Despite a slower start, 2025 was nothing short of a rather wonderful year for movies, from some standout blockbuster releases to prominent independent releases that found fascinating ways to forward the medium and bring newer voices to the forefront. Here is my top 10 of the year, highlighting some of those great movies.
10. Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro is no stranger to creature features, and with his take on Mary Shelley’s iconic novel, he continues to bring a sense of humanity and beauty to the horrors we see, and highlight the tragedies of both Dr. Victor Frankenstein and especially his creation. Filled with terrific performances, particularly from Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, spectacular production design, and visuals and a gorgeous score from Alexandre Desplat, Frankenstein may not be del Toro’s finest work, but it is one that improves with every viewing.
9. 28 Years Later
Perhaps the greatest miracle of the third installment in the 28 Days Later series is not its unique handling of zombies and visual style, but its more emotionally powerful storyline about a son wanting to help his mother being its central angle and finding the beauty in the world after everything has been laid to waste. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland craft something beautiful with 28 Years Later, building on the legacy of Days and Weeks in effective ways, and paving the path for more compelling stories to come. Remember you must love.
8. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
After three movies, Rian Johnson is nowhere near stopping with Benoit Blanc’s adventures, and neither is Daniel Craig, and with Wake Up Dead Man, audiences are all the better for it. The darkest, most thematically dense movie of the three, Johnson’s deft handling of religion and faith and the darkly humorous proceedings makes for an incredibly effective thriller, once again loaded with an outstanding ensemble cast and terrific dialogue that keeps things moving at a mile a minute. Bring on the fourth mystery!
7. Hamnet
While many a debate can be had over the sequence of events that led to William Shakespeare penning one of the most celebrated works in the history of mankind, Chloé Zhao’s emotionally gut-wrenching story of Agnes and William Shakespeare and the loss of their son Hamnet makes as compelling and powerful a case for the story as can be made. Gorgeously shot and scored with a slew of outstanding performances from Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, and Jacobi Jupe as the titular character, Hamnet is a tearjerker that culminates in one of the best final scenes of the year. A masterful effort from Zhao.
6. Avatar: Fire and Ash
Perhaps the most divisive entry in this list, James Cameron’s third trip to Pandora is the darkest and most intense yet, challenging the franchise’s religious and faith-based bedrock with enemies like Varang (Oona Chaplin) who renounce all of it, a more egregious display of military imperialism and propaganda–arming insurgents included–and yet delivering an incredibly effective character drama which brings around elements from the first two movies in highly satisfying ways, along with some of the finest visual effects and sequences ever put to film.
5. No Other Choice
Park Chan-wook continues to surprise audiences with an unexpected, thematically rich, fast-paced, spectacularly shot, and subservice dark comedy thriller that pushes a man wanting to provide for his family and rebuild his own status as a working member of society to take desperate measures if necessary, anchored by some career-best work from Lee Byung-hun, crackling dialogue and direction, and some of the best cinematography of the year that results in some of the most memorable sequences of 2025, particularly one involving oven mitts and a lot of music. Go in blind.
4. It Was Just An Accident
Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning return to filmmaking is a perfectly constructed tale built on past unresolved trauma, pain, the effects of authoritarianism in Iran, trying to find a way to move on, and the resulting monsters that can arise within us that mirror the real monsters when wanting peace. Terrifically acted, written with pitch-perfect precision, and hosting one of the finest endings to any 2025 release, It Was Just an Accident is a movie I haven’t stopped thinking about for months. A masterwork.
3. Marty Supreme
Dreaming big will get you far. In the case of Marty Mouser, it also means having one bizarre, life-threatening situation after another and making every possible mistake in the process. And yet, I was swept away by every single moment of Marty Supreme. Moving at a pace that feels injected by an adrenaline shot, infused with Josh Safdie’s frenetic direction and visuals (courtesy of Darius Khondji’s impeccable cinematography), Daniel Lopatin’s magnificent score, and anchored by an outstanding cast led by a career-best Timothee Chalamet, every creative and narrative decision made works perfectly, and even makes ping pong feel more intense than usual.
2. Sinners
In many ways, it’s a miracle that Sinners even exists. A wildly original, genre-spanning vampire horror thriller that also doubles as a profound musical epic, Ryan Coogler’s opus is nothing short of a masterwork, combining some extraordinary storytelling and characterization with some of the best performances, visuals, and music of the year, and all the while tapping into deeper themes about racism, segregation, identity and community, and never missing a beat while executing all of it. Shot with IMAX film cameras, Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s cinematography makes for a stunning experience and some of the best use of the format, and Ludwig Goransson’s score is sublime throughout. On rewatch, it only gets better.
1. One Battle After Another
A snapshot of our current society and also a powerfully told story about taking on the established powers that seek to oppress others and a father trying to protect his daughter and know a better world, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest in a lot of ways becomes the most poignant movie of 2025 and in other ways,its most important. Impeccably crafted with outstanding performances from its entire cast, terrific dialogue and direction, spectacular cinematography captured on Vistavision (watch out for that “River of Hills” sequence), and a tremendous score from Jonny Greenwood, this is a dark comedy thriller that doesn’t falter for even a moment and makes for the best movie of the year.
Honorable Mentions: The Voice of Hind Rajab, Sorry, Baby, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Weapons, F1: The Movie, Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc, Train Dreams, Bugonia, Superman, The Testament of Ann Lee
