Bleecker Street has confirmed release dates for its highly anticipated 2025 slate which includes NYFCC, LAFCA and NBR award-winning Hard Truths from Academy Award winner Mike Leigh and starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste; Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s Fall festival smash hit The Friend; David Mackenzie’s Relay and Jim O’Hanlon’s Fackham Hall. In conjunction with ShivHans Pictures, Sam and Andy Zuchero’s Sundance award-winner Love Me and Andrew Ahn’s star-studded reimagining of the Oscar-nominated romantic comedy The Wedding Banquet have also been dated as part of the 2025 lineup.

• Hard Truths is legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh’s return to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Reunited with Leigh for the first time since multiple Oscar-nominated Secrets and Lies, the film stars Academy Award®, Golden Globe, and BAFTA-nominee Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin (Another Year). This expansive film from a master dramatist takes us into the intensities of kinship, duty, and the most enduring of human mysteries: that even through lifetimes of hurt and hardship, we still find ways to love those we call family. Hard Truths has been widely recognized with wins at this year’s British Independent Film Awards, New York Film Critics Circle Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Denver Film Festival, and the National Board of Review, as well as nominations at the Gotham Awards, Film Independent Spirit Awards, and San Sebastián International Film Festival. Bleecker Street will release the critically acclaimed, award-winning film theatrically nationwide on January 10, following its awards-qualifying run on Dec. 6.

• Love Me is a groundbreaking first feature from directors Sam and Andy Zuchero which explores contemporary topics surrounding technology and identity, though at its heart is a simple, emotionally resonant tale of transformation. In a story that spans billions of years, a buoy and a satellite meet online long after humanity’s extinction. As they learn what life was like on Earth, they discover themselves and what it means to be alive and in love. Starring Academy Award®-nominee Kristen Stewart (Spencer, Love Lies Bleeding) and Golden Globe and Emmy Award®-winner Steven Yeun (Minari, Nope), Love Me thrillingly utilizes filmmaking techniques from live-action, practical animatronics, classic animation and game engines, and, anchored in enthralling performances, culminates the longest-spanning love story ever told. Bleecker Street will co-release the film theatrically on January 31 with ShivHans Pictures, following its debut at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

• The Friend, directed by Scott McGehee (The Deep End, Montana Story, Suture) and David Siegel (The Deep End, Montana Story, Suture), follows a New York writer and teacher as her life is thrown into disarray after her closest friend and mentor dies suddenly and bequeaths her his beloved 150 lb. Great Dane. The regal yet intractable beast, named Apollo, immediately creates practical problems for Iris, yet as Iris finds herself unexpectedly bonding with the animal, she begins to come to terms with her past, her lost friend, and her own creative inner life. The film stars Academy Award®-nominees Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive, Luce) and Bill Murray (Lost in Translation, Ghostbusters franchise), as well as Emmy Award®-winner Ann Dowd (“The Handmaid’s Tale”, Hereditary) and Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians, Hustlers, “Fresh Off The Boat”). Bleecker has scheduled a limited release on March 21, with a nationwide release to follow on March 28.  The acclaimed film first premiered at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival, and was one of few films to play the “trifecta” of Telluride, Toronto and New York Film Festivals.

• The Wedding Banquet. From Director Andrew Ahn comes a joyful comedy of errors about a chosen family navigating cultural identity, queerness, and family expectations. Frustrated with his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris and running out of time, Min makes a proposal: a green-card marriage with their best friend Angela in exchange for her partner Lee’s expensive IVF. Elopement plans are upended, however, when Min’s grandmother surprises them with an extravagant Korean wedding banquet. Starring Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-chan, Joan Chen, and Youn Yuh-jung, The Wedding Banquet is a poignant and heartfelt reminder that being part of a family means learning to both accept and forgive. Bleecker Street and ShivHans Pictures will co-release the film nationwide on April 18, following its much-anticipated world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

• Relay, written by Justin Piasecki and directed by David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water), is a clever high-concept thriller about a reclusive middleman for would-be whistleblowers seeking to settle with corporate malefactors. The film stars Riz Ahmed (The Sound of Metal), Lily James (“Pam & Tommy”, Cinderella) and Sam Worthington (Avatar franchise). Bleecker Street will release the film in Q2 of 2025, following its hit world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

• Fackham Hall, written by comedian Jimmy Carr in his screenwriting feature debut with Patrick Carr and the Dawson Brothers (The Bubble), is a raucous, rapid-fire spoof of period dramas like “Downton Abbey” in the style of classics like Airplane! BAFTA-nominated director Jim O’Hanlon directs, and the all-star cast includes Damian Lewis (Dream Horse, “Billions”), Thomasin McKenzie (Last Night in Soho, Leave No Trace), Emma Laird (A Haunting In Venice), Tom Felton (Harry Potter franchise) and Katherine Waterston (The End We Start From). Bleecker Street will release the film later in 2025.