Our Top 5 Most Anticipated Movies of 2025 That You Can't Miss
Well hey there, 2025! Firstly, we’d like to wish everybody a happy new year and we hope that your holiday period was full of family, friends and good times!
We did a whole looking back on the year that was 2024 through its film, music and television and so it’s only fitting that the first blog of the new year is looking forward.
Last year gave us plenty of great film, where big-budget blockbusters took a bit of a back seat in favour of smaller studios and indie projects. But in 2025, they’re back, and there is plenty to look forward to! We’re sure that we aren’t alone with our excitement for these returning franchises, so let’s take a look at some of them:
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
Don’t worry, it’s not the last Mission Impossible movie, at least that hasn’t been explicitly stated. Tom Cruise’s character of Ethan Hunt has become as much an action icon as James Bond, Jason Bourne or John Wick and at 62 years old, Mr Cruise is still running better than anybody in film, doing his own stunts and being way cooler than I am at the ripe old age of 29.
If it is the last Mission Impossible movie, then what a ride it’s been, and Tom Cruise deserves to retire the character in extraordinary fashion, and with a budget of $400 million dollars making it one of the most expensive movies ever made, I can only assume that that will indeed be the case.
The Final Reckoning follows on from 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One and if like me you’re wondering why it’s not Dead Reckoning Part Two, well, I guess we can’t always have explanations. There isn’t really much story information and the teaser trailer for The Final Reckoning gave no plot points, but it’s full of big set pieces, lots of action and Tom Cruise running, diving and hanging off a plane, so it looks like it’ll be a good time. It’s set to release on May 21st.
Ballerina
Ballerina, or to use its full title, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, is a spin-off of those beloved gun-fu dog-loving revenge movies starring Keanu Reeves. With four John Wick movies, Ballerina pirouettes its way nicely into the space between numbers 3 and 4, and stars Ana De Armas as a similarly distraught assassin looking for revenge for her murdered father (should’ve been her cat). As the title suggests though, gun-wielding isn’t her only area of expertise.
The script was originally written back in 2017, and the ideas were absorbed into John Wick: Chapter 3- Parabellum. But after being voted onto a list of best unproduced screenplays of that year, people got to work, with Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Norman Reedus joining the cast.
Training under the fictionalised Ruska Roma as John Wick did, Eve Macarro asks him in the trailer “How do I start doing what you do?”, but that’s only after she’s used her striking, jujitsu and firearm skills to beat people up in nightclubs. We love a badass heroine, and with The Gray Man, No Time to Die and now Ballerina under her belt, Ana De Armas is becoming a pretty good one, and it’s set for June 7th.
How to Train Your Dragon
Whilst there is always a Disney live-action remake on the horizon, the most exciting live-action remake of an animated film of 2025, I think, is this one. DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, which is loosely based on the book by Cressida Cowell, is very highly regarded, multi-award winning and universally loved.
This marks the first time DreamWorks is dipping its toes into the live-action remake game. Whilst not all animated movies seem suited for live-action versions- something like Shrek for example (which seems like it would be the trippiest thing ever)- the soaring dragons, epic landscapes, and heartfelt story of How to Train Your Dragon seem perfect for such a translation. And it also looks like DreamWorks learned from their friends at Paramount and didn’t try to change Toothless’ iconic design, or attempt to make him look like a hyper-realistic dragon.
With Dean DeBlois returning to his duties after serving as writer-director and producer on all three animated films and John Powell returning to compose the score, we can be assured that what we’ll get a recreation with the same charm that will hopefully usher in a new generation of fans, and the ones who grew up with the original will have fun with it as well. It’s out on June 13th.
28 Years Later
No, it isn’t actually 28 years since Alex Garland and Danny Boyle’s original film. I was slightly disappointed too. The third instalment sees Boyle return to the director’s chair after not being involved with the second instalment, 28 Weeks Later. Also no, that one zombie in the trailer wasn’t Cillian Murphy reprising his role, and he apparently won’t be making an appearance in the film. He is serving as an executive producer though, so that’s cool. But as far as the cast go, Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Jonhson, Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell lead this new generation of survivors.
It’s been almost thirty years after the original outbreak of the Rage virus. In real life, we lost our minds in just three years. But in movie world, people have found ways to deal with it and to survive. For example: living on a secluded island away from, but connected to via a single, heavily-defended causeway, the mainland. But one day, one such group of survirours must leave on a mission to the dangers of said mainland, and well, you can probably hazard a guess as to the rest.
28 Days Later is highly regarded and well-loved by horror fans, and its significance and influence on the post-apocalyptic genre is large. The film is intimate, focusing on survival and isolation and a strong emphasis on the emotional and psychological effects of the apocalypse, as well as human relationships in the face of extreme circumstances. 28 Weeks Later, while still well-received, took a more traditional action-horror approach. We can only hope that 28 Years Later takes the series back to its more human, albeit undead roots. Coming June 20th.
Superman
Superman is a global icon and whilst his movies have certainly had their lower points, the character and his cinematic iterations remain some of the best-loved of all time. With one of those darker periods (both figuratively and literally) coming out of Zack Snyder’s take on the character with Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and Justice League, James Gunn now is at the helm to lead Superman to a brighter future (again, both figuratively and literally).
Now don’t get me wrong, those films weren’t all bad, with some solid ideas and visuals and Zack Snyder’s undoubted ability to just make a really cool looking movie. Henry Cavill’s portrayal of the man of steel is also pretty unanimously praised, but with James Gunn’s success in the genre over on the other side with the Guardians of the Galaxy series as well as revamping the Suicide Squad after that no-so-good 2016 movie, there is a lot of reason to be excited about his vision for Superman.
With a teaser trailer released just back in December, Gunn promises a brighter, more colourful affair and shows us that despite Batfleck’s questions, Superman does in fact bleed. Led by an epic new version of the iconic theme, it showcases David Corenswet as Superman being exactly what Superman is meant to be- a symbol of hope. Also there’s Krypto. I mean, who wouldn’t be excited about Krypto?! Superman soars back to the big screen on the July 11th.
Honourable Mentions:
Writing about all the films that we’re excited about in 2025 would probably take another three Microsoft Word pages, and so we’ve placed a few here instead!
We’re also very much looking forward to Thunderbolts*, Sinners, Companion, Mickey 17 (which we had on last year’s list, and now it's finally gonna see the light of the big screen), and the return of the Final Destination franchise to the big screen!
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