From the return of Bridget Jones to a sweeping revival of Snow White, a gripping M3GAN sequel to the conclusion of Wicked, and buzzy awards hopefuls from the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson, Yorgos Lanthimos and Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2025 should, by all accounts, be a seminal year for the big screen. Here are the 13 films you need to see.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (14 February 2025)
Years on from Bridget Jones’s Baby, Renée Zellweger’s prototypical Frazzled Englishwoman™ mourns her husband (Colin Firth), takes terrible advice from her ex (Hugh Grant), lusts after her children’s dashing teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and falls for a cheeky younger man (Leo Woodall) in this madcap, Michael Morris-directed fourth instalment in the franchise. There’s no better way to spend Valentine’s Day.
Black Bag (14 March 2025)
Fresh off his Lucy Liu-led ghost story Presence, Steven Soderbergh returns with a slick spy thriller, penned by Jurassic Park co-writer David Koepp and starring everyone from Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender to Pierce Brosnan, Naomie Harris, Industry’s Marisa Abela and Bridgerton’s Regé-Jean Page. Let the cat-and-mouse games begin.
Snow White (21 March 2025)
With new original songs by La La Land and The Greatest Showman’s Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, a script co-authored by Greta Gerwig, Rachel Zegler in the part of the crooning Disney princess and Gal Gadot as the cackling Evil Queen, Marc Webb’s eye-popping live-action remake seeks to breathe new life into the classic fairytale – and should be worth the wait.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (9 May 2025)
Pachinko and After Yang’s Kogonada brings Oscar nominees Margot Robbie (in her first big-screen part since Barbie) and Colin Farrell (his first since The Banshees of Inisherin) together, alongside Lily Rabe, Jodie Turner-Smith and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, for this hallucinatory romance following two strangers who cross paths unexpectedly. Prepare to swoon.
Golden (9 May 2025)
A truly jaw-dropping ensemble – recent Academy Award winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Halle Bailey, Abbott Elementary’s Quinta Brunson, Janelle Monáe, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Brian Tyree Henry, Missy Elliott, André 3000 – unite for this rousing, ’70s-set coming-of-age musical, helmed by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s Michel Gondry and co-produced by Pharrell Williams. It promises to be a life-affirming celebration of Black joy.
28 Years Later (20 June 2025)
More than two decades after Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s beloved post-apocalyptic horror 28 Days Later first hurtled onto screens, the pair are back, with newly-minted Oscar winner Cillian Murphy in tow, for this explosive reboot tracking yet more survivors (Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell) fleeing infected hordes. Even more good news? A Nia DaCosta-directed sequel, 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple, is due to follow soon after.
M3GAN 2.0 (27 June 2025)
It’s time to blast Sia’s “Titanium†once again and finesse those eerie dance moves – Gerard Johnstone and Akela Cooper’s preppy killer doll is out for more blood, presumably after (shock horror!) not dying at the end of the delightfully campy, word-of-mouth sensation that was the first film. Bring on more implausible shenanigans from Allison Williams’s roboticist and Violet McGraw as her grieving niece, as well as more wild fight scenes, gruesome deaths and bizarre twists.
Freakier Friday (8 August 2025)
Lindsay Lohan is taking a (hopefully brief) break from Netflix rom-coms to reprise the role of the now-all-grown-up teenage punk rocker-turned-middle aged corporate stiff Anna Coleman, who inexplicably swapped bodies with her strung out mother (Jamie Lee Curtis), in the 2003 Disney classic. Directed by Late Night’s Nisha Ganatra and co-starring returning favourites Mark Harmon, Chad Michael Murray, Christina Vidal, Stephen Tobolowsky, Haley Hudson, Lucille Soong and Rosalind Chao alongside Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s Julia Butters and Never Have I Ever’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, this hotly anticipated sequel will have you head-banging to Pink Slip like no time has passed.
The Battle of Baktan Cross (8 August 2025)
Paul Thomas Anderson rarely misses – and it’s unlikely that he will with his next star-studded project: a heart-pumping crime saga featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, A Thousand and One’s Teyana Taylor and Licorice Pizza’s Alana Haim. Mark your calendars.
Downton Abbey 3 (12 September 2025)
It won’t be the same without the late Maggie Smith’s quippy Dowager Countess, naturally, but at least Paul Giamatti, Dominic West, Elizabeth McGovern, Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Phyllis Logan, Joanne Froggatt, Penelope Wilton et al will be back for our third big-screen visit to the grand Yorkshire pile, courtesy of Julian Fellowes and Simon Curtis. The enchanting score alone will be enough to give me goosebumps.
The Bride! (26 September 2025)
I’m generally sceptical of film titles which end in exclamation marks (see: Mamma Mia!, Mother!, I could go on…) but I’ll make an exception for Maggie Gyllenhaal’s head-spinning sci-fi musical reimagining of Bride of Frankenstein, with Jessie Buckley as the wife-to-be, Christian Bale as the monster and a stellar supporting cast which includes Penélope Cruz, Annette Bening, the director’s husband Peter Sarsgaard, and brother, Jake. Get ready for chills, thrills and big dance numbers.
Bugonia (7 November 2025)
Another year, another wonderfully wacky Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone collaboration: this time, a sci-fi comedy remake of the 2003 South Korean farce Save the Green Planet! with Clueless’s Alicia Silverstone and Kinds of Kindness’s Jesse Plemons as a conspiracy theorist who kidnaps a high-powered CEO whom he believes is actually an alien sent to destroy the earth. What else did you expect?
Wicked: Part Two (21 November 2025)
As we continue to hold space for and find power in the first half of Jon M Chu’s two-part pink-and-green blockbuster, we’re also breathlessly looking ahead to the second, destined to fly onto screens this coming autumn, bringing with it more stunning duets from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, more of Jonathan Bailey’s antics, more plotting from Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum and, hopefully, many, many more memes.
