Holiday preview 2025: The 12 movies we’re most looking forward to

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It wouldn’t be an awards season without a few last-minute gifts under the tree, set to sweep the table clear. This year, those include everything from Timothée Chalamet’s cosmic ping-pong epic “Marty Supreme” to a new “Avatar” sequel from James Cameron, whom we’ve learned to never count out on Oscar night. We’re also looking forward to the kind of dumb counterprogramming that Christmas miracles are built on. A new “Anaconda” awaits, a prospect that can’t be ignored. Leave room in your movie diet for candy that’s semi-bad for you. One can’t feast on tearjerkers alone.

The only guide you need for holiday entertainment.

‘Hamnet’ (Nov. 26)

A wife and husband embrace in front of their home with children between them.

Since its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, Chloé Zhao’s aching story of love and loss has won audience awards at festivals around the world: London, San Diego, Toronto, Spain. If Telluride had such a prize, it would have won there too as it left moviegoers openly weeping as they waited in line for the restrooms afterward. Perhaps the prospect of this kind of emotional devastation gives you pause. Would it help if I told you that the first part of the movie, detailing the courtship of a young Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) in love, is primal and electric? And that Jessie Buckley, playing the Bard’s future wife, is so extraordinary that she’ll go on to win more honors than the movie itself? Just go see it. There’s no better place to cry than in the darkness of a movie theater. — Glenn Whipp

‘The Secret Agent’ (Nov. 26)

A man looks out of a movie theater's projection booth.

This Brazilian import by director Kleber Mendonça Filho killed us at Cannes. It’s the kind of zippy, immersive crime thriller that reminds you of the international lingua franca that Scorsese all but invented with “Goodfellas.” As the country’s ’70s-era military dictatorship wreaks havoc, decent people privately put up a complex resistance over years. The real reason you need to see this one is Wagner Moura, who you may have noticed in “Civil War” and Netflix’s “Narcos,” but who here makes a persuasive bid to join the highest echelon of leading men: furious, impassioned and haunted by a backstory conveyed with a minimum of means. — Joshua Rothkopf

‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ (Dec. 5)

Two animatronic creatures appear out of the dark, menacingly.

More rampaging animatronic puppets? Yes, please. If you think we’re kidding, slow your roll: The first one, which we didn’t hate, understood the ominous, moldering potential of a kiddie restaurant gone to seed. And with a cast that includes Josh Hutcherson, Mckenna Grace and a mini-“Scream” reunion in Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich, the horror faithful should line up for a second helping of trauma. Breathe in this factoid for a second: The first “Freddy” is far and away Blumhouse’s highest-grossing movie, more than “Get Out” or “M3GAN,” by $120 million. People like this franchise. You could too. — Joshua Rothkopf

‘Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair’ (Dec. 5)

A woman in a yellow tracksuit wields a katana blade.

The recent craze for revivals and re-releases has spurred something many fans have long clamored to see: Quentin Tarantino’s complete “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.” While the film was broken up into two parts for its original release, this new assembly combines the two versions (with a few tweaks) to fully convey the wild genre mash-up of Tarantino’s original vision. In its tale of a woman fighting her way through a list of people who wronged her on the way to the man who betrayed her, “The Whole Bloody Affair” makes Uma Thurman’s performance even more impressive as she slashes her way toward revenge, redemption and an unlikely grace. — Mark Olsen

‘Ella McCay’ (Dec. 12)

Three people have a tense conversation in a largely empty bar.

James L. Brooks is one of Hollywood’s great humanists — and Lord knows we need those more than ever. Fifteen years since releasing his previous film “How Do You Know,” the “Broadcast News” and “Terms of Endearment” writer-director returns with a political comedy set in the Obama era about an idealistic lieutenant governor (Emma Mackey) thrust into the power seat when her mentor, played by Albert Brooks, heads to Washington. With a stacked cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Rebecca Hall and Kumail Nanjiani, “Ella McCay” promises to deliver what this filmmaker does best: funny, clear-eyed storytelling about the quiet heroism of trying (and sometimes failing) to do the right thing. — Josh Rottenberg

‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ (Dec. 19)

Oona Chaplin as Varang in the movie “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

(20th Century Studios)

After 2009’s “Avatar” reprogrammed the blockbuster, James Cameron showed no signs of coming up for air. Second sequel “Fire and Ash” plunges Jake and Neytiri into fresh conflict as their family faces down a ruthless Na’vi clan known as the Ash People. With Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang and Kate Winslet returning, this third installment promises a darker, more emotional turn and another leap in visual ambition. And with two more sequels already in the works, Cameron seems determined to outlast not just his critics, but possibly civilization itself. — Josh Rottenberg

‘The Housemaid’ (Dec. 19)

Paul Feig’s flair for crowd-pleasers about catty women has been tilting from comedy to thriller ever since the cult success of 2018’s “A Simple Favor.” He’s a good pick to direct this adaptation of Freida McFadden’s dark and pleasingly pulpy bestseller about a maid who moves into a family’s posh home and makes a major mess. All eyes will be on Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried playing, respectively, a damaged servant and her new boss, but I’m curious to get a longer look at the star potential of Brandon Sklenar (“It Ends With Us,” “Drop”), who is emerging as a leading man. — Amy Nicholson

‘Is This Thing On?’ (Dec. 19)

Bradley Cooper’s two previous efforts as director — “A Star Is Born” and “Maestro” — had the air of purposeful masterworks, looking to make bold, sweeping statements about life and art. For his latest film, “Is This Thing On?,” there’s the feeling of a step-back, an attempt to make something smaller, simpler and looser while no less emotionally committed. Will Arnett shows previously unexplored dramatic depths as a man who, in the free-fall of an impending divorce, undertakes stand-up comedy as a therapeutic release. The result is a tender, bittersweet ballad to anyone who feels they may not be fully over yet, especially when indications say otherwise. — Mark Olsen

‘Anaconda’ (Dec. 25)

Four friends have high hopes in the woods.

Even if you have fond memories of the ultra-silly 1997 original and the four official sequels it shed, it’s a fair bet you don’t remember any plot details. Nor do you need to. Big snake. People getting chomped. That’s it. To go a step further, this meta-comedy reboot will almost certainly be a lot smarter than what’s come before. Two middle-aged friends — Paul Rudd and Jack Black (recapturing his gleam-in-the-eye mania from “School of Rock”) — decide to remake their favorite guilty ’90s pleasure as a no-budget indie flick. After their snake handler’s docile specimen has an onset mishap, the real thing slithers into view. — Joshua Rothkopf

‘Marty Supreme’ (Dec. 25)

A man plays ping pong with intense concentration.

Timothée Chalamet learned guitar to play Bob Dylan in last year’s “A Complete Unknown.” That’s impressive, but I’m more eager to see his pingpong skills in Josh Safdie’s biopic loosely based on 1958 men’s singles table tennis champion Marty “The Needle” Reisman, who flipped the script on Theodore Roosevelt by speaking loudly with a very small paddle. The buzz is that Chalamet has been coached by former American Olympian Wei Wang and that “Marty Supreme” might be the all-too-rare Oscar contender that’s game to take a big swing. As a bonus, it’s got one of my favorite rising starlets, Odessa A’zion. — Amy Nicholson

‘No Other Choice’ (Dec. 25)

A man in a suit sits uncertainly at a job interview.

A longtime passion project for filmmaker Park Chan-wook, this adaptation of a 1997 Donald Westlake novel somehow feels up-to-the-minute timely. Dedicated Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), a veteran employee at a paper company, loses his job following a corporate buyout and struggles to find work that will provide for his family. Out of desperation, he plans to kill off any competitors for a promising new job he’s interviewing for. In part thanks to the lead performance by “Squid Game” star Lee, there is a warmth and charm to go along with Park’s exacting craft and formalism in this vicious satire of the zero-sum mindset of current economies. — Mark Olsen

‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ (Dec. 25)

Two married religious people hug on a bed.

This is a genuinely strange movie, but that’s the vibe you want from a film that tackles the life of the founder of the Shakers religious sect, doing so in the form of a musical, complete with songs (more like chants) and dances that pulsate with whirling-dervish fervor. Amanda Seyfried gives it her all playing the title character, the real-life leader of a movement devoted to gender equality and sexual abstinence. It’s directed by Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote it with her partner Brady Corbet, making this something of a supplement to “The Brutalist” (including both films’ Oscar-winning composer Daniel Blumberg). You’ll learn a lot about the Shakers and maybe not enough about Ann Lee beyond her zealotry. But the herky-jerky song-and-dance sequences are wild, a potent reminder that America has long been the land of the free and the home of the rave. — Glenn Whipp

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