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Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 2025 |
 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) Introduction | Pre-1900s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
| Event and Significance | |
| Walt Disney Pictures' 'live-action' fantasy-musical remake Snow White (2025) by director Marc Webb turned out to be both a financial and critical disappointment for the studio. With a budget of $200+ million, about a month after its release, it had only grossed $78.4 million (domestic) and $169.7 million (worldwide). It was honored as the Disney's lowest-grossing live-action Princess film (compared to six previous Princess films), due to its very concerning, unconventional efforts to modernize the original 1937 classic animated film (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) from almost 88 years earlier, and to use CGI-animated dwarfs (instead of live-action dwarf-actors). A Latina actress Rachel Zegler was cast as the title character, who was described in the original Brothers Grimm tale as having "skin as white as snow." Other controversies arose over insensitive political comments made by Zegler before its release, and concerns that Israeli actress Gal Gadot portrayed the Evil Queen in the midst of the current Israeli-Palestine conflict. The studio was predicted to lose at least $115 million, causing it to side-line its future live action project Tangled - the fairy-tale story of Rapunzel. Nevertheless, Disney continued its plan to release two more live-action remakes in the coming years, including Lilo & Stitch (2025) and Moana (2026). | |
| Two major studios, 20th Century Studios and Republic Pictures celebrated their 90th anniversaries in the year 2025. | |
| The Broadway Melody (1929), MGM's first sound film (and musical) to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, entered the public domain. | |
| The animated Chinese film Ne Zha 2 (2025), released by the non-Hollywood studio Enlight Pictures, became the highest-grossing Chinese film and the highest-grossing non-English film of all-time. One of its other record-breaking feats was that it became the highest-grossing animated film of all time, surpassing Disney's Inside Out 2 (2024) and the non-Disney animated film The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023). | |
| Director-screenwriter-producer David Lynch died at the age of 78 on January 16, 2025. He received an Honorary Academy Award in 2019, for his long career as a unique and exceptional filmmaker, including such works as Eraserhead (1977), The Elephant Man (1980), Dune (1984), Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Lost Highway (1997), The Straight Story (1999), Mulholland Drive (2001), and Inland Empire (2006). | |
| Acclaimed actor Gene Hackman died at the age of 95 on February 18, 2025 (approx), due to mysterious circumstances in Santa Fe, New Mexico after years of declining health. His film career spanned many decades, and included such classic films as Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The French Connection (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Conversation (1974), Superman (1978), Hoosiers (1986), No Way Out (1987), and Unforgiven (1992). He was the recipient of two Academy Awards: Best Actor (as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle) for The French Connection (1971) and Best Supporting Actor (as Sheriff Bill "Little Bill" Daggett) for Unforgiven (1992). |
