Tom Cruise in “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”
Paramount Pictures
Marvel’s Thunderbolts* kicks off the 2025 summer movie season on Friday and Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and the live-action Lilo & Stitch come out three weeks later. What other films are hitting the big screen in May?
Hollywood and theater owners are no doubt hoping to avoid a repeat of May of 2024, where tentpole films like Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt’s The Fall Guy and Chris Hemsworth’s Furious: Mad Max Saga failed to generate any heat at the box office.
Fortunately for the movie industry, the tide turned swiftly in June thanks to the releases of Bad Boys: Ride or Die and Inside Out 2 — with the latter generating such big turnouts that it became the No. 1 film domestically and worldwide in 2024.
That was then, however, and this is now, as the burden rests squarely on the shoulders of antiheroes of the Thunderbolts* in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to get the summer movie season off on the right foot.
Whether or not that happens, Ethan Hunt’s Impossible Mission Force and a blue, Elvis Presley music-loving alien will also be tasked with getting audiences into theaters, along with several other notable releases in May.
Here’s a look at some of them.
‘Thunderbolts*’ (May 2)
Logline: “After finding themselves ensnared in a death trap, an unconventional team of antiheroes must embark on a dangerous mission that will force them to confront the darkest corners of their pasts.”
Thunderbolts* — which is Disney/Marvel Studios’ answer to Warner Bros./DC Studios’ Suicide Squad movies — brings together the biggest and the baddest antiheroes from past MCU films and TV series.
The group, which can’t quite settle on a name, consists of Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) and John Walker (Wyatt Russell).
The second of three MCU movies in 2025 following Captain America: Brave New World and preceding July’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Thunderbolts*which is rated PG-13, also stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lewis Pullman.
‘Shadow Force’ (May 2)
Logline: “An estranged couple with a bounty on their heads must go on the run with their son to avoid their former employer, a unit of shadow ops that has been sent to kill them.”
Kerry Washington and Omar Sy star as the couple, Kyrah and Isaac, in Shadow Forces, which also stars Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Cliff “Method Man” Smith and Mark Strong.
Directed by Joe Carnahan, Shadow Force is rated R.
‘Clown In A Cornfield’ (May 9)
Logline: “A fading midwestern town in which Frendo the Clown, a symbol of bygone success, reemerges as a terrifying scourge.”
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil filmmaker Eli Craig directs Clown in a Cornfieldwhich is based on the award-winning young adult novel of the same name by Adam Cesare.
Like Tucker and Dave vs. Evil, Clown in a Cornfield is a blood-spattered horror comedy where the masked maniac Frendo the Clown emerges from the town’s cornfield to stalk (so to speak) and dispatch his victims in creatively cruel ways.
Rated R, Clown in a Cornfield also stars Katie Douglas, Aaron Abrams, Kevin Durand, Carson MacCormac and Will Sasso.
‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ (May 16)
Logline: “Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.”
The five-chapter Final Destination movie series gets a reboot with Final Destination: Bloodlineswhich follows the horror film series’ premise about people who cheat death, only for death to come looking for them with grisly comeuppances.
Rated R, Final Destination Bloodlines stars late horror movie legend Tony Todd (Candyman and four previous Final Destination films) in one of his last big-screen roles.
‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ (May 16)
Logline: “An insomniac musician encounters a mysterious stranger, leading to a journey that challenges everything he knows about himself.”
Hurry Up Tomorrow marks the big-screen debut of Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye as the musician Abel, while Wednesday star Jenna Ortega — who most recently shared the marquee with Paul Rudd in the horror comedy Death of a Unicorn — stars as the stranger he encounters named Anima.
Rated R, Hurry Up Tomorrow also stars Barry Keoghan.
‘Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning’ (May 23)
Logline: “Our lives are the sum of our choices. Tom Cruise is Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”
Cruise reprises Ethan for the eighth film in the Mission: Impossible series, which began in 1996. Also starring in what appears to be the final Mission: Impossible film — at least for Cruise — are Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Angela Bassett, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Greg Tarzan Davis Shea Whigham, Nick Offerman and Hannah Waddingham.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a continuation of Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1, where Ethan and his fellow Impossible Mission Force members attempt to thwart the use of a deadly artificial intelligence system known as the Entity.
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning is rated PG-13.
‘Lilo & Stitch’ (May 23)
Logline: “A lonely Hawaiian girl befriends a runaway alien, helping to mend her fragmented family.”
A live-action adaptation of the 2002 hit Disney animated comedy adventure of the same name, Lilo & Stitch stars Maia Kealoha in her film debut as Lilo and Chris Sanders (co-director of the animated Lilo & Stitch) as the voice of Stitch.
Rated PG, Lilo & Stitch also stars Zach Galifinakis, Billy Magnussen, Tia Carrere, Courtney B. Vance and the voice of Hannah Waddingham.
‘Karate Kid: Legends’ (May 30)
Logline: “After kung fu prodigy Li Fong relocates to New York City, he attracts unwanted attention from a local karate champion and embarks on a journey to enter the ultimate karate competition with the help of Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso.”
The worlds of the original movie version of The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai streaming series and The Karate Kid movie remake collide with Karate Kid Legendswhere Ralph Macchio reprises Daniel and Jackie Chan once again plays Mr. Han. Ben Wang plays Li Fong.
Karate Kid: Legends also stars Ming-Na Wen, Joshua Jackson, Sadie Stanley and Aramis Knight. The film is not yet rated but will likely be PG-13.
‘The Phoenecian Scheme’ (May 30)
Logline: “The story of a family and a family business.”
Writer-director Wes Anderson once again assembles an impressive cast of A-list talent for his latest screwball comedy adventure, including Benicio Del Toro, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston, Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, Willem Dafoe and Bill Murray.
Del Toro stars as uber-wealthy European businessman Zsa-zsa Korda and Mia Threapleton plays his only daughter and sole heir, Sister Liesel — who are both being targeted by assassins and schemers.
Rated PG-13, The Phoenician Scheme also stars Richard Ayoade, Riz Ahmed, Hope Davis, Rupert Friend, Mathieu Amalric and Michael Cera.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timlammers/2025/04/28/summer-movies-2025-whats-coming-to-theaters-in-may/