Despite our name, the team here at Empire HQ can't help but love a rebel. And that's just as well, because the return of Cassian Andor in Tony Gilroy's hotly anticipated Andor Season 2 forms the world-exclusive cover feature of our stacked 2025 Preview issue — your ultimate guide to the must-see movies and shows headed our way over the next 12 months.
This month's issue hits newsstands on Thursday 21 November — and is available to pre-order online here, too. Read on for a look inside its pages.
Andor Season 2
The revolution will be televised! Following Andor's out of this world first season, Empire heads to a galaxy far, far away to talk to creator Tony Gilroy and his cast all about continuing — and completing — one of the most gripping stories the Star Wars universe has ever told. Godspeed, rebels! Words: Mike Ryan.
2025 Preview
As the curtain closes on another glorious year of blockbuster bangers, indie gems, and televisual treats, Team Empire turns our attention towards the films and shows we'll all be talking about in 2025. Buckle up for a dizzying array of world-exclusive first looks and eye-opening new interviews...
Tron: Ares
Fire up your lightcycles, folks — after 14 years offline, it's time to go back to The Grid. Or rather, as director Joachim Rønning explains to Empire in an exciting conversation about the iconic franchise's latest entry, it's time for The Grid — and a new, Jared Leto shaped protagonist — to come to us. Words: Alex Godfrey.
HAVOC
Following the visceral one-two punch of The Raid and The Raid 2, two of the great action movies of the century, filmmaker Gareth Evans subverted expectations with 2018 folk horror Apostle. Now the director is back in action — both figuratively and literally — with a new fisticuff-filled, Tom Hardy starring epic. Evans gives Empire the lowdown on, well, the havoc involved in making HAVOC. Words: Chris Hewitt.
Wolf Man
With his 2020 Elisabeth Moss starrer The Invisible Man, Leigh Whannell reimagined a classic Universal Monster movie as a powerful parable on gaslighting. Now, as the Aussie filmmaker prepares to weave a new nightmare with the studio's legendary lycanthrope, he outlines to Empire his plans to bring fresh body horror bite to the classic Wolf Man tale. Words: Amon Warmann.
But that's not all..
We also look forward to Jurassic World Rebirth with director Gareth Edwards; track down Predator: Badlands director Dan Trachtenberg to talk turning one of cinema's biggest baddies into a hero; get charged up for The Electric State with The Russo Brothers; pull up a Pugh — a Florence Pugh, in fact — to chat We Live In Time; learn how the live-action How To Train Your Dragon is raising the stakes with director Dean DeBlois; turn it up to 11 with Spinal Tap II director Rob Reiner, and much, much more over 30+ pages of glorious print.
Squid Game Season 2
Brutal, brilliant, and effed-up on so many levels, the first season of satirical K-Drama Squid Game remains the most viewed show Netflix has ever made. Ahead of their return to the arena, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk and stars Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, and Wi Ha-joon about taking things to the next level in Season 2. Words: Tom Ellen.
Queer
Whether it's a peach-ripe Italian romance (Call Me By Your Name) or a coming-of-age cannibal love affair (Bones & All), Luca Guadagnino's films communicate the intoxicating power of desire quite unlike any other — and his latest, a sexually charged adaptation of William S. Burroughs' Queer, is no different. The Italian auteur and his muses, Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, speak to Empire about exploring love and longing in mid-century Mexico City. Words: Olly Richards.
Nosferatu
Stakes at the ready! As Robert Eggers prepares to unleash the vampiric terror of Count Orlok on a whole new generation, the director of Nosferatu invites Empire to cross the threshold of his long-gestating Gothic horror and uncover the secrets within. Words: Alex Godfrey.
First Word
This month's news section takes stock of a killer year for scream queens with Maika Monroe, Naomi Scott, Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Willa Fitzgerald; sizes up the latest Sinister Six rumours; talks reinventing the erotic thriller with Babygirl director Halina Reijn; gets an access all arias pass with Angelina Jolie and Pablo Larraín, star and director of opera biopic Maria; deconstructs architectural thriller The Brutalist with director Brady Corbet; waxes lyrical about The Warriors' hip-hop concept album with creators Lin-Manuel Miranda and Eisa Davies; is moved by molluscs with Memoir Of A Snail director Adam Elliot; and much more.
Final Cut
Over on the home entertainment front, we shoot the breeze with Twisters director Lee Isaac Chung; reflect on a quarter-century of The Blair Witch Project with the movie's makers; dig up Billy Crystal's time capsule of iconic images from a singular career; go granular — and spoilerific — on occult chiller Longlegs with writer-director Osgood Perkins; give Only Angels Have Wings the masterpiece treatment; and a whole bunch more besides.
Reviews
Reviews in this issue include Ridley Scott's Roman epic Gladiator II, Edward Berger's Papal conspiracy thriller Conclave, Aardman Animation's Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Apple TV+ sci-fi follow-up Silo Season 2, Dougal Wilson's bear-based threequel Paddington In Peru, Clint Eastwood's courtroom drama Juror #2, SPUMC trilogy capper Venom: The Last Dance, buzzy British documentary Grand Theft Hamlet, and many more.
The Andor Season 2 issue hits newsstands on Thursday 21 November. You can order a copy online here. Andor S2 arrives on Disney+ on 22 April, 2025.