Now that we firmly have 2024 in the rearview mirror, let’s enjoy a look ahead at 2025, which looks to be a delightfully strange year of movies, both franchise and original, and oftentimes, at this point of the year, there are more notable “BIG” films on the road ahead and we just don’t know some of the smaller films because they just haven’t had the marketing awareness and studio representation.

Now, it’s been a few years since I’ve actually done one of these. I’m usually very busy at this time of year, especially the last few years, and I’ve been meaning to dive back in, so let’s get started.

Just a couple notes, as always:

-These films are MOST ANTICIPATED films, not the ones I think will end up on my Top Ten of the year in January. Oftentimes, I’ve not even heard of the movies that end up being my favorites at this point. In fact, only 3 films from my Top Ten of 2024 were even aware to me back in January of last year.

-These lists tend to be packed with franchise films, notable directors, and studio pictures, because they have longer production schedules are much longer. That’s just the way it works.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT A COUNTDOWN. IT’S JUST A LIST OF THE FILMS IN (TENTATIVE) RELEASE DATE.

Well, we’ve waited long enough, let’s dive right in…

The Wolf Man

• I’m seeing this film tomorrow night, as of the time of this writing, so I wanted to get my pre-viewed thoughts out now. I adore Leigh Whannell as a writer and director, and I quite enjoyed his take on The Invisible Man back in 2020, but that’s not the major reason this film appears here. As some of you may know, I love the Universal Monsters, and my favorite film from that run is The Wolf Man. We don’t get many werewolf films, and we get even less films with a Wolf Man, and there is a difference. I want to see more of these hybrid creatures, the walking-around-on-two-feet Wolf Men, and I’m really liking what I’m seeing from Whannell’s new film. I’m sure by the time this posts, I’ll already have my review out.

The Monkey

• This Osgood Perkins-directed film is based on the short story from Stephen King, a very good and very creepy short story that’s light on story but heavy on mood, something Perkins is rather brilliant with. His last two films, Longlegs and Gretel & Hansel, are both more about the presentation than plot, but he captures them in such a beautifully macabre way that its hard not to love them. With Perkins as a director working on a Stephen King adaptation with James Wan producing, I don’t really know how this could be anything less than incredible, and this spooky film about a toy monkey is set up to make some real music this year.

Mickey 17

• It’s been five years since Bong Joon-ho won numerous awards for his Best Picture Parasite, and we’ve been getting crumbs of information about his newest film, Mickey 17, as it got bumped each year from the release schedule, but in the past few months we’ve finally released an official trailer, and the film has become all the more tangible and exciting with it. Following Robert Pattinson’s Mickey, a human employed as an “expendable,” someone who takes on dangerous and deadly tasks and is then presumably cloned to continue working, this sci-fi epic looks like loads of fun, and I’m assuming that we’ll get some pretty hard-hitting social comedy layered in, as the director frequently accomplishes in recent fair like the aforementioned Parasite and his Netflix film Okja. I knew Mickey 17 would be interesting, but when the trailer hit, I was absolutely sold on it.

Final Destination: Bloodlines

• For the first franchise sequel on this list, I’ve been a fan of the Final Destination franchise since its inception as a potential X-Files episode-turned-feature-film, and with Spider-Man franchise director Jon Watts serving as a producer and the late Tony Todd supposedly having a larger role in the sequel has me more than a little excited. While the even-numbered sequels of the franchise have always been the lesser, I’m hoping Bloodlines can break the curse and Watts’s passion for the franchise will deliver a stellar sequel that makes the most of its potential. Still, not much is known on the upcoming installment other than the report that it would follow first responders, so this is a wait-and-see, but I’m choosing optimism for this one.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

• Another franchise sequel, this eighth Mission: Impossible installment is looking to make good on the promise of its predecessor. I found Dead Reckoning to be an excellent first half of the story, and I like how it actually tied up its story while leaving just a few tidbits to go on with the next film, and I adored the introduction of Hayley Atwell’s Grace, a thief-turned IMF agent. Knowing there’s a level of finality to this film, we may not see some of our favorite supporting players make it to the end, which should create plenty of drama. As far as traditional franchises go, this is the most exciting sequel of the year in my eye.

The Life of Chuck

• This second (but not final) Stephen King adaptation on my list has more in common with The Shawshank Redemption than The Monkey, as it’s not so much a horror tale, even with Mike Flanagan at the helm. Following his King adaptations of Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep (and where the hell is that Dark Tower series?), Flanagan’s film had some talking Oscar consideration while it looked for a distributor, and when NEON acquired it, they placed it on the 2025 release calendar. The story follows Chuck Krantz, and it’s told in reverse, beginning with the end of his life and then working backwards. With similarities to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Memento, there’s a possibility for something really unique at play with The Life of Chuck, and I’ll be there opening day.

Superman

• We’re so inundated with superhero fare these days, but the one I’m dying to see in 2025 is Superman, directed by James Gunn. Gunn’s track record as a director is excellent, and I can’t wait to see him execute a real back-to-basics Superman, full of hope and joy. I grew up a fan of Donner’s 1978 film and its sequel, and I’m even a defender of Superman Returns. Man of Steel, for all the good it does in its first half, just never connected with me. I’m a fan of the happy Supes, the one will catch a falling helicopter and rescue a cat from a tree, and still try to make it to work on time, and that seems to be the vibe at play. The trailer even convinced me that Krypto could work, so there you have it.

The Naked Gun

• The original Naked Gun is my favorite comedy of all time, and I lamented the loss of Leslie Nielsen because it meant that we’d never see Frank Drebin, the Detective Lieutenant of Police Squad. Now, some decades following the third film, Liam Neeson is taking up the lead role for a reboot, and Pamela Anderson (who has been riding a high right now due to The Last Showgirl) costarring, I have high hopes for a new Naked Gun and perhaps the return of spoof films. The Scary Movie franchise and all its various spinoffs virtually killed that subgenre, and I’d love to see these kind of films resurrected once again.

The Running Man

• The final Stephen King adaptation on my list is from Edgar Wright, another excellent director who is taking a stab at The Running Man. While nonreaders would lament that The Running Man doesn’t need a remake, I did read the book, and I’d love to see something a little more akin to King’s novel (written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), and it looks like this version, while little is known, seems to be an interesting combination of King’s writing and Wright’s unusual visionary flair. The cast is coming together rather nicely, with hot commodity Glen Powell leading the film (and fits the character slightly more than Schwarzenegger did in the original film, though that’s not a necessity), and Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo rounding out major roles. While we’ve seen nothing of this film just yet, the background elements all spell success.

Anaconda

• Okay, file this one under morbid curiosity. The Anaconda franchise has, maybe, one good installment within its 4 installments and crossover with the Lake Placid films (no joke, look it up), so under any normal circumstances, a new Anaconda film doesn’t excite…but then, you tell me that Jack Black and Paul Rudd are leading the cast. To quote Calvin Candie: “You had my curiosity. Now you have my attention.” Add to that Tom Gormican in the director’s chair, not quite a household name but I found the satirical and bonkers edge he added to the recent Nicolas Cage film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Anaconda 2025 may not be a good film, but I’m excited to see what it looks like by the time the end credits roll.

So there you have it. These are the 10 films that I’m most anticipating for 2025. As stated above, I don’t know if these films will be any good, but they’re the ones that excite me the most. Now, share your films in the comments below. Am I missing something? Let me know. Happy 2025, everyone!

-Kyle A. Goethe