Summer movies 2025: 27 movies from ‘Mission: Impossible’ to Pixar’s latest

The spring movie season proved to be a late bloomer failing to draw people into theaters until Minecraft generated huge rowdy audiences and then Ryan Coogler s Sinners sank its fangs deep into the box office But does Coogler s megahit a daring original work and the loopy Minecraft portend blockbuster things ahead at the summer box office It might Certainly the genre-defiant Sinner s sends out a strong greater part welcome message that movies that are original and dabble in horror can pack fannies into theaters That s because Hollywood is set to unleash a steady stream of horror films from now till the end of August But scares aren t the only thing looming on the summer film horizon Moviegoers can also expect a number of family-friendly offerings franchise entries and even the occasional original comedy or drama Although the summer season doesn t seem to offer another Barbenheimer phenom to send the box office into the stratosphere there are plenty of releases to get excited about Here are specific but by no means all of the films headed to theaters now though late August Note dates are subject to change and this rundown is dedicated to theatrical releases only not such streaming biggies as Charlize Theron s The Old Guard July or Adam Sandler s Happy Gilmore July Jane Austen Wrecked My LIfe May Rom-coms are mostly sitting it out this summer except for Laura Piani s ode to romance and literature Camille Rutherford stars as a Paris bookshop employee getting inspired at a Jane Austen Writers Residency in England where her heart swings into two directions Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning May Various franchises don t know when to throw in the towel see Transformers But we ll say this for Tom Cruise s exciting stunt- and spy-palooza the durable franchise hit a groove at its midway point and just keeps getting better In this action-packed outing maybe it s truly the final chapter or maybe not death-defying spy hunter Ethan Hunt Cruise tries to put the brakes on a gone-rogue AI effort We re there Lilo Stitch May and How to Train Your Dragon June While the occurrence could be made that no one was exactly frothing at the mouth for either of these releases each a live-action adaptation of a beloved animated tale we re holding out hope these reboots are just as charming and touching as the originals Dean DeBlois who helmed the Dragon animated trilogy returns to direct the live-action version while Dean Fleischer Camp s wonderful enchantment Marcel the Shell With Shoes On takes the reins of Lilo Stitch Bring Her Back May Talk to Me directors Danny and Michael Philippou aka RackaRacka follow up their terrifying debut Talk to Me with this new shocker a freaky tale about siblings who uncover something odd that involves their stepmom Sally Hawkins Karate Kid Legends May Nostalgia has inevitably done well in the summer and this foolproof teaming of Ralph Macchio The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai and martial arts superstar Jackie Chan can t help but warm the hearts of young and old alike Ben Wang stars as Li Fong a protege learning all the right moves in director Jonathan Entwistle s ode to the series and the movies The Phoenician Scheme June Bay Area theaters All the kooky Wes Anderson-isms are there quirky characters impeccable production details and a killer cast Benicio del Toro Michael Cera Mia Threapleton Riz Ahmed Tom Hanks Scarlett Johansson Benedict Cumberbatch and more Even the story sounds positively Andersonesque as a wealthy man del Toro decrees his riches to his nun-daughter Threapleton at the same time that his new venture curries the attention of certain nefarious types Life of Chuck June If there s one filmmaker that Stephen King fans can trust to do the author proud it s Mike Flanagan Medical practitioner Sleep The Fall of the House of Usher King s novella comes from his If It Bleeds collection outstanding go read it and takes us through phases in the life of Charles Chuck Krantz The hitch here is that it catalogues it in reverse A delicate not ham-fisted approach is required o pull something like this off We re willing to bet Flanagan was a good choice Tom Hiddleston and Jacob Tremblay star Ballerina June If you re a John Wick fan you won t want to miss watching Ana de Armas playing tough ballerina Eve Macarro undergoing rigorous training so she can join the Ruska Roma ranks If you have no idea what that means you ve got a lot of John Wick catching up to do before diving into this spinoff Fremont native Len Wiseman directs Materialists June Pity poor East Coast matchmaker Lucy Dakota Johnson She s adored not only by a cute ex Chris Evans but a very sexy suave and rich new guy Pedro Pascal looking fab in a tux Filmmaker Celine Song s follow-up to her justly praised Past Lives explores the transaction of love and how passion s fickle nature debunks clear-headed formulas and theorems Elio June When Emeryville-based Pixar blasted off to outer space in that journey netted one of its best features WALL-E Will the stars align again with its th animated feature Looks like it Their latest outing about a lonely young space enthusiast hobnobbing with alien galaxy leaders sounds intriguing and per Pixar s standards heartwarming Years Later June You can perpetually count on a batch of hangry zombies to give you the creeps The previous entries in this freak-out franchise Danny Boyle s Days Later and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo s Weeks Later certainly ate its way right into our nightmares Boyle returns to direct an impressive cast Jodie Comer Ralph Fiennes Aaron Taylor-Johnson Everything s Going to Be Great June The pairing of Bryan Cranston and Allison Janey as a career show-biz couple dealing with particular family matters and scrappy regional theater productions guarantees we ll want to see this one Bride Hard June Wedding plans get turned upside down due to spy games in this comedy starring Rebel Wilson as a super agent mucking up her bestie s big day The trailer looks promising F June Brad Pitt revs up movie fans engines with Top Gun Maverick director Joseph Kosinski s race-car drama He lands the moody role of a Formula racer who gets a shot of redemption three decades after a crash appeared to have ended his career Jurassic World Rebirth July The fresh Jurassic incarnations got way too silly for their own good Supposedly this reboot with Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey gets back into the spirit of the original from Steven Spielberg With Gareth Edwards jumping into the director s seat we have high hopes Acres July Afrofuturist thrillers don t get much more compelling or suspenseful than director R T Thorne s astonishing feature debut Danielle Deadwyler stars as a mother standing her ground and defending her home turf from a nasty pack of famished haters Sorry Baby July Bay Area theaters Actor screenwriter director Eva Victor performs a tightrope walk with their acclaimed Sundance debut that recounts the techniques that New England professor Agnes Victor copes and moves through the aftermath of a traumatic event Naomi Ackie co-stars Superman July George Reeves Christopher Reeve Henry Cavill Each actor has portrayed the comic-book icon from Smallville and beyond who turned into a do-gooding journalist and superhero Now let s welcome David Corenswet to that tough act to follow He carries a lot on his broad shoulders since the DC film empire has been struggling James Gunn appears to be the right director to turn things around though The pooch looks cute too Eddington July Could Ari Aster soar back to Heritage or Midsommar heights after that Beau Is Afraid letdown We think so The idiosyncratic filmmaker s latest might well be the definitive COVID- -related thriller An all-star cast Austin Butler Joaquin Phoenix Emma Stone Luke Grimes Pedro Pascal and so on see hot tempers boiling over in a New Mexico town after a sheriff and a mayor get into a major scuffle Since this is Aster expect the unexpected The Fantastic Four First Approaches July With the MCU now revitalized thanks to Berkeley native Jake Schreir s Thunderbolts fans can only hope that there will be at least one good theatrical movie made out of the exploits of Marvel s First Family So far the three that came before have been duds Now it s WandaVision director Matt Shakman s time to step up to the plate with a cast that includes Pedro Pascal Vanessa Kirby Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach He might well hit it out of the park Together July Palo Alto native Dave Franco and Alison Brie who are married in real life play a stuck-in-a-rut married couple venturing to the country to live where they run smack into selected body horror craziness Director writer Michael Shanks squirmable film was a hot ticket at Sundance The Naked Gun Aug Berkeley-born director Akiva Schaffer reboots one of the most of irreverent gag-filled cop comedies ever and gives Liam Neeson a role to relish playing lethal weapon Lt Frank Drebin Jr the son of Frank Senior a role immortalized by the late Leslie Nielsen The trailer is one of the funniest ones of the summer The Bad Guys Aug This rascally animal from DreamWork Animation s runaway hit which is based on a book series runs afoul of a new lawless band the Bad Girls The simple fact that Sam Rockwell returns to voice Mr Wolf should get us into the theater Weapons Aug Zach Cregger s Barbarian ranks as one of the best horror debuts but will lightning strike twice for the guy who just now produced one of s biggest surprises Companion We certainly think so after watching the Weapons unsettling trailer In his diabolical follow-up a trainer Julia Garner becomes a region pariah after her entire class vanishes into the dead the very dead of night Freakier Friday Aug More than two decades later Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan reunite to play Tess and Anna mother and daughter who swapped bodies in the funny comedy a remake of the original movie with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris This time it looks like the body hopping will extend throughout the family We have high hopes too given what Nisha Ganatra previously directed The High Note and Late Night Splitsville Aug The crack duo Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin behind the hilarious and cringey boy-man comedy The Climb cycle their way through another squirm-inducing comedy Marvin stars as an amiable guy seeking relationship counsel from his married friends Covino and Dakota Johnson after his wife Adria Arjona says she wants to call it quits What he gets is more than he bargained for