Sydney Sweeney Pulls Off a Year-End Upset, Beating James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash in Critics’ Ratings

End of 2025 plot twist: the year’s biggest, loudest spectacle got outscored by a chilly little nail-biter. James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash landed with the usual massive footprint and massive budget, but it’s Sydney Sweeney’s psychological thriller The Housemaid that quietly pulled ahead with critics. Same release date, wildly different reactions.

The scoreboard

• Avatar: Fire and Ash (20th Century Studios) — epic sci-fi from James Cameron, out Dec 19, 2025; Rotten Tomatoes: 70%; reported budget: over $400 million
• The Housemaid (Lionsgate) — psychological thriller from Paul Feig, also out Dec 19, 2025; Rotten Tomatoes: 80%; budget: not disclosed

Cameron vs. the frame rate complaints

Cameron’s been hearing it again about high frame rate. If you remember the debate around The Way of Water, same deal here: some viewers think higher-than-24fps looks too slick or TV-like; Cameron likes what it does for motion and clarity. He’s not exactly apologizing for it.

"I think $2.3 billion (box office) says you might be wrong on that... the argument from artistic people is 'I happen to like it, and it’s my movie'."

He also went big-picture on where theatrical sits in 2025. In his view, the conversation about what audiences want is inseparable from the streaming-era reset and the post-pandemic hangover.

"There’s no way to talk about what audiences want without talking about the decline of cinema. The cinematic experience is being supplanted in our cultural discussion by streaming."

And what gets someone to actually leave the couch now?

"Covid gave cinema a big kick... when people go to a cinema they want something so far outside the norm that it’s worth hiring a babysitter for."

Read between the lines and you get the tension of the season: critics leaned toward intimacy and performance, while Cameron insists scale still matters if you deliver it with purpose.

The Housemaid changes the book on purpose

On the other side of the aisle, The Housemaid is making waves for a cleaner reason: Paul Feig did not copy-paste Freida McFadden’s bestseller. He kept the spine, but he tweaked the destination.

"We added a new ending," Feig said, calling it a fun way to keep even book fans on their toes and crediting Lionsgate for keeping the secrets under wraps.

His reasoning is pretty straightforward: some twists kill on the page, but movies need an extra punch. He wanted to resolve a couple relationships with a proper on-screen button — no spoilers, but expect a different final note than the one you read.

Sydney Sweeney, who leads the film, took the book seriously — she’s a self-professed obsessive reader — and pushed to preserve what made it pop, while accepting the adjustments Feig felt the film needed. Brandon Sklenar’s approach was similar: honor the source, but, in his words, turn a few elements up to 11 so even readers get blindsided.

What the split says about 2025 taste

Both films opened the same day, and both are playing only in theaters. But the reaction gap is telling. Late 2025 critics went for precision acting, pressure-cooker tension, and a director happily toying with audience expectations over the most expensive canvases in town. If that mood holds, 2026 could be a very good year for actors choosing discomfort over decibels.

Do you buy the critics’ lean toward intimacy, or do you think the pendulum’s swung too far away from scale? Sound off below.