The best new movies of 2025 so far

We’ve made it to 2025, the year movie studios are hoping box-office returns will return to pre-COVID levels. That means it’s the year movie studios have been punting some of their biggest planned releases to, leading to an overstuffed schedule full of blockbuster-hit hopefuls, from Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash to Jurassic World Rebirth, James Gunn’s Superman, Disney’s Zootopia 2, and Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It’s going to be an overpacked year — but we’re still in the early stages of it, meaning that many of the year’s best movies so far are smaller, stranger, more specific, and more personal than the blockbuster lineup will be. Here are Polygon’s personal picks for the year’s best movies so far, in a constantly updating list.

These movies are listed in reverse chronological order, so the newest release will always be at the top.

How we pick the best new movies of the year

The Shrouds

Where to watch: In theaters

The Shrouds follows Karsh (Vincent Cassel), a tech billionaire who recently lost his wife. To cope, he created burial shrouds stuffed with cameras that allow the wealthy to observe their loved ones as they decompose, never losing touch with them even in death. But when someone vandalizes his experimental cemetery, Karsh dives into a seemingly infinite well of conspiracy and paranoia about who’s out to get him. 

We’re so lucky to have David Cronenberg. It’s easy to imagine a director with as long and storied a career as his (50 years at this point) would lose touch with modern life, and instead The Shrouds feels like the perfect, defining film of our current moment of tech-induced isolation and internet-based paranoia. At the same time, The Shrouds is also Cronenberg’s wonderful and moving tribute to his late wife, and the power that love has to make people hold on to anything they can, even bones. There’s simply no other filmmaker who could make this movie or pull those ideas together cohesively, and somehow Cronenberg makes it all seem effortless. —Austen Goslin

Death of a Unicorn

Where to watch: In theaters

Death of a Unicorn’s hook isn’t complicated: Estranged dad (Paul Rudd) and daughter (Jenna Ortega) strike an animal that sure as hell looks like a unicorn on their way to a weekend with dad’s filthy rich pharmaceutical bosses (Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, and Richard E. Grant), who become bent on exploiting the creature’s miraculous healing powers. That is, until two bloodthirsty unicorn parents arrive for vengeance.

But rarely are genre subversions like Death of a Unicorn so dedicated to both sides of their peanut-butter-and-chocolate mix. As a creature feature, Unicorn adroitly assembles its cast of assholes that desperately need to be eaten by a monster, and by jingo, do they ever get eaten. But as a unicorn fantasy about the uncanny connection between a mythical creature and pure-hearted young maiden, it’s equally dedicated. Horror fans, find a horse girl friend — or vice versa — and give this one a watch. —Susana Polo

Read Rafael Motamayor’s full review of Death of a Unicorn.

Black Bag

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango

Spy thrills are built on mistrust. But marriages aren’t. That dichotomy sets up Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag, an elegant little spy drama about George (Michael Fassbender), an intelligence agent who’s trying to hunt down a mole from a group that includes his beloved wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett).

Black Bag is a great example of what makes Soderbergh so delightful no matter the genre: As George navigates a labyrinth of love and loyalty, Black Bag feels like it winds up the perfect kind of mousetrap. The film is packed to the brim with spy games and taut, tense scenes, and yet it washes over you with the cool and airy feeling of an ocean wave. It’s a luxury that feels like it absolutely earns its air of cool — and its ample twisty turns. —Zosha Millman

Mickey 17

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango

Parasite and The Host writer-director Bong Joon Ho is back to his usual thematic obsessions in Mickey 17. Those include wry, angry commentary on how capitalism makes a few people into predators and a lot more people into prey, and parodies of familiar political figures (in this case, Mark Ruffalo as an unquestionably Trump-inspired corrupt, self-serving politician). But while his movies have always come with both warm humor and scabrous satire, Mickey 17 is more comic and antic than most of his work, for both better and worse.

Based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel Mickey7, the movie follows Robert Pattinson as Mickey, the latest clone of an awkward, ill-fated sad sack who signed away the rights to his body to a dystopic spacefaring company. Frequently used for lethal experiments and likely-to-be-lethal projects, Mickey winds up in an awkward situation when he unexpectedly survives a mission and finds out that his indifferent owners have already decanted a second clone. It’s Black Mirror-style dark science fiction, but with an outright goofy edge (particularly in Pattinson’s dual role and exaggeratedly weird vocal inflections) and a tremendously ambitious story packed with fast-paced world-building, character-building, and sympathy-building. —Tasha Robinson

Read Toussaint Egan’s full review of Mickey 17.

In the Lost Lands

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango

The latest genre epic from Hollywood’s foremost nerd power couple Milla Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson isn’t adapted from a video game, like their Resident Evil movies or Monster Hunter. Instead, the pair turned to an old short story from one of Jovovich’s favorite authors: George R.R. Martin. The result is one of the most exciting and audacious genre movies of the year, despite what other critics might tell you.

Jovovich plays a powerful witch cursed to accept all requests for her help. This draws her into a complicated web of political intrigue when the queen (Amara Okereke) asks her to hunt a werewolf, and one of the queen’s attendants asks her to fail. Jovovich’s witch hires a hunter (Dave Bautista), and the pair venture across the desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland on their quest. Like most Anderson projects, the movie is stylish, exciting, and ambitious in its visual aesthetic, and showcases the kind of attention to detail and technical skill that can make genre projects like this sing. —Pete Volk

Read Pete’s full review of In the Lost Lands.

Paddington in Peru

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango

The third Paddington movie, thankfully, is a worthy addition to the franchise. This time, the Brown family leaves the comforts of London and embarks to “Darkest Peru” in search of Paddington’s missing aunt Lucy. It’s a jungle adventure — with a very Paddington twist, meaning the villains are goofy and over the top and almost anything can be solved by being polite and offering up a delicious marmalade sandwich. We’re still missing Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Brown, but new cast members Antonio Banderas and Olivia Colman commit fully to the hijinks for a roaring good time. Did the ending make me tear up a little? It sure did! That’s the Paddington way. —Petrana Radulovic

The Gorge

Where to watch: Apple TV Plus

Apple TV Plus’ original creature feature plays like a slick adaptation of a video game that never existed — a little bit Resident Evil, a little bit Silent Hill, more than a little Left 4 Dead. But what really makes it stand out is the opening slow-burn character work. Director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange) and writer Zach Dean (Fast X) set up Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller as as military agents from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, each ordered to guard opposite sides of a mysterious, isolated gorge. Their mandate: a year on duty, and no contact with each other. When they start to break the second rule, the actors and the script both make the gradual thaw seem natural, appealing, and honestly sexy. By the time all monster hell breaks loose, their determination to protect each other seems natural — especially in the face of all the inhuman horror they’re facing. This one is fleet, exciting, and honestly sweeter than most run-and-gun action-horror. —TR

Heart Eyes

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango

Heart Eyes is about a pair of young adults, one who believes in love and one who doesn’t, as they’re hunted by a killer who murders couples on Valentine’s Day. The only catch is: They aren’t actually a couple. It’s a terrific premise, bolstered by an incredibly funny script (co-written by Happy Death Day’s Christopher Landon) and a truly excellent performance by Mason Gooding (Scream), who’s giving a new hilarious line reading just about every minute he’s on screen. On top of all that, the movie’s surprisingly scary, but always in a fun way, with some shocking deaths and some intense chase sequences. Few movies this year have been as funny as Heart Eyes or as scary, which makes it even more remarkable how well it does both. —AG

Presence

Where to watch: For digital rental/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango

Presence is a movie shot entirely from the perspective of an unseen ghost. The film follows a teenage girl whose family just moved into a beautiful new house. Her brother is clearly the family’s golden child, but the girl soon begins to think that something otherworldly is watching her from inside the house. From there, the movie unfolds a complex tragedy of a family that’s drifting apart and struggling to connect with one another on every level. 

Director Steven Soderbergh is an absolute master of pop experimentation, and Presence is him at the top of his game. While the premise may sound like a tiring gimmick for a bad horror movie, Soderbergh has the good sense to turn Presence into a wonderful, achingly sad family drama instead. Through the ghostly perspective, Soderbergh makes our perspective on the action seem both intimate and invasive, allowing the performances to be slightly bigger than they might be in a more traditional movie. The effect is an excellent melodrama that never feels like it’s overplaying its hand. —AG

Read Tasha Robinson’s full review of Presence.

Den of Thieves 2: Pantera

Where to watch: Netflix, or for digital rental/purchase on Apple TV, Amazon, Fandango

If Den of Thieves was lovingly called “Dirtbag Heat,” Den of Thieves 2: Pantera is closer to “Dirtbag Mission: Impossible.” The sequel moves the action from the wide-open streets of LA to the narrow roads of Nice, as Gerard Butler’s grimy cop Nick O’Brien joins the crew of ex-Marine expert thief Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) on a massive diamond heist based on the largest diamond heist in history.

It’s a smart pivot for the franchise, leaving some of the baggage of the first movie behind and trading Michael Mann influences in for those of William Friedkin and Jean-Pierre Melville. Butler and Jackson navigate the transition from enemies to frenemies with aplomb, giving the movie a nice mismatched buddy comedy flair, and the European setting allowed for writer-director Christian Gudegast to make action movie history with an excellent and groundbreaking electric-car chase through Alpine mountain roads. Den of Thieves 3 is on the way, and I can’t wait to see what the next reinvention of this heist franchise looks like. —PV