potentially the last, rounding off the story started by Tom Cruise and company way back in 1996. But it’d be unwise to be against the 62-year-old Cruise returning to the role of super-agent Ethan Hunt again – after all, Harrison Ford has been playing Indiana Jones well into his 70s.

Release date: 23 May 2025

If Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Mummy and National Treasure got blended up in a Nutri Ninja, the resulting smoothie would taste a lot like Apple and Guy Ritchie’s new movie.

This historical adventure heist sees bickering siblings John Krasinski and Natalie Portman lead a ragtag bunch of globe-trotting tomb raiders in an attempt to track down the legendary secret to eternal life – all while pursued by a gang of fanatical villains hell-bent on stopping them.

While Fountain of Youth certainly walks and talks like the kind of summer blockbuster that’d warrant a cinematic release, it’s coming directly to home streaming via Apple TV+. We’ll certainly be stocking up on popcorn for a living room screening.

Release date: 23 May 2025 (Apple TV+)

Tim Robinson made the funniest sketch show of the past decade for Netflix (I Think You Should Leave), and now brings his trademark brand of unhinged humour to the big screen in this comedy-drama from A24, in which his character befriends and then unfriends a charismatic neighbour (played by Paul Rudd). It looks like a cross between I Love You, Man and Fatal Attraction – and we cannot wait to see the chaos that erupts from this broken buddyship.

Release date: May 2025

Wes Anderson’s new black comedy looks very, very Wes Anderson-y. Think stagey blocking, star-studded ensemble cast, whimsical quasi-historical setting and slightly stilted dialogue.

We feel like we’ve seen this one before, in other words – and yet we’ll be queueing up for more of it at our local picture house come the end of May, because there’s nobody out there making this kind of movie, especially for cinema release. And that ensemble cast, which features Benicio del Toro, Tom Hanks, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson, Willem Dafoe and many other familiar faces, is just too stellar to pass up.

Release date: 30 May 2025

This animated anthology movie (which is coming direct to Disney+ in the UK and Hulu+ in the US) hops between a trio of different historical settings – the Viking era, feudal Japan and World War II – and plonks the world’s most infamous alien hunter in all three. Want to see brutal dreadlocked extra-terrestrials eviscerating samurai, Norse warriors and fighter pilots? You’re in luck – and the fact that it’s being helmed by Prey director Dan Trachtenberg suggests it’s going to be a thrilling ride that respects the spirit of the ‘Predatorverse’ while exploring its well-worn tropes in some interesting new ways.

And it’s not the only Predator film releasing in 2025, either. Predator: Badlands, due in November, will be a live-action movie in which the alien is the good guy. We’ll bring you more on that when we have it.

Release date: 6 June 2025 (Hulu+, Disney+)

Danny Boyle’s long-awaited sequel to his pioneering twists on the zombie genre 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, this all-new story centres on the remnants of humanity that cling to existence almost three decades since the rage virus outbreak began.

Details of the story are thin, and the trailer above is an all-too-rare masterpiece of ‘vibes over plot exposition’, but we do know that it boasts an excellent cast stacked with the likes of Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes, and that it has been filmed, at least partially, on an Apple iPhone. Before you pull out your own device and start thinking about Hollywood stardom, though, consider that the lens Boyle and co have attached to their iPhone costs about as much as your house.

Release date: 20 June 2025

The bitchiest android in cinema history is back – and this time she’s fighting against a cyborg even more homicidal and dangerous than she is.

The original M3GAN was one of the most surprisingly enjoyable horror films of 2022, and the sequel looks to have cranked things up to 11 by leaning into full-on action-thriller territory as the titular murderous android doll is brought back by her creators to counter a self-aware military robot called Amelia.

Release date: 27 June 2025

An abandoned island facility that developed the original dinosaurs for the first Jurassic Park now holds the lizards considered too terrible to be in close proximity to the public. And, wouldn’t you know, it’s the one place where our rag-tag team, led by Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali, must travel to obtain some vital scientific research.

The trailer for this latest Jurassic Park franchise reboot makes Rebirth look like it has a healthy dose of Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones thrown in, perhaps in an effort to take the long-running series in a slightly new direction. Don’t worry, though: there will be plenty of hungry dinosaurs looking to make an easy meal out of our swashbuckling heroes.

Release date: 2 July 2025

Here’s yet another reboot of the classic American superhero story we all know and (some of us) love. But while it might be hard (and unwise) to get too excited about tripping down the familiar narrative pathway of small-town boy and erstwhile alien refugee Clark Kent finding his way in the big city while saving the world, we’re willing to give this one a chance. It is, after all, directed by James Gunn, who has given us some of the most enjoyable superhero movies of the past decade. Can Gunn restore Superman’s stock after several years of D.C.’s mishandling? We’ll find out in July.

Release date: 11 July 2025

Set in a retro-futuristic version of New York clearly inspired by the comics’ 1960s origins, this new Fantastic Four reboot brings the team – an all-star cast of Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach – firmly into the Marvel Cinematic Universe fold while prepping the ground for them to reappear in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars films coming in 2026 and 2027.

The movie reportedly skips the Four’s well-trod origin story in favour of dropping them straight into a new adventure, where they must defend the world from the planet-eating cosmic being Galactus and his enigmatic herald, the Silver Surfer.

Release date: 25 July 2025

This really shouldn’t work at all. A re-imagining of the 80s slapstick cop classic, replacing the impeccable Leslie Nielsen with Liam Neeson. The world has moved on from the kind of visual gags that made the original Naked Gun so beloved, and Neeson just can’t do comedy like Nielsen…

But then we watched the teaser trailer, and it made us guffaw twice – once for a sight gag featuring Neeson and once for a brilliant and slightly risky self-referential gag concerning a disgraced former cast member. And then we saw it was directed by The Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaeffer and thought, yes, we’re completely won over. This is a film we want to watch now.

Release date: 1 August 2025