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2025 Year End Wrap Up

Top 10 Films of 2025

What follows are Nathan’s picks of the best films of 2025.

1. Parthenope

Directed by: Paolo Sorrentino

Premise: Between the 1950s and the 80s, Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) comes-of-age in her home of Naples, Italy.

Why It Made the List: Parthenope is difficult to describe not due to flaws in the filmmaking but because the movie is inherently mysterious. This story exists on the border of reality and myth, specifically Greek mythology. Most of Parthenope is set in Naples, Italy and many phases of this woman’s life story suggest mythological allusions. The enigma of Parthenope is embodied by the film’s title character. Parthenope is played by Celeste Dalla Porta and she has a captivating screen presence. Some of this is Dalla Porta’s physical beauty which is accented by the filmmaking. The film’s imagery frames Dalla Porta in ways that resemble classical art. Great beauty is often mysterious and indescribable, qualities shared by classical art and Dalla Porta’s screen image. But Parthenope is not just a beautiful woman. She is an intellectual and becomes conscious of herself and the impact that her beauty has on others, especially men. This leads Parthenope to interrogate her own existence. She is flesh and blood but society—specifically men—mythologize women which necessarily flattens them and keeps them at a distance. That tension between the imperfect complexity of reality and the unattainable ideal of beauty runs through the film. Parthenope’s intellectual pursuits take her into sacred spaces in which the faithful invoke the ineffable and into profane situations where life and youth are vulgarized. The film ultimately goes beyond carnality or superficial prettiness to expresses a sense of awe and appreciation for the beauty of existence. Although the story of Parthenope is relatively straightforward, it’s a movie to be savored, pondered, and rewatched because it is such a rich, thoughtful, and gorgeously produced piece of work. The film invites us to bask in and wrestle with the mystery of beauty as an intellectual exercise but also as a matter of day-to-day existence. Parthenope is a rare film, in many ways contrary to the trends of the zeitgeist and the priorities of the culture. Its urging toward beauty is part of what makes Parthenope the best movie of 2025.  

2. Train Dreams

Directed by: Clint Bentley

Premise: Based on the novella by Denis Johnson. Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, Robert (Joel Edgerton) works in the logging and railroad industries of the Pacific Northwest.

Why It Made the List: A number of movies of 2025 examined masculinity which in American cinema is frequently tied to the western genre. The filmmakers of Train Dreams use the western as the basis for a thoughtful mediation on the mythology of rugged individualism. Train Dreams centers on Robert, a logger and railroad worker living and working throughout the twentieth century. Robert’s life is pushed and pulled between isolation and community. He labors among a team of workers but after tragedy takes his family Robert spends much of his time alone. Industrialization transforms logging and construction and Robert finds that automation has rendered his skills obsolete and changed the character of the work, eliminating the camaraderie he enjoyed among his fellow journeymen. While that sounds like a downer, Train Dreams is more introspective and soulful. Robert’s isolation is an act of mourning but he’s also at home in the wilderness. As technological advancement and creeping civilization intrude on Robert’s existence, we’re left to ponder whether Robert’s isolation is for better or worse. Train Dreams is led by Joel Edgerton as Robert. The role is suited to many of Edgerton’s strengths as an actor and it’s a perfect match of a character with a performer, using his physicality but also Edgerton’s ability to suggest vulnerability. This is a beautifully produced film. The cinematic style views the wilderness through the lens of a poet. Train Dreams is an elegy for an intimacy with the wilderness that is lost in an industrialized society and for the freedom of loneliness.

3. Good Boy

Directed by: Ben Leonberg

Premise: A dog (Indy) and his owner (Shane Jensen) move to a rural home. The dog senses supernatural phenomena around the house.

Why It Made the List: The haunted house subgenre offers filmmakers opportunities to flex their cinematic skills with use of light and shadow, camera placement and lens selection, and use of sound. The technical precession of Good Boy can barely be understated and Good Boy ranks alongside 1963’s The Haunting and 1980’s The Changeling among the best crafted haunted house pictures. The film is further distinguished by its unusual approach. The entire movie unfolds from the point of view of a dog. The perspective is partly a gimmick but it goes further than that. People have intense feelings about dogs especially their role as companion animals. The filmmakers of Good Boy capitalize on that appeal, acknowledging the dog’s intelligence and capacity for emotion but without anthropomorphizing him. It’s an unusual achievement in dramatic empathy and the filmmakers of Good Boy have gotten an incredibly nuanced and emotive performance out of this dog. Of course, that performance is largely in the viewer’s own head as we read into the dog’s reactions and the illusion is ultimately a testament to the filmmaker’s skill. They’ve captured and edited these images in a way that creates meaning. Good Boy is one of the spookiest movies of 2025 and it has a frightening atmosphere. The last twenty minutes are a brilliant exercise in tension. But in this case the supernatural comes with grief. The moviemakers use our emotional association with dogs to tell a story of loyalty and letting go. Good Boy is scary but it is also heartbreaking and it manages our emotions masterfully.

4. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Directed by: Mary Bronstein

Premise: A mother (Rose Byrne) lives in a hotel with her ill daughter after a water pipe bursts in their home. She struggles to balance motherhood, work, and personal care.

Why It Made the List: 2025 saw the release of several films about women at the edge of sanity including The Chronology of Water, Die My Love, and Hamnet. Many of these films were good but If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is extraordinary. Rose Byrne plays Linda, a working mom caring for her seriously ill daughter. Linda’s emotional and physical exhaustion is vivid due to the synchrony of Byrne’s performance and the stylized filmmaking. Bryne is constantly on edge, keeping up the frantic energy throughout. Sick children make for easy sympathy but Linda is not allowed to be an easy character. She is irascible and makes a bad situation worse with substance abuse and impulsive choices. The filmmaking magnifies Byrne’s intensity with use of close-ups and disorienting transitions between scenes. The raw moments are interrupted by surreal sequences in which Linda has abstract visions. These might be supernatural moments of transcendence or indications that Linda’s sense of reality is cracking up. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You also has notable supporting performances by A$AP Rocky as a fellow hotel tenant, Danielle Macdonald as one of Linda’s patients, and Conan O’Brien as a fellow therapist. Everyone brings a raw reality to the movie. As bleak as it is, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You also has a dark sense of humor that punctuates the anxiety. This film keeps us in a stress position from our seats and its succession of mounting disasters is as gripping as any action film this year.

5. Hedda

Directed by: Nia DaCosta

Premise: Based on Henrik Ibsen’s stage play. Set in 1950s England, Hedda (Tessa Thompson) throws a high society party attended by the faculty of a university where her husband is up for a professorship. The festivities are crashed by two women (Nina Hoss and Imogen Poots) who have a complicated relationship with Hedda.

Why It Made the List: Filmmaker Nia DaCosta has been on the rise over the past few years with Little Woods and 2021’s Candyman. DaCosta made her first truly great picture with Hedda. Like a socialite weaving between cliques at a film’s high society party, DaCosta stages the action in interesting ways that pick up on the power relationships between the characters and reveal their personalities. The fluid camerawork and editing choices visualize the anarchic nature of Hedda’s existence. This character delights in creating chaos but her actions are calculated. So to are the filmmakers who keep various narrative plates spinning and Hedda is scandalous fun throughout. The movie is very sensual in its subject matter but also in its style. The lighting sets the mood, the cinematography emphasizes the visual texture, and the camera and characters move suggestively. The sexuality plays subversively. Hedda came the same year as the finale of Downton Abbey, an exceedingly polite fantasy of British aristocracy. In Hedda, the tension between the posh high society setting and the sexuality and corruption of the characters exposes the way social propriety and academic interests give cover to base desires. But Hedda is not just some bodice ripper. The party and the sexuality are ultimately part of an economic critique. Hedda’s manipulations leverage patriarchal bourgeois prejudices which she weaponizes against other women who are her economic rivals. At the center of all this is Tessa Thompson, giving one of 2025’s best and most underappreciated performances. Everything in Hedda comes together to make a movie that is smart, provocative, and fun. 

6. Eephus

Directed by: Carson Lund

Premise: Set in the 1990s, amateur men’s baseball teams play their final game of the season on a field that is set to be demolished.

Why It Made the List: If there was ever a true sequel to The Sandlot made for the adults who grew up watching that 1993 film, Eephus would probably be it. The filmmakers get what so many people love about baseball and associate with the sport. Baseball is unique in American sports culture in that it is so deeply embedded in our national sense of self and has an inherent sentimental quality. The filmmakers of Eephus understand this. The story is set just long enough ago to make the film nostalgic and the emphasis is not on the competition but on the gameplay itself. Two teams gather on the field for the final game of a regional baseball league. Nearly every player has defining qualities but no single protagonist emerges. The teams are sponsored by local businesses and the players are the kind of guys who play because they love it. Their field is set to be demolished, bringing their pastime to an end. When the game threatens to conclude prematurely the guys find ways to keep it going. Their determination to play as long as they can and see the game through reveals that Eephus is ultimately about more than baseball. The film is really about community and fellowship. Absent minded nostalgia is easy and simplistic but Eephus looks back and sees a moment. The end of this game, this field, and this league is a metaphor of the ways locations for organic male fellowship were dismantled over the next generation. That melancholic understanding hovers over the movie.

7. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight

Directed by: Embeth Davidtz

Premise: Based on the memoir by Alexandra Fuller. In 1980 Zimbabwe Rhodesia, a family of white British farmers await the outcome of the election following the end of that country’s civil war.

Why It Made the List: In an era in which anti-colonialism has become politically trendy and the basis of some of the most popular movies, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight offers a more complicated take on the subject. This film is not an apology for colonialism but the story of the Fullers, a British family living on a farm in colonial Africa, entertains the idea that colonists might have a legitimate moral claim to the land because it has become their home. The connection between the family and the land runs throughout the picture. The look and design of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight has a grimy and organic feel. The story unfolds from the perspective of the Fuller’s seven-year-old daughter, played by Lexi Venter in an extraordinary performance by a child actor. Scenes are staged and shot from the young character’s point of view, giving the film a childlike sense of wonder about the natural world while also portraying nature and the land in unsentimental and harsh detail. But Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is really the story of the mother, played by Embeth Davidtz. Her children have died and are buried in the soil. Political shifts in Zimbabwe Rhodesia threaten everything the Fullers have built. The mother’s desperation to hold onto the farm is really about her grief over her deceased children but also a sense of home. This is an extraordinary depiction of a family caught in larger political crosswinds but also a thoughtful and challenging take on how our identity is tied to geography.

8. One Battle After Another

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Premise: Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland. A former revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) lives an anonymous life and raises his daughter (Chase Infiniti). Years later, government agents flush them out of hiding.

Why It Made the List: One Battle After Another is one of the most celebrated movies of 2025. That praise has come with a backlash. The film’s detractors argue that One Battle After Another is politically shallow. Those critiques are largely correct. This is a story about revolutionary characters but the movie’s politics are not particularly radical. But One Battle After Another isn’t trying to be Battleship Potemkin. The filmmakers combine elements of agitprop political cinema with black comedy and action filmmaking to reveal how Hollywood turns politics, war, and revolution into idle entertainment. This is visualized literally in a self-referential moment; Leonardo DiCaprio’s character watches The Battle of the Algiers between marijuana hits. Everyone in the movie is a buffoon whose outward politics are a cover for something else. Corrupt authorities hide behind law and order to machinate their own plans and the revolutionary characters’ commitment to their nondescript cause is tenuous. This is the real subversion of One Battle After Another: in a cultural moment in which citizens make their political allegiances their whole personality, political ideology is revealed to be a veil for personal desires. But the personal is made dramatically meaningful. These characters are watchable and likable and One Battle After Another has one of the best overall casts of the year with standout performances from DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti. It’s a thriller in which the stakes are life and death and One Battle After Another is a brilliantly crafted, breathlessly paced, and highly entertaining work of cinema. 

9. Predators

Directed by: David Osit

Premise: A documentary about the NBC television series To Catch a Predator, exploring the development of the show, its legacy in the culture, and the blending of entertainment and law enforcement. 

Why It Made the List: Reality television has been with us for so long and politics and policing are so integrated into our media that it may be hard to imagine the world any other way. The genius of Predators is the way it leads us to revise our understanding of the familiar and everyday aspects of the culture. As explored in this documentary, media and law enforcement have made a devil’s bargain that has blended and compromised each field. In the production of To Catch a Predator, law enforcement best practices were sacrificed for the sake of television drama. The show looked like journalism but it wasn’t. These ambush scenarios contained very little of public interest or benefit. The To Catch a Predator format was itself an adaptation of ambush journalism popular in local television reporting and the popularity of the show inspired imitators who devised similar traps. We now live in a media culture predicated on punishment and moral grandstanding. To Catch a Predator made those appeals easy because no one is more hated by society than a pedophile. That’s part of what is so bold about Predators. The filmmakers do not make excuses for these men and what they tried to do. But Predators does ask the audience to recognize the humanity of the accused by holding on behind-the-scenes moments and asking what was actually accomplished by this program. The film’s explorations are ultimately less about the men captured on To Catch a Predator and more about the implications of this entertainment for the people who watch it and participated in making it.

10. Eddington

Directed by: Ari Aster

Premise: Set in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, a small town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) is increasingly frustrated by the community’s lockdown policies. He declares his candidacy for mayor, putting the sheriff at odds with the incumbent (Pedro Pascal).

Why It Made the List: A film about the COVID-19 pandemic might be criticized as “too soon” but the filmmakers of Eddington did an extraordinary job putting the audience back in the emotional headspace of that time. Eddington dramatizes the tension we all experienced while complying with or resisting health policy mandates, exacerbated by contemporaneous controversies, namely the Black Lives Matter movement. Eddington is a sardonic film and savagely funny but there is also a great deal of humanity to the picture. It empathizes with these characters and their motives. This is not a partisan hack job ridiculing one political wing or another. One of Eddington’s outstanding qualities is the way it allows viewers to see themselves in these characters. The filmmakers challenge us to understand other people’s perspectives but also to recognize the ridiculousness of some of our own ideas and behaviors from that time. Predictably, Eddington polarized audiences. Some critics named it one of the worst films of 2025, dismissing the film as smug and pretentious. Time will likely be kind of Eddington. In a decade or so, this may be the film we show future generations to help them understand the madness of our era. Eddington is a period piece, set specifically in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but recent events suggest that we’re not really past that period at all. The masks might be gone and the virus may not be top of mind, but the madness and tensions remain. What Eddington has to show us is the dark comedy of our reality.

Honorable Mentions

What follows are films that were either runners up to the Top 10 list or other pictures that came out in 2025 that are worth mentioning.

The Baltimorons – A newly sober comic seeks emergency dental treatment on Christmas Eve and spends the evening with the dentist. This film mixes humor and melancholy in ways that are very appealing.

Bring Her Back – This horror film about orphaned siblings and their foster parent was both scary and heartbreaking. Bring Her Back is the kind of picture that expands the possibilities of the genre with its thoughtful premise, nuanced characters, and great performances.

Bugonia – A tech CEO is abducted by a pair of conspiracy theorists who believe this business woman is an extraterrestrial. It may not be for everyone but Bugonia is skillfully made, well acted, and mostly smart.

The Chronology of Water – An adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir told in a dreamy but unsentimental style. This was an impressive directorial debut from Kristen Stewart.

Companion – The less you know about Companion going in, the better. This is a very entertaining story with strong performances and a fresh approach to familiar ideas and themes.

Die My Love – A couple moves into an isolated rural home and have a baby. Die My Love is an intense study of madness and depression.

Eden – In the early twentieth century, a group of Europeans gather on an island to start a new society. Eden is director Ron Howard’s best film in over a decade.

Freaky Tales – This anthology film set in a fantastical version of 1987 Oakland, California was a blast. This is popcorn entertainment with a political edge.

F1 – A satisfying piece of Hollywood popcorn entertainment.

Hamnet – Agnes and William Shakespeare mourn their son. This is a beautifully made film. Everything about it works in unison to produce a vision of the world that is deeper and more interesting than it initially appears.

A House of Dynamite – A what-if movie, working through the United States government’s response to a nuclear attack.

I Was a Stranger – An anthology of several overlapping stories set during the Syrian civil war that put a human face of this catastrophe.

iHostage – This drama about a hostage crisis in an Amsterdam Apple Store was tense with a humanistic touch.

Jay Kelly – A movie star has a personal crisis following the death of his mentor. Jay Kelly is a requiem for the classic Hollywood movie star and a thoughtful and wistful story about aging.

The Life of Chuck – Mike Flanagan directed one of the most unusual Stephen King adaptations.

The Long Walk – This adaptation of Stephen King’s novel is brutal and relevant and one of the better titles in King’s film library.

Lurker – An aspiring photographer ingratiates himself into the inner circle of an up-and-coming musician. Lurker is a tense drama of paranoia and obsession that raises critical questions about the economic and social aspects of contemporary media.

Magazine Dreams – An up-and-coming body builder is consumed by his commitment to his sport. Without getting preachy or didactic, Magazine Dreams takes a critical but compassionate view of masculinity that is revealing and heartbreaking.

Marty Supreme – A professional table tennis competitor returns from the British Open and struggles to keep his career afloat. Marty Supreme is a challenging character study and an exhilarating sports film.

Mickey 17 – Set in the future, a spaceship of colonists heads for a distant planet. Mickey 17 is well made and satirical but also has a humanist streak that makes it very appealing.

My Dead Friend Zoe – An Afghanistan war veteran is haunted by the memory of her deceased friend. It’s a deeply empathetic movie but without becoming maudlin.

No Other Choice – Park Chan-wook’s latest film is a smart dramatization of the way free will and choice are sifted through our own imagination and sense of self.

The Plague – An overnight water polo camp turns into a moral drama and an examination of adolescence and masculinity.

Rental Family – A struggling American actor living in Japan is hired by a company that provides performers for real life situations. Rental Family is beautifully made and thoughtfully explores how our social interactions are a form of performance.

The Secret Agent – A drama set in Brazil during its dictatorship of the 1970s. The film offers a lot to piece together in the way is juxtaposes memory and identity. 

Sentimental Value – A Norwegian film director tries to reconnect with his adult daughters by making a movie about their family. This is an intimate portrait of a family but also a thoughtful examination of the intersection of life and art.

Sinners – Ryan Coogler’s vampire story had some extraordinary moments, especially in its first half.

Sirāt – This Spanish production is about a father searching the Moroccan desert for his daughter. It’s an intense thriller comparable to William Friedkin’s Sorcerer.

Sisu: Road to Revenge – This sequel to the 2023 film was the best action movie of 2025.

Song Sung Blue – This dramatization of musicians Mike and Claire Sardina and their Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning and Thunder was a love letter to fan enthusiasm and the passion of musicians.

Sorry, Baby – This dramedy about assault, trauma, and recovery deals with difficult subject matter in a way that’s both empathetic and funny.

The Surfer –An American visiting Australia comes into conflict with an aggressive group of surfers who will not tolerate outsiders. It’s an extraordinary character study and a descent into madness.

The Threesome – Two women discover they are pregnant after a menage a trois. The racy premise belies a sweet and earnest movie that thoughtfully deals with matters of sexuality, family, and identity.

The Ugly Stepsister – This very adult reworking of Cinderella was a politically and emotionally sophisticated take on the fairy tale.

Warfare – A visceral cinematic experience and an exceptional combat film.

Weapons – A frightening and original horror picture from Zach Cregger.

Good Buzz List

These are films that were released in 2025 and have strong word of mouth, and in some cases award nominations, but Nathan was unable to see them in time for the year end summary.

Arco – An animated science fiction film about a time traveler. Arco was named the Best Animated Film of 2025 by the National Board of Review and it has been nominated at numerous film festivals.

Blue Moon – Richard Linklater’s film about lyricist Lorenz Hart has been praised for its lead performance by Ethan Hawke.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle – This movie was adapted from the manga series and it was a direct sequel to the fourth season of the animated television show. Demon Slayer was one of the biggest theatrical successes of 2025 and it was well reviewed.

Cover Up – A biographical documentary about investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. Cover Up was well reviewed and was named the best documentary of 2025 by the National Board of Review.

It Was Just an Accident – The latest film by Jafar Panahi follows a group of former Iranian political prisoners who debate whether to exact revenge on their former tormentor. It Was Just an Accident won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was given a special award by the American Film Institute as well as numerous other prizes.

The Left-Handed Girl – A Taiwanese film about a single mother and her daughter. The Left-Handed Girl was nominated for awards at a lot of film festivals.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain – An animated film adapted from Amélie Nothomb’s novel. Little Amélie won the Best Animated Film award at several festivals and was recognized by numerous critics groups.

The Love That Remains – This Icelandic film is a drama about a family going through a divorce. The canine performer won the Palm Dog Award at the Cannes Film Festival and The Love That Remains was very well reviewed. 

Orwell: 2+2=5 – A documentary on the life and work of writer George Orwell with specific attention to his novel 1984 and how it remains relevant. Orwell: 2+2=5 was recognized at the Critics Choice Awards.

Rebuilding – A drama about a ranching family coping after their land is burned by wildfire. Rebuilding was named one of the ten best independent films of 2025 by the National Board of Review.

Urchin – A drama about a Londoner struggling with addiction and homelessness. Urchin was well reviewed and Frank Dillane won the Un Certain Regard award for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival.

The Voice of Hind Rajab – A drama about first responders trying to get an ambulance to a six-year-old girl trapped in a car during the war in Gaza. The Voice of Hind Rajab won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival and it was celebrated at numerous festivals and award ceremonies.

Great Performances

This is a list of some of the great performances in 2025 although not all of them were in great movies. 

The Accountant 2 – Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal reprise their roles as brothers. Their scenes were the best part of this sequel.

Anemone – Sean Bean and Daniel Day-Lewis were very good as estranged brothers in Ronan Day-Lewis’ debut film.

Avatar: Fire and Ash – Oona Chaplin was captivating as the villain Varang.

The Ballad of Wallis Island – Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan play ex-lovers and musicians brought together by a wealthy superfan played by Tim Key.

The Baltimorons – The whole film was well cast from the principal actors down to the background characters. Michael Strassner and Liz Larsen were outstanding in the lead roles.

Bring Her Back – The core cast was so good and brought pathos to the horror especially Billy Barratt and Sora Wong as orphaned siblings, Jonah Wren Phillips as a mysterious orphan, and especially Sally Hawkins as the bereaved foster mother.

Bugonia – Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis play conspiracy theorists who abduct a tech CEO played by Emma Stone.

Christy – Sydney Sweeney played boxer Christy Martin and Ben Foster was cast as her husband and trainer Jim Martin.

The Chronology of Water – Imogen Poots plays writer Lidia Yuknavitch.

The Death of Snow White – If only the rest of the film had been as good as Chelsea Edmundson as the Evil Queen.

Die My Love – Jennifer Lawrence gave a ferocious performance as woman having a breakdown.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight – Embeth Davidtz plays the mother of a colonial family living in 1980 Zimbabwe Rhodesia and Lexi Venter is cast as her seven-year-old daughter.

Eephus – One of the best and most believable overall casts of 2025.

Eden – An ensemble piece starring Jude Law, Vanesa Kirby, Ana de Armas, Daniel Brühl, and Sydney Sweeney.

Friendship – This movie was a vehicle for Tim Robinson and effectively showed off his unique talents.

Good Boy – The performance by canine actor Indy has been rightly praised.

Hamnet – Jessie Buckley gave an intense performance as Agnes Shakespeare grieving the death of her son.

Hedda – Tessa Thompson was complex and fun in the title role. She was paired by Nina Hoss and Imogen Poots.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You – Rose Byrne was a vision of parental distress. Conan O’Brien also impressed as a therapist. 

Is This Thing On? – Will Arnet is outstanding as a man going through a divorce.

Jay Kelly – George Clooney was well cast in the title role but Adam Sandler really impressed as his manager.

The Life of Chuck – Tom Hiddleston, Jacob Tremblay, and Benjamin Pajak are convincing as the same person at different ages. Mark Hamill impressed as Chuck’s grandfather.

Magazine Dreams – Jonathan Majors gave one of the year’s most interesting and impassioned performances as a troubled body builder.

Marty Supreme – Timothée Chalamet shines in the title role but this film had a great overall cast including Odessa A’zion and a roster of weathered and interesting-looking performers in minor roles.

The Mastermind – One of Josh O’Connor’s notable performances of 2025.

Mickey 17 – Robert Pattinson played multiple versions of the same character.

My Dead Friend Zoe – Sonequa Martin-Green played an Afghanistan war veteran haunted by the memory of her deceased friend, played by Natalie Morales. Ed Harris also impressed as her grandfather.

The Naked Gun – Liam Neeson parodied his action movie persona and Pamela Anderson was very funny as the femme fatale.

Nuremburg – Rami Malek played psychiatrist Douglas Kelley and Russell Crowe played Reichsminister Hermann Göring.

One Battle After Another – A great overall cast with standout performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, Regina Hall, and Chase Infiniti.

Parthenope – Celeste Dalla Porta had a genuinely magnetic screen presence in the title role. Silvio Orlando also impressed in a dryly acerbic performance as an anthropology professor.

The Plague – The cast of young actors was very good, notably Everett Blunck in the lead role and Kenny Rasmussen as a troubled tween.

Rental Family – Brendan Fraser impressed as an actor hired by a company that provides performers for real life situations. Also impressive are Akira Emoto as a retired actor and Shannon Mahina Gorman as a fatherless student.

The Rule of Jenny Pen – Geoffrey Rush, John Lithgow, and George Henare starred in this geriatric horror film.  

The Secret Agent – Wagner Moura plays a political refugee preparing to flee Brazil.

Sentimental Value – Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve play a filmmaker father and his actor daughter.

Sinners – Michael B. Jordan played dual roles as twin brothers. The rest of the cast was also quite good including Jack O’Connell, Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, and Wunmi Mosaku.

The Smashing Machine – Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt play mixed martial artist Mark Kerr and his girlfriend Dawn Staples.

Song Sung Blue – Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson play musicians Mike and Claire Sardina. The rest of the cast was also quite good including Ella Anderson and King Princess as their teenage daughters.

Sorry, Baby – Eva Victor stars in the lead as an English professor dealing with the aftermath of sexual trauma. Also impressive were Naomi Ackie, Kelly McCormack, and Lucas Hedges.

Spingsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere – Jeremy Allen White stars as Bruce Springsteen.

Steve – The whole cast of Steve was great but Cillian Murphy was outstanding in the title role as an alcoholic teacher at a school for at-risk youth.

The Surfer – Nicolas Cage gave an intense and committed performance.

The Testament of Ann Lee – Amanda Seyfried impressed in the title role as an eighteenth-century preacher.

The Threesome – Zoey Deutch, Ruby Cruz, and Jonah Hauer-King were very good in this, each creating distinct and nuanced characters.

Train Dreams – Joel Edgerton gave a quiet but intense performance in the lead role and William H. Macy distinguished himself in a colorful supporting role.

Violent Ends – Billy Magnussen was tragically watchable in the lead role and James Badge Dale was the chief villain.

Wake Up Dead Man – Daniel Craig continued to impress as Benoit Blanc but Josh O’Connor stole the show as the murder suspect.

Weapons – A great overall cast including Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich, and Amy Madigan.

Wicked: For Good – Ariana Grande-Butera and Cynthia Erivo continued to be the best part of this adaptation of the stage musical.

Bottom 10 Films of 2025

What follows are the very bottom of the cinematic heap for 2025.

1. Happy Gilmore 2

Directed by: Kyle Newacheck

Premise: A sequel to the 1996 film. Hockey player turned golf pro Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) has fallen on hard times. He stages a golf comeback, competing in a tournament that will determine the sport’s future.

Why It Made the List: For the last decade we’ve been inundated with legacy sequels to movies of the 1980s and 90s. The trend hit its nadir in 2025 and the worst of these was Happy Gilmore 2. The movie showcases all the most obnoxious tendencies of this trend. Past heroes are reintroduced as disillusioned and broken in circumstances that refute the end of the original picture. It’s crammed with forced callbacks that only exist to remind us of the original. Not only do the filmmakers repeat gags from the 1996 film, they match those moments with flashback footage from the original Happy Gilmore, just in case we were too stupid to get it. The material doesn’t match. Happy Gilmore 2 is shot in the flat digital Netflix aesthetic and the inserts from 1996 highlight the ugliness of the sequel. The filmmakers also misunderstand the appeal of the character. The whole joke of Happy Gilmore was a crass, blue-collar outsider crashing the posh world of golf. In Happy Gilmore 2 the character defends the golf establishment, discarding the outsider quality that made the character interesting in the first place. Happy Gilmore 2 is unfunny, lazy, and useless and the worst film of 2025.

2. War of the Worlds

Directed by: Rich Lee

Premise: A very loose adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel. Extraterrestrials invade Earth as seen through the screen activity of a Department of Homeland Security surveillance employee (Ice Cube).

Why It Made the List: This exceedingly stupid reimagining of H.G. Wells’ novel consists entirely of the screen activity of a Department of Homeland Security officer who is apparently the entire department. So much of this is silly from the depiction of hacking to Ice Cube’s performance. The family drama is ridiculous and the film rips off the ending of Independence Day while managing to be even dumber. But what is so unseemly about 2025’s War of the Worlds is the way it is propaganda for the corporate surveillance state.

3. Oh. What. Fun.

Directed by: Michael Showalter

Premise: A mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) frets over holiday preparations while her grown children do nothing to help. Fed up, she abandons the family on Christmas Eve.

Why It Made the List: Oh. What. Fun. positions itself as the female equivalent of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation but what begins promisingly self-aware is derailed by stupid storytelling and unlikable characters. The plot steals from better films and everyone is mopey and mean. Holiday movies exist to give us some saccharine cheer but Oh. What. Fun. gets downright unpleasant as it becomes a pity party, reassuring wealthy women that they are victims. No one expects much from direct-to-streaming Christmas filler, but this was tone deaf and off-putting.

4. The Electric State

Directed by: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo

Premise: Based on the novel by Simon Stålenhag. Set in an alternate history, artificially intelligent robots and human beings went to war in the 1990s. In the aftermath, the surviving robots are confined to a reservation. Meanwhile, a teenager (Millie Bobby Brown) is reunited with her long-lost brother whose consciousness inhabits a robot.

Why It Made the List: Filmmakers Anthony and Joe Russo continue to underwhelm whenever they wander out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Electric State is intended to be a science fiction epic on the scale of their comic book spectacles. Instead, The Electric State was a boring, overlong, and incoherent mess that ripped off better sci-fi movies. The filmmakers carry on as though they’re making some kind of social statement but this is just a brand exercise. A Minecraft Movie looks like an art film by comparison.

5. I Know What You Did Last Summer

Directed by: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Premise: A sequel to the 1997 film. A group of young people cover up their involvement in the unintentional death of a motorist. A year later they are stalked by a killer armed with a hook.

Why It Made the List: 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer was not a great movie but it was scary and stylish. 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer is not scary, has no sense of pacing, and the filmmakers botch the inciting incident so badly that nothing that follows makes any sense. It’s a sloppy production with dodgy visual effects, especially a de-aged cameo that looks awful. Self-aware humor clashes with the violence and I Know What You Did Last Summer plays as a failed parody.

6. Anniversary

Directed by: Jan Komasa

Premise: An upper-class liberal family is disrupted when their son begins dating an activist and author (Phoebe Dynevor) whose book is the basis of a right-wing political movement. 

Why It Made the List: Anniversary is an embarrassingly bad attempt to make a politically relevant thriller. The filmmakers created a political film but forgot to include the politics. Characters argue but we never really know about what. Failing at basic storytelling, Anniversary does not demonstrate what anyone actually believes. There’s no action, no insight, and no wit. The filmmakers try to cover for their vacuity by making the cast speak in pretentious stage whispers. Much like the film’s cinematography, it’s all a vague sludge that represents nothing.

7. Regretting You

Directed by: Josh Boone

Premise: Based on the novel by Colleen Hoover. A woman and her brother-in-law (Allison Williams and Dave Franco) lose their spouses in a car accident and discover that the deceased were having an affair. They conceal the truth from the teenage daughter (Mckeena Grace).

Why It Made the List: Nothing in Regretting You is believable and nearly everything is pitched wrong. The dialogue sounds as though it was created by a middle-aged writer imagining how teens speak. Regretting You is allegedly a story of grief but the filmmakers avoid anything that might make the audience feel bad. The family mourns like they’re in a sitcom. All that’s missing is a laugh track. The entire design of Regretting You looks like a country lifestyle magazine. This portrait of grief is sponsored by ostentatious product placements.

8. Juliet & Romeo

Directed by: Timothy Scott Bogart

Premise: A musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. In 14th century Italy, rival families vie for control of the city of Verona. Their teenage children (Clara Rugaard and Jamie Ward) fall in love.

Why It Made the List: Juliet & Romeo is a love story with actors who have no romantic chemistry and it’s a musical with mediocre songs and no sense of rhythm. That’s bad enough but the filmmakers rewrite Shakespeare’s play, giving the teen lovers a happy ending. Passion and pain are removed, gutting the story of what made it a classic and for no good reason. This isn’t subversion. It’s sanitization. Juliet & Romeo processes a tragedy through a pop music filter that destroys what makes art interesting.

9. Fear Street: Prom Queen / A Hell of a Summer

Directed by: Matt Palmer / Billy Bryk and Finn Wolfhard

Premise: Prom Queen: The competition for the title of prom queen at Shadyside High School turns deadly. A Hell of a Summer: A masked killer murders summer camp counselors.

Why It Made the List: A couple of terrible retro-styled slasher films were released in 2025. Prom Queen followed the successful Fear Street trilogy and it was a massive disappointment. Like so many Netflix movies, Prom Queen is an ugly looking film shot with the flat digital sheen of a television commercial. A Hell of a Summer is slow and sloppy with lame humor. Neither film was scary and both played as imitations of 1980s slasher movies made by people who never actually saw any of those films.

10. Love Hurts

Directed by: Jonathan Eusebio

Premise: A former mob enforcer (Ke Huy Quan) has reinvented himself as a successful relator. He’s dragged back into a life of violence by a former colleague (Ariana DeBose).   

Why It Made the List: A lot of really bad action films were released in 2025, including Back in Action, The Pickup, Playdate, and Play Dirty but the worst of these was Love Hurts. The film is intended to be a badass actioner and a love story. It fails at both. Love Hurts is meanspirited and sloppy, whiplashing the audience between dissonant tones. The story is incoherent and uninteresting. Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose are supposed to have some kind of romantic connection but they have no chemistry.

Trends of 2025

Bad and Mediocre Sequels

Many sequels of 2025 were disappointments, especially the legacy sequels which frequently underwhelmed.

Couples in Trouble

A lot of films this year focused on couples facing a crisis in their relationship. Perhaps this reflects the current alienation between men and women.

Dead Kids

Related to the movies about couples in trouble, a lot of movies of 2025 were about parents (usually mothers) mourning the loss of a child.

Horror Films

The horror genre continued its impressive run in 2025.

Masculinity Crisis

Films of 2025 also focused on stories about male isolation and toxic masculinity or otherwise examined men’s sense of self and friendships.

Musical Films

As in recent years, a lot of musical films were released in 2025. Many of them were music documentaries and others were musical dramas.

New Directorial Voices

2025 saw some really impressive feature film directorial debuts with new filmmakers asserting their voice.

Shark Movies

The steady trend of shark thrillers continued in 2025, with several about divers stranded underwater in shark infested waters.

Stephen King Adaptations

Several works by Stephen King were adapted to the screen in 2025. They varied in quality and tone.

Weird Stuff

For all the talk that “Hollywood has no new ideas,” there were a lot of interesting and strange movies released in 2025. Some of these films were better than others but they all demonstrated creativity.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Overlapping with the stories of couples in trouble and dead children, many films of 2025 were about women at the end of their rope and being self-destructive.

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