With Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning now in theaters, the 2025 summer movie season is officially underway. This is inarguably the best time of the year for movie theaters and studios alike, as most of the year’s biggest releases will be hitting the big screen within the next three months. With the Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day holidays being huge movie-going weekends, summer is always the best time to be at the movies. MI:8 and the live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch kicked off the summer season this Memorial Day Weekend, while Jurassic World Rebirth will be taking the July 4th weekend, and the fourth installment of the hit horror franchise, The Conjuring: Last Rites, will take Labor Day. In between those major holiday weekends, there are numerous highly anticipated movies to look forward to, such as 28 Years Later, Together, and Fantastic Four: First Steps.
However, this year has already brought audiences multiple incredible films, such as Ryan Coogler’s masterpiece, Sinners. Admittedly, it was a slow start to the year with a few hidden gems sprinkled in. Yet, the domestic box office numbers for the first half of the year have been relatively strong. Some of these movies were projected to do well, but exceeded expectations, while some weren’t even on the radar and still performed well.
It has been an interesting year for movies, so here are the biggest box office surprises of 2025, so far.
8
‘A Minecraft Movie’
Based on the best-selling video game of all time, it was a given that fans of the game were going to show up at the movie theater for this movie. It takes place in a procedurally generated, three-dimensional blocky world where players can build machines, land, and structures. The movie follows four misfits who are sucked through a portal and transported to the bizarre cubic world. To get back home, they’ll have to master the inner workings of the world while embarking on a quest with an expert crafter.
The Warner Bros.-produced movie was expected to do well, considering its pre-existing fan base. The original opening weekend projections were between $70-80 million, with final projections closer to $90 million due to the hype surrounding the movie. However, in its opening weekend alone, A Minecraft Movie significantly exceeded expectations by grossing $162.7 million domestically. It went on to make $421.4 million domestically in its theatrical run, making it the highest-grossing movie of the year so far in the U.S. and Canada.
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7
‘Companion’
4.5
/5
- Release Date
-
January 31, 2025
- Runtime
-
97 Minutes
- Director
-
Drew Hancock
- Writers
-
Drew Hancock
Led by two of horror’s brightest young stars, Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher, Companion is a thriller with elements of horror and dark comedy. The film follows Iris (Thatcher) as she heads to a billionaire’s remote cabin to spend a weekend with her boyfriend Josh (Quaid) and his friends. After the billionaire is found dead, it sets off a chain of events that reveal one of them is not who they think they are.
January is typically the weakest month of the year for new movies. After the highs of the summer season, plus the coveted Thanksgiving and Christmas slates, the start of the year is rough. Studios will typically release movies they’re not confident in during January, saving the potential money-makers or awards contenders for later in the year. Nevertheless, Companion proved that January doesn’t have to be a dumping ground for objectively bad movies. The film has a genuinely interesting premise and enough twists to keep audiences guessing, despite the marketing campaign giving away one of the main twists. Thatcher and Quaid also work immensely well together. It grossed $20.8 million domestically against a $10 million budget and a limited theatrical run of 19 days. For a smaller film not based on any pre-existing IP that was also released in January, Companion was a surprise hit.
6
‘Lilo & Stitch’
- Release Date
-
May 21, 2025
- Runtime
-
108 Minutes
- Director
-
Dean Fleischer Camp
- Writers
-
Chris Kekaniokalani Bright, Mike Van Waes, Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois
- Producers
-
Tom C. Peitzman, Dan Lin, Ryan Halprin
Lilo & Stitch is the live-action remake of the beloved, Academy Award-nominated animated film of the same name from 2002. The original animated film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2003 Oscars ceremony and is one of the best Disney films to come out of the post-Renaissance period the studio had in the ’90s. This live-action remake follows the same premise as the original, with quite a few glaring changes to the source material.
Just from its recent opening weekend, the movie has grossed $183 million domestically, going up against Tom Cruise in MI:8. It far exceeded expectations, and is now the highest-grossing Memorial Day weekend opening in history, surpassing the previous record holder, Top Gun: Maverick, another Cruise movie. Despite the negative reactions many of Disney’s live-action remakes receive, they typically make a lot of money. So, it’s not surprising that it’s making a lot of money, but more so that it took the MDW record from Top Gun and that it’s currently performing better than one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year.
5
‘Captain America: Brave New World’
Captain America: Brave New World is the fourth entry in the Captain America series from the MCU and the first one led by the new Captain America, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson. The movie follows Sam after President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) summons him to the White House to discuss rebuilding the Avengers. Shortly after, Sam finds himself caught in an international crisis where he must find the culprit behind a nefarious global plot.
Mackie is always charming as Sam Wilson, and the Captain America mantle looks good on the character. He doesn’t try to be the new Steve Rogers, but instead does what he thinks Captain America should do. Unfortunately, much of the criticism of the movie has nothing to do with Mackie, but rather that the convoluted plot appears to be a sequel to The Incredible Hulk rather than a continuation of Captain America. Despite the criticism and low Rotten Tomatoes score of 47%, the movie grossed $200.5 million in the U.S. and Canada.
4
‘Thunderbolts*’
3
/5
- Release Date
-
May 2, 2025
- Runtime
-
127 minutes
- Director
-
Jake Schreier
- Writers
-
Eric Pearson, Joanna Calo
The MCU’s scrappy new team has quickly become one of the best Marvel movies to come out since Avengers: Endgame over six years ago. Thunderbolts* (now referred to as *The New Avengers) follows Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) as she searches for purpose in her life and deals with the immense loneliness and depression she faces. Sent on an unknown suicide mission by CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Yelena finds herself forced to work with other underground assassins Valentina has turned on to protect her secrets from the U.S. government.
The creative marketing campaign for the movie started to generate more excitement for the movie as it inched closer to the release date. The last trailer in particular, which noted all the cast and crew who had previously worked with A24, garnered significant traction as it appeared Marvel Studios had put more thought into this film than previous ones. Projections for the movie in early April were around $63-70 million for its opening weekend, according to Forbes. It made $76 million domestically, and as of right now has made $174 million domestically. While it may not be on par with pre-Endgame movies, it is a pleasant surprise for the post-Endgame timeline that hopefully shows a brighter future for the MCU.
3
‘Dog Man’
2.5
/5
- Release Date
-
January 24, 2025
- Runtime
-
89 minutes
- Director
-
Peter Hastings
-
-
Peter Hastings
Dog Man / Officer Knight / Harold’s House (voice)
Currently sitting at number seven on the 2025 domestic box office list is DreamWorks’ animated feature Dog Man. The movie follows a policeman and his police dog as they are fused together, becoming Dog Man. Now one, they must stop the villainous Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson) from cloning himself and creating an evil kitten, doubling his evil ability.
Another January release, Dog Man, was projected to make between $25 to $30 million in its opening weekend, but went on to make $35 million. It had an 11-week theatrical run with an average run per theater of 6.7 weeks. At number seven on the domestic box office list, the children’s movie made $97.9 million. This is high for a January release, and great for an animated movie not made by Disney.
2
‘Final Destination Bloodlines’
- Release Date
-
May 16, 2025
- Runtime
-
109 Minutes
- Director
-
Zach Lipovsky, Adam B. Stein
- Producers
-
Craig Perry, Jon Watts, Dianne McGunigle
-
Kaitlyn Santa Juana
Stephanie Lewis
-
Teo Briones
Charlie Lewis
The sixth installment of the beloved yet traumatizing horror franchise, Final Destination, was sure to draw in a decent crowd. Released about a month after the original film’s 25th anniversary, Final Destination Bloodlines has become an instant hit. The latest movie follows Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), a college student plagued by a recurring violent nightmare of her estranged grandmother dying horrifically in a tower collapse in the late 1960s. Determined to figure out what the dream means and how she can protect her family from the gruesome fate that awaits them, Stefani returns home to find the one person who can help her.
The newest entry in the Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema franchise has become the best-reviewed movie in the series with a 92% critic score and an 88% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Additionally, it has made franchise history with the highest-grossing opening weekend for a Final Destination film ever. It earned $51.7 million domestically and another $51.7 million internationally, totaling a $103.4 million global gross for its first weekend, far surpassing the $46 million domestic projections for the movie. The franchise has been a favorite among horror fans for over two decades, and it has gained many younger fans in the 14 years since the previous installment of the franchise. Currently, it has made $94.1 million domestically and has already surpassed the global box office numbers of the other movies in the series.
1
‘Sinners’
Ryan Coogler’s beautiful, haunting, socially relevant masterpiece, Sinners, is undoubtedly the biggest surprise of the year. Not just because of its immense box office success, but also because of the incredibly detailed storytelling. A completely original idea from Coogler’s genius mind, the film is set in the 1930s and follows two twin brothers, Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan), as they return to their hometown in the Mississippi Delta. The brothers left behind a mess they made in Chicago, only to discover something sinister waiting for them back home.
Filmed with IMAX cameras and shown on 70mm IMAX film in select cities, the film is absolutely gorgeous to look at. There is one scene in particular at the Smokestack brothers’ juke joint that is utterly breathtaking. Coogler included so much rich history and detail in the film that it created such deep layers to be peeled back. Warner Bros., which is having an incredible year so far, originally projected the film would make about $40 million in its opening weekend. It made $48 million in the U.S. and Canada in its first weekend, and shockingly took away the number one spot from A Minecraft Movie. It is also the highest-grossing original film opening of the 2020s, the sixth horror film in history to break $200 million in the U.S., and currently the seventh highest-grossing film at the global box office. Sinners has made a whopping $258.8 million at the domestic box office, making it the second highest-grossing film of 2025 domestically.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
