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The best films of 2025, streaming now

What to watch while you’re home for the holidays

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Before ringing in the new year, revisit this year’s blockbuster films or catch up on the movies you’ve missed while you’re staying cozy at home.

Family films

If you’re needing something lighthearted and fun (or just don’t want to see KPop Demon Hunters for the hundredth time), here are some family-friendly options that took over the big screen this year.

How to Train Your Dragon

Rated: PG

How to Train Your Dragon is a near shot-for-shot live-action remake of the 2010 animated film, which follows Hiccup, a scrawny teenage Viking hailing from the dragon-slaying village of Berk, who unwittingly befriends a dragon and discovers there’s more to dragons than Vikings have assumed. Available on Peacock.

Elio

Rated: PG

Pixar’s Elio tells the tale of an imaginative yet lonely 11-year-old boy who accidentally gets beamed up to the Communiverse by aliens and mistaken for Earth’s intergalactic ambassador. Elio finds himself on a journey of friendship and self-discovery as he tries to save the universe from a warlord. Available on Disney+.

A Minecraft Movie

Rated: PG

As one of the highest grossing films in the 2025 U.S. box office, A Minecraft Movie, based on the popular 2011 video game, follows four misfits who are sucked into the cubic and creative Overworld. With the aid of expert crafter Steve, they must go on a quest as they attempt to return to the real world and save the Overworld from the vengeful Piglin Queen. Available on HBO Max.

More family-friendly films:

Fun for all

In terms of action and broad audience appeal, 2025 offered an entertaining mix of spies, superheroes and sci-fi.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Rated: PG-13

In the eighth installment of the Mission Impossible franchise, Ethan Hunt and his IMF team race to stop a world-controlling AI, The Entity, from destroying humanity. Available on Paramount+.

Superman

Rated: PG-13

When Superman is framed by billionaire Lex Luthor for an international incident, he must learn to accept the truth of his Kryptonian heritage to both fully realize his identity and regain the public’s trust. Available on HBO Max.

Thunderbolts*

Rated: PG-13

As one of the newer additions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thunderbolts* follows a group of misfit antiheroes who are more than used to working alone in the shadows but are forced to become a team as they unveil corruption, conspiracy and a dangerous super-soldier project. Available on Disney+.

More action-packed blockbusters:

Genre benders

Why choose one genre when you can have multiple all at once? Here’s a selection of 2025 films that defy categorization.

One Battle After Another

Rated: R

One Battle After Another is an action-packed, black comedy thriller that follows Bob Ferguson, an ex-revolutionary forced to reunite with former comrades to save his daughter from a vengeful colonel who has resurfaced after 16 years. Available on HBO Max on Dec. 19.

Sinners

Rated: R

Sinners blends period drama and the supernatural as twin brothers Elijah and Elias return to their hometown in 1930s Mississippi and start a juke joint, only for it to be threatened by both a local Klan and vampires who are after the brothers’ cousin, Sammie, whose music can summon spirits. Available on HBO Max.

Mickey 17

Rated: R

Mickey 17 mixes dystopian sci-fi with comedy as it follows Mickey, a disposable worker in the year 2054 who’s cloned and reprinted with his memories every time he dies. After he survives a doomed expedition on an icy planet, he runs into his newest clone, Mickey 18. Since multiples of clones are illegal and condemned to death, he must convince his clone to work with him so they can both survive authoritarian rule. Available on HBO Max.

More multi-genre films:

  • Gothic horror, sci-fi psychological drama Frankenstein (R) – Available on Netflix
  • Espionage, black comedy political thriller The Phoenician Scheme (PG-13) – Available on Amazon Prime Video
  • Sci-fi, black comedy thriller Bugonia (R) – Available for purchase on multiple streaming platforms

Horror

For those who prefer spine-tingling scenes rather than the merry and bright ambiance of the holiday season, there’s no shortage of 2025 horror flicks to choose from either.

Weapons

Rated: R

Seventeen children from the same class quietly disappear in the middle of the night, exactly at 2:17 a.m., except for one boy, Alex, who claims to know nothing about his classmates’ sudden disappearance. Weapons follows multiple townspeople as they try to piece together the disturbing circumstances. Available on HBO Max.

28 Years Later

Rated: R

In the third installment of the 28 Days Later franchise, the British Isles remain indefinitely quarantined, even 28 years after the first outbreaks of the Rage Virus. A boy and his father navigate a post-apocalyptic world in an effort to get medical treatment for the boy’s ill mother. Available on Netflix.

Bring Her Back

Rated: R

This Australian, supernatural folk horror film follows orphaned step-siblings Andy and Piper, who are sucked into their new foster mother Laura’s occult rituals, intended to resurrect her deceased daughter. Available on HBO Max.

More horror films:

‘Tis the season of sequels

Cinema in 2025 was also filled with film franchises. From musicals and historical dramas, to mysteries and sci-fi thrillers, here are a handful of movies that follow up on existing storylines and characters.

Amanda Stevens is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.