In a season swollen with franchise muscle and prestige provocation, the year’s most compelling story is that the big names are back, and they are not repeating themselves. James Cameron returns to Pandora with fire in his veins; Rian Johnson sharpens Benoit Blanc’s Southern drawl into a scalpel; Wes Anderson swaps whimsy for espionage; Spike Lee retools Kurosawa for the algorithm age; and Luca Guadagnino invites us into academia’s lovely, lethal salons. This is a year for scale and signature – movies that look exactly like their legendary makers and yet feel refreshingly new. Consider this your cheat sheet to the iconic directors everyone knows, and the 2025 films you should see.
1. Mickey 17
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Famous for: Genre-splicing precision and moral bite (Parasite, Memories of Murder).
A stranded labourer on an ice-world becomes an expendable clone – and an existential problem – in Bong’s long-gestating sci-fi. Expect capitalist satire dressed in sleek futurism and melancholy humour. If you like your world-building with a conscience – think Solaris with sharper elbows – this is for you.
UK release: 7 March 2025.
UK distribution: Warner Bros. Pictures UK.
2. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Famous for: Precision-tooled set-pieces and old-school star power.
Hunt v. algorithmic apocalypse, part two – with practical stuntwork that still wipes the floor with CG excess. If you crave operatic action anchored to a human face, book premium large-format.
UK release: May 2025 (Paramount UK lists May; local cinemas to confirm specific day).
UK distribution: Paramount Pictures UK.
3. The Phoenician Scheme
Director: Wes Anderson
Famous for: Meticulous mise-en-scène with a mischievous heart.
An espionage caper played in Andersonian deadpan – immaculate production design, a stack of stars and a feather-light sting. Devotees of The Grand Budapest Hotel will find the palette familiar and the punchlines dry.
UK release: 23 May 2025.
UK distribution: Universal Pictures UK.
4. F1
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Famous for: High-octane, tactile spectacle (Top Gun: Maverick).
Brad Pitt and Damson Idris fold real F1 speed into a fictional team story, shot inside live race weekends. If you want cinema to vibrate, this is your Dolby Atmos calling card.
UK release: 25 June 2025 (international theatrical via WB for Apple).
UK distribution: Warner Bros. Pictures (for Apple Original Films).
5. Jurassic World: Rebirth
Director: Gareth Edwards
Famous for: Sense of scale with grounded human POV (Rogue One, Godzilla).
New era, new teeth – Edwards resets the franchise with a cooler palette and a firmer grasp on awe. If you grew up on Spielberg’s hush-before-the-roar, you’ll enjoy its classical suspense.
UK release: June 2025 – London world premiere 17 June; general UK rollout followed late June.
UK distribution: Universal Pictures UK.
6. Superman
Director: James Gunn
Famous for: Irreverent, character-first comic-book storytelling.
Gunn’s earnest reboot promises classic hope with modern wit – less grim-dark, more golden-age sincerity and newsroom banter. If you miss optimism in capes, this is the studio’s reset button.
UK release: 11 July 2025 (day-and-date global).
UK distribution: Warner Bros. Pictures UK.
7. Highest 2 Lowest
Director: Spike Lee
Famous for: Political voltage, New York attitude, signature dolly shots.
A Kurosawa rethink becomes a pulsing NYC kidnap thriller led by Denzel Washington – released theatrically in the US and streaming here. If you want morality plays with swagger, settle in.
UK release: 5 September 2025 (Apple TV+).
UK distribution: Apple TV+.
8. One Battle After Another
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Famous for: American psychologies rendered as operas of desire.
An intimate epic about ambition, loyalty and collateral damage – PTA’s period grit with needle-drop grace. Perfect for anyone who likes their drama elliptical yet emotionally surgical.
UK release: 24 September 2025 (international rollout).
UK distribution: Warner Bros. Pictures.
9. The Smashing Machine
Director: Benny Safdie
Famous for: Diamond-cutter tension (Good Time, Uncut Gems – co-directed).
Dwayne Johnson sheds armour to play MMA legend Mark Kerr in a bruising biopic about addiction, love and survival. Awards-season catnip for those who enjoy actors reinventing themselves.
UK release: 3 October 2025.
UK distribution: Entertainment Film Distributors.
10. A House of Dynamite
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Famous for: High-stress realism with political muscle (The Hurt Locker).
Nuclear brinkmanship in real time – a nerve-shredder about process, power and the thin line between reassurance and ruin. If you liked Zero Dark Thirty’s procedural momentum, this is its doomsday cousin.
UK release: 3 October 2025 (select cinemas); Netflix streaming 24 October.
UK distribution: Netflix (limited theatrical, then streaming).
11. No Other Choice
Director: Park Chan-wook
Famous for: Baroque vengeance and exquisite compositional control.
A morally overheated thriller about cause, effect and the wages of certainty – Park’s precise violence tempered by sly humour. For connoisseurs of immaculate framing and slow-release dread.
UK release: Festival premiere at BFI London Film Festival, mid-October 2025; UK theatrical TBC.
UK distribution: MUBI has UK rights.
12. After the Hunt
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Famous for: Sensual mood and immaculate surfaces with a sting.
Julia Roberts leads a prestige campus thriller about memory, complicity and career-era denial. If you favour talky, tense dramas with couture costuming, it’s your autumn matinee.
UK release: 17 October 2025.
UK distribution: Sony Pictures Releasing International.
13. Frankenstein
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Famous for: Lush gothic romance threaded with outsiders’ longing.
A soulful, sculptural reimagining of Shelley – del Toro turns the myth into a meditation on making and unmaking a family. If Crimson Peak made you swoon, clear your calendar.
UK release: Select cinemas from 17 October; Netflix UK streaming 7 November 2025.
UK distribution: Netflix (limited theatrical, then streaming).
14. Father Mother Sister Brother
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Famous for: Wry minimalism and deadpan poetry.
An anthology of fractured families – three chapters, three cities, one slyly beating heart. For those who live on coffee, conversation and gently bruised souls.
UK release: LFF screenings 18–19 October 2025; UK theatrical TBC (US release 24 Dec).
UK distribution: MUBI.
15. The Mastermind
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Famous for: Quiet radicalism and human detail over plot pyrotechnics.
A 1970s art-heist character study that swaps sirens for jazz and melancholy. If you liked First Cow’s patience, you’ll appreciate the slow-burn subversion.
UK release: 24 October 2025.
UK distribution: MUBI (UK & Ireland).
16. Bugonia
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Famous for: Absurdist cruelty in couture packaging.
A gilded remake of Save the Green Planet! with Emma Stone – expect tonal whiplash and immaculate tailoring. For those who like their satire with teeth.
UK release: 31 October 2025.
UK distribution: Universal Pictures UK.
17. Die, My Love
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Famous for: Piercing portraits of interior storms.
Jennifer Lawrence burns through postpartum psychosis and frontier isolation in a ferocious marital drama. If you come for performance, you’ll stay for Ramsay’s nerve.
UK release: 14 November 2025.
UK distribution: MUBI.
18. Alpha
Director: Julia Ducournau
Famous for: Body-horror tenderness and sensorial bravura.
A mysterious bloodborne illness turns bodies to marble in a mother-daughter story about care, fear and transformation. For Sitges devotees and anyone who likes cinema that bites back.
UK release: 21 November 2025.
UK distribution: Curzon Artificial Eye.
19. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Director: Rian Johnson
Famous for: Classic whodunnits with millennial bite.
Benoit Blanc returns – richer fabrics, darker fun – in a puzzle-box skewering new money’s oldest sins. For those who collect alibis the way others collect watches.
UK release: Limited cinemas from 26 November; Netflix UK streaming 12 December 2025.
UK distribution: Netflix.
20. It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Famous for: Defiant humanism under censorship.
A chance garage encounter reopens a wound from a prison past – a taut moral thriller with Panahi’s sly humour intact. If you like cinema as resistance, circle this.
UK release: 5 December 2025 (cinemas via MUBI).
UK distribution: MUBI.
21. Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Famous for: Tech innovation with elemental myth.
The third chapter promises a new tribe and a new theatre standard. If spectacle is your love language, consider this the seasonal grand tour.
UK release: 19 December 2025.
UK distribution: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures UK.
22. Sentimental Value
Director: Joachim Trier
Famous for: Intimate tectonics of love and memory.
Two sisters and a wayward father navigate grief, art and the stories families tell to survive themselves. If The Worst Person in the World ruined you (in a good way), prepare.
UK release: 26 December 2025.
UK distribution: MUBI.
23. Nishaanchi
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Famous for: Gritty, propulsive crime sagas with a punk heartbeat.
Twin brothers, a blood-knot and a city that won’t forgive – Kashyap’s longest film to date is maximalist masala with muscular set-pieces. If you loved the raw electricity of Wasseypur, you’ll savour the return to that frequency.
UK release: TBC (India release 19 September 2025).
UK distribution: Amazon MGM Studios; UK plans TBC.
