Thursday, January 1, 2026

My Top Twenty-One Films of 2025

Happy New Year to all of you! Once again, I have watched some films over the course of the year and decided to tell you about them via this blog post, listing my favourite films of the year and my least favourite one. This time (as is to be expected), from the year 2025, (one year I might surprise you and do a completely random year, so watch out). In the year 2025, I managed to watch 139 new releases (on multiple platforms), which is a lot, but less than the 165 I watched last year. A full list of all the new releases I watched is published at the bottom of this post, with a basic rating for each film. Again, as I tell you every year, some of the films listed here might have been released in 2024 elsewhere; However, here in Prague, I was only able to access them during the year 2025, so I beg your indulgence in that case.
 
How was my 2025 regarding films, you might be asking? I would say it was quite an OK year all in all, there were, to be fai,r a lot more films that I rated Good or Excellent (57%), than there were ones that I rated Bad or 
Awful (11%), however there were also quite a lot that I would just rate as Meh (32%). Again, please take all my recommendations with a pinch of salt, as I am just a normal guy writing a blog, and tastes do differ.
 
Also, please be aware that this post might contain unintentional spoilers

The Top Twenty-One

21) Fight or Flight
This is a bonkers action film, starring Josh Hartnett as a disgraced and washed-up US government agent named Lucas Reyes who is bumming around in Bangkok in exile, when he is offered the chance to come back in from the cold by his ex-partner and ex-lover Katherine Blunt (Katee Sackhoff), who is now the head of a government agency. All he must do is hunt down a wanted hacker called the Ghost, who is on a flight to San Francisco and bring them in alive. Unknown to Reyes and Blunt, there is a bounty on the Ghost’s head, and the flight is full of assassins all attempting to collect it. Over-the-top action and violence with a charming central performance by Hartnett.
 
20) KPop Demon Hunters.
This Netflix animated film was one of the surprise hits of the year. Following a K-pop girl group Huntrix (made up of Rumi, Mira, and Zoey), who are the latest in a long line of Demon Hunter teams that use their voices to maintain a magical barrier keeping the demon hordes at bay. The ruler of the demons, Gwa-Ma, sends five demons disguised as a K-pop boy band called the Saja Boys to undermine Hunterix’s efforts. Unknown to the other Huntrix members, Rumi (the lead singer) is half-demon herself and feels conflicted when dealing with the Saja Boys, especially when their lead singer, Jinu, is around. A fun animation style and some great earworms, I especially liked the song Sodapop.
 
19) Ballerina
This prequel film sees us returning to the berserker world of John Wick. Set between John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick Chapter 4. We follow the story of Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), who, as a child, witnessed her father’s murder at the hands of a cult (led by Gabriel Byrne’s The Chancellor). She is then brought into the Ruska Roma (the faction that trained John Wick) due to her father being one of them, and is trained to become a deadly assassin like half the people in that universe, apparently. Grown up, she comes across a clue to the cult and goes rogue after them in search of revenge. Full of great action set pieces (including an excellent flamethrower duel) as Eve goes after the cult on their home turf. We also get a cameo from the man himself.
 
18) Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
This is a beautifully animated French-Belgian film (based on the short novel The Character of Rain by Belgian author Amélie Nothomb). The film is from the point of view of the eponymous Amélie, who is born into a Belgian family living in Japan, but in a vegetative state and stays like that for the first two years of her life, during which time Amélie starts to believe herself to be a god, with everyone around her there to serve her. On her second birthday, she leaves her vegetative state and starts to interact with her family and the world in general. A unique story told in a beautiful and relaxing animation art style.
 
17) The Thing with Feathers
Another film based on a book (this time, Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter). Benedict Cumberbatch’s central performance in this film is the main reason this film made this list. Cumberbatch plays an unnamed father, grieving over the recent death of his wife, whilst also taking care of his two young sons. His grief and melancholy appear to him in the form of a giant crow-like creature (voiced by David Thewlis), taunting and demoralising him as he starts to lose control and unravel under the weight of his sadness and the extra responsibilities of being a single parent.  
 
16) Sisu: Road to Revenge
A fantastic sequel to the 2022 Finnish Spaghetti Western style action film SISU, this time we again follow Aatami Korpi AKA Koshchei (Jorma Tommila), the unkillable Finnish commando from the first film, as he goes home to his village in Karelia (an area that has been ceded to the Soviet Union) to brings his and his family’s possessions back to Finland. However, the Soviets are hungry for revenge on Korpi for his actions during the Winter War, where he became a legend. They decide to release Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang), the man who butchered Korpi’s family before the events of the first film, from prison in Siberia and send him after Korpi, with promises of a pardon if he takes out Koshchei, the monster he helped create. This film is again full of absurd action set pieces as the Soviets throw everything at Korpi.
 
15) Companion
Jack Quaid gave four pretty good performances this year. This is not his performance from this year that I liked best (that would be in Neighbourhood Watch), this was my favourite film with him in it, though. A black sci-fi comedy, this film sees Josh (Quaid) bringing his girlfriend Iris (Sophie Thatcher) to meet up with his friends at the house of one of his friends’ new rich boyfriends, Sergey (Rupert Friend). Sergey, being a rich asshole, attempts to assault Iris when they are alone, and she ends up killing him. We then find out that Iris is, in fact, a “Companion” Robot, and Josh has modified her to be more aggressive and disabled the programming that tells her to do no harm, as part of a plan to steal from Sergey’s safe along with his friends.
 
14) Predator: Badlands
One of the two Predator films released by Dan Trachtenberg this year. The first one, being the animated anthology Killer of Killers, which was also good, but this was something completely new to the franchise. In Predator: Badlands we follow Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) a young Yautja warrior who is considered to be the runt within his clan, he decides to head to a planet known as the “Death Planet” (a place where everything seem to have evolved to kill anything that comes near it) to hunt a Kalisk, an apex predator that the other Yautja are vary of. During the hunt, Dex comes across Thia (Elle Fanning), a damaged synthetic from the Weyland-Yutani corporation (yes, from the Alien franchise), and they form a partnership as she leads him to find the Kalisk. All the while, other Weyland-Yutani synthetics hunt them down. This film adds significantly to the Predator lore, and as a nerd, I appreciate that.
 
13) Black Bag
A fantastically cool film with possibly the best-looking cast this year sees Michael Fassbender’s counterintelligence officer at the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), George Woodhouse, tasked by his boss to investigate a leak within the agency. There are five possible suspects: George’s own wife and intelligence officer Kathryn (played by Cate Blanchett), fellow counterintelligence officer James (Regé-Jean Page), his psychiatrist girlfriend Zoe (Naomie Harris), satellite imagery specialist Clarissa (Marisa Abela) and her boyfriend and NCSC case officer Freddie (Tom Burke). What follows is a game of cat and mouse between a bunch of very competent, intelligent people who are all experts at keeping and/or retrieving secrets.
 
12) The Accountant 2
A long-awaited 
(well, long-awaited by me at least) sequel to the surprisingly good ‘The Accountant’ from 2016, sees Ben Affleck’s autistic Accountant/Mercenary Christian Wolff return, and get pulled into an investigation, looking into the death of Raymond King (J.K. Simmons), his old contact at the Treasury Department. He teams up with King’s protégé from the first film, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), who is now deputy director of the Treasury Department herself. He also brings in his brother Braxton (played by Jon Bernthal), whom he has not seen since the events of the last film, and who harbours some resentments about that. The Christian-Braxton relationship is great and probably my favourite thing in the film; they are constantly butting heads while investigating the human trafficking ring that got Raymond killed.
 
11) The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson returns with another black comedy, as we follow Benicio del Toro’s Anatole "Zsa-Zsa" Korda, an arms dealer and industrialist in the 1950’s who after surviving another assassination attempt, decides to bring in his daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), a novice nun, to take over his business and help him get his ambitious Phoenician Scheme over the line. This film looks gorgeous as is to be expected, from a Wes Anderson film, the dialogue is mesmeric at points, and the cast is full of Wes Anderson regulars, and Michael Cera (someone I assumed had worked with Anderson before) giving sardonic, funny performances. If you enjoy Anderson’s previous works, you are going to like this too.
 
10) Weapons
Some of my friends might be annoyed that this was not higher on the list, but that can’t be helped; I’m not really a huge horror fan. This is the follow up film from the writer/director of 2022’s excellent horror film Barbarian, Zach Cregger, and deals with all but one of a third grade (children aged 8-9) class in a small-town school, waking up one day and disappearing into the night, and it deals with the aftermath that follows. Suspicion falls on Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), the teacher of the class, as the town turns on her when no answers are forthcoming. Especially the excellently named Archer Graff (Josh Brolin), the father of one of the missing children. This is a great horror film with a few moments of humour thrown in.
 
9) Train Dreams
This is a gorgeous and relaxing film. In it, we follow the life of Robert Grainer (Joel Edgerton), who is born in the 1880s, is orphaned at a young age and moves to Idaho. He later meets and marries Gladys and has a daughter, Kate. He spends a lot of his time away from home and family working on the railways. Most of the film is Edgerton in nature, telling stories of people he works with and important events that happen to him in his life. This, like my film of the year last year, Perfect Days, is a quiet film, with a wonderful soundscape. Edgerton plays Grainer as a quiet, dignified giant, and his performance is quietly captivating.
 
8) Superman
This is the Superman film I have been waiting for since Superman II. As good as Henry Cavill looked in the role, he was never truly able to portray Superman/Clark Kent as he is in the comics. That probably has a lot to do with how Zack Snyder sees superheroes in general, but the dark, brooding version of Superman in the DCEU never sat right with me, especially next to the equally dark and brooding Batman. The two are usually shown in contrast to each other in comics. So, I was happy to see James Gunn bring back a version of Superman I like. David Corenswet is the bright and hopeful Superman I love to see, straight from the comic (especially the version from All-Star Superman). Gunn also does a great job bringing a comic book world to the big screen, a world already filled with other superheroes and incorporated into the narrative. A great supporting cast brings these characters to life, including Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult as my favourite interpretation of Lex Luthor, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner and Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific.
 
7) Materialists
A fantastic look at modern dating and romance in New York City, from Celine Song, the director of the excellent Past Lives from 2023. This film follows Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a very successful Matchmaker who meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), a rich financier, at the wedding of a former client. At the wedding is also Lucy’s ex-boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), an aspiring actor who is working the wedding as a waiter. Lucy still seems to have feelings for John, but Harry is more likely to provide the financial security Lucy craves. Though the premise seems a bit basic, there are some great scenes of people talking about what they are looking for in a partner, most of which are infuriatingly unachievable in one person. Great performances all round, especially from the main trio.
 
6) The Life of Chuck
One of four Stephen King adaptations this year (The Monkey, The Long Walk and The Running Man being the others), though I enjoyed the others to some degree, this was my favourite of them all. A strangely life-affirming film in distinct three acts, each one at a different point in the life of an accountant Charles “Chuck” Krantz (played by Cody Flanagan, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay & Tom Hiddleston at different ages). I won’t go into any more details about it, apart from saying that Act Two: Buskers Forever was my favourite part.
 
5) Thunderbolts*
Of the three Marvel films released this year (Captain America: Brave New World and The Fantastic Four: First Steps being the other two), this was the one that probably confounded everyone. It was a film full of secondary characters from other Marvel films, with none of the more iconic characters from the MCU in it. However, what screenwriters Eric Pearson & Joanna Calo and director Jake Schreier gave us was a film that is both funny, earnest and refreshing, and what it lacks in huge action set pieces, it makes up for in dealing with issues of mental health, loneliness and imposter syndrome. The cast jells together well, with Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman as Yelena Belova and Robert “Bob” Reynolds, respectively, being the standouts (though David Harbour’s Red Guardian is also very good in it). A pleasant surprise from Marvel. I am looking forward to seeing what director Jake Schreier will bring to his X-Men film
 
4) One Battle After Another
This is a wonderful black comedy from Paul Thomas Anderson. Inspired by the book Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, we follow Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) a former member of a revolutionary group The French 75, whose past catches up to him, after a previous adversary Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), comes after the former members, looking for Bob’s daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) who might actually be Lockjaw’s daughter with Bob’s former lover. Bob has spent his time since leaving The French 75 mainly getting high and keeping off the grid, so he is not equipped to deal with the world as it is now, as he tries to get to his daughter and keep her safe. A great cast with Benicio del Toro’s Karatedo teacher Sergio being the standout.
 
3) Wake Up Dead Man
I love these films; I love a good mystery in general, and Rian Johnson is fantastic at constructing great mysteries. This one involves one of my favourite types of mystery, a locked-room mystery. This might also be my favourite of the Knives Out Mysteries. Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc, and this time he is assisting Police Chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) in a small town upstate New York. Much to Scott’s chagrin, Blanc also enlists the help of Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor), a young Catholic priest, who is the chief suspect in the murder of the charismatic and domineering senior priest at Duplenticy’s church, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). Johnson has again put together a wonderful cast with Glenn Close, Thomas Haden Church, Daryl McCormack, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny & Kerry Washington making up the rest of the possible suspects. I also loved the setting of this one, set in and around an old late 19th-century church, and with religion playing a huge role throughout the story, it is probably the most atmospheric of the trilogy.
 
2) The Ballad of Wallis Island
This film seems to have all the tropes of a classic horror film. Down on his luck musician Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) is invited to a remote island off Wales to perform a concert for a private, selected audience. The island seems to only have five people living on it, and the audience is, in fact, just one person, the local weirdo Charles (Tim Key), who is a superfan of McGwyer and his former partner in a Folk Duo, Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan). The creators of this (Tom Basden and Tim Key) could easily have gone a different route and it seriously could have been a Misery remake set on the Wicker Man island, however what it actually is, is a sweet and funny film, that deals with topics of loneliness, success, friendship and the power of music, as you learn to like all the characters. Based on a 2007 short film by Basden and Key called The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island.
 
1) Sinners
This is an atmospheric 1930s-set vampire film from Ryan Coogler and follows twin gangsters Smoke and Stack (both played by the superb Michael B Jordon) who return to Mississippi in order to start up a juke joint, using their ill-got gains from Chicago. They rope in their younger cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), who is a talented blues musician as well as a group of their old friends, including Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), a veteran bluesman who has been through a lot of shit, and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), Smoke’s Hoodoo practitioner wife. Unknown to everyone, Sammie is a griot (from West African mythology) whose music can transcend time and space; unfortunately, his performance on the opening night of the juke joint brings him to the attention of Remmick (Jack O'Connell), an ancient Irish vampire who wants to bring Sammie and his talents into his family. From then on, the people locked in the juke joint try to keep the people who have already been turned outside and stay alive until the morning. However, this is so much more than a vampire siege film. It deals with multiple mythologies, the history of the racist South, the cultural appropriation of Black music and generational trauma. Every performance is great, and the film looks gorgeous.
 
And my worst film of the year for 2025 is.........

A Minecraft Movie
I know that this film was very popular this year, especially at the box office, and there were three other films that I rated as awful, two of which that only exist due to some characters entering public domain (Popeye the Slayer Man & Steamboat), and I understand that I am not the audience for this film (never having played the game, or being a child with ADD), however this film was just super annoying to me, and was made even more annoying by the fact I went to the cinema and paid to watch this. The story was very basic, the effects were headache-inducing, and the acting was just ridiculously bad. Which is a shame, as there are actors in this whose other works I have enjoyed in the past. If you have not watched it already, I would give it a miss.
 
 
Complete list of Films I watched in 2025.

Ratings
Excellent = Must watch
Good = Should watch
Meh = Fine
Bad = Can be avoided
Awful = Avoid
 
28 Years Later  -  Excellent
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey  -  Good
A Complete Unknown  -  Good
A House Of Dynamite  -  Meh
A Minecraft Movie  -  Awful
A Real Pain  -  Good
A Working Man  -  Meh
Afterburn  -  Meh
Another Simple Favor  -  Good
Babygirl  -  Meh
Ballad Of A Small Player  -  Excellent
Ballerina   -  Excellent
Bank of Dave 2  -  Meh
Batman Ninja Vs. Yakuza League  -  Good
Being Eddie  -  Good
Black Bag  -  Excellent
Black Phone 2  -  Good
Bride Hard  -  Meh
Bugonia  -  Good
Captain America: Brave New World  -  Meh
Caught Stealing  -  Meh
Christmas Karma  -  Bad
Companion  -  Excellent
Dangerous Animals  -  Meh
Dead Of Winter  -  Good
Death Of A Unicorn  -  Meh
Deep Cover  -  Meh
Den of Thieves 2: Pantera  -  Meh
Die My Love  -  Good
Dracula A Love Story  -  Meh
Drop  -  Good
Eddington  -  Good
Eenie Meanie  -  Good
Elio  -  Good
Eternity   -  Good
Everything's Going to Be Great  -  Bad
F1 The Movie  -  Good
Fackham Hall  -  Meh
Fight or Flight  -  Excellent
Final Destination Bloodlines  -  Meh
Fountain Of Youth  -  Bad
Frankenstein  -  Good
G20  -  Bad
Get Away  -  Meh
Good Fortune  -  Good
Happy Gilmore 2  -  Good
Havoc  -  Good
Heads of State  -  Meh
Heart Eyes  -  Meh
Hedda  -  Good
Highest 2 Lowest  -  Good
How To Train Your Dragon  -  Meh
I Know What You Did Last Summer  -  Meh
In the Lost Lands  -  Bad
Islands  -  Meh
Jay Kelly  -  Good
John Candy, I Like Me  -  Good
Jurassic World Rebirth  -  Meh
Karate Kid: Legends  -  Good
KPop Demon Hunters  -  Good
Last Breath  -  Meh
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain  -  Excellent
Love Hurts  -  Meh
M3GAN 2.0  -  Good
Marching Powder  -  Awful
Mickey 17  -  Good
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning  -  Meh
Mountainhead  -  Good
Neighborhood Watch  -  Good
Nobody 2  -  Meh
Nosferatu  -  Excellent
Novocaine  -  Good
Now You See Me 3  -  Good
Nuremberg   -  Good
Old Guy  -  Bad
One Battle After Another  -  Excellent
Paddington in Peru  -  Good
Play Dirty  -  Meh
Popeye the Slayer Man  -  Awful
Predator Killer Of Killers  -  Good
Predator: Badlands  -  Excellent
Presence  -  Good
Prisoner of War  -  Meh
Queen Of The Ring  -  Good
Red Sonja  -  Meh
Roofman  -  Meh
Screamboat  -  Awful
September 5  -  Good
Sinners  -  Excellent
Sisu: Road to Revenge  -  Excellent
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues  -  Excellent
Splitsville  -  Meh
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere  -  Good
Star Trek: Section 31  -  Meh
Steve  -  Good
Superman  -  Excellent
The Accountant 2  -  Excellent
The Alto Knights  -  Meh
The Amateur  -  Good
The Bad Guys 2  -  Good
The Ballad Of Wallis Island  -  Excellent
The Brutalist  -  Good
The Electric State  -  Bad
The Fantastic Four: First Steps  -  Good
The Gorge  -  Meh
The Last Showgirl  -  Good
The Life Of Chuck  -  Excellent
The Long Walk  -  Good
The Lost Bus  -  Good
The Mastermind  -  Good
The Materialists  -  Excellent
The Monkey  -  Good
The Naked Gun  -  Good
The Old Guard 2  -  Bad
The Penguin Lessons  -  Meh
The Phoenician Scheme  -  Excellent
The Roses  -  Meh
The Running Man  -  Meh
The Smashing Machine  -  Meh
The Thing with Feathers  -  Excellent
The Thursday Murder Club  -  Meh
The Toxic Avenger  -  Bad
The Uninvited  -  Good
The Wedding Banquet  -  Good
The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep  -  Meh
The Woman in the Yard  -  Good
Thunderbolts*  -  Excellent
Tinsel Town  -  Meh
Together  -  Good
Tornado  -  Good
Train Dreams  -  Excellent
Tron: Ares  -  Meh
Wake Up Dead Man  -  Excellent
Weapons  -  Excellent
William Tell  -  Meh
Wolf Man  -  Meh
Y2K  -  Bad
You're Cordially Invited  -  Bad
Zootopia 2  -  Good

Sunday, January 19, 2025

My Most Anticipated Films Of 2025

Hello again! You weren’t expecting this were you? I know I haven’t done this for a couple of years, but thought instead of just looking back, it could be fun to anticipate what I hope will be a very good year for films. There are many films to look forward to in the year 2025 (well, in my opinion there are), lots of Action films, some interesting black comedies, hopefully a few great Comic Book films, as well as a couple of surprising sequels. Along with I’m guessing a lot of films that we will love that we aren’t even aware of yet. I have listed the films in alphabetical order here (I’m feeling too lazy to work out an order of preference or any other such nonsense). I have linked to the IMBD pages for the films and added links to trailers if they are available. Also please be aware that the release dates may not be completely accurate, I have taken a best guess using IMDB.

28 Years Later [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, Jodie Comer & Jack O'Connell
Release Date: June 19th
The second sequel to Danny Boyles excellent 2002 horror film, set 28 years after the events of the first film, where the Rage virus was released and infected a huge number of the British population. We now get to see the effects of the virus a generation on, with people who have had to live with it most of their lives.

A Complete Unknown [imdb] [trailer]
Director: James Mangold
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning & Monica Barbaro
Release Date: January 23rd
Though I am not usually a fan of musical biopics, I have become somewhat of a fan of Timothée Chalamet’s work recently and have been a fan of Bob Dylan’s work for many years now, so I’m looking forward to seeing Chalamet play Dylan in his early years.

Ballerina [imdb]
Director: Len Wiseman
Starring: Ana de Armas, Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane & Lance Reddick
Release Date: June 6th
A return to the world of John Wick, in this prequel we will follow Ana de Armas, playing the eponymous Ballerina, an assassin trained by the Ruska Roma, same as John Wick himself, as she seeks revenge for her father’s death. Can’t wait to jump back into this world.

Captain America: Brave New World [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Julius Onah
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Harrison Ford, Liv Tyler & Tim Blake Nelson
Release Date: February 13th
The MCU hasn’t been at its best recently, but last year found some success with Deadpool and Wolverine in the cinema and Agatha All Along (on television), so I am tentatively optimistic about this film, especially as the trailer gives off major 1970’s political thriller vibes.

Death Of A Unicorn [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Alex Scharfman
Starring: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Richard E. Grant & Téa Leoni
Release Date: July 14th
This looks like a fun Dark Horror Comedy, with a great cast. After hitting a unicorn on the way to a business meeting with his boss, Paul Rudd’s character has to first deal with his boss’s family taking over the unicorn’s remains to exploit their restorative powers, and then the unicorn’s mate turning up to extract bloody vengeance.

Frankenstein [imdb]
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz & Ralph Ineson
Release Date: TBC
I have to be honest, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was being made by Guillermo del Toro, I would probably not be interested in this film at all (especially as there is another take on the Frankenstein story also coming out this year). However, I am very interested in seeing Del Toro’s vision for this familiar story.

Happy Gilmore 2 [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Kyle Newacheck
Starring: Adam Sandler, Christopher McDonald, Julie Bowen & Margaret Qualley
Release Date: TBC
This is purely a nostalgia pick for me. Nothing else to it.

Havoc [imdb]
Director: Gareth Evans
Starring: Tom Hardy, Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker & Luis Guzmán
Release Date: TBC
Gareth Evans the writer and director of the brilliant Raid films really knows how to make great action films, and the cast assembled for this film also looks great too.

Karate Kid: Legends [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Jonathan Entwistle
Starring: Ralph Macchio, Jackie Chan, Ming-Na Wen & Joshua Jackson
Release Date: May 29th
Again, this is another nostalgia pick for me. I grew up with the original Karate Kid trilogy and the TV series Cobra Kai has reignited my interest in these characters. Also, I am really looking forward to seeing Jackie Chan on the big screen again.

Love Hurts [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Jonathan Eusebio
Starring: Ke Huy Quan, Ariana DeBose, Sean Astin & Rhys Darby
Release Date: February 6th
This looks like a fun action comedy and I’m glad to see Ke Huy Quan getting a chance to showcase his talents in a lead role, after not being on the screen for such a long time.

Mickey 17 [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette, Steven Yeun & Mark Ruffalo
Release Date: March 6th
This looks like a fun black comedy, and an interesting choice for Bong Joon Ho’s follow up to his award-winning film Parasite. The cast he has assembled is great, and I’m interested in seeing Robert Pattinson play what seems like a lighter tone (for him anyway).

Nobody 2 [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Timo Tjahjanto
Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd & Colin Hanks
Release Date: August 14th
It’s a sequel to the excellent and unexpected Nobody from 2021, Bob Odenkirk returning as Hutch Mansell, the former government assassin living a quiet life in suburbia, who keeps being dragged back into violent conflicts (and somewhat relishing them). This time Hutch and his family will have to deal with someone from his own past.

Novocaine [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Dan Berk & Robert Olsen
Starring: Jack Quaid, Amber Midthunder, Matt Walsh & Betty Gabriel
Release Date: March 13th
Another fun action comedy in what seems to be a year full of them, sees Jack Quaid’s Nathan, a mild-mannered man who suffers from a condition that causes him not to feel pain, going after the people who have kidnapped his girlfriend during a robbery at the bank they work at.

Now You See Me 3 [imdb]
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher & Dave Franco
Release Date: November 13th
OK, I know that the Now You See Me films, about a group of stage magicians committing crimes to right wrongs aren’t seen as great films. Actually, the first one is pretty great, the second one is just fine, however I find them to be a lot of fun and entertaining and am looking forward to this one, with most of the principle casts from the first two films returning.

Predator: Badlands [imdb]
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Starring: Elle Fanning
Release Date: November 6th
It’s a Predator film set in the Future! But hopefully not in a bad way like Alien vs. Predator. Dan Trachtenberg returns to the franchise after reviving it somewhat with 2022’s Prey.

Star Trek: Section 31 [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi
Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Omari Hardwick, Sam Richardson & Kacey Rohl
Release Date: February 25th
Originally planned to be a miniseries, this film sees Michelle Yeoh return as former Emperor Philippa Georgiou of the Terran Empire, rejoining the Federations clandestine intelligence organization Section 31, after the events of season 3 of Star Trek Discovery. I’m a huge Star Trek fan, so can’t wait to see what they bring to the series with this film.

Superman [imdb] [trailer]
Director: James Gunn
Starring: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult & Nathan Fillion
Release Date: July 10th
Now we all know that Warner Bros really screwed up with their previous attempts to create a shared DC universe. They screwed up so bad in fact that they had to bin it all (well most of it) and restart from scratch (sort of). Luckily this time they have put James Gunn in charge, someone who actually seems to like and understand the comics. The first cinematic release of his DCU will be Superman, the first Superhero, and will hopefully get this universe off to a good start.

The Accountant 2 [imdb]
Director: Gavin O'Connor
Starring: Ben Affleck, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, J.K. Simmons & Jon Bernthal
Release Date: April 24th
The first film from 2016 is a very underrated action thriller, so I was surprised that after so many years we were getting a sequel to it. I really enjoyed the first one and am looking forward to seeing how the story continues, with Ben Affleck’s Autistic Accountant/One Man Army Christian Wolff. Anna Kendrick’s Dana doesn’t seem to be returning from the first film, which is a shame as her and Wolff’s unlikely friendship was one of the highlights of the last film.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps [imdb]
Director: Matt Shakman
Starring: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach & Joseph Quinn
Release Date: July 24th
I’m hoping that now the Fantastic Four’s rights have reverted to the MCU, we will finally get a really good Fantastic Four film. I enjoyed the ones from the mid 2000’s well enough (not least because they led to a most excellent cameo in Deadpool and Wolverine last year), however the one from 2015 was just plain awful. Not completely sure how I feel about Robert Downey Jr returning to the MCU as Dr Victor von Doom, but I will reserve judgement and see what they do with him.

The Phoenician Scheme [imdb]
Director: Wes Anderson
Starring: Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johansson & Willem Dafoe
Release Date: February 13th
If you have read my previous Film of the Year blogs, you will know I’m a huge fan of Wes Anderson’s work and you will therefore not be surprised to see that this is on the list. Anderson brings another star-studded cast to what is supposedly an espionage comedy drama film. Not much else is known so far though.

The Thursday Murder Club [imdb]
Director: Chris Columbus
Starring: Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan & Celia Imrie
Release Date: April 22nd
I am a huge fan of the book series that this film is based on and am looking forward to seeing the characters bought to life by a wonderful cast. Set in a luxurious retirement village in Kent, the story will follow a group of retirees attempting to solve a murder, using their past experiences and doggedness.

Thunderbolts* [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Jake Schreier
Starring: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour & Hannah John-Kamen
Release Date: May 1st
The final comic book film on this list, bringing together some of the lesser known and more dubious characters from previous MCU films (Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, Ghost, Taskmaster and US Agent) to team up as a covert operations team, this should be a fun romp at the very least. It should also introduce one of the most powerful characters in Marvel Comics for his MCU debut, so I am looking forward to that.

Wake Up Dead Man [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Rian Johnson
Starring: Daniel Craig, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin & Jeremy Renner
Release Date: TBC
Daniel Craig returns for his third outing as Benoit Blanc, in this star filled sequel to Knives Out and Glass Onion. That is all I have to say about that!

Y2K [imdb] [trailer]
Director: Kyle Mooney
Starring: Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison & Alicia Silverstone
Release Date: January 14th
This looks like a fun comedy about what would have happened, if all our worst fears about what would happen with the Y2K bug had not only happened but been worse and led to an uprising by all technology. A great premise, and the film should be filled with a lot of 90’s nostalgia for me.

Anyway that’s my list, I hope to see all of these this year, will let you know how many make my Top 21 at the end of the year.