The turkey’s been scoffed. Christmas is over. New Year’s resolutions are freshly made and ready to be swiftly broken. We’ve finished deciding our movies of the year, our TV shows of the year, and even our games of the year, too. And, somehow, another big ol’ year in the world of film and television is about to fade to black. But before we wipe the proverbial popcorn from our geeky Christmas jumper and find out whether 2025 has a post-credit sting in store before its 2026-shaped sequel arrives, your friendly neighbourhood Empire is here to look back on the biggest movie — and TV — news of the last twelve months.
Here was a year in which the newly christened DC Studios duked it out with a rejuvenated MCU at the summer box office as the last son of Krypton and Marvel’s First Family hit the big screen. Here was a year in which the existential threat of AI continued to rise, and a celluloid revolution to meet it. And here was a year in which stars were born, legends left us, ‘merger’ became the unexpected buzzword of 2025, and we all spent five hours transfixed by a set of chairs being put out. (Yes, that was this year!) Suffice it to say this has been, by all accounts, another blockbuster instalment in the saga we call cinema.
And so, without further ado, join us as Team Empire takes a look back at the stories and the goings-on that had us all talking in the year that was 2025…
January
Hollywood comes to a standstill as wildfires burn and David Lynch dies
©Getty Images
In something of a sign of the turbulent, emotionally charged year to come, 2025 started on a sobering note. Between the 7th and 31st January, a series of 14 destructive and deadly wildfires tore through California, bringing devastation to the state and striking right at the heart of Hollywood, with stories of the likes of Jeff Bridges and John Goodman losing their homes offering a poignant reminder both of how indiscriminate tragedy is, and how the stars we so often idolise and pedestal are ultimately just flesh and blood, too. It was a reminder magnified mid-month by what would prove to be only the first of many monumental losses the entertainment world suffered in 2025: the death of venerated auteur David Lynch on 16 January. The passing of the legendary Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks filmmaker shocked us all, and after Lynch’s death, Nicolas Cage among many others contributed to a very special issue of Empire Magazine dedicated to David Lynch and his genius.
Read Empire Editor Nick de Semlyen’s ode to David Lynch.
February
Buffy The Vampire Slayer sets an unexpected revival
“Once a slayer, always a slayer!” So the saying goes, and so it proved to be true in February, which brought with it the incredibly exciting news that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Oscar winning Nomadland director — and self-confessed Buffyverse superfan — Chloé Zhao would be teaming up on a return to Sunnydale, penned by none other than Poker Face duo Nora and Lilla Zuckerman. Billed as a brand new chapter in the ongoing Buffy The Vampire Slayer story rather than a reboot, Zhao’s revival went on to find its next Chosen One (Skeleton Crew‘s Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and a fresh new vamp (The Studio’s Chase Sui Wonders) in the months following the revival’s announcement. While the news of further vampire slaying shenanigans represented a real dream come true for fans, it was also one tinged with profound bittersweetness just weeks later as we learned of the shocking death of Gellar’s on-screen sister Michelle Trachtenberg.
Read Empire’s tribute to Michelle Trachtenberg — and the legacy of Dawn Summers.
Bond loses the Broccolis as Amazon takes creative control of 007
No sooner had the fires died down in the Pacific Palisades than Hollywood found itself shaken and stirred once again, this time by a bombshell announcement about the future of MI6’s finest. In a move that somehow seemed both inevitable and shocking, on 20 February it was announced that James Bond would be losing longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, with Amazon — already now in possession of MGM Studios — swooping to take creative control over the super spy’s on-screen future. With all eyes on what Amazon’s acquisition might mean for a follow-up to Daniel Craig’s Bond bow-out No Time To Die, over the course of the year that followed we saw Amy Pascal and David Heyman come aboard to produce Bond 26, Denis Villeneuve snapped up to direct Amazon’s first 007 joint, and Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight tapped to write the spy series’ next chapter. Still no word on who’s inheriting Craig’s license to thrill just yet though… expect more on that front in 2026.
March
And the Oscar goes to… independent cinema!
The culmination of a chaotic and fiercely contested awards season, this year’s Oscars — hosted by a never-better Conan O’Brien — arrived with a real sense that anything could happen. And, aside from Kieran Culkin nabbing Best Supporting Actor for A Real Pain and Zoe Saldaña cake-walking the Supporting Actress category for her turn in Emilia Pérez being an absolute given, the night’s two biggest winners really did come as quite the surprise. In a massive win for independent cinema, Sean Baker’s Anora scooped five Academy Awards on the night, including for Best Picture, Director, and Leading Actress (for star Mikey Madison), while Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis beat the big studio might of Disney, Dreamworks, et al. to scoop Best Animated Feature with his silent cat epic Flow. In the absence of an Oscar moment to rival Ryan Gosling’s Kenergy last year, we can at least say that we felt the, er, Gints-stirs as Hollywood’s finest — and the viewing public — were reminded that great movies can, and still do, come from anywhere and anyone.
Relive the 97th Academy Awards with Empire’s Oscars 2025 live blog.
Read more on how a Latvian cat animation beat Pixar and Dreamworks at the Oscars.
Avengers: Doomsday reveals all-star cast in chairy five-hour livestream
If the reveal that Robert Downey Jr. would be playing Doctor Doom in the Russo Brothers’ Avengers: Doomsday wound up as one of the biggest movie news stories of 2024, then this March’s full casting announcement for the movie is certainly a contender for one of 2025’s strangest. In a laboriously delivered five-hour long livestream hosted on Marvel’s YouTube, a succession of 26 cast chairs were slowly unfolded, accompanied by character appropriate musical stings, in fifteen minute intervals, all cumulatively revealing the ginormous list of names set to appear in Doomsday — from Fox X-Men favourites to the Fantastic Four to the Thunderbolts (or, er, New Avengers) and beyond. And there at the end to round off the whole thing? That man, Robert Downey Jr., of course. Doom never brought us so much joy (or such a numb bum!)
Watch the Avengers: Doomsday teaser trailer.
Ne Zha 2 takes the box office by storm
At the end of last summer, Disney Pixar’s Inside Out 2 became the highest grossing animated movie of all time, dethroning the House of Mouse’s own The Lion King remake with an eye-watering $1.7 billion box office showing. Just six months later, Chinese medical student turned filmmaker Jiaozi’s family-friendly fantasy epic Ne Zha 2 — the second instalment in a batshit crazy franchise hitherto virtually unheard of in the West — beat that record inside 20 days, making almost $2 billion in China alone. It now sits between Titanic and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens as the fifth highest grossing film of all time period, with an eye-watering $2,150,000,000 overall haul. And, most importantly, it’s actually a really good film — one of the year’s best-animated, in fact. Suffice it to say, we predict we’ll be seeing plenty more of writer-director Jiaozi’s cantankerous, pee-obsessed demon-boy and his pals in the future.
Read Empire’s review of Ne Zha 2.
April
Sam Mendes finds his Beatles
Since learning that Sam Mendes was gearing up to direct not one but four Beatles biopics last February, fans of the Fab Four had been staying up eight days a week trying to fancast their dream line-up to play the Liverpudlian lads. Then, after a series of casting leaks from unlikely sources (*cough* Ridley Scott *cough* Ringo Starr *cough*), suddenly it arrived: a single, cool-as-you-like official shot revealing that Harris Dickinson, Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan, and Joseph Quinn would be taking on the roles of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison respectively in Mendes’ hotly anticipated feature quartet. And we can look forward to finding out how exactly these Beatles movies, er, come together when all four parts of The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinematic Event hit cinemas on 7 April, 2028. Until then, the Beatles Anthology on Disney+ is well worth a look if you’re after a recommendation.
The Force Rewakens
With the wait for Star Wars‘ return to the big screen entering its sixth year in 2025, there was always a sense that it was going to take something special to keep the Force flowing among fans staring down the barrel of another pretty SW-lite year. Then, all of a sudden three special things happened all at once and, in the year The Force Awakens celebrated its 10th anniversary, the Force duly reawakened in a big way. Over the course of one glorious month in that galaxy far, far away, Andor Season 2 dropped on Disney+, delivering arguably the best single piece of Star Wars media since the House of Mouse acquired Lucasfilm; actual Ryan Gosling was announced as the lead of Shawn Levy’s upcoming post-The Rise Of Skywalker set blockbuster Star Wars: Starfighter; and, at the Makuhari Messe Convention Centre in Chiba City, Star Wars Celebration Japan came along and reminded us all why we fell in love with Star Wars in the first place. And as if that wasn’t enough, Revenge Of The Sith triumphantly returned to cinemas for its 20th anniversary, making us feel both very happy and incredibly old all at once. Yippee!
Read how Andor was a Star Wars miracle.
Read why Revenge Of The Sith is the best of the Star Wars prequels.
Sinners kickstarts a stellar year for big-screen horror
Whichever way you look at it, if 2025 in the world of movies has belonged to any one single genre, then it is surely horror. 28 Years Later, Bring Her Back, Weapons, Good Boy, Him, Black Phone 2, Final Destination Bloodlines, Hallow Road… these are just some of the chillers that have bumped our gooses and chilled our spines over the past twelve months, either for the way they speak to the times we’re living in, tap into our innermost fears, or simply throw up on screen such provocative and shit-your-pants scary imagery that we haven’t had a comfortable night’s sleep since seeing ’em. (Bloodlines MRI scanner, Grabber on ice, self-mutilating arm-gnawing child, we’re looking at you…) But without shadow of a doubt, the crowning achievement of this banner year for the genre is Empire’s movie of the year, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. A critical and commercial hit that racked up over $360 million at the global box office, it’s almost hard to believe that Coogler’s double Michael B. Jordan starring Southern Gothic vampire joint first sunk its teeth into us all when the year was still so young. And yet here we are and here we remain, well and truly bitten by Sinners as 2025 breathes its last.
Read Empire’s review of Sinners.
May
Amazon swings the axe on Wheel Of Time…
For the most part, 2025 offered telly lovers a bit of a reprieve after a particularly brutal year of TV show cancellations in 2024. Yes, there were some casualties (Netflix’s Boots, Apple TV’s The Last Frontier, and Rian Johnson crime caper Poker Face spring to mind), but by and large we got pretty lucky with the number of shows that avoided the chop this year… with one notable exception. Barely a month after Prime Video’s fantasy epic The Wheel Of Time aired the finale of its critically lauded third season, Amazon decided the time had come to cancel Rafe Judkins’ ambitious Robert Jordan adaptation. Budgetary concerns and Nielsen rankings were cited among reasons for the cancellation. Fans hired billboards and started social media campaigns in a last-ditch effort to save their beloved show (not the last time that’d happen in 2025 — but more on The Hunt For Ben Solo later). But, alas, there would be no saving the show, and we were left only with Robert Jordan’s own writing for comfort: “There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”
…as HBO’s Harry Potter reboot finds its Golden Trio
©HBO
Speaking of beginnings, as one expensive fantasy epic came to an untimely end, another started coming together in a big way. Yes, before our tears over Moiraine Damodred had even dried, along came the news that HBO’s Harry Potter TV series had found its Golden Trio. Sticking to the unknowns method deployed by the OG Potter movies, Mark Mylod and Francesca Gardiner’s show cast Dominic McLaughlin as Harry, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, and Alastair Stout as Ron Weasley. While the jury very much remains out on the necessity — or indeed appropriateness — of a fresh take on the Wizarding World, there’ll still doubtless be millions lining up to return to Hogwarts when the time comes. Not least because the series’ undeniably stacked ensemble includes the likes of Jonathan Lithgow as headteacher Albus Dumbledore; Nick Frost as keeper of the keys, Hagrid; Paapa Essiedu as potions master Severus Snape; and Janet McTeer as Gryffindor head-of-house Minerva McGonagall.
Read Empire’s ranking of all the Wizarding World movies to date.
June
Ncuti Gatwa leaves Doctor Who
Here’s a sobering factoid: more time passed between news breaking that Ncuti Gatwa would be playing Doctor Who and his first appearance as the Fifteenth Doctor in ‘The Giggle‘ than between said episode and Gatwa’s last TARDIS outing, ‘The Reality War’. Yes, after regenerating during the finale of Doctor Who’s second season in its BBC-Disney era, Ncuti Gatwa’s tenure as the two-hearted Time Lord came to an abrupt end, leaving the show’s future up in the air. And for a good while, there it hung, with little more than the face of Billie Piper and the promise of Whoniverse spin-off The War Between The Land And The Sea to keep fans going. Thankfully, we would learn later in the year that while Disney have indeed decided to ditch the Doctor, a Russell T. Davies penned Christmas Special is coming in 2026 and the Beeb have no intentions of putting Who back on hiatus anytime soon. For now then, it’s a case of watching this space (and time) to see exactly what’s next for Who.
Sequels, sequels everywhere…
De La Soul may once have proclaimed three to be the magic number, but in June 2025 a different magic number emerged. That number? Two. Even by Hollywood’s sequelising standards, June was popping off on the follow-up front. In the month that saw a little original animated film called KPop Demon Hunters quietly slide onto Netflix (more on that later, too), we got announcements about Spaceballs 2, The Social Network 2, and Lilo & Stitch 2, as well as confirmation at long last that Matt Reeves and Mattson Tomlin’s The Batman Part II script was complete. And while two wasn’t specifically the magic number on the big screen in June, sequels were dominating the multiplexes in a big way all the same, with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s 28 Years Later and Gareth Edwards’ dino-tastic Jurassic World Rebirth both hitting cinemas and scoring rapturous (or should that be raptorous?) box-office returns.
July
It’s Superman vs The Fantastic Four as DC Studios and the MCU go head-to-head
Both DC Studios and Marvel Studios headed into 2025 with something to prove. For the DCU’s head honcho James Gunn, his David Corenswet starring Superman would be the first big test for his burgeoning new cinematic universe — a bellwether not only for the identity and vibe of DC’s big screen future, but also for fans’ willingness to return to ground that has, in recent years, been more than a little shaky. For Kevin Feige and co over at MCU HQ, Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps represented not only the first outing for Marvel’s First Family since Josh Trank’s 2015 bomb, not only the cinematic debut proper of world-eater Galactus, but also the first major test of whether Deadpool & Wolverine had truly marked a turning of the tide in the much-vaunted ‘superhero fatigue’ wars. And so the stage was set: DC’s Blue Boy Scout vs Marvel’s FF. And the result? Honestly, maybe a score-draw, all things considered. Superman edged it at the box office, taking a cool $616 million as opposed to The Fantastic Four’s $521 million — though neither’s haul came close to hitting the kind of world-beating figures of the genre’s heyday. Otherwise, both were for the most part roundly well received (though Empire did heavily favour Shakman’s film over Gunn’s), with fans and critics alike broadly appreciating the new directions taken with the beloved comic book characters, and both movies holding enough promise to build up some momentum for future outings to come. Not quite the heavyweight bout we were anticipating then, in the end, but still plenty of food for thought while we wait for the real comic book movie main event… Spider-Man: Beyond The Spider-Verse, of course.
Read Empire’s reviews of The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman.
Tilly Norwood becomes the most talked about “actor” in town…
There was no shortage of actors — actual flesh and blood actors — who broke through in 2025. Andor’s Elizabeth Dulau, One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti, Owen Cooper in Adolescence, and Miles Caton in Sinners spring to mind as just some of the standouts in an outstanding year for star-making performances. And yet the “actor” who caused the biggest commotion by quite some distance wasn’t even a real person. Yes, Tilly Norwood — the brainchild of Particle6 Group’s AI division, Xicoia — turned heads, raised eyebrows, and stoked the fires of AI discourse in late July when she made her debut in AI generated, ChatGPT scripted “comedy sketch” ‘AI Commissioner‘. Among the dissenting voices appalled by reports that acting agencies were considering signing Norwood were actors’ unions including SAG-AFTRA, Equity, and ACTRA, as well as the likes of Melissa Barrera, Natasha Lyonne, Emily Blunt, Natasha Lyonne, Ralph Ineson, Odessa A’zion, and Whoopi Goldberg. GLOW star Betty Gilpin perhaps cut to the heart of the issue most directly in an excoriating, brilliantly done THR Op-Ed titled “Dear Tilly Norwood: Some Blunt Advice, Actress to “Actress,” where she writes: “Tilly, you can not look up and become half of someone. Because you are no one.” Harsh? Maybe. True? Definitely.
…while a celluloid revival stirs on the big screen
With the existential threat of AI continuing to bear down on the cinematic landscape throughout this year, a silver lining presented itself in the form of a somewhat unexpected celluloid revival. For all the digital doomsday talk buzzing about Hollywood, 2025 can and will forever be looked back on as the year that kicked off with Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist hitting cinemas in glorious VistaVision, that continued with the 65mm Ultra-Panavision and 65mm IMAX film stocks shot Sinners, and that also saw Bugonia, One Battle After Another, and The Smashing Machine — all shot on actual, tactile film — drive movie buffs to the multiplexes, spurred on by lovingly presented format guides from the likes of Ryan Coogler and Benny Safdie. And with Christopher Nolan’s entirely IMAX shot The Odyssey as well as Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Digger, M. Night Shyamalan’s Remain, and Greta Gerwig’s Narnia all on their way in 2026, film may yet prove cinema’s ultimate salvation. Fingers crossed!
Read Empire Deputy Online Editor Ben Travis’ deep-dive into whether film can save cinema.
August
A Brand New Day dawns for Spider-Man
Spider-Man, Spider-Man, can’t stop thinkin’ bout Spider-Man… Ah, August, we knew you well. Still flying high on the return of Oasis, still revelling in the low-key year of Pedro Pascal (Fantastic Four, Materialists, The Last Of Us Season 2, Eddington, and Freaky Tales all in one year? C’mon now!), we swung into the height of summer with unearned optimism coursing through our veins. And as the summer sun beat down upon us all, our inexplicable faith in good things heading our way was richly rewarded as Destin Daniel Cretton, Tom Holland, and the cast of Spider-Man: Brand New Day took to the streets of Scotland and London to start shooting our beloved wallcrawler’s long-awaited MCU return. From buzzy costume reveals, to BTS footage of tank chases on city streets, to evenings spent scrutinising every photo and clip emerging from the set of the Spidey fourquel, it really did feel just like old times. Roll on 31 July, 2026!
KPop Demon Hunters enjoys a Golden summer
So, you remember how we said Netflix snuck out some little animated indie offering back in June? Well, by the time the sun had set on Summer 2025, there was not a soul on this Earth (probably — don’t quote us on that) who hadn’t heard of KPop Demon Hunters. To call Chris Appelhans and Maggie Kang’s animated musical banger — which centres around Huntrix, a Korean pop trio who slay the stage by day and literal demons from the underworld by night — a phenomenon would be a massive understatement. Handily the most-watched movie in Netflix history, so much so in fact that the movie enjoyed a $25 million box office run when it was released in cinemas two months after it had hit streaming, KPop Demon Hunters marked a real pop cultural breakthrough for Sony Pictures Animation, spawning chart-topping hits on both sides of the Atlantic, bringing Korean pop music to an even wider mainstream audience, and delivering the bop of 2025 in the shape of ‘Golden’. That the hit made Huntrix the first girl group to top the US Billboard charts since Destiny’s Child way back in 2001 really, in many ways, says it all. That we’re still listening to it over half a year later, as well as the rest of the movie’s banger-rammed soundtrack, only stands as testament to just how brilliant KPop Demon Hunters really is. We guess you could say that by the end of August the movie was done hiding and now it was shining, like it was born to be…
Read Empire’s review of KPop Demon Hunters.
September
Michael Caine exits retirement for something wholly unexpected
It was the great green philosopher Kermit the Frog who once observed, “Life made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it.” And how very right he was. In a month that saw us bid farewell (at least for now) to two franchises that, at their heart, were really about love all along — Downton Abbey and The Conjuring — we also found ourselves saying hello again to actual living legend Michael Caine. But what on Earth could’ve possibly driven the 92-year-old screen titan out of retirement? Well, er, turns out it’s actually Vin Diesel’s The Last Witch Hunter 2. So how do you like them apples Daniel Day-Lewis, with your fancy father-and-son passion project comeback and your method acting? Does Anemone have big Vinnie D as a D&D inspired witch hunter called Kaulder and Michael Caine as a priestly aide called Dolan? Didn’t think so. Here’s hoping one last critical hit may be on its way for the nonagenarian thespian, yet…
Adolescence sweeps the Emmys
Andor may have taken top spot in Empire’s TV shows of the year rundown, but that honour could just have easily gone to Philip Barantini’s extraordinary Netflix series Adolescence. (And, if you’re a Pilot TV Podcast listener, then *SPOILER ALERT* you’ll know that it actually did top our telly pod’s list!) Thankfully for Barantini and co, while they didn’t take our coveted top spot with their emotionally walloping and technically staggering one-shot show, they did bag an absolute ton of awards at the 2025 Emmys instead. Owen Cooper became the youngest male actor to ever bag an Emmy in recognition of his chilling turn as killer schoolboy Jamie Miller in the series, while co-stars Stephen Graham and Erin Doherty also scooped top honours in their respective acting races. Unsurprisingly, Adolescence stormed the Limited or Anthology Series category too, and scored Barantini — whose one-shot wizardry continues to astound and innovate — a richly deserved Best Director gong to boot. Who ever said you can’t win anything with kids, eh? (It was Liverpool legend Alan Hansen, just in case you were wondering.)
Read Empire contributor Sophie Butcher on how Adolescence pulled off the most dizzying TV feat of 2025.
The Savant is indefinitely postponed as political tensions escalate in America
Empire Magazine is, first and foremost, a publication dedicated to film and TV. And while all art is inherently political, we are not a tabloid or broadsheet newspaper. With that being said, there are unavoidably times where the cultural streams of art and politics cross in ways we cannot — and indeed should not — ignore. As such, we can’t run down the goings on in the world of film and television this year without addressing the Trump in the room — the (far-)right stuff, if you will. And the effects of the 47th POTUS’ first year back in office are already being keenly felt in and beyond Hollywood. Earlier this year, Stephen Colbert’s Late Show was cancelled by CBS amid Trump’s outrage at the talkshow host’s continued holding of his feet to the fire; Jimmy Kimmel narrowly escaped a similar fate not long after; and we’re getting a Brett Ratner directed Rush Hour 4 because of former Home Alone 2 star Trump’s love for somewhat problematic late 20th century action comedies. Also, noteworthily, one thing we are not getting — or at least not any time soon — is Apple TV’s true story inspired political thriller The Savant, which digs into far-right acts of domestic terrorism and the particularly Trumpian culture that fertilises its spread. Ostensibly delayed due to the unconscionable killing of controversial political commentator Charlie Kirk, the continued censorship/withholding of the Jessica Chastain led series certainly seems to speak to a twitchiness across America’s streamers and studios when it comes to releasing anything that may be deemed anti-Trump or Trump-critical. It’ll be very interesting to see if The Savant — or more projects like it — do actually see the light of day in the next three years. But still, Rush Hour 4 and a Bloodsport reboot sound like real winners, right? Right? Right?!
October
Michael Mann feels the Heat around the corner again
It is a cinematic truth universally acknowledged that the action is the juice. And, after several years of teasing and toying with the idea of making Heat 2, Michael Mann finally decided it was high time to start the squeeze on adapting his long-awaited crime saga’s sequel novel in October. With Leonardo DiCaprio circling the role of Chris Shiherlis (played in the original Heat by the late, great Val Kilmer), Christian Bale reportedly eyeing the project, and no shortage of other A-List talent lining up to get in on what will doubtless be one of the most hotly anticipated sequels of the decade, we’re certainly feeling the Heat around the corner again…
The hunt for The Hunt For Ben Solo unites Star Wars fans
It was a cold, bright morning in early October when we published a story that even the great Master Yoda couldn’t have sensed coming: Adam Driver Reveals Cancelled Plans For Steven Soderbergh Star Wars Movie The Hunt For Ben Solo. A dizzying flurry of revelations stemming from a remarkable Adam Driver AP interview and some loose-lipped Steven Soderbergh BlueSky posts revealed that back in 2021, Soderbergh and Driver had come to Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy with a pitch for The Hunt For Ben Solo, a post-The Rise Of Skywalker movie boasting a script from The Report writer Scott Z. Burns that Driver described as “one of the coolest scripts I had ever been a part of.” But despite Driver and Soderbergh and Kathleen Kennedy and Dave Filoni and the entirety of Lucasfilm’s enthusiasm for the project, Disney’s top brass decided bringing Ben Solo back from the dead just didn’t make sense; there would be no “Somehow, Ben Solo returned…” here. But that rejection, painful as it is to contemplate now, brought with it something Star Wars’ fandom had not felt in a very long time: unity. Billboards were hired, blimps were flown, and social media lit up with #SaveTheHuntForBenSolo posts as SW stans, agnostics, and critics alike all came together to say, for once, “actually I think we all agree that would’ve been pretty damn cool.” Will we ever see The Hunt For Ben Solo in this lifetime? Possibly not. But will we remain connected forever and always by the desire to see it happen? Also possibly not… but it’s nice to imagine, anyway.
Read Empire Deputy Online Editor Ben Travis on how The Hunt For Ben Solo represents the start of the Sequel Trilogy’s revival.
November
The Running Man rounds out a big year for Stephen King adaptations
It would be fair to say that, by and large, Stephen King adaptations can be a little hit or miss — for every Carrie (1976) there is also a Carrie (2013). But 2025 has been something of a banner year for fresh book-to-screen takes on King’s work, with The Monkey, The Life Of Chuck, and The Long Walk all coming in hot as very good riffs on their literary counterparts up on the big screen, while The Institute and IT spin-off Welcome To Derry have both given fans plenty to shout about on the small screen, too. And just a month before we called time on 2025, this banner year for quality Stephen King projects managed to sneak another solid showing over the line: Edgar Wright’s The Running Man. A far more faithful take on King’s pseudonymously written dystopian thriller, Wright’s Running Man — starring Glen Powell as Ben ‘World’s Angriest Man’ Richards — was yet another reminder of why King is, well, the King when it comes to spinning a ripping yarn. And with Mike Flanagan’s Carrie, Doug Liman’s The Stand, and a new Netflix Cujo movie already well on their way, a new golden age of takes on the master’s works may well be upon us.
Tom Cruise receives an Honorary Oscar as Chadwick Boseman gets his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
©Getty Images
Before November was through, film fans were given a poignant opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the legacy of two true icons of cinema — Tom Cruise and the much missed Chadwick Boseman. On 16 November, the 16th annual Governers’ Awards at The Ray Dolby Ballroom saw three-time Oscar nominee Cruise finally recognised by the Academy with an Honorary Oscar in recognition of his services to cinema, putting right an egregious oversight on AMPAS’ part as he absolutely should’ve already had a little golden statuette for his magnificent work in Magnolia. And then, just four days later, in a ceremony at which his Black Panther director Ryan Coogler and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom co-star Viola Davis gave beautiful speeches about their collaborator and friend, Chadwick Boseman received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, creating a permanent reminder for us all of the strength, talent, and impact made by a man who did more in his short 43 years on this Earth than many could ever hope to with twice as long.
Read Empire’s Executive Editor Chris Hewitt on why Tom Cruise’s Honorary Oscar was long overdue.
Read Empire’s tribute to Chadwick Boseman.
December
Netflix buys Warner Bros. for $82 billion
The media landscape is no stranger to change. It changed in 2009 with Disney’s $4 billion acquisition of Marvel. It changed again in 2012 and 2017 when the House of Mouse bought both Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox. And it changed in 2021 when Amazon splashed $8 billion on MGM Studios. But when, after a weeks-long bidding war, it was announced on 4 December, 2025 that Netflix had sealed a deal to buy Warner Bros.in a deal worth an absolutely staggering $82.7 billion, it was hard not to feel as if the landscape had been changed for good — but not necessarily for good. The merger, which when complete will see Netflix take control of DC Comics, Harry Potter, Hanna-Barbera, Game Of Thrones, HBO (and HBO Max), and New Line among other entities and IP, has caused more than a little trepidation among both cinemagoers and those who work in the industry. The DGA (Directors Guild of America) and exhibition trade organisation Cinema United spoke out against Ted Sarandos’ power play within hours of the deal being announced, voicing industry-wide concerns about what a streaming giant buying a legacy studio built on theatrical distribution could mean for the future of bricks-and-mortar cinemas. Avatar: Fire And Ash filmmaker James Cameron put his head above the parapet to tell Puck that Netflix acquiring WBD would be “a disaster”. And yet, despite the very real fears about corporate monopolies, the increasing erosion of theatrical distribution avenues, and the skepticism surrounding exactly how committed Netflix will be when it comes to preserving Warner Bros.’ cinema-first reputation, not all hope is lost just yet…
Wicked: For Good, Zootropolis 2, and Avatar: Fire And Ash send 2025 out with a bang at the box office
In cinema’s darkest hour, who but a pair of singing witches, a hot rabbit and an even hotter fox, and *checks notes* James Cameron flanked by an absolute shit-ton of Na’vi could’ve possibly restored our faith in the future of cinema? Bringing 2025 to a blockbuster climax on the film front, Jon M. Chu’s musical epic Wicked: For Good, Disney’s wildly (Wildely?) popular Zootropolis 2, and Big Jim’s eyegasmic Avatar: Fire And Ash arrived like Gandalf on the fifth day at dawn in The Two Towers to deliver big time at the box office. Elphaba and Glinda’s tearjerking farewell proved a commercial hit, netting a none-too-shabby $505 million in its run; Nick Wilde and Judy Hoops’ return followed up a record-breaking $556 million opening weekend by closing out the year as Walt Disney Animation’s highest grossing film ever ($1.46 billion, for stat fans); and Pandora’s box is currently sitting at a healthy $800 million global cume less than two weeks after Fire And Ash landed in cinemas. All of which is to say that if the theatrical experience is under threat, then the resistance is looking pretty damn strong for the time being. And with The Odyssey, Brand New Day, Avengers: Doomsday, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and Toy Story 5 among 2026’s biggest upcoming releases, we wouldn’t bet against bricks-and-mortar cinemas doing big business once again in 2026.
Stranger Things’ final season turns us upside down one last time
Okay, so technically speaking Stranger Things only actually ended in 2025 if you happen to live in America — The Duffer Brothers’ final trip to the Upside Down won’t hit British shores until after the fireworks have all finished on 1 January. But really, deep down, this extended three-volume farewell to Eleven, Will, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Max, and the rest of the Hawkins crew has been the defining moment in film and TV in 2025. From the moment Stranger Things 5’s first volume dropped on 27 November, the internet has been ablaze with chatter and speculation about how El and co’s final stand against Vecna will shake out. And with Volume 2‘s Boxing Day drop taking us right up to the precipice of ‘The Right Side Up’, we have entered the last days of the year counting down not to Auld Lang Syne and the beginning of a new trip around the sun, but to the biggest TV event in recent history. We’re not ready to say goodbye, but we can’t wait to see our heroes team up one last time. It’s gonna be emotional…
In Memoriam
In a year bookended by the tragic deaths of David Lynch and Rob Reiner, we said goodbye to many brilliant, talented, unforgettable people whose contributions to the medium we love will live on forever. Among the many, many greats who passed into legend in 2025 were two-time Oscar winner Gene Hackman, who died aged 95; legendary Mission: Impossible theme composer Lalo Schifrin, who passed at 93 years old; Quentin Tarantino regular collaborator Michael Madsen, who left us aged just 67; British acting royalty and Swinging Sixties icon Terence Stamp, who died aged 87; Hollywood’s fairytale prince of cinema and Sundance Film Festival co-founder Robert Redford, who passed away in his sleep at 89; Oscar-winning Annie Hall star Diane Keaton, who left us at 79 years of age; generational illustrator and poster artist Drew Struzan, whose battle with Alzheimer’s Disease ended at age 78; horror icon and fan-favourite actor Udo Kier, who died at 81; French New Wave icon and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot, who leaves a complicated legacy after dying just before Christmas at 91; and The Wire star and Spike Lee regular Isiah Whitlock Jr., who died following a short battle with illness at just 71 years of age. Everyone we lost this year, named here and elsewhere, will be sorely missed, and we will carry their memories with us into the year ahead.