From feel-good family films to a zombie horde sequel: The most anticipated movies of 2025

From left: a promotional still from 'A Minecraft Movie' (Warner Bros.); Florence Pugh in 'Thunderbolts*' (Marvel Studios); Tom Cruise in 'Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning' (Paramount); and Ben Wang in 'Karate Kid: Legends' (Columbia Pictures)

Whether you go to the movies to laugh, cry or escape reality, 2025 looks primed to offer up something for everyone. Here’s a list I’ve put together of some of the most anticipated films, organized by genre, including the anticipated release date for each.

ACTION/ADVENTURE

Captain America: Brave New World (Release Date: Feb. 14, 2025): When Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) handed his shield to former pararescueman Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), a.k.a. The Falcon at the end of “Endgame,” it marked an exchange of power that went on to be explored in the Disney+ series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and on the big screen in the upcoming “Captain America: Brave New World.”

Mackie says his iteration of Cap will use “more of his wit than his fist. He’s more of a friend to everyone.”

A Minecraft Movie (Release Date: April 4, 2025): Earlier this year, fans of the world-building videogame “Minecraft” helped a meme of an excitable Jack Black roaring “I am Steve” go viral. In April, we’ll have a chance to see the clip in context when the live action “A Minecraft Movie” is released in theatres.

The family-friendly action movie stars Jason Momoa, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks and Sebastian Eugene Hansen as unlikely heroes and underdogs drawn into the Overworld, a strange place that thrives on imagination. To escape, they must team with a master crafter named Steve.

Director Jared Hess says they opted for a live-action approach, because the game’s fans have already created “amazing stories, and short films, and content in the animation space… this is the chance for us, doing a film, to do something different."

Thunderbolts* (Release Date: May 5, 2025): In “Thunderbolts*,” the final film of Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a team of anti-heroes—including Black Widow Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), super-soldier Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Alexei Shostakov a.k.a. Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, (Harrison Ford)—are brought together to do go on secret missions for the government.

Star David Harbour told “E.T.” he thinks “Thunderbolts*” is a unique in the MCU because “you've got a bunch of misfits and outcasts and losers and people who don't really live up to the super in superhero.” As to why it has an awkward asterisk in the title, Marvel big wig Kevin Feige says, “We won’t talk anymore about that until after the movie comes out.”

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (Release Date: May 23, 2025): Despite the word “final” appearing in the title, “Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning” isn’t necessarily the last movie in the eight-film franchise.

Tom Cruise, age 62, recently said he would welcome a return to the role of daredevil IMF agent and operative team leader Ethan Hunt, noting that Harrison Ford played Indiana Jones into his seventies.

Avatar: Fire and Ash (Release Date: Dec. 19, 2025): Director James Cameron says “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the third installment in his “Avatar” film series, “goes to darker places than the previous ones did.” The story returns to Pandora, the extrasolar moon and home of the Na’vi, but there is a new threat, the Ash People, a fiery version of Na'vi.

Actor Jack Champion who plays Miles, the teenager adopted by Jake and Neytiri in the second “Avatar” film, said he was shocked when he read the script. “It just takes a hard left turn, and that's not a bad thing. You think you know where it's going, but then a wrecking ball comes.”

OTHER NOTABLE RELEASES

ACTION

Karate Kid: Legends (Release Date: May 30, 2025) teams the original Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio, with Jackie Chan.

The first spin-off from the John Wick universe, Ballerina (Release Date: June 6, 2025) stars Ana de Armas as an assassin seeking revenge against the people who killed her family.

Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali headline the prehistoric creature chaos of Jurassic World Rebirth (Release Date: July 2, 2025) and you will believe a man can fly in James Gunn’s Superman (Release Date: July 11, 2025).

FAMILY

Paddington in Peru (Release Date: Feb. 14, 2025): Gentle, amusing and inventive, the first two Paddington movies hold 97% and 99% Rotten Tomato scores respectively, so expectations for “Paddington in Peru” are sky high. In the new film, the marmalade loving bear, voiced by Ben Whishaw, searches for his cherished Aunt Lucy who has gone missing in the Peruvian jungle.

Helping Paddington on his dangerous quest are Oscar winner Olivia Colman as a cheery singing nun, a brave boat captain played by Antonio Banderas (who also plays a female pilot) and his adopted parents Henry (Hugh Bonneville) and Mary (Emily Mortimer, replacing Sally Hawkins).

How to Train Your Dragon (Release Date: June 13, 2025): The first official live-action adaptation of a DreamWorks feature, “How to Train Your Dragon,” is once again set on the Isle of Berk, where it snows nine months of the year, and hails the other three.

Director Dean DeBlois, who directed three of the original animated films, recreates several scenes from the original film shot for shot. But this time around he collapses the story to cover just the relationship between young Hiccup, played by Mason Thames, and a friendly dragon named Toothless, that put an end to generations of feuding between the Vikings and dragons.

The Smurfs Movie (Release Date: July 18, 2025): The Smurfs will return to the big screen in a live-action, animation hybrid musical starring best-selling musician Rihanna as Smurfette, supported by a voice cast including Natasha Lyonne, Dan Levy, Octavia Spencer, Hannah Waddingham, Kurt Russell and John Goodman.

“I tried to get the Papa Smurf role, but It didn’t work out,” joked the Barbadian singer, who will also write and perform several of the movie’s songs.

Lilo & Stitch (Release Date: May 23, 2025): This live action/animation hybrid tells the tale of the bond formed between a lonely human girl named Lilo and a blue koala-like alien genetic experiment named Stitch. The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (Release Date: Dec. 19, 2025) The fourth movie in the franchise follows SpongeBob as he squares off against mischievous pirate ghost The Flying Dutchman, voiced by Mark Hamill.

HORROR

Wolf Man (Release Date: Jan. 17, 2025) Four years after they reinvented “The Invisible Man” for a new generation, producer Jason Blum and writer-director Leigh Whannell reimagine another classic monster. “Wolf Man” sees Blake bitten by a werewolf during a full moon. When he changes into a monster, his wife and child must decide who’s more dangerous, the transformed Blake or the lethal terror outside their home.

Whannell says he was inspired by David Cronenberg’s “The Fly.” “It's not about being funny or icky or gory,” he said. “It’s about the tragedy of the human body falling apart."

28 Years Later (Release Date: June 20, 2025): The third film in this zombie franchise, following “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later,” “28 Years Later” reunites the series’s original director Danny Boyle with writer Alex Garland for a terrifying story about how humans have found ways to exist amidst the zombie hordes.

The trailer release of this highly-anticipated title went viral with over 10 million views in 48 hours, leading a film critic for The Guardian to call it “the most exciting film of 2025.”

Sinners (Release Date: March 7, 2025): Michael B. Jordan plays twins Elijah and Elias in “Sinners,” the upcoming film from “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler. Set in the Jim Crow-era South, the troubled brothers return to their hometown to start anew, only to discover a new kind of horror.

Plot details are scarce, but the Hollywood Reporter said the horror involves “both vampires and Southern supernatural traditions.”

M3GAN 2.0 (Release Date: June 27, 2025): The sequel to the 2022 surprise hit “M3GAN” is another artificially-intelligent doll story that looks into what could happen when AI robots connect to devices in people’s homes.

Thread: An Insidious Tale (Release Date: Aug. 29, 2025): The sixth installment of the “Insidious” horror franchise sees a couple, played by Mandy Moore and Kumail Nanjiani, resort to a spell to travel back in time, hoping to prevent their daughter's death.

The Bride! (Release Date: Sept. 26, 2025): Director Maggie Gyllenhaal reimagines 1935’s “Bride of Frankenstein” as a story about the Bride, not only as a companion for Frankenstein’s monster, but also the leader of a radical social movement.

THE BEST OF THE REST

The Naked Gun (Release Date: Aug. 1, 2025): In this outrageous comedy, Liam Neeson stars as Frank Drebin, a bumbling detective made famous by Leslie Nielsen, described as a "detective with a heart of gold and a brain of wood."

Michael (Release Date: Oct. 3, 2025): “Training Day” director Antoine Fuqua pulled off a casting coup when he hired Michael Jackson’s real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson for the title role of “Michael,” a biopic on the King of Pop.

F1 (Release Date: June 27, 2025): Brad Pitt stars in this look into the world of Formula 1 as a former racer who is persuaded to come out of retirement to mentor a new driving prodigy.

Wicked: Part Two (Release Date: Nov. 21, 2025): The conclusion of one of the biggest hits of 2024 closes the circle on the story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda (Ariana Grande), the Good Witch of the North.