As 2025 gets into gear, perhaps the best way to fulfill that new year resolution about reading more might be going to the movies. There is a raft of book-to-film adaptations that are heading to multiplexes this year. From literary classics to book club bestsellers via dynamic graphic novels, there is a dizzying array of genres and style to explore, pitching some of literature’s greatest authors (Mary Shelley, Stephen King) with some of cinema’s most respected auteurs (Guillermo del Toro, Chloé Zhao, Edgar Wright). Below is our pick of the most mouthwatering page to screen crossovers – it’s time to curl up with a great film.
1. The Ballad of a Small Player
Fresh from the Vatican shenanigans of Conclave, director Edward Berger travels to China for another literary adaptation: this time of Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 book. The travel journalist-turned-novelist’s crime tale The Forgiven was adapted in 2021, with Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain as a married couple all at sea in Morocco, and The Ballad of a Small Player has invited further Graham Greene comparisons (think gone-to-seed Brits abroad). Colin Farrell plays a high-stakes gambler who passes himself off as an English lord while lying low in the casinos of Macau. Throw in Tilda Swinton and we’re sold.
2. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
Whether you are a singleton or smug married, who cannot rejoice at the return of everyone’s favourite everywoman? Nine years after Bridget Jones’ Baby, Renée Zellweger is back as Bridget, this time juggling single motherhood (Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy has passed away) as well as men new and familiar; toy boy Roxster (One Day’s Leo Woodall), Chiwetel Ejiofor’s teacher and the love rat’s love rat, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). Taking its cues from Helen Fielding’s novel, get ready for an older though not necessarily wiser Bridget.
3. Die, My Love
The surprising, if enticing-sounding duo of Lynne Ramsay (director) and Jennifer Lawrence (producer/star) have teamed up to adapt Ariana Harwicz’s decidedly Lynchian 2017 novel. Lawrence plays a woman beset by psychological traumas, with Robert Pattinson as her husband and LaKeith Stanfield as her lover. Ramsay has always taken liberties with her source materials (see We Need To Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here), so prepare for the unexpected.
4. The Electric State
Made by the Marvel brain trust of directors Joe and Anthony Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, this sci-fi adventure posits an alternative 1984 (A.I. is now dominant, obvs) in which a teen orphan (Millie Bobby Brown) joins forces with a robot and a drifter (Chris Pratt) to find her missing brother. Reworked from Simon Stålenhag’s 2018 graphic novel, this is giving off big ’80s Amblin energy.
5. Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro is the Godfather of the Gothic and his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel is the dictionary definition of labour of love. Promising to cleave closer to Shelley’s vision than previous versions, it stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and the normally easy-on-the-eye Jacob Elordi as the monster alongside Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz. This one will make Nosferatu look like Hundreds of Beavers. Probably.
6. Hamnet
After a foray into the MCU with Eternals, Nomadland’s Chloé Zhao explores literary history, focusing on William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and Anne Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) coping with the death of their 11-year-old son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe, brother of A Quiet Place’s Noah). Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s soulful 2020 novel, it also stars Joe Alwyn and Emily Watson. Expect tears and awards in equal measures.
7. Highest 2 Lowest
Spike Lee’s next joint is a reinterpretation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 procedural High and Low, itself a loose adaptation of Evan Hunter’s 1959 novel King’s Ransom. In his fifth mouth-watering collaboration with Lee, Denzel Washington is a high-flying music mogul but the lead according to Lee is rapper A$AP Rocky. Also featuring Ice Spice, Ilfenesh Hadera and Jeffrey Wright, kidnapping, extortion and a tonne of cinematic style.
8. The History of Sound
A dream team of Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor comes together in an adaptation of American novelist Ben Shattuck’s award-winning 2018 short story. It’s a love story set during War World I and its immediate aftermath about two young men, Lionel (Mescal) and David (O’Connor), who set out to record the lives, voices and music of their American countryman. Directed by Olivier Hermanus (Moffie, Living), it promises a balance of intimate moments combined with an epic sweep across 20th century America.
9. Hot Milk
Set under the scorching Spanish sun, British filmmaker Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s take on Deborah Levy’s bestseller sees a mother, Rose (Fiona Shaw), and her daughter, Sofia (Sex Education’s Emma Mackey), travel to Almeria looking for a cure for Rose’s paralysis. Once there, Sofia falls under the spell of enigmatic seamstress Ingrid (Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps). The screenwriter of ida, She Said and Small Axe, Lenkiewicz’s trademark is knotty complexity that she will surely bring to bare on uneasy parent-child dynamics.
10. The Housemaid
Based on the first in a series of books by American thriller author Freida McFadden, The Housemaid is a full-on thriller that redefines twisty-turny. The fast-rising Sydney Sweeney plays Millie, a young woman who takes a job as a housekeeper for the Winchesters (Amanda Seyfried is matriarch Nina), a well-to-do couple harbouring dark secrets. Directed by Paul Feig, working in the similar vein to A Simple Favor, this could be 2025’s Gone Girl.
11. The Man In My Basement
Sourced from Walter Mosley’s 2004 novel, London-based filmmaker Nadia Latif’s debut feature pitches Corey Hawkins’ down-on-his-luck Black man about to lose his ancestral home, against Willem Dafoe’s mysterious businessman who offers to clear his debts by renting his basement. The premise suggests a thought-provoking thriller operating at the intersection of race and murky morality.
12. Mickey 17
Bong Joon Ho’s long awaited follow up to Parasite uses Edward Ashton’s 2022 science fiction novel Mickey7, as a jumping off point. Robert Pattinson plays the title character who signs up to the so-called ‘expendable’ programme, with a mission to achieve: to colonise a remote ice planet. The twist is he can die every day and be replaced by a replica of himself.
13. No Other Choice
Previously adapted by Costa-Gavras in 2005, Donald Westlake’s thriller The Ax now gets the Park Chan-wook treatment. A South Korean man (Squid Game’s Lee Byung-hun) is fired from his job after 25 years and becomes so desperate he resorts to killing his competitors in the job market. Nifty premise, social satire, director Park’s visuals? Unmissable.
14. The Running Man
Edgar Wright is tackling the 1982 Stephen King dystopian thriller about a TV show that sees contestants chased by murderous killers to win money. Glen Powell plays the hero who bucks the system, joined by Josh Brolin as the show’s producer and Colman Domingo as its flamboyant host. Wright has promised his film will cleave closer to King than the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle so don’t expect those classic kiss-off lines. What a pain in the neck.
15. The Thursday Murder Club
The first in Richard Osman’s OAPs-crack-crimes series comes to the big screen courtesy of Harry Potter director Chris Columbus. TTMC follows four amateur sleuths (Helen Mirren, Sir Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan and Celia Imrie) who solve cold cases for fun in a retirement home, only to be pulled into a real-life mystery involving the death of a local property developer. There’ll be heart, humour, homicides and, if it follows the book, lots of nods to modern British life.
These are the must-see films for 2025 you can’t miss.
The 22 best TV and streaming shows to stream this year.
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