Greetings, reader!
As is tradition, I'm sharing the movies of the coming year that I'm the most hyped up about here at the start of the year. 2025 looks like it has tremendous potential as a cinematic year, and these films are the ones I'm looking forward to the most!
Here are my honorable mentions: Good Fortune, Jurassic World Rebirth, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Sinners, Superman.
10. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
There's no reason to expect the third Knives Out film to be a life-changing masterpiece or the year's best film, but there's plenty of reason to expect that it will be a clever, fun and engaging film like the first two! Not much is known plot-wise, but Rian Johnson continuing as writer-director is a good sign, and Daniel Craig is naturally returning as Benoit Blanc.
The supporting cast is once again a glorious star-studded collection - I give them 1 or 2 movies more after this one, after which they'll run out of Hollywood faces so universally recognizable that the viewers will be going "Hey it's that dude! He was in that one Marvel movie, right?" every two minutes. Wake Up Dead Man will make sure of this with names like Josh O'Connor, Josh Brolin, Jeremy Renner and Glenn f**king Close (just to name a few) in the cast.
9. The Naked Gun
A new Naked Gun film isn't what I had on my bingo card for 2025, but as far as surprises go, I'd say it's a welcome one. Sure, with the absence of the late great Leslie Nielsen (and with Liam Neeson out of all people starring as the original protagonist's son, Frank Drebin Jr.), the film definitely has the potential to flop - but it also has the potential to rule. The fact that longtime Saturday Night Live writer and director Akiva Schaffer is writing and directing this reboot / pseudo-sequel is definitely one reason to believe that it might end up becoming one of the year's funnier films!
8. Freakier Friday
Twenty-two years after the original Freaky Friday, the body-swapping semi-classic is getting its very own legacy sequel. Both Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are reprising their roles, and that's really all the information I need beforehand - I anticipate a high amount of shenanigans, and that's one of the fastest ways into this film buff's heart!
7. Frankenstein
So, here's the deal - 2025 will see the release of not one, but two films based on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein universe, and while 2 isn't generally a big number, it is certainly more big-budget Frankenstein adaptations that one might expect from the same year. While this coincidence is objectively weird, I'm not too worried of getting Frankenstein fatigue, as the source-material (the all-time greatest horror novel written by someone other than Stephen King) is so incredible that it has made for several intriguing adaptations over the years and will likely continue to do so for many more.
Out of these two, I'm ranking Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein slightly below the other, mainly because the films otherwise sound as fascinating as one another, but this one sounds more mainstream/traditional and I'm a sucker for subversion. Still, with such a skillful and authentically strange artist making the film, and Oscar Isaac playing Frankenstein (the doctor!) while Jacob Elordi plays the Monster (whose name isn't Frankenstein!), this is bound to be a good one.
6. The Bride!
And here we have the more subversive take on Frankenstein, one that I am even more excited about. Maggie Gyllenhaal is directing - it's just her second feature film, and while I missed her debut The Lost Daughter (2021), I heard it was great so I assume the actress-director is as good behind the camera as she is in front of it. Taking place in 1930's Chicago, the film draws inspiration both from Mary Shelley's books and the Bride of Frankenstein (1935) film. Christian Bale plays Frankenstein's Monster, Jessie Buckley plays the bride, and in a case of nepotism so cool that I can hardly complain, the director's brother Jake Gyllenhaal is in one of the starring roles as well. Oh, and apparently the film is a musical as well? Sign me up!
5. The Wedding Banquet
Saturday Night Live darling Bowen Yang stars in this remake of a 90's queer cult classic, playing a gay immigrant whose green card marriage leads to moments of hilarity and an endearing take on serious matters ranging from cultural attitudes towards sexual minorities to immigration and the Taiwan-Chinese conflict. For an answer to why I'm hyped up about this movie, I'll refer you to literally any part of that sentence.
4. The Conjuring: Last Rites
I'm a sucker for endings, and this should be a big one. Sure, it's anyone's guess if this will be the final film of the Conjuring universe or not - I know my horror cinema, and having seen Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, I can say that none of those ended up being the last in their franchise. But still, it sounds like Last Rites is at least being planned to work as a dramatic, series-ending instalment, and I'm guessing that this means high stakes, terrifying villains, and memorable moments that will hopefully make for an appropriate closing chapter for the 10-film-spanning cinematic universe that shaped the horror milieu of the 2010's.
3. Star Trek: Section 31
This is a hard one to rank - on one hand, it's Star Trek, a franchise that I have an undying passion for, but on the other, there are many red flags when looking at possible indicators of the film's quality. Much of its marketing has appeared to imply that A) they're going for a real 'Suicide Squad (2016) but for Star Trek' vibe, and B) they've more or less missed the point of the Section 31 storyline from the Star Trek TV shows. Because of these two, I'm worried.
But then again - even if it's bad, I'm such a nerd that I'll have fun adding it to my ranking of the Star Trek films and comparing it to the others. I'm guessing that it can't be completely terrible, as Michelle Yeoh is reprising her kick-ass role as Philippa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery!
2. The Monkey
Last year's horror darling Longlegs was one of my favorite movies of 2024, and I consider it the arguably best horror flick of the decade so far. It was directed by horror royalty Osgood Perkins, the son of the legendary Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates in Psycho (1960)). The younger Perkins is back at it again this year, with his new project being the terrifying-sounding The Monkey. I'd be hyped enough as it is, but on top of all else, it's based on a short story by none other than Mr. Horror himself, the man fighting Tolkien for the spot of my all-time favorite author, Stephen f**king King.
1. Wicked: For Good
Well, this one is a no-brainer. Wicked was a mind-blowing masterpiece, and one of 2024's cinematic highlights - and to think that it's just based on the first half of the Broadway musical, well, that sets expectations sky-high for the follow-up. If elements such as acting, set design, visuals, choreography, powerful themes, songs and arrangements are as good as they were in 2024's Wicked, that'll mean we're in for a piece of cinematic magic.
(For anyone interested: I didn't have the time to see Wicked before releasing my 'Top 10 movies of 2024' post at the end of the year, but if I would've, it would be battling Dune: Part Two for very first place. So yes, the hype is worth it).
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for another start-of-the-year classic: my nominations for the best movies, television & music 'awards' of 2024! The winners will be revealed in the following week's post.
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