2025 has been another great year for cinema – although that’s not to say it’s been great for everyone. type of the film, mind you. December should be a time of celebration and reflection on the current state of cinema, but there is also another side to this coin. The failures and missteps seen in a specific piece of that pie can often indicate where we are headed as a whole. And, while recency bias with blockbuster stories like “Sinners” or the (hopefully) box office-saving release of “Avatar: Fire & Ash” may skew our perceptions a bit, it’s impossible to avoid the black eye on 2025’s face: Blockbusters, on the whole, have felt like one crushing disappointment after another.
Is this even remotely a hot take? We’re not here to paint with a broad brush and erase all traces of populist entertainment simply to prove a snobby point. 2025 gave us two of the most captivating Marvel films between “Thunderbolts*” and “Fantastic Four: First Steps”, a solid foundation for (re)building the DC universe in James Gunn’s “Superman”, and several visionary authors going wild with blank checks: “Mickey 17” by Bong Joon-ho, “Sinners” by Ryan Coogler, “One Battle After Another” by Paul Thomas Anderson and Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”. This was by no means a lost cause.
Yet, by the same token, it would be criminally negligent to overlook all the stinks inflicted on mainstream moviegoers over the past 12 months. Remember when the reboot of the “Captain America” franchise literally titled “Brave New World” turned into a safe, uninspired rehash? Or when Universal rushed production of “Jurassic World Rebirth” just to hit a summer release date? Hell, who was even asking for a “Tron” threesome with Jared Leto in the first place? The final results were terrible …but they also taught us valuable lessons.
Blockbusters of 2025 Tried to Give Audiences What They Wanted, Not What They Need
Over the past decade and change, audiences have conditioned studios (and vice versa) to believe that appealing to fans and bending over backwards to appease their wishes is the only way to go. “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens” started this trend exactly 10 years ago with its blatant dedication to the story beats and structure of “Episode IV – A New Hope,” but things have only gotten worse since then. These days, sarcastically referring to a Marvel movie as “Fan-Service: The Movie” would lead to confusion as to whether you mean “Avengers: Endgame,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” or the upcoming (and, for skeptics, ominously named) “Avengers: Doomsday.” We are squarely in the era of Glup Shitto.
In many ways, making blockbuster films in 2025 felt an awful lot like the tipping point on this precipitously sliding scale. Where else would this ouroboros lead if not to a climate where it seems like a good, solid business idea to hijack our new Captain America for a hijacked sequel to “The Incredible Hulk,” the former black sheep of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that the Internet has inexplicably reclaimed? Or a place where multiple studios have devoted vast amounts of resources to “live-action” remakes that are exactly the same as the animated originals, only worse? (Looking at you, “Snow White,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” and “Lilo & Stitch.”)
When so much of our movie consumption is overloaded with sugary snacks and junk food, can we really be surprised when all we get in return is stomach-ache-inducing garbage? What the public needs (a healthy, balanced diet) couldn’t be more opposite to what they want (thrills without calories). Fortunately for us, this is where a very different groups of films come into play.
There’s Still Hope for Blockbusters: These Mainstream Movies Prove It
However, all hope is not lost – not even a cursory look beyond what the studios force-feed us brings so much creativity and innovation to the surface. As bleak as this industry-wide problem is (and it could only get worse if the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal goes through), even the most fragile studio system in recent memory can’t be entirely undone for good while it continues to produce great work. Whether it’s the Sisyphean efforts of our last reserves of talented filmmakers or relentless creatives squeezing real art into the relentless machine of legacy sequels and other IP games, these are the titles that suggest a light at the end of a very foggy tunnel.
It should never be said that art cannot flourish, even in the most inhospitable conditions. After all, this is the year that the “28 Days Later” sequel unleashed one of the most haunting and beautiful meditations on grief you’ll ever see, while “The Long Walk,” probably lit only because of its Stephen King origins, pulled off a similar miracle through the most harrowing experience imaginable. Elsewhere, “Novocaine” and “Drop” proved that low-budget films can still deliver audience-pleasing thrills, and even “Frankenstein,” Guillermo del Toro’s rightfully chaotic and self-indulgent puzzle of a passion project, reminded us that not all remakes and/or adaptations have to be devoid of true inspiration. All that’s left is for James Cameron to take us a few billion miles away on the wings of “Avatar: Fire & Ash” and put an exclamation point at the end of the 2025 sentence.
Blockbusters have had a tough time this year, but they’ve taught us to dig deeper and look further to find true movie magic.
