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2025 Holiday Movie Preview
Here's your calendar to the best holiday movies 2025 has to offer, from Frankenstein and Wicked: For Good to Zootopia 2, Avatar: Fire and Ash, and more.
As the year winds down and the holiday season nears, a slate of highly anticipated films is ready to take over theaters. From dazzling musicals like Wicked: For Good to award contenders such as Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, this season’s lineup has something for every kind of moviegoer. Audiences can expect more adventures in Avatar: Fire and Ash, a long-awaited return with Zootopia 2, and another clever mystery in the Knives Out saga. To help you plan your watchlist, the Rotten Tomatoes staff has rounded up every major theatrical and streaming release to keep on your radar this holiday season.
October
OCTOBER 31
Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest collaboration with Emma Stone centers on a pair of conspiracy theorists who kidnap a high-profile CEO in hopes of unmasking her as an alien with plans to invade Earth.
Directed By:
Yorgos Lanthimos
November
NOVEMBER 7
Sydney Sweeney stars in David Michôd’s biopic about former professional boxer Christy Martin, charting her rise to fame and her relationship with her abusive husband.
Directed By:
David Michôd
Based on Arian Harwicz’s eponymous novel, this dark comedy follows a young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) whose mental health begins to falter after she and her husband (Robert Pattinson) move from New York City to rural Montana.
Directed By:
Lynne Ramsay
After more than 17 years, Guillermo del Toro finally brings his passion project to the big screen, retelling Mary Shelley’s classic tale about a brilliant but vain scientist and the creature he brings to life.
Directed By:
Guillermo del Toro
This historical drama stars Rami Malek as psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who was tasked with determining if Nazi leader Hermann Göring ( Russell Crowe) was fit to stand trial.
Directed By:
James Vanderbilt
The latest chapter of the Predator franchise takes place in the far future and centers the action on a young predator in search of the ultimate prey with the help of a damaged android.
Directed By:
Dan Trachtenberg
This biographical period drama tells the story of Sarah Rector, who became known as the “Richest Colored Girl in the World” when she inherited over 150 acres of oil-rich land as a young girl.
Directed By:
Cyrus Nowrasteh
NOVEMBER 14
This supernatural thriller takes place in a remote Egyptian village, where a humble carpenter, his wife, and their young son Jesus — yes, that Jesus — become the focus of terrifying spiritual warfare.
Directed By:
Lotfy Nathan
In Your Dreams is a wild, heartwarming adventure about siblings Stevie and Elliot, who journey through the bizarre landscape of their own subconscious. Along the way, they face off against a sarcastic stuffed giraffe, zombie breakfast foods, and the queen of nightmares herself. If they can survive the absurd, the Sandman just might grant them the perfect family.
Directed By:
Alex Woo
This psychological horror film follows a woman isolated in a remote cabin who must confront an unspeakable evil lurking just beyond the walls. As reality begins to unravel, she’s forced to face her own fears.
Directed By:
Oz Perkins
The Four Horsemen return in Now You See Me Now You Don’t, joined by a new generation of illusionists. Packed with jaw-dropping twists, it’s a highly anticipated new chapter in the hit franchise where nothing is ever as it seems.
Directed By:
Ruben Fleischer
Set in a near-future where survival is televised, this new adaptation of the Stephen King novel stars Glen Powell as Ben Richards, a desperate man who enters a deadly game show to save his daughter, only to become an unexpected hero.
Directed By:
Edgar Wright
In this action thriller, an undercover DEA agent and his partner find themselves in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a bold new crew of thieves…who turn out to be their own rebellious teenagers.
Directed By:
Michael Dowse
NOVEMBER 21
In The Family Plan 2, Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan return for anotherfamily-fueled adventure. This time, Dan’s perfect holiday getaway goes off the rails when a ghost from his past (Kit Harington) shows up, dragging the family into an international chase across Europe.
Directed By:
Simon Cellan Jones
Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser stars in this dramedy as an American actor adrift in modern-day Tokyo who takes an unusual job with a “rental family” agency, playing stand-in relatives for strangers.
Directed By:
HIKARI
This follow-up to the surprise 2022 action hit brings back Jorma Tommila’s “man who refuses to die” for another round of mayhem. When the Red Army commander who slaughtered his family (Stephen Lang) returns for vengeance, an explosive cross-country showdown erupts.
Directed By:
Jalmari Helander
Based on Denis Johnson’s acclaimed novella, Train Dreams stars Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, a laborer navigating the vast wilderness of the early 20th-century American West.
Directed By:
Clint Bentley
In Jon M. Chu’s conclusion to the popular Broadway musical adaptation, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) face shattering consequences as the forces of Oz close in around them.
Directed By:
Jon M. Chu
NOVEMBER 26
Set in the afterlife, this romantic comedy follows souls who have one week to decide where they’ll spend forever. Elizabeth Olsen stars as Joan, a woman torn between her lifelong partner (Miles Teller) and her first love (Callum Turner), who has waited decades for her arrival.
Directed By:
David Freyne
Detectives Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are back on the beat in a brand-new mystery that takes them to wild, unexplored corners of the mammal metropolis. When a mysterious reptile upends life in Zootopia, the duo’s partnership and trust is put to the ultimate test.
NOVEMBER 27
From Academy Award winner Chloé Zhao, this historical drama tells the intimate story that inspired Hamlet. Set in Elizabethan England, it follows Shakespeare’s (Paul Mescal) wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) and their son Hamnet.
Directed By:
Chloé Zhao
December
December 3
Michelle Pfeiffer stars in this comedy about a beloved matriarch who embarks on an adventure of her own when her family gets wrapped up in their own holiday entanglements and forgets all about her.
Directed By:
Michael Showalter
DECEMBER 5
When a new porter forms an unlikely connection with the youngest daughter of the esteemed Davenport family, his arrival coincides with a disastrous wedding that threatens to unravel the family’s prim-and-proper façade. Think Downton Abbey meets The Favourite, with a twist.
Directed By:
Jim O'Hanlon
One year after the deadly events at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, the haunting continues. Former security guard Mike and officer Vanessa have done their best to protect Abby from the truth, but when she sneaks out to find her animatronic friends, a new terror is unleashed.
Directed By:
Emma Tammi
Jay Kelly, the latest film from Academy Award nominee Noah Baumbach, follows famed movie star Jay Kelly (George Clooney) and his loyal manager Ron (Adam Sandler) on a press tour throughout Europe. Both men confront the choices that shaped their lives. Thoughtful, funny, and bittersweet, critics haave praised Baumbach for his newest feature.
Directed By:
Noah Baumbach
The recent revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s beloved musical comes to the big screen, chronicling the decades-long relationship between a composer (Jonathan Groff) and the friends he abandons to become a Hollywood producer.
Directed By:
Maria Friedman
DECEMBER 12
James L. Brooks (As Good as It Gets, Broadcast News) directs this comedy about a young woman (Emma Mackey) whose success in her demanding political career causes her personal life to spiral into hilariously messy territory.
Directed By:
James L. Brooks
Celebrated anime director Mamoru Hosoda’s latest film follows a sword-wielding princess who sets out to avenge her father’s murder, only to encounter a young idealist who challenges her thirst for vengeance.
Directed By:
Mamoru Hosoda
The holiday horror classic returns in a chilling new form, following an axe-wielding killer who exacts his own twisted form of justice in a blood-soaked spree.
Directed By:
Mike P. Nelson
Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) returns in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. When a revered monsignor turns up dead, Blanc is once again thrust into a web of deceit, faith, and hidden motives. With Rian Johnson at the helm, the next chapter promises another deliciously twisty whodunit packed with wit, secrets, and suspects galore, and has already earned Certified Fresh status on our Tomatometer.
Directed By:
Rian Johnson
DECEMBER 19
The third installment of James Cameron’s epic sci-fi series catches up with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their family as they come into contact with another new Na’vi tribe on Pandora.
Directed By:
James Cameron
This animated musical retells the Biblical story of a young David, who would go on to become the King of Israel.
From director Paul Feig (A Simple Favor) comes this psychological thriller starring Sydney Sweeney as a troubled woman who takes a live-in job with the wealthy Winchester family and discovers this new world of luxury is full of dark secrets.
Directed By:
Paul Feig
Will Arnett and Laura Dern star in Bradley Cooper’s tender, darkly funny look at love, loss, and midlife reinvention, following a struggling separated couple as they navigate co-parenting, identity, and the fragile hope of starting over.
Directed By:
Bradley Cooper
SpongeBob and his friends set off on their biggest cinematic adventure yet as SpongeBob, determined to prove his courage to Mr. Krabs, joins the ghostly Flying Dutchman on a high-seas journey to the deepest depths of the ocean.
Directed By:
Derek Drymon
DECEMBER 25
Jack Black and Paul Rudd play lifelong best friends who set out to remake their favorite childhood movie — the 1997 film of the same name — only for their passion project to take a deadly turn when they encounter a real-life monster in the Amazon.
Directed By:
Tom Gormican
Timothée Chalamet stars in Josh Safdie’s sports comedy as Marty Mauser, a young dreamer and table tennis prodigy whose pursuit of greatness takes him to the edge and back.
Directed By:
Josh Safdie
Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson star in this bigraphical drama as Mike and Claire Sardina, two struggling musicians who form a Neil Diamond tribute band in the 1980s, eventually fall in love, and face life’s new challenges together.
Directed By:
Craig Brewer
