Updated February 20, 2025 at 07:45 AM ET
Ever since Hollywood first got knocked off-stride by a pandemic, and then by simultaneous actor and writer strikes, and a rash of wannabe blockbusters that couldn't seem to bust any blocks, the film industry has been eager to engineer a comeback. This year is widely believed to be the one where it finally happens.
Happily, Hollywood has some strategies to help it along. Here are five spring titles that sound especially promising.
Mickey 17
In theaters March 7
Having already shredded capitalism in a bleak dystopia (Snowpiercer), a meat-vs.-pet fable (Okja), and an Oscar-winning best picture (Parasite), what could filmmaker Bong Joon-ho possibly do for an encore? Shred capitalism in a space-travel cloning epic, of course. Robert Pattinson plays Mickey, a guy so short on self-esteem, he signs up to be an "expendable" — a person whose DNA is saved on a hard drive so that when he dies helping to find a cure for a lethal virus, or a spacewalk safety glitch, he can just be reprinted, and live to die again. And again. And again. By all accounts, it's the director's most humane film yet.
Black Bag
In theaters March 14
The plot of Steven Soderbergh's latest thriller apparently started coming together when he suggested to screenwriter David Koepp that it might be cool if Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had been conceived as a spy flick. The film follows intelligence agent Michael Fassbender as he's assigned to unmask and kill whoever's been leaking agency secrets. The prime suspect, he's told, is his wife (Cate Blanchett).
Magazine Dreams
In theaters March 21
At the Sundance premiere two years ago, Jonathan Majors' impressively physical performance as a bodybuilder perpetually hopped up on steroids — oiled abs and delts reflecting light in rippling patterns — was widely expected to earn Oscar recognition. That was before Majors' convictions for assault and harassment derailed the film's opening (and also got him kicked out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe). His performance remains mesmerizing.
The Alto Knights
In theaters March 21
In Barry Levinson's Mafia bio-pic, Robert De Niro plays real-life 1950s mob boss Vito Genovese. Playing opposite him as rival mob boss Frank Costello is an actor of precisely equal stature — which is to say, Rob
ert De Niro is also playing that part. Goodfellas screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi adapted the dialogue for this De Niro-meets-De Niro gangster epic from his 1985 non-fiction book Wiseguy. Debra Messing will be along for the gunshot-riddled ride as Costello's wife.
Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
In theaters May 23
When last seen, IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) was battling an artificial intelligence entity that was threatening to destroy all of humanity. That was back when the only A.I. most of us had encountered was named Siri or Alexa. In the intervening 18 months or so, A.I. has morphed into something that can credibly be put to nefarious purposes — just ask any teacher who's been grading papers — so Cruise will presumably have plenty of fresh reasons to leap from great heights, hang on by his fingernails, don disguises, and run for his life. They're calling this the "Final" Reckoning, but c'mon. The Mission Impossible franchise has made $4 billion worldwide … really think it'll end?
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