The biggest surprising and disappointing movies and TV shows from 2025

A small indie film about a beer league baseball game featuring no real notable actors was not a movie to expect much from. “Eephus,” though, proved to be remarkably well done. It’s funny, but it’s also existentially bleak. Consider this the under-the-radar, indie gem of 2025.

The “Final Destination” franchise had been sitting fallow for over a decade. That felt reasonable, because the franchise, which is honestly just an excuse for a bunch of ridiculously elaborate and gory deaths, had completely run out of steam. So to say that “Bloodlines” is possibly, maybe even probably, the best movie in the series is really saying something. With the right creatives in place, it turns out you can still mine a lot of bloody fun out of needlessly over-the-top death scenes.

Formula 1 racing is a niche sport in the United States, and many were skeptical about the potential in “F1,” even if it starred Brad Pitt. Was he still a movie star? Was this going to be a generic sports movie? Plus, “F1” is an Apple movie, and Apple movies had been, up to this point, largely critically and commercially unsuccessful. Well, for starters, “F1” made over $630 million and was one of the biggest movies of 2025. However, while that was a surprise, the film is also quite good. Turns out, Brad Pitt is, in fact, still a movie star.

When you hear “John Cena and Idris Elba are in an action movie where they play the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, respectively,” you may think, “That sounds dumb. The thing is, “Head of State” is dumb, but it knows it’s dumb and it leans into being the fun kind of dumb. There’s plenty of knowing comedy and intentionally silliness in the film, which is 2025’s addition to the “wonderfully stupid” movie canon.

We, like many, entered 2025 with superhero fatigue. Superman was getting another reboot, this time from James Gunn, who left Marvel for DC. We were curious about the onset of Gunn’s DC universe, but the bar was low. All we hoped was that “Superman” wasn’t boring and generic. It’s no masterpiece, but “Superman” is enjoyable. Bullet dodged, which makes sense. Superman is famously faster than a speeding bullet, after all.

The director of “Heads of State” directed “Nobody,” but he didn’t return for “Nobody 2.” Also, why was “Nobody” getting a sequel? Fortunately, like any wise sequel makers, they learned lessons from the first film. The lesson learned? Be way dumber and much less serious. What if John Wick was way chiller and just a total family man who wanted to go on a vacation? And what if that vacation got interrupted by his professional proclivities? Plus, Christopher Lloyd is in it.

Derek Cianfrance’s directorial history includes the movies “Blue Valentine” and “The Place Beyond the Pines” as well as the TV show “I Know This Much is True.” Basically, he’s delivered one bummerfest after another. Given that “Roofman” is based on the true story of a “spree robber” who escaped prison and hid out in a Toys ‘R’ Us, one likely imagined we were in for another serious, moody drama. Nope! “Roofman” is…pretty fun? It’s not a breezy, laugh-a-minute comedy, but it’s got plenty of lightness mixed in. Of course, beyond being not what we expected, “Roofman” also proved to be quite good.

“Zootopia” was a huge hit, and it won the Best Animated Feature Oscar, but we thought the mismatched buddy-cop comedy was simply solid. People who liked it weren’t necessarily putting it into the canon, you know? Well, it took a while for “Zootopia 2” to come out, but in addition to being another massive hit, praise has been through the roof. It’s not just seen as a good sequel but as one of the better movies of the year. Why, we’d even call it “good,” and we aren’t in the prime “Zootopia 2” target audience. Call it extolling through mild praise.

Oh really, a Shakespeare movie, but it’s about Shakespeare and his wife? How novel. We know the novel “Hamnet” is based on was quite successful, but it felt like the movie could be a programmer for melodrama lovers looking for an easy cry. Plus, Chloe Zhao’s last film was “Eternals.” Well, casting Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal as the leads was a good start, and the execution made it clear that maybe a lot of the issue with “Eternals” was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. One need not be an easy cry to be moved to tears by “Hamnet.”

“A Star is Born” was a huge hit, and Bradley Cooper used that as a jumping-off point to get to make a passion project/awards bait for himself. “Maestro” was directed by and starred Cooper, and while the Netflix movie got seven Oscar nominations, it didn’t win a single one. What then for Cooper? Instead of going for Oscar bait, he decided to direct a small, quiet dramedy about a couple facing divorce that he only has a secondary role in. “Is This Thing On?” is the kind of film that gets called “a movie for adults” because so few films like that get made. Cooper clearly has another tool in his belt, and we have a new prediction: He wins Best Director before he wins Best Actor.

The “Good Cop/Bad Cop” folks may not be happy to hear this, or maybe they don’t care, but we hadn’t heard of The CW show until it popped up on Amazon Prime. Then, we binged it in a couple of days. It’s a delightful dramedy that will scratch the itch for procedural fans. Lou Hickman is tired of being the sole detective in her small hometown, but then her dad, the police chief, gives her a bit of a “careful what you wish for” lesson when he hires her younger brother Henry, an ambitious Seattle police officer who has hit a ceiling in the big city because of his abrasive personality. Fun stuff!

We had cooled on Marvel TV shows, but we saw that “Marvel Zombies” was only four episodes. Also, that it was TV-MA and loaded with violence. Animated violence, sure, but the kind of violence you don’t normally see in Marvel. Maybe owing to being tied to the What If…?” universe, Marvel was okay with the “Marvel Zombies” people being a little nastier and killing off some popular characters. It’s not perfect, but it was pretty good, and that was a surprise to us.

Having read “Destiny of the Republic,” the book “Death by Lightning” is based on, we weren’t sure if there was a point to watching the Netflix limited series. However, once we started seeing all the praise for the show, we figured it was worth it, even if we knew the story. Indeed, “Death by Lightning” proved well worth it. Michael Shannon and Matthew Macfadyen excel as President James A. Garfield and Charles Guiteau, Garfield’s assassin(?). Why the skeptical question mark? Tune in to find out (and to see some quality acting).

When “Down Cemetery Road” popped up on Apple TV, it seemed interesting enough. A British mystery thriller starring Emma Thompson? Then, we found out that it is based on a book by Mick Herron, the novelist behind the series “Slow Horses” as well. “Down Cemetery Road” was also adapted by a “Slow Horses” alum. At that point, we were definitely in, and indeed the show scratched the same itch as “Slow Horses.”

Yes, “King of the Hill” was a rebooting show, but we are counting it because it was a bold reboot. The show, now on Hulu, didn’t merely pick up where it left off all those years ago? No, the characters had aged over the previous 15 years. Hank and Peggy are now retired and returning to Texas after years in the Middle East. Bobby is an adult and a professional chef. It was a proper revival with new ideas to it, which as an animated show it didn’t need to do. Plus, it was actually good, not just ambitious.

Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of “Frankenstein” has gotten some awards love, and we just don’t see it. This is a bad movie, one of the worst of 2025. Certainly it is the worst movie of 2025 that we had any real hope for. It’s so dull, it looks terrible, and features some subpar performances (Mia Goth is particularly bad). We would have given del Toro a little benefit of the doubt had he been fully faithful to the novel, but he wasn’t. That leaves him with no excuse, and leaves us calling “Frankenstein” awful.

“Captain America: Red Hulk is here” seems about as dumb and pointless as we expected, so much so we’ll admit we skipped it. “Thunderbolts*” was decent, at least good enough not to be a disappointment. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” was the most interesting MCU movie of 2025, though, because it was kicking off the new era of Marvel movies. It was presented as ambitious and important. Instead, it’s watchable, but that’s about it. “First Steps” is more of the same MCU mediocrity, leaving us with no hope for a turnaround in the franchise.

You know, maybe we should have expected it. Kathryn Bigelow is an overrated director in our book, but she has some good movies. After “Detroit” floundered both critically and commercially, she didn’t make a movie for years. Directing a nuclear-war thriller for Netflix could have been the renaissance for Bigelow. Instead, “A House of Dynamite” is fully a shrug, and this time around even those who largely like Bigelow’s work tend to agree.

It’s not that we thought “War of the Worlds” would be good. The adaptation of the classic H.G. Wells story felt slapped together, stars Ice Cube, and was directed by a music video guy who had never helmed a film before. No, “War of the Worlds” is here because it feels like, by consensus, it’s the worst film of 2025. It’s atrocious, and when you have a story we know works at your disposal, that’s a real disappointment.

As is his want, Steven Soderbergh had two movies come out in 2025 (and had another debut at TIFF which is primed for a 2026 release). “Black Bag” got the most attention, in part because it stars Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. Our disappointment is not with Soderbergh, per se; beyond our disappointment, he opted to direct this script. “Black Bag” was written by David Koepp, a veteran screenwriter who is good at handling action and keeping a plot moving, but is terrible at writing realistic human beings and dialogue that actual people would actually say.

“Wicked” is fully not for us, so this is a bit of by-proxy disappointment. People who liked “Wicked” have been down on “Wicked: For Good.” The box office reflects that, as does the critical reception. It didn’t even get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Comedy/Musical. To be fair, some people saw this coming when they decided to bifurcate the story. The general consensus is that the first half of “Wicked” is the better half.

When you read about the tumultuous production behind getting “Daredevil: Born Again” onto Disney+, it’s not surprising that it is a bit of a mess and entirely unremarkable. They made a big deal about the return of Matt Murdock, bringing him fully into the MCU fold. Also, a big deal about the show being TV-MA. It felt like the “TV-MA” stuff was almost perfunctory, like they had to do it but weren’t sure they wanted to. Star Charlie Cox even expressed dislike for one episode in particular. One can hope the second season will be an improvement, owing to a lack of chaos in the production.

“The Paper” is not an Office spinoff. That does get our goat about it. It’s yet another mockumentary sitcom, but they asserted that the documentary crew that was filming at Dunder-Mifflin is now filming at this small newspaper. Then they threw Oscar in because Oscar Nunez was free. “The Paper” feels cheap because of all that, but also it’s just not terribly funny.

Glen Powell didn’t have the best 2025. “The Running Man” was pretty good, which is the level we expected it to land at, but did not succeed at the box office. On top of starring in a big-budget action movie, though, Powell was starring in a new TV show. Maybe we should have always been skeptical about turning an Eli Manning comedy sketch into an entire TV show. “Chad Powers” was shaggy and not terribly funny. Powell is a good actor. Hopefully better things are on the horizon.

Amazon Prime dropped the first season of “The Bondsman” on the service in April, and it canceled the series in May. Yeah, this one didn’t work out. Which is a shame. It stars Kevin Bacon and it’s an action-horror-comedy! “The Bondsman” could have been an interesting, fun, cultish kind of show. “Ash vs. the Evil Dead” but with an Amazon budget. Instead, it was wholly unremarkable and we didn’t even bother finishing the first – and only – season.