100 films to look for­ward to in 2025 – part one

San­ta might have flown back to the North Pole for anoth­er year, but we’re still hand­ing out the presents at LWLies. As is annu­al tra­di­tion, here’s our list of 100 films to (hope­ful­ly!) look for­ward to, from some big names, new faces and return­ing champs. We’ll be back with Part Two tomor­row – let us know what you’re excit­ed about in 2025 on Bluesky.

Tom Cruise vehi­cle The Mum­my sin­gle-hand­ed­ly ter­mi­nat­ed Universal’s Dark Uni­verse series of mon­ster flicks. No pres­sure for Wolf Man then, anoth­er attempt to rean­i­mate Universal’s icon­ic mon­ster IPs. Direct­ed by Leigh Whan­nell, direc­tor of Upgrade and The Invis­i­ble Man, the cere­al box lyn­can­thrope could be get­ting a long over­due makeover befit­ting of our grit­ti­er times. Sup­port­ed by stars Christo­pher Abbott and Julia Gar­ner, maybe this is the revival of the Dark Uni­verse. Alter­na­tive­ly, a rumoured leaked image of the tit­u­lar beast sug­gests maybe it isn’t. Bar­ney Nuttall

ETA: 17 Jan­u­ary (UK)

I’m gonna be hon­est… I’m one of those bor­ing old fools who has zero pos­i­tive feel­ings towards the two exist­ing Avatar movies. And so the prospect of a third one, anoth­er pum­mel­ing, three-hour sen­so­ry assault, doesn’t fill me with that much antic­i­pa­tion. Hear­ing Cameron talk, he always seems like a more sophis­ti­cat­ed and refined film­mak­er than demon­strat­ed in these film, so here’s hop­ing his supreme­ly eru­dite nature shines through a lit­tle more in this one. David Jenk­ins

ETA: 19 December

Jour­nal­ist-turned-film essay­ist Char­lie Shack­le­ton takes true crime seri­als in his crosshairs for this dry­ly iron­ic decon­struc­tion of the genre’s most time-hon­oured tropes. With plans to make his own true crime opus based on a more eso­teric per­spec­tive of the famous Zodi­ac Killer case, Shack­le­ton ends up sketch­ing a cine-blue­print with the author of his pre­ferred source book gives him the heave ho. We loved the filmmaker’s pre­vi­ous film, The Afterlight, and so we’re real­ly look­ing for­ward to this one. We’ll know more after its Sun­dance pre­mière. DJ

Long-time LWLies read­ers will know we ride hard for Wes Ander­son, so of course we couldn’t do this list with­out men­tion­ing his next project. Described as an ​“espi­onage thriller” about a father and daugh­ter, it sounds like some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent for Wes, which is always wel­come but par­tic­u­lar­ly after his won­der­ful sci-fi gam­bit Aster­oid City in 2023. The usu­al sus­pects – Bill Mur­ray, Scar­lett Johans­son, Tom Han­ks, Rupert Friend, Math­ieu Amal­ric – appear, as well as new Wes friends Riz Ahmed and Michael Cera. Han­nah Strong

ETA: Feb­ru­ary 13 (UK)

One of the most renowned and cel­e­brat­ed smudgers on these here scepter’d isles, Mar­tin Parr is known for his hyper-real, light­ly grotesque por­traits of the British work­ing class­es, and is the sub­ject of a new pro­file doc­u­men­tary from direc­tor Lee Shul­man. A lit­tle like the UK equiv­a­lent of Diane Arbus, one might crit­i­cal­ly ques­tion Parr’s inten­tion and his rela­tion­ship to his sub­jects, and we hope this film takes a sim­i­lar­ly objec­tive view­point rather than being a bor­ing cel­e­bra­tion. DJ

ETA: 21 February

Joshua Oppen­heimer went away for a long ol’ time fol­low­ing the suc­cess of his one-two punch of The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence. Turns out that, while squir­relled away, he longed to make a musi­cal, one set in a bunker pop­u­lat­ed by rich indus­tri­al­ists dur­ing a new, pop­u­la­tion-dec­i­mat­ing ice age. Vet­er­an producer/​composer Mar­ius de Vries sup­plies the Sond­heim-esque tunes for the writer-director’s own lyrics, while Til­da Swin­ton, Michael Shan­non and George McK­ay are on singing detail as their var­i­ous anx­i­eties and clos­et-skele­tons come out to haunt them. BN

ETA: 23 January

A24’s big bud­get for­ay into fam­i­ly film­mak­ing didn’t get off to the best start when its trail­er drop was belea­guered by accu­sa­tions of AI usage, which direc­tor Isa­iah Sax­on refut­ed some­what snip­pi­ly on social media. But you have to admit ​‘Ochi’ – the lit­tle alien-look­ing crea­ture in this film – does look an awful lot like Baby Yoda. But Sax­on has a strong cast in Hele­na Zen­gel, Finn Wolfhard and Emi­ly Wat­son, plus Willem Dafoe him­self on vil­lain duties. Could be fun! HS

ETA: 27 Feb­ru­ary (US)

Ryan Coogler has been in the Mar­vel machine for a long time, so it’s excit­ing to see him telling an orig­i­nal sto­ry for the first time since Fruit­vale Sta­tion rather than work­ing with­in an IP frame­work. He reunites with his long-time cre­ative col­lab­o­ra­tor Michael B. Jor­dan for this vam­pire flick, cen­tred on twin broth­ers (both played by Jor­dan) who reunite in their home­town only to dis­cov­er a great evil awaits them. Hailee Ste­in­feld, Jack O’Connell and Wun­mi Mosaku co-star. HS

ETA: 7 March

Some of us are old enough to remem­ber when Steven Soder­bergh chucked in the tow­el and called it quits on film­mak­ing. Now, not only is he back, but he’s work­ing at Fass­binder-lev­els of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, with this new star-span­gled Lon­don-set spy thriller out mere weeks after his inno­v­a­tive POV ghost sto­ry, Pres­ence. Cate Blanchett, Michael Fass­ben­der and Tom Burke head up a none-more stacked cast. DJ

ETA: 14 March

Karan Kandhari’s genre-splic­ing odyssey made waves at the 2024 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val when it played as part of the vaunt­ed Director’s Fort­night strand. Fol­low­ing a cou­ple of fes­ti­val vic­to­ry laps, it final­ly comes to UK cin­e­mas, telling of an Indi­an house­wife holed up in a one bed­room flat who adopts some com­i­cal­ly bizarre meth­ods to ful­fil her domes­tic duties. DJ

ETA: 14 March (UK)

Tropes come and go but exor­cisms in hor­ror films will always be around. Exor­cisms on the sil­ver screen have become a bit sil­li­er since The Exor­cist – it’s a relief then that this South Kore­an take indi­cates a return to some­thing dark­er. Of course our fin­gers are still crossed for the stan­dard gey­sers of blood, vom­it, and oth­er unholy flu­ids to keep us enter­tained as we watch a team of nuns expel a demon from a young boy. BN

ETA: 24 January

Why have one one Robert De Niro per­for­mance when you can have two? Bar­ry Levin­son directs De Niro as two rival Mafiosos, reunit­ing the gang­ster genre vet­er­an with Good­fel­las screen­writer Nicholas Pil­le­gi. Putting De Niro back on home turf is a sure-fire way to please a crowd, and with this being the fourth col­lab­o­ra­tion between the actor and Levin­son, Alto Knights seems like a safe bet. Don’t fuhged­d­a­boud this one. BN

ETA: 21 March

We at LWLies tow­ers are mas­sive fans of the 2008 Ital­ian film Mid-August Lunch by Gian­ni Di Gre­go­rio, and so we were tick­led to hear that it’s been remade by direc­tor Dar­ren Thorn­ton and trans­posed to Ire­land. As with the orig­i­nal, it’s about a strug­gling artist who is forced to organ­ise a par­ty for his demand­ing moth­er and her four friends. DJ

ETA: 4 April

Here’s a nov­el con­cept for you: a design­er shoe gets lost on the mean streets of New York, and must face many obsta­cles as it tries to reunite with its own­er (and pre­sum­ably its twin). Kei­th David, Lau­rence Fish­burne, Macy Gray and Antho­ny Mack­ie lend their vocal tal­ents to this zany-sound­ing ani­mat­ed movie, from Dis­ney main­stay Rob Edwards. HS

ETA: 25 April

Keke Palmer is a comedic force of nature, so it’s great to see her cast in anoth­er film which plays to her tal­ents. She co-stars with SZA in this screw­ball com­e­dy, where two best friends must race against the clock to make rent after a dead­beat boyfriend makes off with their mon­ey. HS

ETA: 24 January

Appar­ent­ly ​“priest-sploita­tion” is not a sub­genre yet. How­ev­er, this exor­cism hor­ror star­ring cin­e­ma roy­al­ty Al Paci­no may be exact­ly what’s need­ed to flesh out this periph­er­al genre phe­nom­e­non. Cash­ing in on the sur­pris­ing suc­cess of Rus­sell Crowe vehi­cle The Pope’s Exor­cist, new­com­er David Midell final­ly puts Al Paci­no in the role he was born for. If this is a suc­cess, there could be the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an Avengers style team-up with Paci­no and Crowe. We can only pray. BN

ETA: 18 April

Full dis­clo­sure: this one comes cour­tesy of a debut film­mak­er who also hap­pens to be the sis­ter of our Truth & Movies host and LWLies con­trib­u­tor Leila Latif, but we’d be remiss to not include it. Latif’s adap­ta­tion of Wal­ter Mosley’s nov­el fea­tures ris­ing star Corey Hawkins as a down-on-his-luck man who is approached by a mys­te­ri­ous Euro­pean (Willem Dafoe!) who offers to rent out his base­ment to him for the sum­mer. Latif is an accom­plished play­wright, so we’re very excit­ed to see what she brings to cin­e­ma. HS

ETA: To be announced

From a career which began in the domain of video essays, Kog­o­na­da is now a ful­ly paid-up fea­ture direc­tor, and A Big Bold Beau­ti­ful Jour­ney is his third film fol­low­ing 2017’s Colum­bus and 2021’s After Yang. Col­in Far­rel joins him on this appar­ent­ly won­der­ful voy­age along­side Mar­got Rob­bie, in her first screen run-out since 2023’s Bar­bie, though not much more is known about the film beyond its offi­cial log­line: ​“An imag­i­na­tive tale of two strangers and the unbe­liev­able jour­ney that con­nects them.” Sounds like it could be a lit­tle sac­cha­rine, but colour us intrigued. DJ

ETA: 9 May

The POV-craze con­tin­ues (cf Nick­el Boys) as ​“Big” Steve Sode­bergh directs a script by his old muck­er David Koepp about a fam­i­ly mov­ing into a plush sub­ur­ban mini man­sion which is being haunt­ed by a spir­it who may be try­ing to warn them about some impend­ing dan­ger. BN

ETA: 24 January

20. Final Des­ti­na­tion: Blood­lines (Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein)

As a die-hard Final Des­ti­na­tion fan, I’ve long lament­ed the lack of new addi­tions to this goofy hor­ror fran­chise in which an inter­change­able group of (most­ly) teens attempt to cheat death. It’s been 14 long years since we saw a new clutch of unfor­tu­nates get dis­patched in cre­ative ways – and look at how the world has gone to shit since. This will also be one of the last on-screen appear­ances of the late, great Tony Todd, who sad­ly passed away in Novem­ber 2024, after film­ing had wrapped. Could Final Des­ti­na­tion: Blood­lines heal the world? Lis­ten, anything’s pos­si­ble… HS

ETA: 16 May

More short men run­ning fast in the lat­est in a long line of M:I movies from Christo­pher McQuar­rie and his stunt-hap­py lead­ing lad, Tom Cruise. This one is set to wrap up events laid out in Dead Reck­on­ing: Part One, and we’ll see if and how they’ve man­aged to trump them­selves in terms of jaw-drop­ping set pieces. But the last install­ment fal­tered at the box office, and if this one doesn’t do mega num­bers, then it may be time to lead Ethan Hunt and his cohorts around the back of the barn… until the inevitable reboot comes along! DJ

ETA: 21 May

A space-obsessed young­ster with a wild imag­i­na­tion dis­cov­ers that his belief in extra ter­res­tri­als was entire­ly war­rant­ed when he’s abduct­ed from earth and tak­en to meet a galac­tic con­gress in this high-con­cept Pixar movie. Act­ing as a plan­e­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tive, he must make friends with aliens and nav­i­gate inter-plan­e­tary con­flict, all while deal­ing with the usu­al pre-teen grow­ing pains. Pixar’s out­put has been a lit­tle under­whelm­ing as of late, but per­haps this could be the film to change their for­tunes. HS

ETA: 13 June

This direc­to­r­i­al debut from Drew Han­cock – pro­duced by Bar­bar­ian direc­tor Zack Creg­ger – stars new scream queen Sophie Thatch­er and The Boys star Jack Quaid in a psy­cho­log­i­cal bat­tle of unre­quit­ed love. Echoes of can­ni­bal horror/​comedy Fresh and Takashi Miike’s Audi­tion rever­ber­ate through the trail­er, indi­cat­ing a gory fore­cast. Post Christ­mas cheer, this could be the bloody palette cleanser we need. BN

ETA: 31 January

It’s not quite 28 years since Dan­ny Boyle’s bud­get zom­bie thriller 28 Days Lat­er hit cin­e­mas, but it’s not far off (I was hor­ri­fied to learn it’s 23). After the damp squib that was 28 Weeks Lat­er, Boyle and screen­writer Alex Gar­land are back on board, joined by a cast includ­ing Aaron Tay­lor-John­son, Ralph Fiennes and Jodie Com­er. Cil­lian Murphy’s Jim is also rumoured to be appear­ing, though no one is quite sure in what capac­i­ty. One thing we do know: the first trail­er, set to Rud­yard Kipling’s poem ​‘Boots’, was suit­ably ter­ri­fy­ing. HS

ETA: 20 June

After mak­ing a boat­load of cash for Para­mount with the sequel smash Top Gun: Mav­er­ick, block­buster braini­ac Joseph Kosin­s­ki has set his sights on anoth­er form of high-octane trans­port. This time it’s F1 rac­ing, with Brad Pitt and Javier Bar­dem in pole posi­tion. Pitt stars as a cel­e­brat­ed dri­ver who comes out of retire­ment to men­tor an up-and-com­ing tal­ent (played by Dam­son Idris). If his work on Top Gun is any­thing to go by, expect some nifty cam­era tricks from Kosin­s­ki. HS

ETA: 27 June

There was plen­ty to enjoy about the tongue-in-cheek M3GAN, fea­tur­ing a sin­is­ter AI-dri­ven doll who goes to extreme lengths to pro­tect the young girl she’s assigned as a friend. It’s no sur­prise that Blum­house ordered a sequel, and with orig­i­nal direc­tor Ger­ard John­stone and writer Akela Coop­er on board, we’re cau­tious­ly opti­mistic this could be a fun one. Alli­son Williams and Vio­let McGraw reprise their roles, while Amie Don­ald and Jen­na Davis return as the per­for­mance and voice of M3GAN. Curi­ous­ly, Jer­maine Clement is also on the cast list – is he going to teach M3GAN a new Tik­Tok dance? Only time will tell. HS

ETA: 27 June

Two of Hollywood’s hottest young stars – Bar­ry Keoghan and Christo­pher Abbott – star in Christo­pher Andrews’ bleak fea­ture debut, set in the rur­al world of Irish sheep farm­ing. Abbott plays Michael, the last son of a shep­herd­ing fam­i­ly, who lives with his ail­ing father, Ray (the leg­end him­self Colm Meaney). Bur­dened by a ter­ri­ble secret, Michael has iso­lat­ed him­self from the world. When a con­flict with rival farmer Gary (Paul Ready) and his son Jack (Keoghan) esca­lates, Michael is drawn into a dev­as­tat­ing chain of events, forc­ing him to con­front the hor­rors of his past and leav­ing both fam­i­lies per­ma­nent­ly altered. HS

ETA: Feb­ru­ary 7

There are a few cer­tain­ties in this world: death, tax­es, and DC reboot­ing Super­man. This iter­a­tion marks the first film since James Gunn took over as DC’s head hon­cho, brought in to bring some cohe­sion to their extreme­ly chaot­ic, wide­ly mocked film slate. David Corenswet stars as the Man of Steel, with Nicholas Hoult play­ing his arch neme­sis Lex Luthor and Rachel Bros­na­han as his love inter­est Lois Lane. Will it be any good? Who knows. I had a lot of fun with Gunn’s Peace­mak­er tele­vi­sion series, but his Sui­cide Squad was a low point of 2022. We’ll see! HS

ETA: 11 July

The nos­tal­gia boom con­tin­ues, as Lind­say Lohan and Jamie Lee Cur­tis return in this sequel to their 2003 com­e­dy about a moth­er and daugh­ter who acci­den­tal­ly switch bod­ies. Speak­ing as some­one who was 1^o years old when the orig­i­nal film came out, I’m nat­u­ral­ly a lit­tle scep­ti­cal about this long-in-the-mak­ing sequel, but I have to admit it’s a delight to see not only Lohan and Lee Cur­tis return, but their co-stars Chad Michael Mur­ray, Mark Har­mon, Lucille Soong and Ros­alind Chao too. Pick­ing up years after the events of the first film, Anna (Lohan) is now a moth­er her­self, and as she pre­pares to become a step-moth­er, she turns to her own moth­er (Lee Cur­tis) for advice. But the fates might have oth­er plans… HS

ETA: 8 August

Is this going to be anoth­er Thomas Pyn­chon adap­ta­tion from Paul Thomas Ander­son? We loved Inher­ent Vice, so we’d be hap­py if it was, and this Leonar­do DiCaprio-star­ring retro action caper is said to be loose­ly inspired by Pynchon’s ear­ly 90s head­spin­ner, Vineland. But no-one real­ly knows for sure. Appar­ent­ly, Ander­son had sacks o’ cash thrown at him for this pro­duc­tion, which comes out at the height of sum­mer, so can’t wait to see if he’s gone full-bore action block­buster on our ass­es. Prob­a­bly not… DJ

ETA: 8 August

Oscar win­ner Ke Huy Quan gets his long-await­ed lead­ing role in this action com­e­dy, direct­ed by long-time stunt coor­di­na­tor Jonathan Euse­bio, who’s worked on films includ­ing The Fall Guy, The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions, Birds of Prey and John Wick, plus a host of Mar­vel movies. Ke Huy Quan stars as Mar­vin, a hot-shot real­tor dragged back into his for­mer life as a crim­i­nal at the behest of his crime lord broth­er (played by Daniel Wu). Ari­ana DeBose co-stars as Rose, an unlike­ly ally. HS

ETA: Feb­ru­ary 7

Ever since watch­ing The Last of Us, mush­rooms haven’t tast­ed the same. Anoth­er fun­gal threat aris­es in this dis­as­ter thriller from TV old hand Jon­ny Camp­bell, with Liam Nee­son and Les­ley Manville fac­ing off against world-end­ing shrooms. Of course with the recent green inno­va­tions in myceli­um, it’s more like­ly that, in real­i­ty, mush­rooms will save the world rather than destroy it, but no-one comes to dis­as­ter thrillers for rig­or­ous sci­en­tif­ic research. Just look at Roland Emmerich’s Moon­fall. If this is a frac­tion as fun as that was, then we’re in for a treat. BN

ETA: 18 September

Hold on to your neck­bolts, as Mag­gie Gyl­len­haal is back behind the cam­era fol­low­ing the rous­ing suc­cess of her skill­ful Ele­na Fer­rante adap­ta­tion, The Lost Daugh­ter, from 2021. That Jessie Buck­ley and Chris­t­ian Bale are play­ing the leads is enough to get us through the door, but it’s excit­ing to see that Gyl­len­haal has brought on two reg­u­lar PTA col­lab­o­ra­tors to her crew: edi­tor Dylan Tichenor and com­pos­er Jon­ny Green­wood. DJ

ETA: 26 September

We got­ta do some­thing about that title, Derek. No-ones going to the pic­tures on a Fri­day eve and say­ing, ​“Two for Roof­man please.” It’ll almost have been a decade since we’ve seen a Derek Cian­france movie, with 2016’s over­reach­ing The Light Between Oceans, and this new one sees Chan­ning Tatum as a sol­dier evad­ing police cap­ture by hol­ing out on the roof of a Toy R Us store. Juno Tem­ple is also in the mix. DJ

ETA: 3 October

Rachel Mor­ri­son is one of the most excit­ing cin­e­matog­ra­phers work­ing today, as seen in her work on films such as Mud­bound and Black Pan­ther. She takes up the reigns as direc­tor for this under­dog sport­ing saga about female Olympian Cla­res­sa Shields whose incred­i­ble box­ing achieve­ments went ignored after cor­po­rate spon­sors who thought her to be too unla­dy­like for their brands. Ryan Des­tiny slips on the gloves in the lead role, while Bri­an Tyree Hen­ry is on hand as her lov­able small­town coach, Jason Crutch­field. DJ

ETA: 7 February

After receiv­ing Poor Things and Kinds of Kind­ness with­in a six month peri­od, Greece’s pre-emi­nent odd­ball auteur won’t grace our screens until the end of 2025, which is prob­a­bly just enough time for us to get our appetites back. His remake of the Kore­an cult hor­ror-com­e­dy Save the Green Plan­et! sees him reunite with Emma Stone, Jesse Ple­mons and Ali­cia Sil­ver­stone, and rumour has it the pro­duc­tion involved build­ing an entire house set in the British coun­try­side. It’s also a new col­lab­o­ra­tion – screen­writer Will Tra­cy is best known for his work on The Menu and Suc­ces­sion. Colour us intrigued. HS

ETA: 7 November

While I think it’s appalling that the stu­dio didn’t go with ​‘Now You 3 Me’ for the title of this third act in Lionsgate’s mag­ic heist fran­chise, I sup­pose I’ll have to let that go even­tu­al­ly. Orig­i­nal cast mem­bers Jesse Eisen­berg, Isla Fish­er, Dave Fran­co, Woody Har­rel­son, Mor­gan Free­man and Mark Ruf­fa­lo return, as does Daniel Rad­cliffe who appeared in Now You See Me 2. New­com­ers include Rosamund Pike, Jus­tice Smith and Dominic Ses­sa, plus direc­tor Ruben Fleis­ch­er, who worked with Eisen­berg and Har­rel­son on Zom­bieland and its sequel. HS

ETA: 14 November

In a Guardian arti­cle about this upcom­ing remake, Ben Child hypoth­e­sised that ​“We will prob­a­bly not see any­one gar­rot­ted or chain­sawed in two”, ref­er­enc­ing the bom­bas­tic ​‘80s orig­i­nal. Clear­ly Child has for­got­ten about every brawl, mur­der (pro­nounced in a West Coun­try accent), and bod­i­ly muti­la­tion in Wright’s fil­mog­ra­phy. Despite his live­ly style, Wright has promised to be more faith­ful to the polit­i­cal­ly-charged Stephen King source mate­r­i­al, which saw the poor com­pete in a killer TV show for finan­cial free­dom. Nev­er­the­less, whip pans, match cuts and call­backs will cer­tain­ly be used to retell this dystopi­an social satire. BN

ETA: 21 November

Although best known for her work on the stage (her 2008 play ​‘Her Naked Skin’ was the first orig­i­nal work writ­ten by a woman to be per­formed at the Nation­al Theatre’s main stage), Rebec­ca Lenkiewicz has many laud­able screen­writ­ing cred­its under her belt. She co-wrote Ida with Pawel Paw­likows­ki, Dis­obe­di­ence with Sebas­t­ian Lelio, and she was also the lead writer for Steve McQueen’s minis­eries Small Axe. She makes her high­ly-antic­i­pat­ed direc­to­r­i­al debut with an adap­ta­tion of Deb­o­rah Levy’s aston­ish­ing nov­el, Hot Milk, star­ring pow­er­house actors Vicky Krieps, Emma Mack­ey and Fiona Shaw. Mari­na Ashioti

ETA: 13 February

Good news for peo­ple who didn’t mind being pum­meled in the face by Wicked’s aggres­sive mar­ket­ing cam­paign this autumn: we get to do it again in 2025! Cyn­thia Eri­vo, Ari­ana Grande, Jeff Gold­blum et al. return for the sec­ond half of Jon Chu’s musi­cal extrav­a­gan­za, as Elpha­ba is ban­ished for uncov­ered the das­tard­ly truth about the Wiz­ard of Oz, and fights to clear her name. HS

ETA: 21 November

The first Zoo­trop­o­lis film was smart and sharp despite the fact that it was very much ​“pro cop” at a time when that was not a par­tic­u­lar­ly fash­ion­able polit­i­cal stance. Gin­nifer Good­win and Jason Bate­man return as, respec­tive­ly, wide-eyed bun­ny Judy Hopps and sly red fox Nick Wilde, teamed once more and on the case of a nefar­i­ous rep­tile. Here’s hop­ing that this one doesn’t suc­cumb to the recent plague of sequelitis where sec­ond films are just crum­my rehash­es of the first with enough time left to pass so peo­ple would’ve for­got­ten the orig­i­nal. DJ

ETA: 28 November

Richard Lin­klater was kin­da in the wilder­ness for a while, and when his film Hit Man cropped up in an out-of-com­pe­ti­tion slot in the 2023 Venice Film Fes­ti­val, expec­ta­tions for it were mut­ed at best. Well, it turned out to be a major banger, and all eyes are back on Austin’s Finest Son once more, and Blue Moon looks set to return to the ​“putting on a show” tem­plate he toyed with in 2008’s Me and Orson Welles, as it tells of the open­ing night of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Okla­homa! DJ

ETA: To be announced

With a plum Valentine’s Day release and some star-wattage from new­com­ers Leo Woodall and Chi­we­tel Ejio­for, Renée Zell­weger returns as Britain’s favourite diarist (apolo­gies Adri­an Mole). After the untime­ly death of her true love Mr. Dar­cy, Brid­get Jones is rais­ing her two kids as a sin­gle moth­er, but a much younger love inter­est catch­es her eye. Mean­while, Hugh Grant repris­es his role as arche­typ­al phi­lan­der­er Daniel Cleaver. Don your best granny pants with pride for this one. HS

ETA: 13 February

There have been a few cin­e­mat­ic adap­ta­tions of Orwell’s clas­sic alle­gor­i­cal nov­el. The 1954 ani­ma­tion is the unsaid defin­i­tive ver­sion, while the ​‘90s live action attempt has fall­en into obscu­ri­ty. How, then, will Andy Serkis approach adapt­ing this lit­er­ary cor­ner­stone? It’s con­firmed to be an ani­ma­tion, but oth­er details, such as the cast, are cur­rent­ly under wraps. With his motion cap­ture back­ground, Serkis could play the whole farm­yard, although he may favour a more prag­mat­ic approach to an already height­ened nar­ra­tive. BN

ETA: To be announced

Musi­cian and artist Fly­ing Lotus makes his sec­ond fea­ture in Ash, which focus­es on a woman played by Eiza González, who wakes up on a plan­et and finds the crew of her space sta­tion have been vicious­ly killed. A man – played by Aaron Paul – arrives to res­cue her, but his appear­ance sparks more ques­tions than answers. We’ll like­ly get a Fly­ing Lotus score too, and giv­en the artist’s wild imag­i­na­tion, this prob­a­bly won’t be your stan­dard sci-fi thriller. HS

ETA: To be announced

After his low-key pan­dem­ic pic­ture, Hors de Temps, Olivi­er Assayas returns to his polit­i­cal thriller roots with this adap­ta­tion of Giu­liano da Empoli’s 2022 fic­tion best­seller about the imag­ined life of one of Vladimir Putin’s most trust­ed spin doc­tors. Ali­cia Vikan­der is set to star, with Paul Dano, Zach Gal­i­fi­anakis, Jude Law and Jef­frey Wright all signed up as well. Assayas’ pre­vi­ous political/​historical film, Wasp Net­work, was some­what under­whelm­ing, so we hope he finds his hyper­bol­ic, con­spir­a­to­r­i­al juice again with this one. DJ

ETA: To be announced

Adam Elliot (of Mary and Max fame) took the top prize at the Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val for his ani­mat­ed dra­ma, about a melan­choly woman named Grace Pudel – ​“hoard­er of snails, romance nov­els, and guinea pigs.” Elliot’s unique art style and stop-motion ani­ma­tion is quite unlike any­thing else, and with Jac­ki Weaver, Eric Bana and Sarah Snook lend­ing their vocal tal­ents, it’s a tru­ly Aus­tralian affair. It’s also cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly not an ani­mat­ed film to watch with your kids. You’ve been warned. HS

ETA: 14 February

Aussie bros Dan­ny and Michael Philip­pou had a smash hit on their hands in 2023 with super­nat­ur­al hor­ror Talk to Me, and they’ll be look­ing to ter­ri­fy audi­ences all over again with their next fright­en­er, which stars British nation­al trea­sure Sal­ly Hawkins. We know absolute­ly noth­ing else yet, but this will be on a lot of hor­ror fans’ Must-See lists for 2025. HS

ETA: To be announced

After direct­ing the award-win­ning, cult hit Din­ner in Amer­i­ca, Adam Rehmeier returns with past col­lab­o­ra­tor Kyle Gall­ner and ris­ing star Sama­ra Weav­ing in this Bon­nie and Clyde style crime caper. In search of her estranged moth­er, a young woman joins a con man on a crime spree through South­east Amer­i­ca. Both the direc­tor and stars have been on the periph­eries of fame for a while — this romance thriller could be their big break­through into the main­stream. BN

ETA: To be announced

Alex Scharf­man is best known as a pro­duc­er, but he makes his fea­ture debut with this black com­e­dy, star­ring Paul Rudd and Jen­na Orte­ga as a father and daugh­ter who acci­den­tal­ly hit a uni­corn with their car while en route to a work retreat. Rudd’s bil­lion­aire boss – played by Richard E Grant – imme­di­ate­ly sees an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exploit the dead myth­i­cal creature’s remains for prof­it, but things quick­ly start to go awry. Great premise, great cast, but even more excit­ing: John Car­pen­ter is doing the score! HS

ETA: To be announced