The exciting original films of 2025: Soderbergh, Coogler, and Paul Thomas Anderson return

Forget the sequels and adaptations; 2025 will see a heaping helping of new ideas, stories, and characters coming to a theater near you. With new films by Hollywood heavyweights like Paul Thomas Anderson, Kogonada, and Ryan Coogler, blockbusters from Pixar, and Brad Pitt driving an F1 racecar, 2025 is promising some cracks in the fortress of intellectual property that the film industry has built around itself. Here are the original films coming out in 2025 to keep an eye on.

Presence (January 24)

The first of two 2025 movies from director Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp, Presence is a haunted house story that, similar to last year’s In A Violent Nature, is shot from the ghost’s point of view. This spectral perspective plays to Soderbergh’s iPhone surveillance aesthetic and harkens back to his last attempt at horror, the underseen and underrated Unsane. The formal gambit might risk alienating the audience, but it might also be the best way to inject some life into a well-worn afterlife tale.

Love Hurts (February 7)

Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan takes his spot in the Hollywood upper echelon as the star of his very own against-type John Wick-style action-comedy. This one sees Quan as a Midwest realtor who gets sucked back into the life of hitmen and assassins when an old partner (Ariana DuBose) shoots her way back into his life. Love Hurts looks very much to have been crafted in the David Leitch action cinema mold, with colorful and kinetic action cinematography á la The Fall Guy, Nobody, and Bullet Train—it is the directorial debut of longtime Wick fight coordinator Jonathan Eusebio, after all.

The Legend Of Ochi (February 28)

A24’s biggest swing yet at blockbuster family entertainment, The Legend Of Ochi aims for the Amblin-loving, Baby Yoda pleasure centers deep inside the brains of American audiences. The feature debut of music video director Isaiah Saxon, Ochi follows a young girl named Yuri (Helena Zengel) as she helps an adorable little creature, known as an “ochi,” get back to its family. Saxon created the ochi through a mix of practical and digital effects, which should please everyone tired of CGI sidekicks taking all the good puppet roles. While The Legend Of Ochi isn’t A24’s first fantastical quest, this film aims for an even broader family audience than the studio’s Oscar-winning crowdpleaser Everything Everywhere All At Once.

On Becoming A Guinea Fowl (March 5)

Despite the Missy Elliot-inspired inflatable drip and sequin headgear that Shula (Susan Chardy) sports in the trailer’s opening shots, On Becoming A Guinea Fowl is a darkly surreal film about child sexual abuse in Zambia. One night, while driving on a dark stretch of highway, Shula finds the dead body of her uncle, who has been sexually abusing her and her relatives for decades. In her second feature, writer-director Rungano Nyoni follows Shula through a complicated and hallucinatory journey as she and her family plan a funeral for a monster whose crimes no one wants to discuss.

Black Bag (March 14)

The second film from the Soderbergh-Koepp team is much more in Soderbergh’s wheelhouse. Who does a heist better than him? In Black Bag, Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett play Mr. And Mrs. Smith-coded secret agents that end up in a game of Spy Vs. Spy when she goes rogue. Sleek, sexy spy games with Fassbender doing what he does best (graceful murder) and Blanchett being the coolest one in the room? Who are we to resist?

Alto Knights (March 21)

For his first theatrical release since Bill Murray-led calamity, Rock The Kasbah, Barry Levinson is bringing in Robert De Niro to play Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, two of the few real-life mob bosses that The Irishman star has yet to play. The film centers on Frank retiring from the mob after being injured in an assassination attempt orchestrated by Vito. Debra Messing, Katherine Narducci, and Shōgun breakout Cosmo Jarvis also star, presumably in one role apiece.

Sinners (April 18)

Finally reuniting after an iffy second trip to Wakanda, director Ryan Coogler and muse Michael B. Jordan are breaking free of IP and working off an original story by Coogler about some sort of scary monster town filled with religious zealots. Coogler and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw reportedly shot Sinners on IMAX cameras to take full advantage of the extra big frame, not unlike Oppenheimer, opening up their early-20th century landscapes. Coogler always brings out the best in the actor and vice versa, so seeing Jordan in a dual-role horror movie is an exciting prospect.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (May 9)

Reteaming with After Yang director Kogonada, Colin Farrell stars as David, a man on the way to a wedding. Following a magic GPS, he goes on a surreal journey through space and time, where he meets Margot Robbie, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Hamish Linklater. Even with this scant information, this fantastical romance sounds like a good vehicle for wistful Farrell.

Elio (June 13)

Pixar’s Elio can’t help but feel like a breath of fresh air after a sequel-heavy 2024 from Disney. Thankfully, Elio also has a cute setup: A little boy, Elio (Yonas Kibreab), is mistakenly abducted by aliens as the planet’s ambassador ahead of a trial regarding Earth’s crimes. While we don’t look forward to what the cottage industry of Disney outrage bait will make of the film’s alien setting, the “Communiverse,” we’re open to hearing Brad Garrett play a turbine-blade-wielding monster. Oh, who are we kidding? It’s just nice to see a new character lead a Disney movie for a change.

F1 (June 13)

Why shouldn’t Brad Pitt get his own Top Gun? Joseph Kosinski’s spiritual follow-up to Top Gun: Maverick that Spiderhead (now on Netflix) could never be, F1 also stars a “Last Movie Star” type doing his own death-defying stunts. Here, Pitt stars as a 60-year-old racecar driver with a need for speed and stick-and-poke tattoos. Kosinski and Pitt are committed to authenticity, with Pitt trying to out-Cruise Tom by getting behind the wheel of an actual Formula One racecar and driving the actual Grand Prix. 

The Battle Of Baktan Cross (August 8)

The five words every cinephile wants to hear: “New Paul Thomas Anderson movie.” Unsurprisingly, details about this one are slim. We don’t even know if Baktan Cross will end up as the final title. Here’s what we do know: the movie stars Regina Hall and Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jonny Greenwood composed the score. It was supposedly very expensive—Anderson’s most costly—and has some car chases. DiCaprio has funny facial hair and sports boxy wrap-around shades in set photos. The film will also, reportedly, be released in IMAX—an exciting first for PTA regardless of what this thing is about.

Marty Supreme (December 25)

The second solo narrative film from Josh Safdie sees Timothée Chalamet playing a champion table tennis player with a very memorable look. Just as memorable are his co-stars: Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary, Fran Drescher, Tyler, the Creator, and Abel Ferrera, to name just a few. It’s also noteworthy that Josh and his brother Benny are both making sports dramas for their 2025 solo projects (Benny is directing The Rock-led MMA biopic The Smashing Machine). We don’t know much about either, really, but we’ll be damned if Marty Supreme isn’t an incredible title.

Eddington (TBD)

We might be one the few movie preview writers excited for another collaboration between Ari Aster and Joaquin Phoenix. Since their last collaboration, the largely disliked (except by those who are correct) boondoggle Beau Is Afraid, Phoenix’s stock has somehow fallen even further. Well, not somehow; his abrupt exit from Todd Haynes’ latest, followed by Joker: Folie Á Deux, didn’t do the actor any favors. It’s hard to imagine how an Aster-directed black comedy neo-Western with a confusing title will bring Phoenix back into our good graces, but, as always, we remain optimistic.