Five films to look forward to this year

Five films to look forward to this year
By Sir Elly G
1. Elio
Pixar has ticked off toys, fish, monsters, cars, superheroes, elves and emotions. Now cinema’s smartest animation studio has made a cartoon about aliens: Elio. Its hero is a shy young boy who is obsessed by outer space, so he is delighted to be beamed up to the Communiverse, the intergalactic home of intelligent lifeforms from all over the universe. The only snag is that these intelligent lifeforms have mistaken him for the supreme leader of planet Earth. Elio might not be able to match the success of Pixar’s last film, Inside Out 2, which was the highest grossing film of 2024, but it’s certainly promising, not least because its co-director, Domee Shi, made the glorious Turning Red. And it might make a stellar double bill with another of 2025’s cartoons, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which has Daffy Duck and Porky Pig saving the world from an alien invasion. It releases June 2025.
2. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
Twenty-four years after Bridget Jones’ Diary, Renée Zellweger returns in the fourth film in the series as middle-aged Bridget, with a different life but the same qualities that made her popular in the first place. She’s still an adorable bumbler in life. In the romcom, based on Helen Fielding’s 2013 novel, Bridget is now a widow, after the death of Mark (Colin Firth in the earlier films), and is the mother of two small children. Single again in a new world of dating apps, she looks horrified when a co-worker says, “I’ve set you up on Tinder”, And once more she is torn between two appealing men: Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a teacher at her children’s school, and a 29-year-old called Roxster (Leo Woodall). Hugh Grant returns as Daniel – Uncle Daniel to Bridget’s children – along with Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones as her parents and Shirley Henderson and Sally Phillips as her loyal best friends, Jude and Shazz. Releases on 13 February.
3. Sinners
Michael B Jordan and director Ryan Coogler have formed an exciting collaboration that goes back 12 years, from Fruitvale Station through Black Panther and Creed. Their fifth film together is a socially conscious horror story written by Coogler. A bulked-up Jordan plays twins, Elijah and Elias, in a period piece set in the 1930s. When one of the troubled twins returns to his hometown in the South to start over, he only finds more trouble, which includes Jim Crow-era violence, as well as snakes and supernatural evil. “I ain’t never seen no demons, no ghosts, no magic – till now,” Jordan says in voiceover in the creepy, enticing trailer. Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Delroy Lindo and Wunmi Mosaku also star in the film, which was shot in New Orleans by the great cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever). Coogler hasn’t made a weak film so far, and Sinners should continue that streak. Releases 18 April 2025 in the US and UK.
4. F1
F1 stars Brad Pitt as a 1990s car-racing champion who comes out of retirement to mentor a rookie, played by Damson Idris. One selling point is that the film was shot at real racing circuits, and features numerous real Formula One drivers. But another intriguing aspect is who it doesn’t feature. F1 reunites several key members of the Top Gun: Maverick team, including director Joseph Kosinski, screenwriter Ehren Kruger, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and composer Hans Zimmer. In other words, Tom Cruise is just about the only one of the team who is missing. And considering that Cruise starred in Days of Thunder, a car-racing drama produced by Bruckheimer, F1 does raise a fascinating question: why didn’t Cruise star in this, too, and call it Days of Thunder 2? Releases June 2025.
5. Avatar: Fire and Ash
Avatar: Fire and Ash is due to come out a mere three years after Avatar: The Way of Water, which is no time at all by the standards of its director, James Cameron: there were 13 years between the first two Avatar films, and 12 years separating Avatar and Titanic before that. Still, it’s not as if Cameron has to rush to pay the bills. His last three films – Titanic and the first two Avatar instalments – are three of the four highest grossing films ever released (Avengers: Endgame is the other). Will Avatar: Fire and Ash join them in box-office history? Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña are back as blue-skinned Na’vi on the moon of Pandora – and this time they’re up against a tribe of Na’vi baddies, the “Ash people”, who live in a volcano. If you fancy seeing more CGI-heavy sci-fi sequels in 2024, there’s also a third Tron film, Tron: Ares, in October, and Jurassic World Rebirth, starring Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali, in July. Releases December 2025.