Films to look forward to in 2025
Plus: Nosferatu, Jesse Eisenberg on A Real Pain and Babygirl director Halina Reijn
All the movies we are looking forward to in 2025
The best way to dust away the January blues is to get excited for what’s in store. And at a first glance, 2025 is set to be a bumper year for movies. From Terrence Malick’s ambitious reenactment of The Life of Christ to new offerings from Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Lee, Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Reichardt, our editors select the films we can’t wait to see in 2025.
Jesse Eisenberg: “It’s possible to be human while exploring places of great tragedy”
A Real Pain—a story Jesse Eisenberg had been thinking of “for sixteen years or something”—is many things: a humorous movie about the Holocaust; an odd-couple buddy-feature; an elegant study of pain, both monumental and personal. Eisenberg’s second directorial effort, he also wrote and produced it, inspired by a 2008 to Poland to stay with his cousin who had survived the war. Eisenberg plays David, the neurotic, uptight do-gooder, a family man who works in digital ads sales and pops pills for his OCD. In contrast is his cousin David: chaotic, mischievous and more free-spirited cousin Benji, impishly played by Kieran Culkin, who lives in his mum’s basement and as we discover, is recovering from a failed overdose. The pair embark on a guided Holocaust tour around Poland led by kindly British philosemite James (Will Sharpe). “I was not thinking about this movie existing in the pantheon of Holocaust movies,” says Eisenberg. “But it did occur to me as we were watching it with audiences that this is a movie that might feel more accessible to people who don’t know much about this history.”
Now online, Katie Driscoll talks to Jesse Eisenberg about his “trauma travelogue”, which hits cinemas in the UK today.
“I live like a nun”: Babygirl director Halina Reijn
“I grew up in communes and cults. I was named by a guru,” Romy, the protagonist of Babygirl, tells her assistant, a short way into the film. The admission comes as a surprise. Played by Nicole Kidman, the Stepford Wife-coded character is uncomfortable with letting her hair down. One day, on her way into the office, Romy catches sight of a young man taming a feral dog with a cookie. Samuel, played with Balenciaga-seriousness by Harris Dickinson, turns out to be a new intern at her company. A torrid love affair begins. It only takes a quick Google search to discover that being raised in communes is a biographic detail Romy shares with the film’s director and writer Halina Reijn. “I was a product of the sexual revolution, my parents were super involved in all that, but in my life sexuality is something I suppressed,” she explains.
Now online, Kitty Grady speaks to Halina Reijn about working with Nicole Kidman, breaking America, and the beast inside of us all.
Robert Eggers and his cast shed light on their new Nosferatu
In its original 1922 form, FW Murnau’s silent classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was never just a film. It was a silent reckoning, a masterstroke of fear and longing that defined Gothic cinema. To reimagine it is to tempt the Count himself, yet Robert Eggers approaches it with the assured precision of a craftsman who understands where the shadows must fall. “You don’t remake Nosferatu lightly,” says Eggers. His words, much like his films, are deliberate. “It’s sacred ground. But the story endures because it’s elemental. It taps into something buried deep in us.” For A Rabbit’s Foot, Alia Abdulla speaks to Robert Eggers, Bill Skarsgård, Lily Rose-Depp, Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe about updating Nosferatu—now in cinemas—for the present day.
A Rabbit’s Foot Holiday Shop
It’s still possible to order prints from our Holiday Shop! A Rabbit’s Foot are offering our readers the chance to purchase original cinematic photography by the likes of Eve Arnold, David Montgomery, Jeff Bridges and many more…
2025 is off to an amazing start. So looking forward to ARF's perspective on these films!