Movies coming out this summer worth seeing

December 22, 2025

We were told off recently for having too much summer holiday, so it’s our responsibility to use that time as wisely as possible which, of course, means going to see lots of movies.

From the week before Christmas all the way to Waitangi Day, here is a selection of new films arriving in cinemas that I am looking forward to.

If you need to escape the heat

Avatar: Fire and Ash

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We should be grateful his campaign failed because this summer we can get three hours and fifteen minutes of air-conditioned bliss for the same price as an ordinary 90-minute film.

But only if you don’t spring for extras like reclining chairs, IMAX or 3D.

Avatar: Fire and Ashopens 18 December.

For a taste of Kiwi nostalgia

Not Only Fred Dagg But Also John Clarke

John Clarke and daughter Lorin Clarke.

Lorin Clarke

When John Clarke died suddenly in 2017 a vacancy opened up for “greatest living New Zealander”. If all you know about Clarke is the Fred Dagg character you are in for a treat as this intimate documentary – by his daughter Lorin – shows us how he became one of the greatest comic voices in the world after he left Aotearoa.

Not Only Fred Dagg But Also John Clark previews from 18 December opens 25 December.

If music is more your style, Anchor Me, a documentary about Don McGlashan opens on 15 January.

Something to take kids to

The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants

Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke) and SpongeBob SquarePants (Tom Kenny) in The Spongebob Movie: Search For Squarepants from Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon.

Paramount Animation and Nickelod

The third big screen outing (the previous feature film, Sponge on the Run, missed out on cinemas because of Covid) for the beloved animated character sees our weird little hero head to the bottom of the ocean to face the ghost of the Flying Dutchman, a reference that will go over the heads of most of the target audience but fun all the same.

The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePantspreviews from 19 December opens 26 December.

For slightly older viewers, Scarlet is a new animé film from the great Mamoru Hosoda (Mirai) and opens on 5 February.

Learn something from a local drama

Sgt. Haane

There’s not much online yet about this picture, the latest from writer-director Tearepa Kahi (Herbs – Songs of Freedom and Poi E: The Story of a Song). It looks to be a documentary (with significant dramatic recreations) about the Māori Battalion World War II hero Haane Manahi who was nominated for a Victoria Cross for bravery.

Haane previews from 29 January and opens 5 February.

The big ones at Cannes 2025

Sentimental Value

Sentimental Value.

Supplied

Both of the top prize winners at this year’s Cannes Film Festival are being released within two weeks of each other in January – both are likely contenders for the foreign language Oscar.

Jafar Panahi’s remarkable It Was Just an Accident, made in defiance of an Iranian government ban, won the Palme d’Or and opens on 29 January.

In Sentimental Value, film director Joachim Trier (The Worst Person in the World) has made a film in which Stellan Skarsgård plays a film director attempting to make an autobiographical movie against the wishes of his family.

Sentimental Value previews from 26 December and opens 8 January.

The ones to watch ahead of the Oscars

Hamnet

Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Joe Alwyn as Bartholomew in director Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet.

Agata Grzybowska

Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning (and bestselling) 2020 novel reaches the screen courtesy of Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao (Nomadland).

Playwright William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) lose their son, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), to the plague, prompting Shakespeare to write the most famous play in the English language.

Hamnet previews from 10 January, opens 15 January.

A real life sing-a-long

Song Sung Blue

Inspired by a 2008 documentary, Song Sung Blue is the story of Mike and Claire Sardina (Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson), who performed for many years as the Neil Diamond tribute act, Lightning & Thunder. This promises romance, heartache and lots of crowd-pleasing music.

Song Sung Blue previews from 26 December, opens 1 January.

The next big franchise film to drop

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

Supplied

Some 22 years after the first film in the franchise, the arrival of Danny Boyle’s 28 Years later was like a breath of fresh air for the zombie genre.

The follow-up has Nia DaCosta (Little Woods, Hedda) in the director’s chair as we get to focus on “the jimmys”, a psychopathic cult inspired by Jimmy Savile.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple opens 15 January.

If you want a more restrained version of Ralph Fiennes, wait two weeks for the Alan Bennett-scripted costume drama The Choral which opens 29 January.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

If you need to escape the heat

Avatar: Fire and Ash

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