Popcorn Junkies Movie Reviews

Final Destination Bloodlines is a 2025 American supernatural horror film directed by Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein and written by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor, based on a story developed by them and Jon Watts. It is the sixth installment in the Final Destination film series following Final Destination 5 (2011). The film stars Kaitlyn Santa Juana as a college student who inherits visions of a previous premonition of a deadly structural collapse that supposedly occurred in 1968 from her dying grandmother and is warned that Death is coming for her family. Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, and Tony Todd appear in supporting roles. The film is dedicated in memory of Todd, who died in November 2024.After the commercial success of Final Destination 5, a new film entered development, described as a "re-imagining" of the franchise. In March 2020, series producer Craig Perry said the film would be set "in the world of first responders" and in October that year, series creator Jeffrey Reddick confirmed it was the sixth film in the franchise. In January 2022, the film was planned to be released on the streaming service HBO Max, with Lipovsky and Stein as directors and Busick joining Taylor as co-writer for the film. However, in March 2024, Warner Bros. Pictures announced that the film would instead receive a theatrical release. Filming took place in Vancouver from March to May 2024, following delays due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.Final Destination Bloodlines was released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on May 16, 2025. It received positive reviews from critics, becoming the best-reviewed film in the franchise. It has grossed $102 million worldwide.

The Surfer is a 2024 English-language psychological thriller film directed by Lorcan Finnegan, written by Thomas Martin, and starring Nicolas Cage. It follows a man who plans to surf at an idyllic beach with his son but becomes thwarted and tormented by the locals.The Surfer had its world premiere in the Midnight Screenings section at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2024. The film was theatrically released in the United States on 2 May 2025, before releasing in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 9 May, and then in Australia on 15 May, where it will later be released on Australian streaming service Stan on 15 June.

"Bête Noire" is the second episode in the seventh series of the British science fiction anthology television series Black Mirror. Written by series creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker and directed by Toby Haynes, it premiered on Netflix on 10 April 2025, with the rest of series seven.The episode centers on Maria, a culinary researcher whose reality begins to subtly change after an old classmate begins work at her office. It received generally positive reviews from critics.

Thunderbolts* is a 2025 American superhero film based on Marvel Comics featuring the team Thunderbolts. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Jake Schreier from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, and stars an ensemble cast featuring Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. In the film, a group of antiheroes are caught in a deadly trap and forced to work together on a dangerous mission.Marvel Studios first teased the formation of a Thunderbolts team within the MCU in 2021. The film was revealed to be in development in June 2022, when Schreier and Pearson were attached. The main cast was revealed in September, with additional casting through early 2023. Lee Sung Jin joined to rewrite the script by March 2023, one of several creatives who returned to work with Schreier from the Netflix series Beef (2023–present). Production was delayed due to the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes, causing some cast changes in early 2024. Calo joined by then for further rewrites. Filming took place from February to June 2024 at Trilith Studios and Atlanta Metro Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, and also on location in Utah and Kuala Lumpur.Thunderbolts* premiered on April 22, 2025, at the Empire Leicester Square in London, England, and is scheduled to be released in the United States on May 2, as the final film of Phase Five of the MCU. The film received positive reviews from critics.

The second season of the American post-apocalyptic drama television series The Last of Us premiered on HBO on April 13, 2025. Based on the video game franchise developed by Naughty Dog, the series is set twenty years into a pandemic caused by a mass fungal infection, which causes its hosts to transform into zombie-like creatures and collapses society. The second season, based on the 2020 game The Last of Us Part II, follows Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) five years after the events of the first season, after they have settled into Jackson, Wyoming, with Joel's brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna) and Ellie's friends Dina (Isabela Merced) and Jesse (Young Mazino).HBO renewed The Last of Us for a second season less than two weeks after the series premiered in January 2023. Co-creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann were joined in the writers' room by Halley Gross and Bo Shim; Druckmann wrote and co-directed the games, and Gross co-wrote Part II. Principal photography took place in British Columbia from February to August 2024. Druckmann, Mazin, and Peter Hoar returned to direct the seven episodes alongside newcomers Kate Herron, Nina Lopez-Corrado, Mark Mylod, and Stephen Williams. Gustavo Santaolalla and David Fleming returned to compose the score.Critics felt the season reinforced The Last of Us as the best video game adaptation, praising the action sequences, direction, performances, production design, and writing, though some criticized the pacing and considered the story incomplete. Across linear channels and Max, the season premiere was watched by 5.3 million viewers on the first day—a 13% increase from the first-season premiere.