Tron: Ares(2025)

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

PG-13
1h 59m

Release Date: Oct 10, 2025 | Wide

A highly sophisticated program, Ares, is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission.

Releases

Original Release | Oct 10, 2025

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Box Office Results

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$33,241,433
Total US & Canada:
$73,159,812
Total International
$69,066,657
Total Worldwide:
$142,226,469

Current Showtimes

Your Location or

(U.S. Only)

Director & Top Cast

Joachim Rønning
Director

Jared Leto
Ares

Greta Lee
Eve Kim

Jeff Bridges
Kevin Flynn

Evan Peters
Julian Dillinger

Jodie Turner-Smith
Athena

Gillian Anderson

Elisabeth Dillinger

Hasan Minhaj

Ajay Singh

Arturo Castro

Seth Flores

Cameron Monaghan

Caius

Sarah Desjardins

Erin

Aaron Paul Stewart

Cyber Security Pete

Roger Cross

Cross

Roark Critchlow

General McGrath

Katharine Isabelle

Marcia Lee Hadlow

Gary Vaynerchuk

Stuart Roche

Kwesi Ameyaw

Silvio

Fei-Fei Li

TED Speaker

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: IMAX 6-Track,Dolby Atmos

Aspect Ratio: 1.90 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: United States,Canada,New Zealand

Language: English

Summaries

Plot Summary

Forty years after the events of Tron, both ENCOM and rival Dillinger Systems, led by former ENCOM executive Ed Dillinger's grandson Julian, have been engaged in a race to bring digital constructs into the real world but can so far only sustain them for 29 minutes before deresolution. Eve Kim, the current CEO of ENCOM succeeding Kevin Flynn's son Sam has located a remote station in Alaska that Flynn set up decades ago and which her younger sister Tess re-discovered. Kim and her confidante Seth believe that on one of Flynn's old computers lies the "permanence code" - the secret to breaking the 29-minute barrier.Simultaneously, at Dillinger Systems' headquarters, Julian debuts Ares, the newest Master Control Program from his Grid, marking humanity's first contact with artificially intelligent beings. Julian pitches Ares as the perfect soldier who is also fully expendable. However, Ares demonstrates an unexpected sense of self-awareness, noting Julian's indifference to whether he lives or dies and also taking an interest in the natural phenomena of the real world, such as rain.After the meeting, Ares promptly "derezzes", while Julian's mother, former CEO Elisabeth, chastizes him for failing to mention Ares can only survive outside the Grid for 29 minutes. Julian claims it will soon be irrelevant, launching a cyberattack on ENCOM's mainframe, led by Ares, to steal any leads they have on the permanence code. A battle between ENCOM security programs and the infiltrators ensues, with Ares downloading Eve Kim's personal data. During their escape, a member of his team, Caius, is injured, and Ares, in spite of his programming, tries to save him. However, Julian extracts his team and disables ENCOM's Grid before he can do so.Back in Flynn's base, Eve and Seth have found the permanence code, successfully transferring a digital navel orange tree into the real world, breaking the 29 minute barrier. She and Seth download the code to a hard drive and set off back to ENCOM headquarters. Informed of Julian's attack by her lieutenant Ajay, Eve sets off on her own, but Julian and Ares track her through the grid. Julian then sends Ares and second-in-command Athena after Eve into the real world to acquire the code.The two pursue Eve into the city on light cycles, bisecting a police car and trapping her in a parking garage. After striking Athena with her cycle, Eve then hijacks it to escape but is eventually cornered by Ares in an empty port. Rather than allow the code to fall into Julian's hands, Eve breaks the pen drive, dropping it into the water. Ares, about to derez again, starts to collapse, observing Eve's empathetic response. With seconds left before he and Athena derez, Julian has Eve digitized and transferred to the Dillinger Grid.As Elisabeth again criticizes Julian for this escalation, Julian becomes more determined to recuperate by obtaining the permanence code. Ares informs him that the code can be obtained from Eve's identity disc but the process will kill her, which to his surprise, Julian accepts. After telling Athena Julian is "indisposed" and to leave him alone with Eve, she grows suspicious and seeks an audience with Julian himself. Ares then offers to help Eve escape if she will help him achieve permanence and escape the grid once and for all.Once she accepts, Athena returns with new orders from Julian: kill Ares and Eve to extract the code. The two escape in an watercraft made of hard light, materialize in Dillinger's hangar and break out of the facility. Julian then summons Athena and names her the new Master Control Program after Ares defects, instructing her to obtain the code "by any means necessary", obtaining a Dillinger particle laser and sets off in pursuit in a glider.En route back to ENCOM headquarters, Eve and Ares reflect on each other's motivations. Ares deduces that Eve's quest to obtain the permanence code was driven by the death of her sister and her perceived inferiority for developing games and other recreational software instead of working to save lives. Eve realizes a copy of the permanence code may yet exist on another back-up of Flynn's system, kept and preserved as a museum piece at ENCOM. The two reunite with Seth at ENCOM's offices in order to digitize and upload Ares to Flynn's grid. Athena shows up and destroys their particle laser, ostensibly trapping him in the server, before chasing Eve through the office. The sprinkler system activates and Athena demonstrates a fleeting moment of self-awareness from the sensation of falling rain before derezzing again. When Ajay and his assistant Erin walk in to ask what happened, Seth and Eve explain the only way to free Ares and stop Julian is to hack Athena's particle laser. The four immediately begin working to accomplish this as Ares finds his way around Flynn's primitive grid, meeting an aspect of Flynn himself.Julian, enraged at his latest failure to re-acquire Eve, is berated by Elisabeth once more, who is having her board re-instating her as CEO. Athena re-materializes on her own and starts bringing forth reinforcements herself. After Elisabeth tries to shut off the particle lasers, Athena stabs and mortally wounds her, reminding Julian he instructed her to obtain the code by any means necessary. Elisabeth spends her last words blaming Julian for everything that has transpired until now, including her imminent death.Back on Flynn's grid, Ares and Flynn discuss Ares's desire for permanence. Flynn is fascinated by the notion of "a malfunctioning program who wants to live", referring to Ares, as well as his inability to understand his own internal motivations. Flynn grants him the key to permanence but warns him that if he dies in the real world he will die for real with a better name for it being the "impermanence code". Ares then re-materializes in Flynn's arcade, in a new neon white suit.Athena pilots a Recognizer ship into the city as she scans for Eve. When Eve and the others realize what is happening, she takes off running to buy them more time to hack Dillinger's grid. Athena's ship is shot by military aircraft but not before taking both of them out. She then traps Eve in a cage of hard light, preparing to return to Dillinger Headquarters in a light tank.Ares intercepts her, and with his new identity disc, destroys the tank before duelling Athena. Ajay, Seth and Erin successfully penetrate the Dillinger mainframe and shut it down before Athena derezzes permanently. The Dillinger headquarters are raided by SWAT, and rather than be taken into custody, Julian reboots this Grid and digitizes himself. Eve and Ares go their separate ways, with ENCOM using the permanence code to develop climate change-resistant agriculture and new cures for various diseases. Upon returning to Flynn's base, Seth brings her a postcard from Ares explaining that he has been living outside the Grid and intends to find others like him.In a mid-credits scene, Julian obtains an identity disc that belonged to his grandfather's program, Sark, and starts to transform into a new being.