DrogeMiester's Top 10 Movies of 2025

Another year has come and gone. As such, it’s time to share my personal favorite movies from this past year!

My introductory spiel that I often share at the beginning of these posts is yet the same again. 2025 was a good year for movies! And if that sounds like a broken record, it’s because every year is a good year for movies! Sure, every year has its own style or personality. Different genres or types of movies will shine each year. And of course it’s different for everyone, because movies are art and art is subjective. There’s no right or wrong answer to what is good or bad. Just personal preference. And if you see enough movies or you know where to look for the type of movie you like, I think you can find good entertainment or meaningful quality in every year.

I also always like to make mention to people that I have not seen everything that was released. No one has. A quick point of illustration, I have an Excel chart where I keep track of box office numbers. I include every movie that opened to at least $100,000 or has a $2,000 per theater average. In 2025, there were 377 movies that hit those parameters. And that’s not even close to being fully comprehensive. And it doesn’t include anything from streaming or festivals. So when I say there’s a lot I haven’t seen, there you have it. Letterboxd claims I logged 183 movies in 2025, but that’s everything – not just new releases from 2025. By my own count, the list of new movies I watched was close to 100. And of those, I’ve got the top 10 for you in this post.

That said, even if I can’t watch everything, I’m usually pretty cognizant of what I know I’ll like and am thus good at prioritizing what to watch. Thus I always say these lists could change as the months or years go by, but oftentimes they don’t. At least not drastically. However, this year there are a few big ones, especially some international releases, that have evaded me. Ones that could easily notch very high, thus I did my best to wait as long as I could… but so far to no avail. As tradition, I’ve often posted this in late January, shortly after Oscar nominations. And thus as we are in that range right now, I decided that it’s time to just shrug the shoulders and post the list. But keep tabs on my social media or follow me on Letterboxd. If there’s a major update, I will share. I’m not going to re-write this blog post. That remains as a stamp in time for this very moment. But I’m always open to updating the Letterboxd list if I find something worthy of the cut. Whether it be in a week or a year, you’ll be able to see this updated list over on Letterboxd, as well as many other lists like this. In fact, I’ve almost not done this post and just shared the Letterboxd list, but I enjoy doing one final write-up as a means of closure and celebration of everything I’ve watched the past year, so let’s get going!

10- Black Phone 2

Minor spoilers for 2022’s “The Black Phone,” a surprise hit that summer that I really enjoyed – because it’s impossible to talk about “Black Phone 2” without mentioning the ending of “The Black Phone.” But what do you do with a horror sequel when you killed the villain at the end of the first? Easy. You straight up Freddy Krueger that dude! Horror has had a very strong presence in the last few years and that was definitely true in 2025. One reason why “Black Phone 2” stood out so much to me was that they took a huge swing with this sequel and for me it really payed off. Horror sequels are the easiest to slip into regurgitated slop, especially when it’s so easy to gain huge profits off small budgets, thus minimizing the need for effort in order to be seen as a success. But Scott Derrickson clearly had no desire to be lazy and generic here. He took a creepy kidnapper from the first movie, which was almost more of a crime thriller than a horror film and turned him into a supernatural monster that haunts your dreams and nightmares. Death is just a word and doesn’t get rid of someone just because you thought you had them killed. It’s an ode, not just to “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” but to several other classic horror franchises, yet it still manages to put the tension, suspense, and atmosphere first and foremost, while also making good use of the family relationships and the PTSD our characters from the first movie are going through. All this means a horror icon was created with Ethan Hawke’s Grabber and I certainly hope we are able to return to his world again soon!

9- Marty Supreme

A movie that seems like it was made specifically to get Timothée Chalamet his Oscar, which had me a tad bit skeptic going in, but Timmy completely won me over with an absolutely insane performance that might legitimately be the best of his career, which is saying something when you scroll through his filmography. I don’t say that to be cliché. If he wins his Oscar, it will have been for the correct movie. And it’s really a match made in heaven with Josh Safdie pulling the strings here. He is one half of the Safdie Brothers duo and he proved here that he just might be the driving force of the two of them. If you look at “Good Time” with Robert Pattinson or “Uncut Gems” with Adam Sandler, the Safdies definitely know how to get the most out of their lead actors, with absolutely insane performances. “Marty Supreme” lines up perfectly with those two movies, which should’ve been heavily nominated films, but I guess were too weird for Academy members in the 2010s. But it’s a different Academy now and Josh Safdie has broken through, leading “Marty Supreme” to 9 Oscar nominations. If you’re looking for a nice, feel-good sports drama, “Marty Supreme” is NOT your movie. Ping Pong may be the backdrop, but the real story here involves the pursuit of greatness and the crazy, insane things people will go to in order to achieve those heights, especially when their world gets shattered and their ego disrupted. Will lessons be learned or will pride cause our protagonist to spiral out of control and into destruction? If he achieves his goal, at what cost will it come?

8- The Long Walk

Perhaps one of the most surprisingly engaging and intense movies, considering all they do in the movie is walk. Get a group of young adults and force them to walk until they’re dead. They don’t stop walking until there’s only one left. All on a volunteer basis in this dystopian future with an authoritarian government, with the promise of a great reward for the winner. Based on the 1979 novel from Stephen King, who had a very good year in 2025, with two adaptations of his in my top 10, and a third via “The Monkey” in my honorable mentions. Plus “IT: Welcome to Derry” in the TV realm. Yet the two that made my top 10 are two that I would NOT consider horror films, putting them more in the category of “The Shawshank Redemption” or “The Green Mile” in regards to them being more inspirational dramas as opposed to horror. With “The Long Walk” I expected things to get violent and intense. What will you do to survive when push comes to shove in situations like these? Desperation turns to violence in the likes of “The Hunger Games” and “Squid Game,” two things that had to have taken inspiration from the Stephen King novel to some degree. But what really got me emotionally was that when these kids were pushed to fight and destroy each other by this oppressive government, they instead stood strong together, creating emotion bonds that, instead of leading to fun horror death sequences, created devastating trauma. An emotional tearjerker, I was not expecting. But it turned out to be a movie that I didn’t realize I needed with very strong parallels to current events that includes lessons we could learn from these kids.

7- Wake Up Dead Man

Our next entry managed to hit a very specific, nostalgic niche for yours truly. At a very young age I was reading whodunit mystery thrillers. I think I read every “Boxcar Children” book in the first years of Elementary School, before graduating to reading all of the “Hardy Boys” in the later years of Elementary School. This fascination with the mystery thriller has maintained a presence throughout my life. So when I sat down to watch this in a crowded theater (the proper setting for these films, Netflix), I became immediately immersed in what I think may be Rian Johnson’s best “Knives Out” movie yet. I’m convinced that this franchise started with Rian needing an escape from a certain venomous fan base after a movie of his wasn’t met with the warmest welcome. What better way to escape than to sit down and hammer out a movie script? Regardless of initial intention, this has blossomed into a necessary franchise in today’s cultural zeitgeist, bringing audiences together in a sort of ironic way, given how it started. Yet this movie isn’t easy to digest, which is never something Rian has been interested in, which is one of the reasons I’ve always connected with him as a filmmaker. Yes, including said movie that shall not be named. He has a sharp, bold style that I really respect. And each of these “Knives Out” movies have been very different, culminating in this third film that might be the most deeply rich and introspective film yet. It’s not just a murder mystery set with the backdrop of a cultish, small town church. The movie has a lot to say that will leave you pondering long after the end credits roll, even if it is just on Netflix in your bedroom that you’re watching. I’m fully invested in this franchise and as long as Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig want to keep making these, I will be there to watch.

6- Thunderbolts*

I honestly feel like I’m the final passenger remaining on the MCU train. Everyone else jumped off and is enjoying the bashing session, treating Marvel as if they’ve devolved into Sony level quality in the comic book realm. Yet I’m still up here enjoying the ride. In fact, I often get a chuckle when I’m chatting with someone about movies and they excitedly want to talk to me about how terrible everything has been after “Endgame,” as if they expect me to join in on the hate. Nope! Sorry, friend. Instead, I get to go on my rant about why Marvel still rocks and why their recent slate is extremely underrated. No time to dive into all of that here, of course, but I will certainly make a case as to why this movie centered around a ragtag group of B-Listers is one of their strongest entries yet. For the lack of a better description, this is Marvel’s version of DC’s “Suicide Squad,” but it’s a lot more than just “creating a team” to “fight off a big baddie.” This is a movie that dove deep into the emotional vulnerabilities of these side characters who were seen as castaways or nobodies. If you’ve ever felt like your invisible or unimportant in the grand scheme of things, these are the emotions this movie deals with in a very mature way. The lack of A-List star-power is the point. And it’s effective. Yet, sadly, because there was no “Captain America” or “Iron Man” level of superhero in this cast, the casual person did not care to show up for this one as it became a financial disappointment for Marvel. And to me that was very discouraging to witness because the world missed out on a great one and I fear that Marvel is going to learn all the wrong lessons based on the movie that people didn’t show up for. And that’s why I’m a bit nervous for the big event at this year’s end, but that’s a discussion for my next post.

5- Frankenstein

If I told you that Guillermo del Toro is doing an adaptation of “Frankenstein,” you’d probably have an idea in your head as to exactly how that would play out, especially if you’re a fan of del Toro’s other films. And you’d be absolutely correct. We live in an era of an endless amount of remake, sequel, and franchise affair, partially because Hollywood is a business and those are the types of movies that people have proven that they’re willing to see, but yet there’s still a good amount of fatigue in that regard, creating a bit of an awkward circle of consumerism. Yet in the midst of all that, Guillermo has impressively presented a masterclass of how to properly pull off a remake or new adaptation. And this isn’t even his first rodeo. In 2022 we had a fascinating showcase regarding “Pinocchio,” where both Disney and Guillermo had new versions of the story that stood in stark contrast of each other – Disney showing how not to do a remake, with Guillermo pulling off perhaps the best version of the story. And he’s done it again three years later with “Frankenstein.” Ultimately this comes down to intent. It feels like these are stories that Guillermo wants to tell, not something that he’s contractually hired to do by a studio seeking to cash in on a trend. But it’s not just the desire that makes it work, it’s combining that with the talent to pull it off. Despite the hundreds of times we’ve seen “Frankenstein” adapted, this feels like Guillermo had the desire to create a faithful telling of Mary Shelley’s original novel, which has surprisingly not been done too often. Yet it also felt unique to Guillermo’s own style, an impressive balance that created quite the marvel of a cinematic experience – one in which if you actually saw it in a theater instead of on Netflix, you were richly rewarded.

4- Hamnet

I never wrote a review of “Hamnet” on my Facebook page, partially because I didn’t know how to. This is an extremely difficult movie to talk about with addressing the elephant in the room of what actually happens in the middle of the movie, that many might see as a major spoiler. Nevertheless, I do think it’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into with this movie, so that you’re emotionally prepared for what’s about to happen. The characters are William and Agnes Shakespeare. The subject matter is dealing with the death of a child. But it’s not just sad for the sake of being sad, what some might call “trauma porn.” At its core, it’s a movie that explores the idea of dealing with grief and how different people process the loss of a loved one in different ways. The movie smartly builds up to the “event” by making you invested in these characters and their stories, which then allows you to mourn with them instead of feeling sorry for them as an outside observer. You feel the loss. You feel the grief. And if you have a heart, it will destroy you. This was a very unique theatrical experience in that I saw this on a Tuesday evening in a crowded theater and I’ve never been in a theater watching a movie where there were so many tears and sniffles heard throughout. And I confess, it got me. I was one of them. We all had a communal cry as we were not only suffering with these characters, but also being reminded of our own loved ones who had passed away. Yet it’s the movie’s final sequence that really drove this home for me. Jessie Buckley’s Agnes is watching the play “Hamlet” and you can feel the emotional catharsis that she’s experiencing. Without words being spoken, there’s a feeling of acceptance and the true processing of grief. The wounds and the scars will always be there, but there’s a feeling of moving forward experienced that is absolutely beautiful. Jessie Buckley is steamrolling through awards season, winning everything in her path, on the way to an eventual Oscar trophy. And it will be one of the most deserving wins that I can remember.

3- The Life of Chuck

I suspect most people reading through this list will at least have heard of most of these movies. But if I have one entry on here that has completely flown under the radar that you might not have heard of, this is the one. I’ll try not to spend too much time on my frustration towards NEON with this, but since 2010, there had been only one winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival that had not at least been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars – that was 2011’s “Where Do We Go Now?” Sadly, “The Life of Chuck” became No. 2. Because NEON picked it up and dumped it in the middle of the following summer – giving it zero awards push. The win at TIFF was deserved. It should have best picture and screenplay nominations, with Mark Hamill and Tom Hiddleston being in the acting races. Oh well. The movie is the second Stephen King adaptation on this list and is split into three sections. When I say that Chuck is a character, played by Tom Hiddleston, who dies. That’s not a spoiler. That’s how the movie opens. This mysterious man named Chuck dies and that signals the end of the world, for some reasons. Then we go backwards through time to help us learn why. And that’s where the emotional impact really hits hard. It’s a movie about death that shares the importance of life. The universe is big, grand, and vast. There’s lots to explore and admire. But the universe also has YOU. And that might be the most important element of it. It’s easy to get lost and feel unimportant when you step back and look at the big picture of everything. But this is a movie that drives home the importance of the individual. YOU matter. YOU are important. YOU are irreplaceable. There’s great things for YOU to accomplish, so go do them. And if that’s simply making the difference in just one person’s life, then it was all worth it in the end.

2- Superman

I will happily stand firmly alone on the Marvel train, defending their recent works. But deep down, I’ve always been a DC boy at heart. I’ve never been sure as to why I can’t enjoy both, but it is Superman and Batman that I grew up with, both the old films and the 90s cartoons. Which is why it absolutely pained me throughout the 2010s to watch Zack Snyder and absolutely wreck and destroy my favorite characters, while also having to witness the Snyder fan base worship him as their Lord and Savior. Best thing to happen to DC was Marvel firing James Gunn from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. Sure, they caved into pressure and let him back for one final ride, but the damage had been done. He’d moved over to DC. After a critical successful venture with “The Suicide Squad” (the poorly named 2021 film) and a season of “Peacemaker,” that was enough for Warner Bros. and DC to take a chance on him leading their whole universe, closing the book on the Snyderverse and beginning a new journey. Given Gunn’s passion and knowledge of comics, I had all the confidence in the world that he would deliver and this was easily my most anticipated movie of the year. And to my great joy, he did. He not only knocked it out of the park with a Superman that did justice to the Christopher Reeve films, he created a Superman that was true to the comics, feeling like a live action adaptation of the 90s cartoons. It’s a lived in world where the comic book universe of heroes is already established, providing hope for many great adventures to come. After a decade-long nightmare with the Snyderverse, Gunn has once again allowed me to feel hope about my favorite childhood universe. Will I be in love with every single adventure? No, I don’t expect that. But this was a dang good start. Like Guillermo with “Frankenstein,” Gunn had the inner passion to fuel this adventure and the talent to pull it off.

1- Sinners

If I told you there was a movie that now exists that is a vampire horror musical… that also plays as a western, a period piece, and a coming of age drama, you might give me a really fun look and say, “Wait, what?” And yes, I’ve had that conversation on multiple occasions throughout the year with people who aren’t moviegoers when I try to explain what my favorite movie of the year is and why. My reply is that you just have to trust me that it works. This is one of the most ambitious projects ever made and yet Ryan Coogler showed that he had complete control of it every step of the way. This doesn’t work just because it is a terrifying horror film – perhaps one of the best vampire movies we’ve seen. It doesn’t work just because it has a lot to say, and extremely effectively, I might add, about the history of music. It doesn’t work just because of the messages it has to say about racism and tribalism throughout the years. It works because it does all of that. And a lot more. It shouldn’t work. It should be too much. Too crowded. Too much to say. Too many characters. Not focused enough. And I’m certain that those are the risks that Ryan Coogler was very much aware of, yet managed weave around and create a beautiful tapestry. A movie that stands, not only as a really good film, but a generational epic. A movie that needs to be witnessed for yourself in order to truly understand. I admit it feels a little weird to claim that the movie that has now set the record for most ever nominations at the Oscars is my favorite of the year. That feels like I am jumping on a bandwagon and riding the hype. But I’d make the claim I was part of the initial group that started that train down the tracks. And it makes me happy to see where it ended. There was no question or no debate here. The moment I walked out of the theater, I had the feeling that I had just witnessed an all-time great. The easiest 5-star review I’ve ever given on Letterboxd. This isn’t just the movie of the year for me. It challenges “Everything Everywhere All at Once” for my favorite movie of the decade so far. Four years from now when I’m finalizing that list, it’s going to be an awfully hard choice between those two.

Movie Preview: January 2026

Another year has come and gone. In fact, we’re almost two weeks into the new year, which means it’s about time I start getting some posts out, reflecting on 2025 and looking forward to 2026. First order of business is doing a deep dive into January, given that we’re nearing the halfway point on the month. Luckily for my sake, there was very little that came out in the first two weekends of the month. Only one release in the first weekend that barely crossed 1,000 theaters. Two proper wide releases in the second weekend that was the real kick-off to the year. And in typical January fashion, they both got mostly ignored.

In actuality, there’s not a whole lot of big new releases on the calendar this month, anyways. There is a decently high quantity of smaller releases crammed into the final three weekends of the month, though. And we’ll cover all of those alongside the smaller amount of bigger titles, after briefly recapping the titles in the first two weekends. And that leads into my typical January spiel. Movie quality is 100 percent subjective. There’s no right or wrong answer to what is bad or good. Just personal taste. But January is often seen as more of a “dumping ground” month as studios typically save movies they have higher faith in for the summer months or various holiday corridors. And the more prestigious titles aiming for awards get saved for the end of the year. That leaves the new January releases in an awkward spot as titles that got dumped on the calendar. And they often get overshadowed at the actual box office by the holiday holdovers that people are catching up on or awards affair that got released at the end of the year and are expanding as we get deep into awards season.

Given that I’ve already talked about the holiday titles in last month’s preview, as well as most of the awards affair, the main goal with this post will be to focus on the new January releases, although we’ll mention a few others along the way as it becomes necessary. Again, there’s a high quantity of smaller releases on the schedule, even if the quality can debated, so let’s dive in and see what’s available and perhaps discover a few hidden gems along the way!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers-com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

January 2 – 4

Vertical Entertainment's "We Bury the Dead"

When the clock struck midnight and the new year was upon us, I had the realization that I had a January preview to write. And I panicked a bit, especially since I got sick and was low on energy. Then I looked at the schedule leading into the week and… there was no wide releases planned.

That first weekend was dominated by holdover releases, primarily “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and “Zootopia 2” as the main events. “Avatar” made another $41.4 million in its third weekend in release, finishing the weekend with $307.7 million total domestically. “Zootopia 2” stayed in second place in its sixth weekend in release, dropping just 2 percent from the previous Christmas weekend to make another $19.4 million domestically. It had $364.0 million domestically by the end of the weekend. Both of these have also been huge worldwide hits. As of my writing this post, on January 13, “Avatar” is currently at $1.2 billion worldwide, while “Zootopia 2” is at $1.6 billion. Thanks in part due to a huge run in China, the latter has also past “Frozen 2” to be the highest grossing worldwide release for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Right below these two massive hits, “The Housemaid” and “Marty Supreme” have become sleeper hits. As we dive deeper into the actual January release schedule, these four movies will continue to draw audiences in.

As it turns out, there did wind up being one new wide release this weekend. It wasn’t on the radar of any site I had looked at going into the weekend. The common weekend preview was “no wide releases this weekend as holdovers set to dominate.” But when actual results came in, We Bury the Dead ended up making $2.5 million from 1,172 theaters. So not a major wide release, and that $2.5 million was only good enough to end up in 11th place on the weekend, but wide enough for me to feel obligated to mention it in this post. The movie initially premiered in March 2025 at the South by Southwest Film Festival and stars Daisy Ridley as a woman on the hunt for her husband as a military experiment gone wrong killed many people off the coast of Tasmania, while turning many others into brain dead zombies. It got decent reaction from those who gave it a shot, with an 85 percent critics score, although general audiences were slightly less enthused as the audience score on the opposite side of that is just 47 percent.

January 9 – 11

Paramount's "Primate"

This second weekend of January is where the real fireworks began in regards to the true opening films of the month. There were two major wide releases that we’ll talk about, as well as two minor releases to mention briefly. That said, despite two new wide releases, both opening in just under 3,000 theaters, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” remained on top in its fourth weekend with another $21.5 million. “The Housemaid” actually snuck ahead of “Zootopia 2,” in third place with $10.9 million, while “Zootopia 2” fell to fourth with just a hair above $10 million. “Marty Supreme” slipped down to sixth with $7.6 million, but with Oscar nominations around the corner, it could soon be in for another boost.

Opening in second place was the horror movie Primate, which was a minor upset over the other wide release that we’ll get to in a second. When I initially wrote this post, I had these two movies listed in reverse order, but now we switch. “Primate” is a horror film centered around a killer chimpanzee that goes mad and kills everyone around it in very bloody, brutal fashion. It apparently rather quickly lets you know what type of movie it is, letting you know right away if its your thing or not. Perhaps the less important part of the movie – the plot – centers around a group of friends going on a vacation to Hawaii. The lead friend is named Lucy, played by Johnny Sequoyah, and they’re actually heading to her family home in Hawaii. The chimp, that later gets bitten and turned rabid, was initially their family’s pet chimp as opposed to some random ape that caused havoc. Most of the cast are likely just meat sacks that are there to get torn apart by the chimp. The movie opened to $11.1 million, which is not bad considering it had a budget of just over $20 million. Going into the weekend, the expected range was $7-10 million and it hit just above that. The thing that likely pushed it over the edge was last minute TV spots that focused on audience reaction and strong reviews. Said reviews wound up being slightly more moderate (79 percent from critics), but that was good enough advertising to get enough people out.

The movie that initially was poised as the biggest opener, but wound up disappointing, was the Gerard Butler led disaster sequel Greenland 2: Migration. The first movie opened in the midst of COVID, and wound up going straight to PVOD in the states, while earning just over $40 million from various international markets. That movie was the latest in a surprisingly long streak of Gerard Butler disaster flicks and had him and his family venturing off to bunkers in Greenland to avoid a potentially catastrophic comet. Diving too deep into this sequel’s plot will spoil the ending of the first, so we’ll tread carefully. The existence of a sequel that also stars Gerard Butler might clue you in on a few things, but I’ll just say simply that the sequel deals with the aftermath of the first movie’s events. A survival flick in a post-comet world, if you will. The lack of a domestic theatrical release for the original did make prognostication for a sequel a little tricky, but Butler has been a bit of a mainstay in January. Last year at this time he opened “Den of Thieves 2” to $15 million, while in 2023 on this exact weekend, he opened “Plane” to $10.3. While not in January, fellow Gerard Butler disaster flick “Geostorm” opened to $13.7 million in October 2017. So an opening in the $10-15 million range seemed like a safe bet. But for whatever reason – lack of interest, subpar reviews, or the lack of a theatrical release for the first – this sequel opened down in fifth place with $8.4 million, behind “The Housemaid” and “Zootopia 2,” but just ahead of “Marty Supreme.”

That’s it for the major wide release, but there are two moderate releases to mention. The first of those is actually the nationwide expansion of Bradley Cooper’s latest film Is This Thing On?, which went from 33 theaters to 1,475 theaters this weekend, earning $2.3 million on the weekend as it settled in just below the top 10 in 11th place. It had previously made just over $1 million in its three weekends of limited release. The movie centers around Will Arnett, who plays a stand-up comedian trying to make due in New York as his marriage in unraveling and he’s facing divorce. The movie co-stars Laura Dern and Andra Day, as well as Bradley Cooper in a supporting role, with him also having written and directed the movie. Cooper has become a bit of an Oscar darling as of late as his first two movies he’s directed, “A Star is Born” and “Maestro” were both showered with Oscar nominations. He’s also had several acting nominations dating back to “Silver Linings Playbook” in 2012. Despite all of that, with 12 total nominations when you count acting, writing, directing, and producing, he’s not yet had a win. Which is why Searchlight smartly positioned this as a potential awards player, with the idea that maybe third time is the charm for Cooper. It hit the festival run starting in October. It had it’s limited release in late December, with an expansion in the biggest part of awards season. And while we’ll see what happens on Oscar nomination morning, but so far with precursors, it’s been blanked, despite having decent reviews. For whatever reason, it just didn’t connect with voters. The lack of awards buzz makes it simply a traditional adult-targeted drama instead of a must-see awards film, but there’s definitely still a place for that type of release.

Coming in the caboose of all this was the opening of the latest Angel Studios flick, I Was a Stranger. This was actually announced by Angel Studios back in September as a movie that was going to be given a limited release in late December, while expanding in January, exactly like the previous movie we just talked about. But for whatever reason, and without much of an updated announcement from the studio, the limited release never happened and instead they simply opened it in 1,400 theaters this weekend. The movie also had a long journey to get to theaters in the first place as it was written and directed by Brandt Anderson and is set in the backdrop of the Syrian Civil War, telling several different interwoven stories from different families that come together during tragedy. The script was written in 2017, but Brandt couldn’t get it off the ground initially, so he first adapted his story into a short film called “Refugee” that made the Oscar shortlist in 2020 for best live action short. It didn’t end up with a nomination, but that was enough for the full movie to finally get made and released. Angel Studios has found a niche for themselves with Biblical animated features, but their live action films typically fall in the $3-5 million range for their openings. This one fell below that with just $1.2 million. Positive reaction from those who have checked it out, but not much fanfare leading up to it’s release and thus poor results when awareness mostly doesn’t exist.

January 16 – 19 

Sony's "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple"

And now we move forward to four-day holiday weekend with Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, which is certainly the busiest weekend of the month in regards to the quantity of releases. How big they’ll all be at the box office is more debatable, but we’ll get into that. The biggest new release of the weekend, which should also be the biggest release of the month is 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. This franchise began in 2003 with “28 Days Later,” then mostly regurgitated the same plot four years later in 2007 with “28 Weeks Later.” The franchise then took an 18 year hiatus before returning last year with the widely acclaimed third movie, “28 Years Later,” which itself was mostly a springboard to a new trilogy, of which the first and second movies were filmed back-to-back, which is how we’ve gotten this sequel just six months later. Without getting into too much plot, the final act of “28 Years Later” had the characters arrive at the Bone Temple. In regards to what that means, you’ll have to watch the film and find out. But the general idea is that this is a zombie flick, where the outbreak has been contained to a certain area. And now it’s been 28 years and things have certainly evolved as our characters journey out to the land of the infected. After arriving at the Bone Temple, this is where the sequel takes over, as it’s title would suggest. In regards to this newly planned trilogy, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, who both worked on the original 2003 film, returned for last year’s entry. And while Garland has remained as writer, it was Nia DaCosta who directed “The Bone Temple,” with Boyle on as producer while he finished his directing duties on the previous entry. Boyle is set to return as director, with Garland again as writer, in the final entry of this trilogy. Last year, “28 Years Later” opened to $30 million, which is the goal for this second one, although current expectations are a tad bit lower in the $18-25 million range.

While audiences set out to watch “The Bone Temple,” along with all the previously mentioned holdovers that should continue to do well over the holiday weekend, there are an additional trio of smaller releases that will be scattered in some markets. As of typing this post, I don’t have any official theater counts, but looking at my own local showtimes, it appears the widest opening of this smaller trio will be All You Need Is Kill, a new anime film released by GKIDS, based on a 2004 Japanese novel of the same name, that was adapted into a manga a decade later in 2014. The story follows Keiji Kiriya, a new recruit in the United Defense Force. The soldiers are sent out into battle, armed with powered exoskeletons, against a mysterious alien species that have attacked Earth. Upon attack, Keiji is killed by one of the aliens, but somehow wakes up and finds himself back in the day before the battle, stuck in a time loop. And if this premise sounds familiar, it was adapted into the live-action film “Edge of Tomorrow” in 2014, directed by Doug Liman and starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. This new anime, though, is a more direct adaptation of the novel and manga as opposed to an American live-action remake. Anime has done pretty well at the box office recently, so don’t count this one out. Although recent successes have been mostly movies attached to popular anime series.

Next up with these smaller releases is the horror film Night Patrol. This is a movie that premiered at Fantastic Fest in September 2025 and is about a Los Angeles police officer that discovers a local task force that’s hiding a major secret. The trailer and poster suggests vampires, but perhaps there’s more secrets to be revealed as the movie goes on. This movie is co-distributed by RLJ Entertainment and Shudder. There’s a lot of these smaller horror films headed to the Shudder streaming service where Shudder teams up with an indie studio, usually IFC or RLJ, to give a brief theatrical release before putting it on their service. With RLJ, their biggest Shudder team-up last year was “Clown in a Cornfield,” which opened to $3.6 million from 2,277. That movie had more of a marketing push and higher awareness, though, so the other RLJ and Shudder film from 2025 might be the better comparison, that being “Ash,” which opened to $689,144 in 1,136 theaters. With poor reaction and low awareness, “Night Patrol” is likely mainly a streaming attraction, but the option will be there this weekend for some to go check it out.

The final small wide release of this trio is the animated film Charlie the Wonderdog, from Viva Pictures. This is a movie about a dog who gets superpowers after being abducted by aliens, and teams up with his kid owner to fight an evil cat that’s threatening humanity. The movie is small enough to not even have it’s own Wikipedia page, so if you’ve not heard of this, then don’t feel bad. That said, they did recruit Owen Wilson to voice the superdog in this movie. Viva Pictures is a very small animation studio as their biggest box office hit is “The Amazing Maurice” from 2023, which made $4.3 million total at the domestic box office. Last year they released “Pets on a Train” in 1,350 theaters, opening to $821,777, as well as “Grand Prix of Europe” in 950 theaters, opening to $370,490. Both of these towards the end of the year. But if the kids need something new to see over the holiday weekend and this happens to be in a theater close to you, this is an option, even if it’s not likely to be a big release or hit the top 10.

While that’s it for new wide releases, there’s also a trio of notable wide expansions over the holiday weekend. Going quickly through these, the most notable one is No Other Choice, which is South Korea’s official entry for best international film at the Oscars. This comes from director Park Chan-wook (“The Handmaiden,” “Oldboy”) and is about a man who goes to the extremes for new employment after being unemployed for several years. This has done very well in limited release, earning $1.4 million last week from just 147 theaters, outgrossing Angel Studios’ “I Was a Stranger,” despite the latter being in 1,400 theaters. In three weeks total of limited release, it’s already earned $3.7 million.

Not an Oscar film, but Gus Van Sant’s latest film Dead Man’s Wire will be expanding nationwide after earning $154,100 from 14 theaters the previous weekend. Van Sant has had a long, prestigious history as a filmmaker, but has two Oscar nominations, for “Good Will Hunting” and “Milk,” so some film lovers might be curious as to what he has up his sleeve next. The movie stars Bill Skarsgard and Dacre Montgomery, while also featuring Cary Elwes, Colman Domingo, and Al Pacino in the cast and tells the story of a 1977 event where Tony Kiritsis went into the office of Richard Hall, his mortgage broker, and held him hostage for 63 hours with a sawed-off shotgun wired with a “dead man’s wire,” meaning if the police shot Tony, the shotgun would go off and kill Richard Hall as well. This hostage event held the media and the police captive for this 63-hour period. The film is written by Austin Kolodney, who heard of this story via a podcast episode, then reached out to the makers of the 2018 documentary “Dead Man’s Line” to help him research and compile the information for the movie.

The final notable expansion will be The Choral, which is a British historical drama that premiered last year at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, then had it’s theatrical release in the U.K. in November. The movie is a World War I drama starring Ralph Fiennes and is about a choral society in a fictional town in England with an unconventional new choirmaster who challenges the towns conventions and helps the choir be a refuge for wounded soldiers, conflicted lovers, and men facing potential mandatory military service during the heavy emotional cost of a nation at war, all this leading to a performance of Edward Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius,” chosen because it was not written by a German. The movie was released in America in 4 theaters around Christmas, expanded to 17 theaters this past weekend, and will now expand into enough to be considered a nationwide expansion. It’s made $110,194 here so far in that limited release, as well as $6.9 million internationally.

And if all that’s not enough, Universal will be re-releasing the 2005 DreamWorks Animation hit Madagascar into theaters nationwide. So if parents have already taken their kids to “Zootopia 2,” and are not interested in “Charlie the Wonderdog,” or don’t have that as an option at their local cinema, a holiday trip to see “Madagascar” in theaters is also a choice that can be made. And perhaps burying the lede of all of this, the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings will be in theaters this weekend in celebration of their 25th Anniversary. On Friday, “The Fellowship of the Ring” will be in theaters, on Saturday will be “The Two Towers,” and on Sunday “The Return of the King.” This pattern will be repeated the following weekend on January 23 – 25.

January 23 – 25

Amazon MGM's "Mercy"

However the giant snow globe of the previous holiday weekend shakes out, with the nine new options for audiences, this fourth weekend of January will be a more traditional January weekend with three new options entering the market. The headlining act will be the sci-fi action film Mercy. Starring Chris Pratt, the movie is set in the “near future,” where a detective is on trial for murdering his wife and has 90 minutes to prove his innocence before the A.I. judge determines his fate. Previously in this story’s narrative, this detective, played by Chris Pratt, was one of the early champions of this new A.I. judiciary system and now has to go below a 92 percent probably of guilt or he’s going to get executed when the timer runs out. Chris Pratt is, of course, doing a lot of heavy lifting in the advertising as Amazon MGM, the movie’s distributor, is relying on his star power of being in just about every new franchise these days to sell audiences on this original sci-fi movie. Despite his massive franchise success, Pratt hasn’t done a whole lot of non-franchise, solo films, so this will be a test to see how many tickets his name can sell for a random January sci-fi film. The trailer also tries to elevate the movie’s prestige by noting it’s from “an Oscar-winning producer of ‘Oppenheimer’.” While true (said producer is Charles Roven), they are disguising the fact that this is from director Timur Bekmambetov, director of the 2012 film “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” and the 2016 remake of “Ben-Hur” that you probably forgot existed. The projection here is $10-15 million for the opening, which, depending on how the previous weekend’s battle of “Avatar” vs. “The Bone Temple” shakes out, should at least be enough for a top three debut.

Next on the schedule is the return of the Silent Hill horror franchise, aptly titled Return to Silent Hill. The first movie in the franchise was released in April 2006 and was directed by Christophe Gans. It was based on the 1999 video game “Silent Hill.” And while it got mostly panned by critics (a 33 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes), it performed well with a $20.2 million opening and has had a decent following since. It took them 6 years to release a sequel, “Silent Hill: Revelation” in 2012. Lionsgate also brought on a different director and made the movie a direct sequel to the first film rather than adapting another game. That sequel was not met with any sort of good reaction as it only opened to $8 million and had a matching 8 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes that make’s the first movie’s poor score look quite well. That type of reaction to a sequel does a great job of killing a franchise, which is why we’re now 14 years removed for a third movie. Fans of the first film might be excited at the idea that director Christophe Gans is back for this third film and the movie is based off a game, “Silent Hill 2.” It remains to be seen as to what the awareness of this movie is. And the major gap of time doesn’t help, but there definitely should be a niche crowd that is accepting of this movie’s existence.

In what feels like the lesser of the three new releases, in terms of box office potential, that is, is the musical drama Clika. This tells the story of a small town musician who pushes to carve out a place for himself in the new wave of Mexican-American music after a clip of himself performing one of his songs goes viral. Box Office Pro currently has this projected to open in the $2-4 million range, which feels appropriate, but it is worth noting that this is Sony and the trailer for this has 9.2 million views. Trailer views doesn’t always equate to box office numbers, but at the very least Sony has the potential to push awareness, especially if they manage to tap into Mexican-American market or the Latino community in general.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Oscar nominations are scheduled to be announced on the morning of Thursday, January 22. There’s always a handful of movies that expand into more theaters following the nominations after the newly found curiosity that the nominations have provided. “Hamnet” and “Marty Supreme” are certain to benefit from this. We might even see “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another” get put back into some theaters, even though they were early releases in 2025 and are available to stream on HBO Max. As mentioned in the previous week, “No Other Choice” will have already expanded at this point, but other international films such as “Sentimental Value,” “The Secret Agent,” or “It Was Just an Accident” could also expand. One other film here that is more on the periphery for nominations but is scheduled for it’s official wide expansion anyways is The Testament of Ann Lee, a movie that tells the story of the Shaker movement in the 18th Century with it’s founder Ann Lee, played by Amanda Seyfried. The movie has had great reviews, especially highlighting Seyfried’s performance. It’s being distributed by Searchlight, who does have a great history with the Oscars, but it hasn’t quite hit the sweet spot for awards precursors so far, for whatever reason. It’s best shot is probably Seyfried getting in for best actress, which is a potential upset nomination. Awards or not, this movie has been hiding in 4 theaters since Christmas and will finally be available for mainstream audiences to check out.

January 30 – February 1

20th Century Studios' "Send Help"

This final weekend of January in years past would actually be Super Bowl Sunday, given that Sunday is the first Sunday in February. Super Bowl Sunday has often been a weekend that Hollywood has avoided. But since the NFL expanded to a 17-game season and moved the Super Bowl to the second Sunday in February, Hollywood has had a hard time figuring out how to adjust to that. We’ll dive into that more next month, but this final weekend of January has a big horror film, a controversial documentary, and a handful of indie films that will try to do their best to make a name for themselves.

Beginning with the horror film, 20th Century Studios (so technically Disney) will be releasing Sam Raimi’s new flick Send Help. The movie stars Rachel McAdams as Linda and Dylan O’Brien as her boss Bradley. In the work scenario, Bradley is a sexist jerk who treats Linda terribly, but the tables turn when they are both stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash and suddenly it’s Linda who has control of the situation. Raimi was known as a horror director after helming the Evil Dead franchise in the 80s and 90s, as well as movies such as “A Simple Plan,” “The Gift,” and later in 2009 “Drag Me to Hell” before then doing the Spider-Man trilogy in the 2000s and becoming known as one who helped lead the modern superhero craze. So him returning to direct horror/thriller for the first time since “Drag Me to Hell” in 2009 certainly has the attention of horror fans, even though the trailer makes this look more along the thriller side of things (but perhaps surprises in the second half?). January is has historically been a great month for horror, especially in late January. And although “January horror” has it’s own negative stigma, the Raimi of it all makes this feel different, perhaps putting this more along the lines of “Split” than a typical January horror film. Box Office Pro expects this to open in the $12-18 million range and that could be a reasonable range and help this open to No. 1. A word of caution from last January would also note that positive buzz and good reviews could only get “Companion” to $9.1 million on this exact weekend, so there’s definitely a wide range of outcomes.

The controversial part of the weekend comes with the release of the documentary Melania from Amazon MGM. This is not necessarily a guaranteed theatrical success simply because people don’t often see documentaries in theaters. There’s a few rare exceptions, but not many. However, this is certainly a project that will spark conversation, for better or for worse. As the title suggests, this is a documentary following Melania Trump, the first lady of the United States, specifically in the time-frame of documenting her in the 20 days leading up to President Trump’s second inauguration. And this is definitely a pro-Trump and pro-Melania documentary, so make of that what you will. The twist is that the director of this documentary is Brett Ratner, who at one point was one of the big names in Hollywood until he was rightfully ousted from his career due to multiple sexual assault allegations. Ratner returning to the director’s chair for the first time since those allegations to direct a documentary about Melania Trump is certainly… one of the things that is now happening in 2026. Let’s move on.

And now for the trio of indie films that will attempt to make their mark on the weekend. We’ll start with the most notable indie studio of this group, A24, as they’re prepared to release The Moment, which is a mockumentary about Charli XCX playing a fictional version of herself as she navigates the complexities of fame and industry pressure while preparing for her arena tour debut. That means other artists like Taylor Swift are doing actual documentaries of their real-life tours and Charli XCX is doing… this instead, which in the trailer on YouTube has a lot of her fans praising this strange and unique decision. It’s possible that casual fans might be a bit confused at this, especially if they think it’s an actual documentary and not a fictional one. But that’s also par for the course for A24 as a studio, as they’re really good at finding unconventional indie films to release into the world. This will also be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival prior to its release in general theaters this weekend. Which, by the way, in the midst of everything we’ve talked about already this month, Sundance begins January 22 and goes through February 1.

The second film of our indie trio comes from Markiplier Studios as they release the sci-fi horror flick Iron Lung. And I’ll be honest in saying at initial glance I asked the question of “What in the world is Markiplier Studios and who is this Mark Fischbach that is writing and directing this movie?” In a rather sheepish discovery that my brain did not want to connect with at first, this is Markiplier. The YouTuber. With 38.1 million subscribers to his channel. Oooohhh! And this movie, which is an adaptation of the 2022 video game of the same name, is set to be his first theatrically released film his directed. In addition to directing, he also wrote, produced, edited, and starred in the movie. And is using his own “Markiplier Studios” to distribute the movie. At first when I saw Box Office Pro projecting this one to potentially open to $15-25 million, I thought that felt like a mistake, but diving deep it makes a lot more sense. And suddenly the connection in my mind is to 2023’s “Talk to Me,” a horror film also directed by a YouTuber duo (Danny and Michael Philippou, aka RackRacka). That movie opened to $10.4 million and had a solid run at the box office, finishing with $48.3 million domestically. That means horror fans might have a tough decision to make between “Send Help” and “Iron Lung,” which could risk the movies cannibalizing each other, or one doing a lot better than the other. Or horror fans might just have a lot of fun and go see both. Ultimately reviews will help decide what happens here.

Last and… potentially least… is Black Bear Pictures distributing the latest Jason Statham action film Shelter. This movie has Jason Statham playing a recluse who ends up rescuing a young girl from the sea. One thing leads to another and we learn that Statham was a former assassin and he’s now forced to go on a killing spree against his former organization to protect this girl. In other words, a Jason Statham action film. Boom boom. Pow pow. Kick. Punch. Bang bang. The plot is important, I suppose, but the last part is what people are really searching for. It’s basically the same movie as his last two movies, “The Beekeeper” and “A Working Man,” both released towards the beginning of 2024 and 2025, respectively. Both actually opened with a similar total around $15 million (“The Beekeeper” with $16.6 million and “A Working Man” with $15.5 million), so that’s a positive sign for this one, if the same Statham fans come out to play. Black Bear Pictures as a studio has been around since 2011, but they recently launched a U.S. distribution division in 2025 and their first U.S. release was “Christy,” which opened in 2,011 theaters to just $1.3 million, making it one of the worst openings ever for a movie released in at least 2,000 theaters. Black Bear is hoping to do a little better this time around. Box Office Pro is projecting $4-7 million for its opening, but with two horror films, a Jason Statham action film, a music mockumentary, and a political documentary, this could make for quite the interesting battle inside the top 10 this weekend.

Movie Preview: December 2025

Welcome to the final month of the year! And Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

After a historically bad October, this past November was much better as “Wicked: For Good” and “Zootopia 2” gave the box office a much needed kick of adrenaline. As a whole, the month earned $794.4 million total domestically, which is below last November’s $900.7 million total when “Wicked” and “Moana 2” ruled, and a far cry from the November record of $1.09 billion in 2012, but we’ll take the wins that we can get. Both “Wicked: For Good” and “Zootopia 2” should carry on throughout the Christmas holiday, especially worldwide for the latter, which opened to over $500 million worldwide, boosted by a huge opening in China that doubled its domestic debut.

The Christmas box office will add at least one huge blockbuster release to the mix, which could perhaps wind up as the movie of the year if history tells us anything. A good deal of question marks with the rest of the schedule, but there will at least be options for people, which includes snakes, killer animatronics, ping pong, SpongeBob, and Neil Diamond music. So let’s dive in and explore what Santa is bringing to a theater near you this holiday season!

As always, release date information for this post is courtesy of the-numbers.com and boxofficepro.com. The movies listed are the ones currently scheduled for a wide release in the United States and Canada and are always subject to change.

December 5 – 7

Universal's "Five Nights at Freddy's 2"

The main new attraction to theaters this past weekend, joining the ranks of “Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good,” was another fellow second film in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. An adaptation of the popular video game series, the first movie told the story of security guard Mike Schmidt, played by Josh Hutcherson, who takes a job at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, an abandoned pizzeria, soon to learn that the pizzeria’s animatronics are possessed by the spirits of children murdered decades earlier by serial killer William Afton, played by Matthew Lillard. Now we’re a year later in this second movie with more secrets to reveal and origins to discover. Mike’s 11-year-old sister Abby, who had established a connection with the animatronics in the first movie, has had the fate of her friends hidden from her. They call out to her, though, so she heads out to try to find them. And that sets into motion the rest of the plot. The first movie was a massive success, opening to a staggering $80 million. It fell off the face of the Earth after with a huge 76 percent second weekend drop and had a huge disparity in reviews between fans of the game and everyone else, so the projections for this second film were all over the map. Both Box Office Pro and Deadline had it pegged in the $35-45 million range going into the weekend. After Thursday previews, The-Numbers projected it at $55 million. It beat all of those projections quite handily with a $64 million debut, so a drop-off from the first, but not by very much. And more than enough to easily cover the production budget in just one weekend. Reviews were even more polarized than the first, with a 15 percent critics score and an 88 percent audience score from Rotten Tomatoes, so it’s likely to take another massive tumble in weekend 2, but with this result in the bag, you can be guaranteed that a third movie will be on the way before too long.

“Zootopia 2” and “Wicked: For Good” rounded out the top 3 with $43.4 million and $17.4 million, respectively. That trio of second films accounted for over 80 percent of the total weekend box office, so that’s what most people were interested in, but there were quite a few smaller options that entered the market that are worth talking about. Leading the way among that group was Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution. Anime has done very well recently, headlined by “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” opening to a record-breaking $70.6 million back in September. We also had “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” opening to $18 million in October. “Jujutsu Kaisen” is another popular anime that certainly has the potential to make noise, but “Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution” is a compilation film that previews the third season of the show rather than being its own standalone adventure. Thus it opening to $10.1 million from 1,833 theaters put in the exact realm of “Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village” ($10.1 million March 2023) and “Demon Slayer: To the Hashira Training” ($11.5 million in February 2024), which were also compilation films rather than standalone movies like “Infinity Castle.”

And speaking of a compilation of sorts, Lionsgate finally released Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair into about 1,198 theaters this weekend. In the filmography of Quentin Tarantino, the man himself considers “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Kill Bill: Volume 2” as one movie, even though they were released separately in October 2003 and April 2004, respectively. A combined feature has been talked about for a long time, but finally came to fruition with “The Whole Bloody Affair,” which plays both movies back to back, along with an animated short created by Tarantino and Epic Games from the video game “Fortnite.” This was certainly a fun event for long-time Tarantino fans, but a total runtime of 4 hours 35 minutes is why it naturally had a limit for box office earnings, both in terms of having limited available screenings and causing more casual fans to shy away. That said, opening in 6th place with $3.4 million was an impressive result, all things considered.

Another theatrical event that hit theaters was Fathom Events and Sony Pictures Classics teaming up to release Merrily We Roll Along into just over 1,000 theaters, earning $1.3 million. This is the Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and the book by George Furth, which tells the story of three friends whose lives and friendships devolve over the years, but told in reverse chronology, so starting at the end with their lowest moment and ending at their youthful best. Production began on a movie adaptation of this by Richard Linklater back in 2019 with Paul Mescal, Ben Platt, and Beanie Feldstein, but this is apparently being done “Boyhood” style. In other words, Linklater is actually filming this over the course of 20 years. So check back around the year 2040 for when that comes out. We’ll see if I’m still doing these movie previews then. In the meantime, while the Broadway production original premiered in 1981, this release is the 2023 Broadway revival starring Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez. This is, of course, released “Hamilton” style, a recording of the Broadway show that is getting a theatrical release.

Nope. We’re not done yet. In addition to these theatrical events that came out, there were two other smaller movies. The first being Fackham Hall, which is described by distributor Bleeker Street as a spoof film that crosses “Downton Abbey” with “Airplane!” and “Monty Python.” The setting is 1930s England and the movie follows a pick-pocket Eric Noone who lands a job at a unique English manor house, rises through the ranks, has a forbidden romance with the lady of the house, then gets framed for a murder. Eric is played by Ben Radcliffe, with a supporting cast that includes Tom Felton, Thomasin McKenzie, Damian Lewis, Katherine Waterston, Lizzie Hopley, Emma Laird, and Jimmy Carr, the latter of whom is part of the writing crew that includes him, Patrick Carr, and the British comedy trio The Dawson Brothers. The movie, directed by Jim O’Hanlon, debuted in more theaters than “Merrily We Roll Along,” with 1,112 theaters, but debuted outside the top 10 with just $620,909.

The second smaller film comes from IFC Entertainment Group, and that’s their latest film 100 Nights of Hero, which is a historical fantasy romance written and directed by Julia Jackman, based on the graphic novel “The One Hundred Nights of Hero,” which itself is based on the Middle Eastern folktale “One Thousand and One Nights.” The idea here follows a woman (Maika Monroe) whose neglectful husband (Amir El-Masry) leaves her alone for a hundred days to test her fidelity, and she then becomes entangled in a love triangle with her loyal maid (Emma Corrin) and her husband’s seductive friend (Nicholas Galitzine). The movie also stars Charli xcx, Richard E. Grant, and Felicity Jones in supporting roles. So yes, that’s a total of six new options in theaters this weekend. This one predictably came in the caboose as it was only released in 828 theaters. Even with that, though, it had a pretty bad per theater average and only ended up earning $250,701.

On top of all of that, I brought it up briefly last month, but Hamnet wound up opening in 119 theaters around Thanksgiving and expanded into 744 theaters this weekend. Despite being the lowest theater count of the movies I’ve mentioned in this section, it actually wound up in 8th place with $2.3 million, well ahead of the previous three. This definitely seems like an indication that the heavy awards buzz is catching people’s attention and translating into box office results. That also means this is likely to continue to expand, or at least hang around in theaters, over the next several months. Oscar nominations will be announced on January 22, with the Oscars themselves taking place on March 15. “Hamnet” is expected to be a huge contender in that. As a reminder, this is the Chloé Zhao directed film starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal as William and Agnes Shakespeare, whose death of their child helped inspire the play Hamlet.

December 12 – 14

Universal's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)"

This second weekend of December is what could be referred to as the calm before the storm at the box office. There are three new releases that I’ll talk about, but they’re all of the smaller variety. The battle for No. 1 at the box office will likely come down to “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” vs. “Zootopia 2” once again. Despite “Freddy’s” winning by a score of $64.0 million to $43.4 million this past weekend, there’s a very strong chance that “Zootopia 2” actually takes back the lead. The first “Freddy’s” flick fell a massive 76 percent in weekend 2 and earned just $19 million after its $80 million debut. That was compounded by the fact that it was available day-and-date on Peacock, but it having close to zero appeal outside the core audience was the main reason, which has clearly remained the same with this sequel. Plus, horror sequels in general are often extremely frontloaded. If we assume a drop in the realm of 65-70 percent, that gives it a range of $19-22 million, with a similar 76 percent drop equaling $15 million. Meanwhile, “Zootopia 2” has followed in a similar trajectory as “Moana 2” last year. In its second and third weekends, “Moana 2” fell 63 percent and 48 percent, respectively. “Zootopia 2” held a little better in its second weekend with a 57 percent drop, so if we assume a 40-45 percent third weekend drop, that gives it a range of $24-26 million. So the race could be close, but the edge seems to be with “Zootopia 2.”

Before I get to the three smaller new releases, the biggest “new” release is actually a re-release of an older film as Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch and Taylor Momsen as Cindy Lou Who, returns to theaters. The movie earned $260 million domestically in its initial run in 2000, the highest grossing movie that year. It’s had a bit of a polarized reaction over the years and has an official rotten splatter on Rotten Tomatoes with 50 percent from critics, as well as a 59 percent score from audiences, but despite that has become a holiday staple for many. It shows up high on the streaming charts every holiday season and this time around is available on both Peacock and Amazon Prime. As far as its theatrical re-release, it’s poised to be released in about 1,600 theaters, but re-releases as a whole can be very unpredictable. “Coraline” earned $9.8 million in its first weekend of re-release last August, and wound up adding $33.6 million to the movie’s overall total over the next month, but then there’s other re-releases that have been completely ignored. “The Grinch” seems like a movie people will go out for, but many might simply choose to stream it at home instead.

Moving onto the actual new releases, I have no theater count estimates for these three, but I’m guessing they might be in the range of 800-1,200 theaters, give or take a bit, putting them in the realm of “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Fackham Hall,” and “100 Nights of Hero.” The leg up among these three seems like it will be Ella McCay, which comes to us via 20th Century Studios. The movie is directed by James L. Brooks, who is the co-creator of shows like “The Simpsons,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Taxi,” as well as the director of movies such as “Terms of Endearment” (1983), “Broadcast News” (1987), and “As Good as It Gets” (1997). Despite the high prestige in both the film and TV realm, the last two movies he directed (“Spanglish” in 2004 and “How Do You Know” in 2010) weren’t particularly well received. And early word on “Ella McCay,” which was not released in any festivals or promoted as an awards contender, seems to be muted at best, as well. That said, the movie itself is about a character named Ella McCay, played by Emma Mackey, as she tries to juggle her family and work life, and is thus a comedy about the people you love and how to survive them. In addition to Mackey, the movie co-stars Woody Harrelson, Kumail Nanjiani, Rebecca Hall, Albert Brooks, and Jamie Lee Curtis in various supporting roles, so that cast and crew is likely good enough to convince some to show up, even if the movie does have the reviews or awards buzz it needs for it to become a true breakout.

From Roadside Attractions, our second smaller film is Dust Bunny, which appears to be a hybrid of action, horror, and thriller. The movie is about an 8-year-old girl, played by Sophie Sloan, who hires a hitman to help kill the monster under her bed after she’s convinced that it ate her whole family. The hired hitman is played by Mads Mikkelsen, while Sigourney Weaver also co-stars in the movie. In contrast to our previous movie, this one actually did get released in a film festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and carries with a strong, early critics score of 88 percent. This isn’t the type of movie to be an awards player, but the festival release and strong reviews is the correct formula for it to gain the proper amount of buzz heading into its release. Whether that translates into immediate box office success or simply results in positive word of mouth that helps it later on is a different story. Roadside Attractions has released 8 movies this year in at least 700 theaters. Only one of those had an opening weekend higher than $1 million and that was “The Home,” which opened to $1.04 million from 1,015 theaters. As a whole, those 8 movies have had an average opening weekend of $536,016 from an average of 863 theaters. That’s the range that “Dust Bunny” is looking at to start its run.

The final outing of the week is the Christmas slasher flick, Silent Night, Deadly Night. No, this is not a release of the original 1984 movie. This is the latest remake of that movie. And I say “latest” because this is the second time they’ve remade it, following the 2012 movie “Silent Night.” It’s also the seventh movie total in this franchise, as the original series of films had five movies, although only the first three have the original characters. The very first of these movies involved a character named Billy Chapman who, as a young boy, witnessed a violent crime committed by a man in a Santa suit, causing him to be deeply scarred and terrified of Christmas. When he’s older, he’s forced into dressing as Santa for his job, which causes his grip on reality to shatter, which then sends him on a violent killing spree where he feels the need to punish the “naughty.” The rest of the franchise then goes various directions with different interpretations of the “killer Santa” idea. Only the original has Billy Chapman as the main antagonist, which is what this new remake goes back to – Billy Chapman as killer Santa. The movie premiered at Fantastic Fest in September and will be distributed by Cineverse, who released “Terrifier 3” last year and this year’s remake of “The Toxic Avenger” back in August.

December 19 – 21

20th Century Studios' "Avatar: Fire and Ash"

The event film of the month, and possibly the year, gets released the weekend before Christmas and will have the entire holiday season and beyond to rack up all the money. That movie is, of course, Avatar: Fire and Ash. James Cameron has been doing almost nothing but work on Avatar films for the majority of the last 30 years. And yes, 30 years. He, of course, released a tiny film called “Titanic” in 1997, but development of “Avatar” began in 1994 and was initially planned on being released in 1999. That movie ended up coming out in 2009. Then it took another 13 years for “Avatar: The Way of Water” to come out, which was released in December 2022. With that timeline in mind, one might be surprised that “Fire and Ash” only took an additional three years to come out, but reports are that “The Way of Water” and “Fire and Ash” were shot simultaneously, along with parts of Avatar 4 to account for the aging of the child actors. That might account for at least part of the reason why it took 13 years to get the second movie out. They were, more or less, doing three movies at once, while Cameron also continued to work on scripts for all four sequels. Anyways, this fourth movie, as the title suggests, focuses on much of the fire elements of the Pandora world as Cameron has so far used each movie to explore one of the elements. Question is, is he going through traditional set of elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Air), or, as some on the internet have suggested, is he using the Chinese Wuxing system (Wood, Water, Fire, Earth, Metal)? The latter would certainly fit the currently planned five-movie arc, and the first movie would fit into either “Wood” or “Earth” with its heavy forestry imagery, but I guess we’ll see in 2029 when Avatar 4 comes out if it deals with “Air” or “Earth/Metal.”

Financially speaking, the first two Avatar movies both made over $2 billion worldwide, with the first currently at $2.9 billion, while “The Way of Water” hit $2.3 billion. Thus this third movie’s domestic release is probably slightly less significant given that these movies are massive worldwide hits. The initial run of “Avatar” in 2009 finished with $749 million domestically and has had a couple of re-releases to boost it to its current $785.2 million. Given how massive and culturally impactful the movie was, some prematurely celebrated the second movie’s “failure” when it *only* opened to $134.1 million. But then it held extremely well each week, similar to the first movie (which only opened to $77 million), finishing with $684.1 million domestically. The most recent long range forecast from Box Office Pro has “Fire and Ash” pegged in the $100-120 million for its opening, so a slight drop-off from “The Way of Water,” but not by much. The top domestic movie of the year so far is still “A Minecraft Movie” with $423.9 million. It would require quite the massive drop-off for “Fire and Ash” to not hit that mark. Worldwide is a different story as the Chinese movie “Ne Zha 2” made over $2 billion, the specifics depending on which site you look at, so “Fire and Ash” would likely have to match the second to get that mark as well, which is definitely doable, regardless of its domestic total.

While Avatar will be the biggest holiday movie outing, there are a few other options for the pre-Christmas weekend that should actually do decently well. The first of them is The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants. While the animated show continues to run – currently in the midst of of Season 16 after initially premiering in 1999 – this will be the fourth time the characters have graced the big screen, with the first time being way back in 2004. We then had “Sponge Out of Water” in 2015, followed by “Sponge on the Run” in 2020 during COVID. This SpongeBob adventure has our main character facing off against the ghost of the Flying Dutchman, voiced by Mark Hamill, down in the depths of the ocean, with many of the other characters going on a journey to rescue him. In regards to financial comparisons, the first movie opened to $32 million back in 2004, while “Sponge Out of Water” nearly doubled that with an opening of $55.4 million. “Sponge On the Run” isn’t a valid comparison due to COVID. And honestly, those first two are tricky comparisons as well, given the time gap. Adjusted for ticket price inflation, those numbers adjust to $58.3 million and $74.3 million for their openings, which seems way too high. Box Office Pro is projecting $25-35 million in their long range forecast, which does feel a bit more realistic.

Perhaps the most relevant to the Christmas season itself is Angel Studios releasing the animated movie David, which tells the story of the prophet David from the Bible, going from humble servant who killed Goliath to the king of the land as the movie appears to see how much of his story it can fit into one movie rather than focusing on one specific event, while adding musical numbers along the way. The trailer also mentions that this is “the legend you know, but the story you don’t,” which is a little odd considering his whole story is in the Bible, but perhaps there’s some creative liberties included in order to make for a more entertaining and surprising movie. Despite this being a second animated movie released this weekend, the target audiences here are slightly different, with SpongeBob aiming towards younger kids and fans of the show, while “David” aims to entertain Christian audiences. Both movies seem like they can easily co-exist throughout the holiday, even if SpongeBob opens higher. I’ve also talked many times on this monthly series about Angel Studios and how most of their releases consistently open in the $3-5 million range. However, this does seem like it has all the makings to be one of the exceptions to that. In which case, the easy comparison is “The King of Kings,” which opened to $19.4 million earlier this year around the Easter season. If it manages to beat that, it’ll win the prize of highest opening movie for Angel Studios, although it doesn’t seem likely to come close to their highest domestic total, which is still “Sound of Freedom” with $184.2 million.

From director Paul Feig, the final movie on this weekend’s list is the psychological thriller The Housemaid. Not to be confused with the 2010 South Korean film of the same name, which itself is a remake of a 1960 film, this new movie is an adaptation of a 2022 best-selling novel by Freida McFadden, not an American remake of a popular foreign film. Confusingly, both are about a maid joining a wealthy household with plenty of secrets, but the Korean film is more revolved around a dangerous affair that takes place, while this new book and movie is more revolved around the discovery of hidden abuse, manipulation, secrets, and a maid with a criminal past. That maid is played by Sydney Sweeney, who is thinks she has simply taken a job in an effort to get her life back together. Amanda Seyfried plays the wealthy wife who hires her. Director Paul Feig has had quite the varied career, mostly working in the comedy realm, but this one calls back to his 2018 thriller “A Simple Favor,” starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively. That one opened to $16 million back in September 2018, which seems like a fair goal for this movie. Box Office Pro has it listed in the $25-35 million range as well, but that seems a bit optimistic. Sydney Sweeney is a popular name, but not a guaranteed box office draw as just last month her movie “Christy” bombed hard, earning only $1.3 million in its opening weekend in 2,011 theaters, so ultimately reviews and audience reaction will be key in determining if people are in the mood for a thriller during the holidays.

December 25 – 28

Sony's "Anaconda"

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year! This year, Christmas falls on a Thursday, which should align nicely with the box office weekend as all three new releases have chosen to open right on Christmas Day, which is often customary, regardless of what day of the week the holiday is on. People stay home with families on Christmas Eve, but Christmas Day is often a popular movie going day. This month, the big Christmas Day release involves Jack Black, Paul Rudd, and a giant snake with the remake of Anaconda. This is not the first time Jack Black has shown up during the holidays with a remake/reboot of a popular franchise. Both of the recent Jumanji movies were holiday releases and did very well. Sony, who is the distributor for both franchises, certainly would hope for a similar result. While a giant killer snake might seem like it’s better suited for a Halloween release than a Christmas one, the goal here seems to be aiming more for action comedy than campy horror, with the setup being a group of friends setting out to remake “Anaconda” only to run into a real giant snake that’s hunting them down. The goal here is a $30 million opening, which would actually be close to what “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” started at around Christmas 2017. That opened to just $36.2 million before going on to be the fourth highest grossing movie released in 2017, with $404.5 million total domestically. A reminder that December releases are historically a lot more backloaded, so if you catch on with good word of mouth, you can hold on and become a huge hit, even if the opening is seen as disappointing.

The next release goes into the world of ping pong with Josh Safdie’s new movie Marty Supreme. Josh and Benny Safdie, known professionally as the Safdie Brothers have worked together on movies such as “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems.” This year there was a bit of brotherly competition as the two temporarily split up to do their own films. Benny wrote and directed “The Smashing Machine,” starring Dwayne Johnson as UFC fighter Mark Kerry. That one had the initial heads up, hitting all the festivals and getting the October wide release, with plenty of awards buzz for both Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. However, momentum stalled out with mixed reviews from mainstream critics (as opposed to the festival audience) and a straight up bomb at the box office as general audiences weren’t interested. And now that opens the door for Josh Safdie to drive in and take the win over Benny. Early word on this one is that it has a much closer feel to a classic Safdie Brothers movie and thus has much stronger reviews, which seems to be pushing it towards heavier awards momentum. That’s positive in the niche awards realm, but will that translate to box office success? Timothée Chalamet is the star here as aspiring ping pong champion Marty Mauser, loosely inspired by American ping pong player Marty Reisman – making this officially a work of fiction rather than a sports biopic. And while Dwayne Johnson proved that star power doesn’t guarantee box office results, last Christmas Chalamet led “A Complete Unknown” to a domestic total of $75 million and 8 Oscar nominations after an opening weekend of $11.7 million. This year he hopes to win the Oscar for best actor, instead of just being the runner up, a goal that he’s clearly stated. He’s in good position, so we’ll see if this is his year.

The final movie on the docket for this post is NOT a Neil Diamond biopic, even though the initial trailer made me think it might be. The movie is Song Sung Blue, which is taken from a Neil Diamond song, but is in fact a biopic about Mike and Claire Sardina of the band Lightning & Thunder, a husband and wife Neil Diamond tribute band. The movie is actually based on the 2008 documentary of the same name that tells their story of soaring success and devastating heartbreak in their musical journey together. The movie stars Hugh Jackman as Mike and Kate Hudson as Claire. In the midst of me typing this, Hudson snagged a Golden Globe nomination, proving that’s hovering under the radar in the awards season, which could give it a boost. Although that being the only Globes nomination also shows that perhaps it isn’t a huge front-runner for awards. Early critical reaction has been a tad bit muted, but some critics mentioned that it has the potential to be a huge crowd pleaser. For those who want to listen to Hugh Jackman belting out “Sweet Caroline” or watch a tearjerking romance, this could easily work. I used the “A Complete Unknown” for a comparison to “Marty Supreme,” given the Chalamet connection, but that being a music biopic could also be a decent comparison here. Both seem like $10-15 million openers on Christmas weekend, with the potential to hold well depending on how the audiences react.