Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme.
A24
If you spent your summer on the beach or travelling overseas then you might have missed some great movies. Don’t worry, though, 2025 still has plenty left to give. The weather is changing and so, too, are the movies. Out go the blockbusters, sequels, and IP franchises and in comes a season of hopeful Oscar contenders and the prestige sheen of auteur-driven projects. Over the next four months we will see both Safdie brothers debut new movies, the return of Paul Thomas Anderson, and the latest instalment in the Avatar series. Elsewhere there are movies touching on subjects including nuclear disarmament, college campus politics, art fraud, and alien invasion. Add a Bruce Springsteen biopic into the mix and you have a season jam-packed with intrigue and excitement. Ahead, find our guide to what you should be watching for the rest of the year.
Him
Universal Pictures
Stars: Tyriq Withers, Marlon Wayans
Opens: September 19
Anything Jordan Peele is involved in arrives with an instant seal of quality. Peele produced Him, a sports movie that goes deep into the psyche of elite athletes and asks tough questions about what it takes to succeed. Deploying comic actor Marlon Wayans in a darker and more challenging role as an NFL player that torments a rookie prospect at an isolated training facility, feels like an inspired piece of casting.
One Battle After Another
Warner Bros. Pictures
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor
Opens: September 26
Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie since 2021’s Licorice Pizza is an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the leader of a group of ex-revolutionaries forced to reunite to save his young daughter. Teyana Taylor also stars in a cast that includes Regina Hall, Benicio Del Toro, Alana Haim, and newcomer Chase Infiniti.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first movie since 2021’s Licorice Pizza is an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the leader of a group of ex-revolutionaries forced to reunite to save his young daughter. Teyana Taylor also stars in a cast that includes Regina Hall, Benicio Del Toro, Alana Haim, and newcomer Chase Infiniti.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Stars: Rose Byrne, A$AP Rocky
Opens: October 10
Mary Bronstein’s new movie isn’t about a life-altering incident but rather the hundreds of small irritations and inconveniences that slowly push therapist and mother Linda (Byrne) to the edge of a psychological break. A bold and unflinching depiction of the often unbearable load placed on women, the movie is already generating Oscar buzz for Rose Byrne.
The Mastermind
MUBI
Stars: Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim
Opens: October 17
Kelly Reichardt’s patient cinema often tells her stories with a quiet urgency so it will be interesting to see how she captures the rush of emotions brought on when a suburban family man (O’Connor) begins living a double life as an art thief in the 1970s. The Mastermind/i> received the Palme D’or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and stars Alana Haim alongside Reichardt regular John Magaro.
Bugonia
Stars: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemmons
Opens: October 24
There are few cinematic pairings more rewarding in recent history than Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos. The actor-director combo have had great success with both The Favorite and Poor Things and reunite once more for Bugonia. This remake of the cult South Korean sci-fi movie Save the Green Planet! stars a shaven-headed Stone as a CEO kidnapped by two men who suspect she is an alien.
Die, My Love
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence
Opens: November 7
Jennifer Lawrence, an Oscar-winner at just 22, has excelled in movies that make the most of her willingness to commit and present her characters with the handbrakes off. Perhaps Die, My Love, in which she plays a mother experienced a psychological break following the birth of her first child, will join the likes of Winter’s Bone and Mother! in the Lawrence canon. The harrowing and raw story also marks the return of the excellent Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, whose 2002 movie Morvern Callar counts among the best of the century so far.
100 Nights of Hero
Stars: Emma Corrin, Nicholas Galitzine, Maika Monroe, Charli XCX
Opens: December 5
Charli XCX has a lot of movie projects in the pipeline with 100 Nights of Hero being one of the first to arrive in theaters. The historical fantasy film is based on Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel about a diabolical bet made between two men and the forbidden relationship neither of them know about.
Hamnet
Stars: Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley
Opens: December 12
Hamnet is a fictionalized story about the playwright William Shakespeare, his wife, and the death of their 11-year-old son from filmmaker Chloé Zhao. Critics who viewed the movie at the Venice Film Festival described it as “emotionally shattering” and a film that “rips your soul out of your chest.” Remember to bring tissues.
No Other Choice
Stars: Lee Byung-hun
Opens: December 25
Work is a killer in South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s latest effort. The black comedy captures the state of the world in sensationalist fashion with a story about a man who, frustrated in his efforts at landing a new job, begins murdering those applying for the same roles as him.
