2025 delivered some genuinely disappointing films, not just because they were bad movies, but because they had potential they squandered by injecting ideology where story should have been. From horror films that replaced scares with lectures to comedy sequels that abandoned their core audience, these are the 2025 releases that earned woke scores in VirtueVigil's database. Some were predictable. Others were genuine surprises. All of them let their audience down. Ranked from most woke to least woke.
What makes a disappointing woke movie different from a straightforwardly woke one? Expectations. When Zootopia 2 scored net woke plus 38, that was consistent with Disney's trajectory. Nobody was surprised. But when a franchise comedy sequel, a Marvel team-up, or a high-concept horror film with a genuinely promising premise pivots into ideological messaging, the disappointment is sharper because the potential was real. These are films that had the talent, the budgets, and the audience goodwill to succeed, and chose to spend that capital on progressive messaging instead of storytelling.
Each entry below includes the VirtueVigil woke margin, a breakdown of why the film scores the way it does, and a link to the full review with detailed trope audits and parental guidance.
Related: Most Woke Movies of 2025, Best Traditional Movies of 2025, Woke Horror Movies of 2025.
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1
Clown in a Cornfield (2025)
STRONGLY WOKE -18 WOKEThe most aggressively ideological horror film of 2025 and the biggest disappointment on this list. The premise, a killer clown terrorizing a small town, should deliver straightforward slasher fun. Instead, the film turns its conservative townspeople into the actual monsters and frames the progressive teenager protagonists as the moral heroes who survive by rejecting tradition. The clown is not the villain. Traditional small-town America is the villain. A promising genre premise wasted on a political lecture disguised as a slasher film. The minus 18 woke margin is the worst on this list by a significant distance.
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2
The Wedding Banquet (2025)
STRONGLY WOKE -15 WOKEA remake of Ang Lee's 1993 classic that strips away everything that made the original compelling. The 1993 film treated its conservative Asian parents with genuine empathy and presented their worldview as something real and worth engaging with, even as the story resolved in a progressive direction. The 2025 remake abandons that nuance entirely. Traditional family expectations are presented as obstacles to be overcome rather than perspectives to be understood. The parents exist only to be educated by their children. A remake that fundamentally misunderstands why the original worked.
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3
Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025)
STRONGLY WOKE -11 WOKEThe third installment in the heist franchise takes the Robin Hood framing of the first two films and cranks the progressive dial to maximum. What used to be a fun popcorn franchise about clever magic tricks has become a delivery vehicle for wealth redistribution moralizing and anti-establishment talking points. Every reveal and twist serves the thesis that stealing from the powerful is inherently virtuous. The magic is secondary to the messaging. Conservative audiences who enjoyed the original for its spectacle will find this sequel has traded entertainment for ideology.
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4
Presence (2025)
STRONGLY WOKE -10 WOKESteven Soderbergh's ghost story had everything going for it: a talented director, a clever found-footage-adjacent concept, and a genuinely creepy first act. Then it pivots. The ghost story becomes a vehicle for exploring themes of victimhood, complicity, and systemic harm. The haunting is not about scares but about accountability. The family is not in danger from a supernatural entity but from their own moral failures as framed through a progressive lens. A film that starts as horror and ends as a lecture, wasting a concept that could have been genuinely frightening.
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5
Back in Action (2025)
WOKE LEAN -2 WOKEJamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz reunite for a Netflix action comedy about retired spies pulled back into the game. The minus 2 woke margin is slim, but the disappointment is real because this film had star power, a fun premise, and no reason to inject progressive messaging. The woke lean comes from consistent small choices: how authority figures are portrayed, which characters get to be competent, and a subplot that prioritizes progressive family dynamics over the spy premise the audience came for. A film that could have been a clean fun action comedy chose to be slightly less than that.
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6
Companion (2025)
WOKE LEAN -2 WOKEA sci-fi thriller about artificial companions that had genuine potential as a straightforward genre exercise. Instead, Companion uses its AI premise to explore themes of autonomy, consent, and power dynamics through a lens that consistently frames traditional relationship structures as inherently exploitative. The film is competently made and occasionally genuinely tense, which makes the ideological undercurrent more frustrating. A better version of this film exists where the thriller mechanics drive the story instead of serving the thesis.
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7
Thunderbolts* (2025)
WOKE LEAN -2 WOKEMarvel's anti-hero team-up had the chance to course-correct after years of declining audience trust. Instead, Thunderbolts delivers another MCU entry where the ideological framing, including how authority is portrayed, which characters are given moral clarity, and how the team dynamic resolves, consistently tips progressive. The woke margin of minus 2 is small enough that many viewers will not notice. But for conservative Marvel fans hoping this would signal a return to the franchise's earlier neutrality, it is another disappointment in a long line of them.
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8
One of Them Days (2025)
WOKE LEAN -2 WOKEA buddy comedy that earns its woke lean through consistent framing choices rather than overt messaging. One of Them Days presents its characters' financial struggles through a systemic lens, treats institutional authority with reflexive suspicion, and resolves its conflicts in ways that prioritize collective solidarity over individual responsibility. The comedy works often enough to make the ideological lean frustrating rather than alienating. A slightly different screenplay could have delivered the same laughs without the progressive scaffolding.
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9
A Minecraft Movie (2025)
WOKE LEAN -1 WOKEThe live-action Minecraft adaptation scores only minus 1 woke, making it the mildest entry on this list. But it makes the list because Minecraft is one of the most beloved family-friendly properties in the world, and even a slight woke lean represents a missed opportunity. The film could have been perfectly clean entertainment. Instead, small casting and writing choices nudge it just past the neutral line. For a property this universally loved by children, even a margin of minus 1 is a choice that did not need to be made.
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10
Black Mirror - Season 7 (2025)
WOKE LEAN -1 WOKECharlie Brooker's anthology series returns with another season of technology-anxiety parables. Black Mirror has always carried progressive assumptions about power, surveillance, and human nature, but Season 7 tips the balance just far enough to register on VirtueVigil's system. The woke lean is structural rather than overt: the episodes consistently frame institutional authority, corporate power, and traditional social structures as the source of technological harm rather than examining how individuals misuse tools. A slim margin, but a consistent directional choice across the season.
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The Disappointment Verdict
The pattern on this list is instructive. The most disappointing entries are not the ones with the highest woke scores. Clown in a Cornfield at minus 18 and The Wedding Banquet at minus 15 are aggressively woke, but the real disappointments are the films at minus 1 and minus 2 that could have been clean. A Minecraft Movie did not need a woke lean. Thunderbolts did not need to continue Marvel's progressive drift. Back in Action had two of the most bankable stars in Hollywood and a premise that required zero ideology. These films chose to include progressive framing when they had every reason not to, and that choice is the common thread connecting every entry on this list. For films that got it right in 2025, see our companion list: Best Traditional Movies of 2025. Browse all scored reviews at virtuevigil.com/reviews/.