Most Anticipated Movie Titles of 2025: Part III

90 FILMS to WATCH FOR in 2025

part three

30. WEAPONS

DIRECTOR: Zach Cregger (Barbarian) - CAST: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, June Diane Raphael, and Clayton Farris.

• Zach Cregger's debut horror film, Barbarian, is exactly the kind of success story that most directors dream of scoring with their first feature.  After debuting to widespread critical acclaim and turning a profit of $45 million on its $4.5 million budget, Barbarian turned Cregger into a promising new voice in the horror genre in less than a month, immediately garnering interest from nearly every big studio in Hollywood hoping to get behind his next project.  That moment finally came when the spec script for his sophomore feature, Weapons, became the subject of a hotly contested bidding war that saw New Line Cinema, Universal, and Netflix scrambling in a desperate tooth-and-nail fight for who would ultimately land the rights to the film.  In the end, it was New Line Cinema who ultimately came out on top, securing the deal through a $38 million package that included a guaranteed theatrical run for the movie and final cut privileges for Cregger (pending test screening reactions) as well as a $10 million downpayment for the director, with insiders calling it an "unprecedented" offer in today's movie landscape that is virtually unheard of today (especially for a debut filmmaker.)  So just how hot is the script for Weapons?  According to reports, Jordan Peele- whose Monkeypaw Productions was vying for the film rights in conjunction with Universal- was so frustrated with both of his managers after they failed to acquire it during the auction that he fired them on the spot!  The synopsis of Weapons adds even more intrigue to the film's placement on this list, which is said to be a multilayered plot with interconnected story threads in the vein of Magnolia that revolves around police corruption, missing children, religious abuse and witchcraft!  Warner Bros. is clearly very confident in this one, who recently announced they were bumping the film forward on their calendar from its January 2026 release to a more lucrative opening weekend for this year after the film was met with overwhelmingly positive praise following private test screenings; that date has still not been announced yet, but they plan to make an official statement soon.

RELEASE: (UPDATED) As of March 19, Weapons  has indeed been moved from its release on January 16 next year to August 8 of this year.

29. BLACK  BAG

DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Haywire) - CAST: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, and Pierce Brosnan.

• David Koepp has been on quite a roll lately.  Last month saw the theatrical release of his POV ghost thriller, Presence (which was also directed by Steven Soderbergh), after its Sundance debut nearly a year ago, and he's also penned the upcoming Jurassic World movie that's set to hit theaters this summer as well.  But in between the releases of both of those films is Black Bag, an upcoming spy thriller that reunites the screenwriter with Soderbergh (in their third collaboration following Kimi and Presence) and stars an A-list cast headlined by Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, who play a married couple (Kathryn and George) both working for the same intelligence agency.  Their idyllic marriage morphs into deadly cat-and-mouse spy games though when Kathryn is suspected of orchestrating an intelligence breach and betraying her country, forcing George (whose been retired to a desk job at the agency) to reassume his role as a field agent and uncover whether his wife is the leak.  An adult thriller with a dark twist on the Mr. & Mrs. Smith concept, Black Bag looks like it will be smart and suspenseful exploration of whether two people (regardless of how close they are) can ever truly know the other inside and out.

RELEASE: March 14.

28.  N ouvelle  V ague

DIRECTOR: Richard Linklater (Hit Man, The Before Trilogy) - CAST: Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, Bruno Dreyfürst, Benjamin Clery, Matthieu Penchinat, Pauline Belle, Blaise Pettebone, Benoît Bouthors, Paolo Luka Noé, Adrien Rouyard, Jade Phan-Gia, Jodie Ruth-Forest, and Antoine Besson.

• There have not been a lot of successful movies about filmmaking, which often tend to adulate their creative subjects in ways that border on pretention and overly dramatize their creative processes to the point they're nearly drained of any authenticity or relatable human experience.  Richard Linklater hopes to avoid those pitfalls in his upcoming biopic, Nouvelle Vague, which recounts the on-set story of how trailblazing French auteur, Jean-Luc Godard, collaborated with other French New wave artists to craft his groundbreaking debut, Breathless.  Godard was a pioneer in the French New Wave film movement whose genius behind the camera helped push the boundaries of the possibilities in cinema.  Rather than venerate the famed director in an almost self-distancing way, Linklater was adamant about portraying these artists as a group of people brought together by their love of the medium, focusing more on the thrill of exploration through art.  Godard is a beloved and highly respected figure in cinema whose contributions to the art form have become indispensable, and Linklater hopes that he's made a joyous tribute to his legacy that will go down as one of the best and most significant films about moviemaking ever put on screen.  The director's upcoming movie is his first not spoken in English, so it will be interesting to see how successful he was at navigating a language he's not fluent in. 

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: Richard Linklater (Me and Orson Welles, The Before Trilogy) - CAST: Ethan Hawke, Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, and Bobby Cannavale.

• Richard Linklater's other movie slated for release this year, Blue Moon, is perhaps an even more intimate and personal look into the life of a renowned artist, with this one trading the backdrop of the French New Wave film movement in Nouvelle Vague for the world of New York City's Broadway scene.  The subject of this biopic is American lyricist, Lorenz Hart, and focuses on his struggle with alcoholism and depression.  Largely set on the opening night of Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (the duo's first joint production together), the plot focuses on Hart's friendship and creative partnership with Rogers and his internal struggle trying to save face during the hours leading up to the show's premiere, as he had famously dropped out of the production during its early stages due to his mental health and battle with substance abuse, eventually being replaced by Hammerstein.  Ethan Hawke, who plays Hart in the film, is tipped to deliver a career-best performance, so I'm excited to see whether he picks up the award for Best Actor at Berlin (where the movie premieres) and whether that buzz paves a road to the Oscars for him next year.

RELEASE: Premieres at Berlin on February 18 before hitting theaters in May.

DIRECTOR: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland, The Rider) - CAST: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson, Jacobi Jupe, and Jack Shalloo.

• After a brief stint at Marvel where she wasted her talents directing The Eternals in exchange for an easy paycheck, Chloé Zhao is back to directing the kind of intimate indie epics that helped catapult her career.  Based on the acclaimed novel by Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet is a fictional story about the relationship between Wiliam Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley), detailing their grief after the death of their 11-year-old son and how it came to serve as the inspiration for one of Shakespeare's most famous plays, Hamlet.  It's not the first time there's been a revisionist historical biopic about William Shakespeare, which was done perhaps most famously in 1998 in John Madden's, Shakespeare in Love, but with Zhao at the helm, whose grounded, naturalistic style feels both spiritually expansive and intimately profound all at once, do not expect this to retread the familiar story beats of that film.  Zhao's movies are built around transcendent moments between characters, with the poetic backdrop of nature in all its purity only heightening the drama and feelings at the center of the story in ways that feel just as vast and transporting as the locations where they're occurring.  The idea of Mescal and Buckley acting opposite each other is also just as alluring, and with Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes overseeing the project as producers, it's clear that Hamnet has its sights set on serious awards prospects for next year.

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville, The Illusionist) - CAST: Noa Staes, Celyn Jones, Olvia Gotanègre, and Sophie Maréchal.

• French cartoonist-turned-animated filmmaker, Sylvain Chomet, may only have three films under his belt, but two of those films have proven that he is a serious talent in the field of animation that is not to be slept on.  Both his debut feature, The Triplets of Belleville, and follow-up feature, The Illusionist, garnered widespread critical acclaim and were nominated for Best Animated Film at the Oscars.  It's been over a decade since his last film, but in the that time the director has been nothing if not busy.  His work was most recently seen last year in the opening animated sequence of Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux (a highlight in an otherwise disappointing flop), and during the years before that he directed a short film (Merci Monsieur Imada), a music video, did animation work on an episode of The Simpsons, and even tried his hand at live-action filmmaking in 2013 with the French comedy, Attila Marcel.  There were a couple other projects he was spearheading as well, such as his elusive animation/live-action hybrid biopic, The Thousand Miles, but sadly they never made it past the development phase.  However, it looks as though his third animated feature, The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol, is nearing completion and should be ready to make a splash at one of this year's upcoming film fests (most likely Cannes).  Based on the life of famous French auteur, novelist, and playwright, Marcel Pagnol, the story will trace his journey from his humble, middle-class beginnings in Marseilles to becoming one of the country's most influential and prolific artists.  Marcel Pagnol lived a very fascinating life filled with outstanding accomplishments that left behind an incredible legacy, so I'm very curious to see how Chomet translates his story and pays homage to his life's work.

RELEASE: TBA.

24. 호프 (HOPE)

DIRECTOR: Na Hong-Jin (The Wailing, The Yellow Sea) - CAST: Hwang Jung-Min, Zo In-Sung, HoYeon Jung, Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Uhm Tae-Goo, and Lee Kyu-Hyung.

• Na Hong-jin's last film, The Wailing, has to be one of my top favorite horror films of the last decade, and I've been eagerly waiting for whatever his follow-up feature would be since the film had its premiere at Cannes almost nine years ago.  The wait may nearly be over, as the Korean auteur looks set to unveil his next feature, Hope, sometime this year (fingers crossed it's once again at Cannes.)  Set in a remote harbor town, the story centers around a mysterious discovery on the outskirts of the village that triggers a desperate fight for survival from the nearby residents.  With an exciting international cast that includes real-life couple Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander (reunited on screen for the first time since The Light Between Oceans), and an intriguing premise that already feels like it could be setting the tone for the director's signature blend of supernatural thrills and religious allegory, Hope seems destined to be of 2025's most memorable and talked about films.

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: David Lowery (The Green Knight, Ain't Them Bodies Saints) - CAST: Anne Hathaway, Michaela Cole, Hunter Schafer, Kaia Gerber, Jessica Brown Findlay, Sian Clifford, and FKA Twigs.

• One of today's most exciting and virtuoso auteurs, David Lowery continues to surprise with the range of stories he's willing to tell and that he does so with inventiveness and a consistently distinguishable voice.  Whether its American robbers on the lamb or family-friendly Disney fare involving furry dragons or pixie dust, there's a poetic lyricism and a sense of wonder in his work that borders on something magical (sometimes literally and other times figuratively), the results of which feel almost folktale-like in their execution.  But out of all the projects he's tackled in his career so far, nothing has felt more out-of-the-box for him than his upcoming musical melodrama, Mother Mary.  If The Green Knight found the director transcending the limits of his storytelling scope through an effects-heavy Arthurian epic, then his next film only further proves that Lowery is a director unafraid to take heavier swings behind the camera.  Mother Mary centers its drama around the constantly shifting relationship between a fictional pop star (Anne Hathaway) and a fashion designer (Michaela Cole).  The film contains original, surreal-like musical numbers, was shot over a period of 14 months, and has been described by one of its stars (Hunter Schafer) as "mind blowing."  Apart from those details though, there's really not much else that is known about the movie, as the cast has mostly been very tight-lipped when asked about it in interviews.  As the musical aspect of the movie is perhaps the most exciting attribute about the project, it's worth noting that the score is produced by Lowery's regular go-to composer, Daniel Hart, with original songs by Jack Antonoff and Charli XCX (so even if the critics don't care for it, at least we know the gays will eat it up.)

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Fruitvale Station) - CAST: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Benson Miller, Li Jun Li, Delroy Lindo, and Lola Kirke. 

• Ever since Black Panther raked in over $1 billion at the box office in 2018, becoming a worldwide pop culture phenomenon and a Best Picture nominee at the Oscars (the first superhero film to do so), studios had been waiting to see what director Ryan Coogler would do once he eventually moved on from Disney and Marvel to tell other stories outside of Wakanda.  Last year, a bidding war was set in motion when the director began looking for distribution for his next project: a vampire western with thriller and horror elements set during the Jim Crow era South and headlined by Michael B. Jordan (reunited with Coogler in their 5th collaboration); with Universal, Warner Bros., and Sony all expressing interest in backing the film.  The rights ultimately went to Warner Bros., with production kicking off in April and the film's title announced in September (in conjunction with a teaser trailer and poster).  Working "double" time in all this is Jordan, who plays a pair of twin brothers who return to their Southern hometown hoping to leave their troubled lives behind, only to find a sinister evil lurking in the shadows as it conspires to inflict a wave of terror on the unsuspecting residents.  Warner Bros. has very high prospects for Sinners, which they're hoping will spawn a new franchise, so there's a lot riding on Coogler's film (which was also made on a budget of $90 million), but for Coogler, just getting to make the movie was a dream come true, which allowed him to operate on a vast and epic scope with a range of creative freedom he wasn't sure he'd ever be afforded outside of Black Panther.  Shot on film (the director's first project to do so since his debut feature, Fruitvale Station), Sinners finds Coogler pulling from some of his most favorite influences, most notably the Coen Bros., Robert Rodriguez, John Carpenter, and Stephen King (though he insists the full list is much more extensive), to create a dark and beautiful world that is both a wholly singular creation all his own and one shaped by the horrors of American history.

RELEASE: April 18.

 21. Amarga Navidad (Bitter Christmas) 

DIRECTOR: Pedro Almodóvar (The Room Next Door, All About My Mother)

• Fresh off his Golden Lion win at Venice last year for The Room Next Door, the first time the director has been feted with the top prize from a prestigious film festival in his 44-year career, Pedro Almodóvar seems more galvanized than ever to continue putting out more work in the wake of his long overdue recognition.  He's already announced the title of his next project, Bitter Christmas, a tragicomedy about a woman being abandoned by her partner during Christmas time, which he plans to begin shooting "early this year."  After making his English language debut with his last movie, which saw the director shooting in America for the first time, the backdrop of his next film will have the auteur returning to his native country of Spain.  Some people have speculated whether Bitter Christmas will be an adaptation of one the stories from his short story collection, The Last Dream (as it bears the same title as one of the 12 entries in the book), which follows an adman's quest to acquire anti-anxiety meds during Christmas, but this is yet to be confirmed or denied.  The only concrete detail the director has divulged is that the movie will explore themes relating to gender, which doesn't reveal much as that's a pretty frequent topic he explores in his work.  I'm a huge fan of Almodóvar and I absolutely loved The Room Next Door, so I'm very pleased to see him working on something again so soon.  He wrapped up his last two feature films in a very short span of time, so I would not be surprised to see this pop up during the fall festival circuit later this year.

RELEASE: TBA.

 20. THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME 

DIRECTOR: WES Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel) - CAST: Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Bill Murray, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rupert Friend, Willem Dafoe, Bryan Cranston, Tonio Arango, Aysha Joy Samuel, Hope Davis, and Richard Ayoade.

• Beloved auteur, Wes Anderson, is coming off one of the most profound and existential films of his career with Asteroid City and one his most inventive with the anthology collection, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More- which initially debuted as four individual shorts before they were finally released as one complete film on Netflix's streaming platform.  Both films boast all the stylistic hallmarks we've come to enjoy from the director's work while still making space for him to expand upon and deepen his methods of storytelling, and it's for these reasons why I'm very intrigued by the potential of his next film, The Phoenician Scheme, which (despite the fact that we still haven't seen a trailer or any "first look" images of the film) already feels like a major departure from the familiarity of Wes Anderson's work.  For starters, The Phoenician Scheme will mark as the first live-action feature from the director to not be lensed by his frequent collaborator, Robert D. Yeoman, and was shot instead by six-time Oscar nominee, Bruno Delbonnel, known for his work in The Tragedy of Macbeth, Inside Llewyn Davis, and most famously, Amélie.  Yeoman's work has become such an intrinsic part of Wes Anderson's oeuvre and the aesthetic which he's built his entire career around, his compositions highlighting the visual whimsey of the director's worlds in ways that have become instantly recognizable in the cinematic consciousness of viewers across the world, that to even conceptualize a Wes Anderson film without his involvement seems almost impossible.  The fact that The Phoenician Scheme is also reportedly a "dark" tale of espionage (supposedly the "darkest" film of Anderson's career, which is truly saying something when you consider this is the same director who managed to find joy, humor, and hope during a Nazi-esque occupation in Grand Budapest Hotel) that centers on a father-daughter relationship within a family business and is filled with twists that revolve around betrayal and morally gray choices only further cements that we are definitely entering a new chapter in the director's rich and iconic career.  If Asteroid City and Henry Sugar proved that Anderson was capable of staying faithful to his unique "brand" while evolving it at the same time, then The Phoenician Scheme could prove that we've only just begun to find out what this remarkable and visionary filmmaker is capable of.

RELEASE: The film has a limited release on May 30 and then expands a week later on June 6.

19. The Bride!

DIRECTOR: Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter) - CAST: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Julianne Hough, John Magaro, Jeannie Berlin, Annette Benning, Linda Emond, Louis Cancelmi, Matthew Maher, and Jake Gyllenhaal.

• Just one of two hotly anticipated films this year inspired by the work of Mary Shelley, Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! puts center focus on Frankenstein's titular "Bride," resetting the classic story in 1930s Chicago.  In the sophomore feature from the actress-turned-burgeoning auteur, Jessie Buckley plays a murder victim who is brought back to life by the combined efforts of Frankenstein (Christian Bale) and Dr. Euphronius, with her new life and quest for autonomy sparking romance, police interest, and radical social change.  According to reports, reps for Warner Bros. (who hopped on board the project after Netflix lost interest and sold off the rights due to its high budget in the $100 million range) have described Gyllenhaal's film as a "punk," "violent," and "wildly romantic" reimagining that is also (wait for it) A MUSICAL!  Now, a couple things: while I do admit that this story concept does bear an awful lot of similarities to a recent Best Picture nominee by the name of Poor Things, and while I wouldn't say I have a particularly great amount of faith in Warner Bros. hyping up an avant-garde musical after how much confidence they had in Todd Phillips' Joker: Folie à Deux, I must also admit that (even in spite of both of these slight reservations) Gyllenhaal's film certainly does not sound boring to say the least.  The director showed a tremendous amount of promise with The Lost Daughter and demonstrated a keen cinematic eye, and the fact she's assembled such an incredible cast has me hopeful that her unique vision behind the material will help it stand out while avoiding any negative comparisons.

RELEASE: (UPDATED) As of March 19, The Bride!  has been moved from its original release date of September 26 this year to March 6, 2026.

DIRECTOR: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) - CAST: Austin Butler, Zoë Kravitz, Regina King, Matt Smith, Liev Schreiber, Will Brill, Bad Bunny, Griffin Dunne, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and Vincent D'Onofrio.

• After helping lead Brendan Fraser to Oscar glory in 2023 for his heartbreaking portrayal in the somber chamber play, The Whale, Darren Aronofsky is back again having just wrapped production on a new film.  Based on the novel by Charlie Huston (who also adapts his own book here for the screen), Caught Stealing follows a burned-out ex-baseball player and struggling alcoholic (Austin Butler) who unexpectedly finds himself slipping dangerously into a criminal underbelly of crooked cops, hit men, and psycho killers in 1990s-set New York City after he makes a surprising discovery.  On paper it sounds like the kind of electrifying premise the Safdie Bros would cook up (an estranged sibling feature to Uncut Gems and Good Time that sits comfortably alongside those two films), and in Aronofsky's hands it may easily translate as a grungy, pulp-noir fever-dream whose delirious thrills are about the closest thing he's made to Requiem for a Dream since its release in 2000, and I am totally there for every single one these things!  I liked The Whale for what it was, even if I do feel that Aronofsky's nihilistic interpretation of the material muddied its emotional impact, however, Caught Stealing (on the other hand) sounds exactly like the Aronofsky I've been desperately craving and the perfect vehicle for the auteur's more darker tendencies. Perhaps it's too early to say, but this already sounds like a home run!

RELEASE: August 29.

DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) - CAST: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Greta Lee, Tracy Letts, Moses Ingram, Anthony Ramos, Brian Tee, Jonah Hauer-King, and Kyle Allen.

• It's been a while since we had anything from Kathryn Bigelow, and boy has she been missed.  Her last movie was Detroit which, despite its positive notices from critics, lost money at the box office and wasn't strong enough to crack the awards race at the end of 2017 (which could explain the gap in between films).  Her next as-of-yet untitled film, which is being backed by Netflix, has the auteur back in thriller mode for a high-stakes drama set within the White House, centering on a group of staffers grappling with escalating tensions as an impending missile strike on America begins to unravel.  Bigelow is a master at these highbrow political thrillers, and this sounds exactly like the kind of pulse-pounding exercise that can hold your gaze and attention with all the urgency of watching a countdown on a time bomb.  With its A-list cast and a script penned by Noah Oppenheim (the award-winning screenwriter behind Jackie), expect this to be a major power player during the next awards season!

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: Benny Safdie (Uncut Gems, Good Time) - CAST: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Lyndsey Gavin, Oleksandr Usyk, Bas Rutten, Ryan Bader, Satoshi Ishi, James Moontasri, Yoko Hamamura, Paul Cheng, Cyborg Abreu, Andre Tricoteux, and Paul Lazenby.

• In a similar situation to what the Coen Bros are currently going through, the Safdies (Benny and Josh) are also in the throes of working as solo filmmakers rather than as a collaborative duo (at least for the foreseeable future).  Last year, Benny Safdie began rolling cameras on his debut film since striking out his own, which is titled, The Smashing Machine, and stars The Rock as mixed martial arts and UFC champ, Mark Kerr.  The sports biopic is backed by A24 and will focus on the star's struggle with addiction during the peak of his career and his tumultuous relationship with his wife, Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt).  It's clear The Rock is trying to make the case that he's capable of doing something more serious and auteur-driven as an actor (even if he is playing a figure who shares his former profession), but like with anything from coming from the Safdie's, it would not be wise to outright dismiss the potential of his performance before the film has been seen.  Both directors have coaxed fantastic turns from their actors, and I wouldn't be surprised if (depending on just how good he is in the movie) The Rock managed to get himself an Oscar campaign out of this film.  But more interesting than any of that will be finding out whether the directing duo will receive the same kind of acclaim for their solo work that they did on their joint features.  The Safdies are incredibly gifted at immersing the audience into the worlds of scuzzy characters that most people wouldn't know much about (very much like what Sean Baker has achieved with sex workers), which they do so with a propulsive cinematic energy trapped between neo-realism and fever dream, so I'm hoping that Benny is able to translate that successful style and aesthetic while still being able to work within his own terms and singular vision.

RELEASE: October 3.

DIRECTOR: Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems, Good Time) - CAST: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tyler, the Creator, Odessa A'zion, Penn Jillette, Kevin O'Leary, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, and Sandra Bernhard.

• And Benny Safdie isn't the only one with a debut solo feature slated for release this year.  Just last December, Josh Safdie wrapped filming on his new film, Marty Supreme (also a sports biopic), which is set in the world of competitive ping pong tournaments.  Perhaps "biopic" is too generous a term though.  Sources close to project have divulged that while the story and central character were inspired by the life of professional table tennis player, Marty Reisman (played in the movie by Timothée Chalamet), the film takes great artistic liberties with his story and is very much a "fictionalized original" rather than a traditional biopic.  The globe-trotting drama boasts one of the highest production budgets in A24's filmography, so a lot is riding on this.  However, it's the cast that is probably the most interesting aspect about Marty Supreme, featuring an ensemble that includes Gwyneth Paltrow (coming out of a nearly six-year retirement after choosing to focus more on her wellness line, Goop), director Abel Ferrara, rap artist Tyler, the Creator, businessman and investor Kevin O'Leary (known to most people through the reality television series, Shark Tank), magician and entertainer Penn Jillette, and Fran Drescher (damn, when was the last time we saw her in anything), resulting in one of the most bizarre and unexpected lineup of actors I've probably ever seen in a film.  On top of that, the movie is lensed by acclaimed cinematographer, Darius Khondji!  Ok..this is going to be interesting to say the least and I'm totally here for it!

RELEASE: December 25.

14. ALPHA

DIRECTOR: Julia Ducournau (Titane, Raw) - CAST: Mélissa Boros, Tahar Rahim, Golshifteh Farahani, Finnegan Oldfield, Jean-Charles Clichet, Christophe Perez, and Emma Mackey.

• Between her two films, Raw and Titane, French auteur Julia Ducournau has demonstrated an uncanny ability at seamlessly gravitating between multiple genres in her films (although body horror seems to be a frequent motif in her filmography), and it's already quite clear that she has a very unique and distinguishable point of view in her work.  She's set to return this year (fingers crossed) with Alpha, her first feature since winning the Palm d'or at Cannes for Titane in 2021 and which she's breathlessly finishing post work on at the moment in hopes of completing it in time for the festival's submission deadline in just a few months.  While many of the plot specifics still remain a mystery at this time, Alpha seems to be another genre-bender in the vein of Titane and is being described as the director's most ambitious and personal work yet.  The story supposedly focuses on a teenage girl whose father falls ill to a strange disease, eventually causing her classmates at school to ostracize her once they suspect she has contracted the mysterious malady as well.  Many film bloggers who have weighed in on the premise of the new film have noted that it bears similarities to the director's debut short film, Junior, causing many to speculate if Alpha may perhaps be some kind of reinterpretation of the material, but with an even richer plot and some new twists.  Whatever the case may be, I'm just so glad we're getting something new from Ducournau, who has to be one of the most original and exciting voices in cinema today.

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story, The Meyerowitz Stories) - CAST: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Jim Broadbent, Jamie Demetriou, Isla Fisher, Greta Gerwig, Eve Hewson, Stacy Keach, Emily Mortimer, Louis Partridge, Charlie Rowe, Patrick Wilson, Patsy Ferran, Lars Eidinger, Thaddea Graham, Josh Hamilton, Alba Rohrwacher, and Kyle Soller.

• After taking a huge swing and missing with his ambitious adaptation of Don DeLillo's acclaimed novel, White Noise, it looks as though Noah Baumbach is returning to the kind of stories he tells best with his next feature, Jay Kelly, a coming-of-age comedy-drama about adults navigating life.  This one boasts one of the most excellent casts you'll see in a movie this year, headlined by none other than George Clooney and Adam Sandler.  Although plot specifics are still under wraps, I think it's safe to say what kind of film we can expect from Baumbach with this movie.  The question that remains is whether Jay Kelly will be a mid-level adult dramedy from the auteur (like While We're Young) or something truly exceptional (like Frances Ha or Marriage Story), but based on the level of talent it was able to attract in the cast, as well as securing acclaimed cinematographer Linus Sandgren as DP, I'm really hoping it's the latter!  Netflix (who is distributing) is reportedly saving this film for a submission in Venice's Competition slot, so they're clearly confident is its potential. 

RELEASE: TBA.

12. 어쩔수가없다 (No Other Choice)

DIRECTOR: Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Decision to Leave) - CAST: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, Cha Seung-won, and Yoo Yeon-seok.

• Park Chan-wook is downright masterful in his craft, with his unmistakable take on neo-noir solidifying his place as one of the most accomplished storytellers in the genre, and while his cinematic influences are numerous, his signature style is completely and wholly his own.  His next film, No Other Choice, finds the director reworking the material of Donald E. Westlake's acclaimed horror-thriller novel, The Ax, about a man who is laid off from his job and goes on a hunt to eliminate the seven people competing to fill his spot.  Westlake's novel, which is a sandbox of ideas that fit comfortably into Park's wheelhouse, is a match made in heaven for the Korean auteur, with the book's violence and pitch-black satire especially attuned to his particular aesthetic and sensibilities.  Given the story's commentary on class dynamics, I could definitely see the film landing the same way Parasite did (albeit with its own unique approach to the subject), which was ironically directed by his friend and fellow peer, Bong Joon-ho, and at the very least it would likely make a great companion piece to that movie.  He just wrapped production on the movie last month after a five-month shoot, so it will definitely be a race to the finish line if he wants to complete this in time for Cannes (fingers crossed he pulls it off). 

RELEASE: TBA.

11. Mirrors no. 3

DIRECTOR: Christian Petzold (Phoenix, Afire) - CAST: Paula Beer, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, and Enno Trebs.

• Ever since being floored by Phoenix, I have become a total Christian Petzold stan.  The auteur's work has been consistently great, and his delicate yet searingly profound approach to the subject matter of his films continues to prove why he is one of this generation's greatest and most indispensable artists.  Reunited with Paula Beer in their fourth film together, Mirrors No. 3 follows a young pianist named Laura (Beer) who, after surviving a car wreck that kills her boyfriend, finds herself under the care of a family of strangers who take her in.  Although their motivations are deceptively simple at first, the dark secrets surrounding the family begin to elucidate the reasoning behind them as something much more complex and knotty.  Petzold skipped the Berlin Film Festival this year with his latest movie, an event where he's become a regular mainstay and favorite, allegedly in favor of a flashier premiere at Cannes (which, if accepted, would mark the first of the director's films to premiere there).  A Compeition spot at The Croisette would definitely provide a much wider and prestigious platform for his work to lauch from, and boy does he sure deserve it!  Very much looking forward to this and can't wait to see what he delivers!

RELEASE: TBA.

And now, the Moment You've All Been Waiting for:

THE TOP 10!

DIRECTOR: Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) - CAST: Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement, Tom Waits, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, and Richard E. Grant.

• Laika's most ambitious and technologically challenging film to date has been a long time coming.  Of course, every Laika film is a clear labor of love, as evident in the consistently stunning stop-motion animation work that the studio is known for, but Wildwood- which is based on the children's fantasy novel of the same name by The Decemberists' frontman, Colin Meloy, and illustrated by his wife, Carson Ellis- presented a new set of challenges the studio had never attempted before, pushing the limitations of the animation medium to soaring new heights that audiences will have to see to believe.  The studio first purchased the rights to Meloy and Ellis' book back in 2011, the same year the novel came out after it became a nationwide best-seller and earned the praise of critics and readers alike, and for over a decade they've been carefully bringing to life the pages of the book that has captivated both children and adults with its wonderous and magical spell.  Set in Portland (the same city where Laika was birthed), the story follows Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a teenage girl who embarks on a quest to rescue her younger brother after he is spirited away by a murder of crows.  With it's fantastically realized world filled imaginative characters and action sequences that the studio promises to be jaw-dropping, Wildwood is an epic animated adventure that movie audiences would be crazy not to take!

RELEASE: TBA.

9. After the Hunt

DIRECTOR: Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, A Bigger Splash) - CAST: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Chloë Sevigny.

• After having a stupendous year that saw him release two films (Challengers and Queer) to widespread critical acclaim, Luca Guadagnino is already set to return again this year with a new film that has its sights set on multiple awards prospects.  According to the buzz, those prospects are mainly for the film's leading lady, Julia Roberts, who stars as a college professor who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield) and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light.  Guadagnino has divulged that he was absolutely floored by Roberts' performance, and believes she is a major frontrunner to take home Best Actress at next year's Oscars, and the feedback from some of the recent test screenings that took place seems to have confirmed this as much.  As far as the premise goes, After the Hunt certainly sounds like the kind of juicy, delicious Oscar-bait drama for adults that is hardly made much these days, and I'm very happy about that.  The cast is fantastic, and the movie reunites the director with composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (following their adrenaline-thumping collaboration in Challengers), so there's that to look forward to as well.  This is a hot package for sure!

RELEASE: Has a limited launch on October 10 before going wide on October 17.

DIRECTOR: Bi Gan (Long Day's Journey Into Night, Kalili Blues) - CAST: Shu Qi, Jackson Yee, Mark Chao, Yi Zhang, Lei Hao, Hong-Chi Lee, Zijian Dong, and Meng Xia.

• Poet and photographer turned auteur filmmaker, Bi Gan, first captured my attention with his hypnotic stunner, Long Day's Journey Into Night, an epic, surrealist odyssey that makes a bold case for why Gan could be China's answer to David Lynch (which we all need now more than ever since he passed away less than a month ago RIP), and since then I've also caught up on his debut film, Kalili Blues (also outstanding).  He's been shooting his next film, Resurrection, on and off for over a year now, but according to reports it looks as though the film is finally nearing completion.  The latest film from the director follows a woman whose consciousness falls into the "enteral time zone" during a surgical procedure, an interdimensional plane that finds her trapped between multiple dreams, where she discovers an android corpse whose senses begin to awaken through the endless stories she tells it.  Its wildly imaginative premise reads like Alice in Wonderland meets Inception and sounds like one of the most original and exciting things that will hit screens this year, and I'm fully on board!

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho (Parasite, Snowpiercer) - CAST: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.

• After Parasite picked up the Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and International Film in 2020 and became one of the most profitable Korean films of all time, Warner Bros. was eager to be involved in whatever Bong Joon-ho's next film would be, which led to the director signing on with the studio to handle what would be his eight feature.  With their assistance, he acquired the rights to adapt Edward Ashton's science-fiction novel, Mickey7, a lucrative deal he was able to secure prior to the book's publication in 2022.  Since the merger with Discovery that saw its CEO David Zaslav assume control of the studio (which became finalized the same year Bong ultimately landed on this film as his next project), there's been a lot of internal conflict and chaos concerning what kinds of movies the mega label wants to get behind, with a shift away from more auteur-driven fare, and the behind-the-scenes drama revolving around the Korean auteur's latest has been the catalyst of a never-ending rumor mill in which WB's top executives have disputed the film's ability to play to a mainstream audience.  Clearly, these people had no idea what they were signing up for when they decided to collaborate with Bong, whose brilliant body of work is anything but conventional.  Thankfully though, Bong's contract gave him final cut on Mickey 17, despite the studio's diabolical efforts to get around that and who wanted multiple reshoots done on the film (Bong had come prepared this time after learning from the experience of Snowpiercer, where Harvey Weinstein infamously tried to tamper with Bong's cut of the film after he acquired distribution, a dispute that ultimately impacted the film's theatrical release), and after multiple schedule reshufflings, the movie is finally approaching its long-awaited worldwide release.  The film stars Robert Pattinson as a destitute man longing to get off Earth and turn his fortunes around, who decides to enlist as an "expendable" and work in the harsh and deadly conditions of the colonized ice planet Nilfheim, giving the government permission to repeatedly clone his body every time he suffers a severe fatality trying to complete his assignments.  After he is mistakenly left for dead during one of the assignments, he's miraculously able to find his way back, where he discovers he's already been replaced by one of his clones, leading to a desperate fight against the oppressive system whose protocol is to have them both destroyed in the case of such an event!  It other words, its classic Bong grappling with subjects such as class politics and the exploitative nature of capitalism (all prevalent themes in his work), and it sounds like an absolute blast!

RELEASE: Premieres at Berlin on February 15, before going wide in the US on March 7.

DIRECTOR: Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Pinocchio) - CAST: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley, Christian Convery, Charles Dance, and Ralph Ineson.

• Guillermo del Toro's track record may not be perfect, but the worlds he creates are horrifying and intoxicating beautiful, and he's one of the most original and exciting visual storytellers of this (or any) generation.  And when the project is the kind of passionate, labor of love that he puts his entire heart and soul into, such as his 2022 adaptation of Pinocchio, the results are truly extraordinary.  That's why his upcoming adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a project he's been laboriously trying to get made since 2008 and been dreaming of its realization as early as childhood, is one of the most exciting films set to be unveiled in 2025.  Del Toro has always had a sentimental affinity for horror and monsters, but what separates the beloved auteur from most of his fellow peers in the genre is how he always excavates the story's beating heart even amid its more violent and gorier tendencies.  Perhaps that's why he's such a perfect fit for Mary Shelley's material, whose groundbreaking use of heart, horror, and intellectual maturity and sophistication made her such a revolutionary storyteller.  For Del Toro, Frankenstein is "the pinnacle of everything," a story so impactful and influential to his imagination that to adapt it could only be described as a culmination of his life's work and everything that has helped shape and define that body of work.  His vision is to bring the character to life in ways that haven't been done or explored before, creating a myth to the monster that faithfully captures the Miltonian tragedy of this character while never shying away from the sadness and emptiness that plagues him and ultimately helps shape his fate.  If anyone can give this familiar tale life again, it's Del Toro.  

RELEASE: November.

DIRECTOR: Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, The Favourite) - CAST: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Alicia Silverstone, Stavros Halkias, Aidan Delbis, Cedric Dumornay, Roger Carvalho, Marc T. Lewis, and J. Carmen Galindez Barrera.

• Yorgos Lanthimos is one of this generation's most singular and visionary auteurs, but if you're familiar with any of his films, then you know his best work has been when he's adapting someone else's material, which generally tends to push him outside the boundaries of his familiar aesthetic, finding new and innovative to reinvent it while still staying faithful to it just enough.  Hopefully, that trend continues with his next film, Bugonia, a reimagining of the Korean science-fiction satire, Save the Green Planet!, directed by Jang Joon-hwan.  The film is a reunion between the director and many of the artists involved, including usual suspects Emma Stone and DP Robbie Ryan, both in their fourth collaboration with the Greek filmmaker (fifth for Stone if we're including their short film, Bleat).  Adapted by Will Tracy (of HBO's The Regime and Succession), Bugonia follows a pair of conspiracy-obsessed men who kidnap the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company (Stone), convinced she is an alien intent on destroying Earth.  Jang Joon-hwan's original film is a wild, rip-roaring hoot, and I'm very excited to see how Lanthimos and Tracy reinterpret the material.  Lanthimos' frequent co-writer, Efthimis Filippou, was reportedly very impressed with the script, later revealing that it was so good he "wished he had written it."  On top all of all that, the film is also produced by director Ari Aster!  Just sign me up and take my money!

RELEASE: November 7.

4. EDDINGTON

DIRECTOR: Ari Aster (Beau is Afraid, Midsommar) - CAST: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O'Connell, Michael Ward, and Clifton Collins Jr.

• And speaking of Ari Aster, A24's favorite auteur also has a new film coming out this year!  Little is known about the movie at this time other than it's a western set in a small, New Mexican town that toes the line between horror and dark comedy/satire, and that it supposedly takes place during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.  I absolutely loved Aster's last film, Beau is Afraid, which was one of my favorite movies of 2023 and (I feel) the director's strongest and most personal work yet (but if I'm being honest, I'm fan of all three of his films).  Aster is a true original with strong and distinct cinematic voice, and although he has his detractors, I think he's one of the most exciting voices in film today.  He's got an A-list cast for this next film, which includes a reunion between him and his Beau is Afraid star, Joaquin Phoenix, and the movie was lensed by Darius Khondji.  According to some reports, the director is eyeing a Cannes premiere for Eddington with hopes of cracking the Competition section, which (if it were accepted) would be the director's first time debuting a film at the prestigious festival!

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: Lynne Ramsay (You Were Never Really Here, We Need to Talk About Kevin) - CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek, and Nick Nolte.

• The wait in between Lynne Ramsay's films has been absolutely unbearable.  Thankfully, it looks like we may be entering a phase soon where that's about to end and we get stretches of more consistent output from the auteur.  According to recent interviews with the director, she's been in the process of prepping and laying the groundwork for multiple projects over the last five years, so that she can immediately begin working on something new the moment she's completed a film.  A few projects she has brewing in development at the moment include an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Stone Mattress with Julianne Moore and Sandra Oh, Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and an environmental horror film set in the arctic called Polaris, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara.  But before we get any of those films is her next feature, Die, My Love, a psychological horror/ black comedy about a woman (Jennifer Lawrence) suffering a mental breakdown amidst the disintegration of her marriage that's based on the novel of the same name by Ariana Harwicz.  Like Ramsay, Lawrence has also been mostly absent from the film scene for a while now, as she's been taking a break over the last few years to focus on motherhood, but since taking roles again she's divulged a list of directors she's been dreaming to work with.  One of those directors was Ramsay.  Die, My Love is also produced by Martin Scorsese, and the film is expected to have its world premiere at Cannes.  

RELEASE: TBA.

2. The Way of the Wind

DIRECTOR: Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line, Days of Heaven) - CAST: Géza Röhrig, Matthias Schoenaerts, Mark Rylance, Ben Kingsley, Tawfeek Barhom, Björn Thors, Joseph Fiennes, Douglas Booth, Aidan Turner, Leila Hatami, Lorenzo Gioielli, Philip Arditti, Nabil Elouahabi, Con O'Neill, Joseph Mawle, Karel Roden, Martin McCann, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Laëtitia Eïdo, Ali Suliman, Shadi Mar'i, Selim Bayraktar, Ori Pfeffer, Selva Rasalingam, John Rhys-Davies, Sebastiano Filocamo, Makram Khoury, Sarah Greene, Mathieu Kassovitz, Numan Acar, Ioachim Ciobanu, Franz Rogowski, Sofia Asir, and Antonia Fotaras.

• Terrence Malick's magnum opus has been gestating in post for quite some time now, so much so that I'm beginning to wonder if the film will ever see the light of day.  The auteur's Biblical epic that recounts several parables in the life of the Christ wrapped filming back in 2019, and it's editing process- going on almost six years now- has been the longest period the director has ever spent on post for a single film.  According to sources close to the film, one of the main reasons for this is that the director has had to sift and comb through over 3,000 hours of footage as he assembles his grand mosaic!  To say this is a labor of love is an understatement.  Malick is clearly pouring everything he has into this movie, which makes sense as sources close to the filmmaker have divulged that it's the film "most important to the director."  The good news in all this is that Malick is reportedly "very happy" with how the film is shaping up.  Whether or not that means the movie will be ready for this year remains uncertain, especially since there have been conflicting reports about how close it is to being finished.  What I do feel confident saying, however, is that if this film does indeed come out this year, I have very little doubt that what he delivers will be well worth the wait.

RELEASE: TBA.

DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Inherent Vice) - CAST: Leonardo DiCaprio, Chase Infiniti, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Alana Haim, Teyana Taylor, Wood Harris, Benicio del Toro, and Shayna McHayle.

• Apart from being one of today's greatest auteurs, Paul Thomas Anderson is also a huge Thomas Pynchon fan.  He adapted the acclaimed author's drug-fueled detective caper, Inherent Vice, in 2014 with Joaquin Phoenix, and he's expressed on multiple occasions his love for another of Pynchon's novels, Vineland, and his desire to one day adapt that book for the screen as well. It seems the director has finally gotten his wish.  Earlier last year in January, Anderson went into production on a mystery feature with the film's plot details kept under a thick veil of secrecy.  Over the course of the following months, vague inclinations hinted that the project was possibly Pynchon-esque and leaked tips regarding the script bore similarities to Vineland, before it was eventually confirmed in August that it was indeed a loose adaptation of the author's 1990 novel, but that it had traded its 1984 post-Nixon political backdrop for a more modern setting.  Anderson is going all out on this one; it boasts a killer cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, was partially shot using VistaVision format and will be given a limited run on IMAX screens, and it's been reported that the budget is said to be over $140 million dollars, making it the most expensive film of Anderson's career.  To explain the plot of Pynchon's Vineland in a brief synopsis would be extremely difficult and complicated- as it is very "out there" as some might describe it and because I don't know how much good it would do since Anderson's script is supposed to be a loose adaptation and therefore I'm not sure how closely his story will hue to Pynchon's text- but if I had to it could best be described as a story that traces the socio-political collapse of American culture through the journey of an American family and the bizarre world they inhabit of secret underground societies, ninja assassins, and even extraterrestrials!  I really enjoyed the director's last crack at Pynchon's material (Inherent Vice is one of my favorite films of 2014 and I think ranks as one of Anderson's strongest works) so I'm very eager to see how he'll tackle the author's work again.  The vibrant and thematically rich world of Vineland will be a lot more tricker to adapt for the screen, but I trust that Anderson will have the vision pull it off.  No doubt though, this is probably THE most ambitious undertaking from any filmmaker coming out in 2025, and it will have a lot riding on it due to its budget and the pedigree of talent behind it.  If that's not a strong argument for the most anticipated movie of the year, then I don't know what is.

RELEASE: (UPDATED) As of March 19, One Battle After Another  has been moved from its original date of August 8 to September 26.

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