{"id":1978649,"date":"2025-08-25T13:09:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T13:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1978649"},"modified":"2025-08-25T13:09:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T13:09:21","slug":"the-10-most-important-movies-left-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/the-10-most-important-movies-left-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10 Most Important Movies Left in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A version of this story appeared in Esquire\u2019s entertainment newsletter, t<\/em>he Cliff-Hanger<\/em>. Sign up here<\/a> to receive weekly criticism of the movie or television show of the moment shipped directly to your in-box.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve written a lot about TV in the Cliff-Hanger. How can I not? The fall TV lineup is incredibly exciting this year<\/a>, and I\u2019m just dying for everyone to catch up so I can finally talk to another human being about these shows. (Mark your watch lists now\u2014HBO\u2019s <\/a>Task<\/a> <\/em>is going to be a big one.)<\/p>\n

But TV isn\u2019t all I do at Esquire. Somehow, I also need to find the time to watch movies\u2014and, you know, write! So after bingeing Alien: Earth<\/a> <\/em>this past weekend, I went to Film Forum in New York City to rewatch Akira Kurosawa\u2019s Seven Samurai <\/em>(1954) on the big screen\u2014hoping that the nearly four-hour sword-slinging masterpiece would shock my system back into movie mode.<\/p>\n

My plan might have worked a little too well. When I got back home, I immediately charted out every movie I wanted to watch for the rest of the year. It\u2019s a long list, but I picked out the ten films that will make or break the rest of 2025 on the big screen.<\/p>\n

The Long Walk<\/em><\/strong> (September 12)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Whatever it says about our current times, stories following desperate people entering life-or-death competitions are all the rage nowadays. The latest entry, The Long Walk<\/em>, follows a group of young men who are forced to compete in an annual walking contest. The winner? The last person still moving. The story is based on one of Stephen King\u2019s earliest novels, from 1979, now adapted to the screen by Hunger Games<\/em> franchise director Francis Lawrence (very fitting). Judging by the first footage of Cooper Hoffman (Licorice Pizza<\/em>), David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus<\/em>), Charlie Plummer (The <\/em>Return<\/em>), and Ben Wang (Karate Kid: Legends<\/em>) walking to their deaths, it looks like an absolutely devastating film.<\/p>\n

One Battle After Another<\/em><\/strong> (September 26)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio finally team up for a film next month called One Battle After Another<\/em>, about an ex-revolutionary\u2014and his daughter\u2014who reunites with his old friends to stop one of their resurfaced foes. \u201cWanting to do this movie was pretty simple,\u201d DiCaprio told Anderson in Esquire\u2019s latest cover story. \u201cI\u2019ve been wanting to work with you\u2014Paul\u2014for something like 20 years now, and I loved this idea.\u201d One Battle After Another <\/em>is Anderson\u2019s first true action flick, <\/em>which also stars Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, Regina Hall, and a pregnant Teyana Taylor firing a machine gun.<\/p>\n

The Smashing Machine<\/em><\/strong> (October 3)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Dwayne \u201cthe Rock\u201d Johnson will step back into the ring to portray former MMA fighter Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine<\/em>, the first feature film directed by one of the Safdie brothers since Uncut Gems<\/em>. The first trailer is riveting\u2014it brandishes A24\u2019s blend of nostalgic charm and self-destruction into another The Iron Claw\u2013<\/em>esque sports drama.<\/p>\n

It Was Just an Accident<\/em><\/strong> (October 15)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

I would reckon this Persian thriller is likely not on your radar, but there\u2019s a very good chance that It Was Just an Accident <\/em>shows up in a big way come awards season. Why? Well, the film won the Palme d\u2019Or at this summer\u2019s Cannes Film Festival, following in the footsteps of recent Best Picture contenders Triangle of Sadness<\/em>, Anatomy of a Fall<\/em>, and Anora<\/em> (which won last year). From what I\u2019ve heard so far, it sounds like a gripping and timely adventure about a former political prisoner who hunts down a man he believes was his torturer. The director, Jafar Panahi, has also been arrested several times himself for speaking out against the Iranian government.<\/p>\n

Frankenstein<\/em><\/strong> (October 17)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cI love monsters,\u201d Guillermo del Toro once said. \u201cI identify with monsters.\u201d Well, the monster master will strike again this October when he releases a book-accurate Frankenstein <\/em>for Netflix. It stars Jacob Elordi as the monster, Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, and scream queen Mia Goth as Victor\u2019s fianc\u00e9e, Elizabeth. We haven\u2019t seen images of Elordi just yet, but I\u2019m hoping it\u2019s more macabre like Robert Eggers\u2019s Nosferatu<\/em> and less like Netflix\u2019s Wednesday<\/em> teen campiness.<\/p>\n

Bugonia<\/em><\/strong> (October 24)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Poor Things <\/em>duo Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos will connect for another quirky drama called Bugonia<\/em> this October. The film follows a beekeeper (Jesse Plemons) who kidnaps a powerful CEO (Stone) because he believes that she is an alien who wants to take over the world. It reminds me of those bizarre lizard-people conspiracies that live in the Internet\u2019s wackiest forums, which is probably why Ari Aster was so willing to jump on board as a producer early into production. Stone won Best Actress at the Academy Awards for Poor Things<\/em>, so I\u2019d expect another strong showing from the pair here as well.<\/p>\n

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere<\/em><\/strong> (October 24)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Springsteen <\/em>receives the honor of this year\u2019s obligatory Hollywood music biopic, with Jeremy Allen White (The Bear<\/em>) pulling off his best raspy impression of the Boss. Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet\u2019s Bob Dylan flick from last year felt like the closest a music biopic has come to moving from being a major awards contender to being a major award winner since Elvis<\/em>. (A reminder: Director James Mangold walked away from the Oscars with seven nominations and zero wins.) But White is a fantastic actor, and Deliver Me from Nowhere<\/em>\u2019s focus on the Nebraska <\/em>sessions seems even more contained than these other massive career-arcing stories so far. I remain hopeful.<\/p>\n

Jay Kelly<\/em><\/strong> (November 14)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Noah Baumbach\u2019s latest film is being described as a \u201ccoming-of-age story for adults,\u201d as A-list actor Jay Kelly (George Clooney) travels through Europe with his manager (Adam Sandler) to reconsider the lives they\u2019ve led and the relationships they\u2019ve burned. Billy Crudup and Laura Dern make appearances as well, costarring in a film that feels tailor-made to cement Clooney\u2019s legacy even more (as if he isn\u2019t already Hollywood royalty).<\/p>\n

Avatar: Fire & Ash<\/em><\/strong> (December 19)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Call me crazy, but I love that James Cameron\u2019s giant CGI blue aliens hold the record for two of the top three highest-grossing movies of all time. (Avengers: Endgame<\/em>\u2019s big purple alien holds the remaining slot.) I don\u2019t know what it says about humanity that we love these characters so much, but I must give credit to this revolutionary technology. And even though Cameron isn\u2019t promoting some new kind of camera that he had to invent to film fire just yet, I have high hopes that this third entry in the Avatar <\/em>franchise is just as riveting.<\/p>\n

Marty Supreme<\/em><\/strong> (December 25)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Chalamet will go for Oscar gold once again in Josh Safdie\u2019s Marty Supreme<\/em>, a sports comedy very loosely based on the life of professional table tennis player Marty Reisman. If Benny\u2019s The Smashing Machine <\/em>will head toward the darker side of sports biopics, Josh and Chalamet\u2019s Marty Supreme <\/em>seems to lean a tad more Hollywood. The Christmas release should bolster the film as well, especially for a year without a Star Wars <\/em>or Marvel team-up to compete with at the box office.<\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A version of this story appeared in Esquire\u2019s entertainment newsletter, the Cliff-Hanger. Sign up here to receive weekly criticism of the movie or television show of the moment shipped directly to your in-box. I\u2019ve written a lot about TV in the Cliff-Hanger. How can I not? The fall TV lineup is incredibly exciting this year, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1978650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[310048,21993,24564,307704,348741,333476,342251],"class_list":["post-1978649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-emma-stone","tag-films","tag-james-mangold","tag-jeremy-allen-white","tag-oscar-isaac","tag-paul-thomas-anderson","tag-victor-frankenstein"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/The-10-Most-Important-Movies-Left-in-2025.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1978649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1978650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1978649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1978649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1978649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}