No one can dispute the fact that 2025 has been a year that has been experienced by all. It’s not exactly been my favorite year of films in recent history, but the highs were high. As 2025 closes, it’s time to look back on my personal favorites from the year. 

10. Splitsville

Directed by Michael Angelo Covino and starring Dakota Johnson, Kyle Marvin, and Adria Arjona, Splitsville was surprisingly as deep as it was funny. I loved the way it explored relationship dynamics as things change over time, and I also appreciate that it featured two of the loves of my life in main roles. What more could I ask for?

9. Black Bag

Of the three Steven Soderbergh films I saw in 2025, Black Bag was, by far, the best of the trio. The sleek spy thriller is incredibly fun and features a wonderful cast operating at the top of their game. It may not have resonated with audiences upon release, but I think it will find its audience in the coming years. 

8. Eddington

Ari Aster’s divisive, no-holds-barred look at the recent past really clicked with me from the jump. I really love the performances that Aster pulls out of Joaquin Phoenix and hope they continue their partnership for at least one more film. While taking jabs at all sides, I found myself fascinated by completely different plotlines and themes each time I saw it.

7. The Shrouds

If I could give up the rest of my years on this earth and give them to David Cronenberg to keep making movies, I would do it in a heartbeat. I was floored by The Shrouds and the way it approaches grief and conspiracy, as well as Diane Kruger’s triple performance. I’ve been thinking about this one since I saw it at NYFF in 2024, and I’ll still be thinking about it for a long time.

6. Marty Supreme

Timothée Chalamet reaches another level in Josh Safdie’s globetrotting thriller, and I couldn’t be happier. Just last year he said he was chasing greatness, and I’d say he’s well on his way. I wound up seeing this one thrice in theaters, and I was taken with Chalamet’s performance, the editing, and the phenomenal score from Daniel Lopatin. 

5. Sound of Falling

This may not be on the radar for many folks, but this was by far my favorite film I saw at NYFF 2025. Following four generations of women in the same family on the same farm, it explores the different ways that they experience womanhood and the ways they are used and exploited by the men in their lives and the world around them. Mascha Schilinski comes through with an absolute stunner with some of the most compelling editing and sound work I saw all year.

4. It Was Just an Accident

This is my introduction to Jafar Panahi, but I absolutely loved this movie. His ability to combine humor, intensity, and mystery all while commenting on the state of things in Iran is utterly baffling. Make sure you catch this one leading up to the Oscars ceremony if it comes anywhere near you.

3. Sinners

It’s been a year with two mainstays, with Ryan Coogler’s Sinners being one of them. I was expecting a fun ride at the theater but was taken by surprise at the depth and craft on display. I would genuinely watch the rest of the depression-era Southern drama that unfolds in the first half of this film. Every performance here is phenomenal, and I will stake a claim for Delroy Lindo in particular. No Supporting Actor lineup is complete or correct without him in the five. 

2. One Battle After Another

What else is there to say about this film that hasn’t been said already? I saw it three times on film during my time in New York and I’ll never be as happy as I was during that week. Paul Thomas Anderson is just one of my guys, and it would take a lot for something he releases to not be in my top 3 of the year.

1. The Testament of Ann Lee

This is one of two films that made me cry this year, and it takes quite a lot for me. It’s been said I have no heart, so I’m elated to have found a movie like The Testament of Ann Lee to bring out some emotion for me. My thoughts have been previously stated here on the site, but I was in awe of Amanda Seyfried’s performance, the choreography, and the depiction of faith in a time where you have nothing else to hold on to. 

Here’s to an even better 2026!

I consider 2025 to be a great year for film. In fact, of the films released in 2025, I watched over 130 and gave over 75 of them a 3.5 rating or higher. That’s plenty of high-quality movies.

Here are my picks for the best films of 2025!

Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): 2000 Meters to Adriivka, The Alabama Solution, The Bad Guys 2, Black Bag, Blue Moon, Come See Me in the Good Light, Cover-Up, East of Wall, Eephus, Escape from the 21st Century, A Little Prayer, Marty Supreme, The Mastermind, Materialists, Mickey 17, The Secret Agent, Superman, Twinless, Wake Up Dead Man

10. Die My Love

The performance of the year. Jennifer Lawrence gives herself fully over to director Lynne Ramsey in a tale of what happens to you when the “happily-ever-after” life isn’t going the way you had hoped. Lawrence gives a career-best performance of feral magnetism with a complete lack of inhibition or self-consciousness. Robert Pattinson does fine work as her clueless husband, while Sissy Spacek shows she can still deliver the goods as her mother-in-law, the only person who might actually understand what she is going through. It might not be for everyone, but it was certainly for me.

9. No Other Choice

To say Park Chan-wook knows what he’s doing is an understatement. Time and time again, the veteran director takes a difficult premise filled with unlikeable characters, and turns it into one of the most entertaining and funniest films of the year. It also helps when the premise has whip-smart political and social commentary. It also helps when Lee Byung-Hung and Son Ye-jin deliver some of the best performances of the year. It might not be the most accessible of films, but it is more than rewarding in today’s society.

8. Sinners

Just in case you weren’t aware, director Ryan Coogler does not miss. Whether it’s indie character dramas, legacy sequels, or big-budget comic book films, the guy has a complete handle on what the audience wants to see. Never before has it been so apparent with this film, delivering complex themes to go with top-notch craft across the board, but in a film about vampires. Michael B. Jordan once again proves to be the De Niro to Coogler’s Scorsese, delivering a monumental performance as twin brothers searching for a dream at the wrong time. Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, Jack O’Connell, Li Jun Li, Hailee Steinfeld, and newcomer Miles Caton bring the whole thing to glorious, music-filled life. Don’t miss the mid-film performance from Caton of the song “I Lied to You” that transcends musical performance on film.

7. Train Dreams

What direction do you take in life when the world never has much special use for you? Solitude is your saving grace until you realize how much you are alone. Once the world lets you in, you are shown how uncaring and unjust the world can be. It doesn’t make it any less perfect in that time you had. It’s not sad because you lost it. It’s perfect because you had it. It’s a special kind of film that can manufacture that much substance out of an incredibly sad narrative, but director Clint Bentley makes it sing with the most beautifully lensed and marvelously acted films. Joel Edgerton delivers a career-best performance with Felicity Jones, William H. Macy, Kerry Condon, and Nathaniel Arcand rounding out the pitch-perfect ensemble. It might not be the most important film, but it’s one of the best.

6. It Was Just an Accident

All the paranoia, anger, and fear of living in a country that doesn’t like you must be awful. Director Jafar Panahi directs all his criticism of the Iranian regime into his film of eternal conflicts between justice and truth. Featuring the ensemble cast of the year, there is a constant tension of consequences coinciding with humor and paranoia. It also features the absolute best ending of the year, bar none.

5. Sentimental Value

Director Joachim Trier and star Renate Reinsve teamed up for my favorite film of 2021, only to deliver another knockout for 2025. While a completely different experience from The Worst Person in the World, this film works as a good sister film, a good deadbeat-dad film, a good film about making films, a good film about being lonely, and a good film about unhealed trauma. There’s a lot to cling to, whatever it is that you can grasp. All of that comes together in suitably dramatic ways, but without the melodrama. Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, Elle Fanning, and especially Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas all dial in pitch-perfect performances.

4. Sorry, Baby

First-time director and star Eva Victor decides to make their first film and manages this perfect balance between dramatics without the draining, comedy without the cringe, and poignancy without pretentiousness. How they are able to balance it all without coming across as an amateur, I’ll never know. They also deliver a stellar lead performance as a woman who can’t reconcile the worst thing in her life. An exceptional piece of art from an exceptional artist. I can’t wait to see what they do next. Make sure not to miss John Carroll Lynch in a one-scene powerhouse as a kind mind who gives Victor a sandwich.

3. Hamnet

For a film that made me cry three times, I am aware of the specific impact this film gives. Yes, I have children and the immense emotional peril of children has a tendency to set me off emotionally. But, bad films have also made me cry. Director Chloe Zhao attempts to humanize and rationalize the life and work of William Shakespeare through his witch-adjacent wife and the death of their son. The director knows how dramatic this event can be without having to overdo the impact. Jesse Buckley gives one of the performances of the year as the aforementioned wife, while Paul Mescal compliments as the often-gone Bard. Newcomer Jacobi Jupe is equally affecting as the titular character. Bring the tissues.

2. The Voice of Hind Rajab

The most affecting film I’ve seen in some time. Director Kaouther Ben Hania’s recounting of the volunteers attempts at rescuing Palestinian five-year-old Hind Rajab from a destroyed car is nothing but a ball of anger, stress, and dismay. If this is the stress of listening to it in film form, I can’t imagine actually being a part of that situation. Every adult cannot fathom the lack of humanity present, and they each break down accordingly. Everyone is trying their best, but it’s just not good enough with all the bureaucracy and evil in the way. All the while, this poor girl is just trying to stay alive. It’s desperately effective filmmaking that is in no way pleasant to watch. Regardless, it’s essential viewing. And this is just one of a thousand stories just like it. A devastating story and one of the most essential films of the year.

1. One Battle After Another

This film sat at number one for so many months, I thought nothing would unseat it. I eventually watched other films that bumped it down the list, only for a subsequent rewatch to push it back to the top spot. Everyone else might have it here too, but I have no regrets. It’s the most complete film I’ve seen in a long time. Paul Thomas Anderson takes everything he has learned from his previous masterpieces and delivers a film that works for cinephiles, agro film-bros, and for general audiences. PTA manages to get one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s best performances, resurrects Sean Penn, deploys the charisma of Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor, and somehow discovers Chase Infiniti to top it all off. The best film of the year might end up being one of the best of the decade.

Nope, you read that correctly, my top 2 films of the year, no hyperbole.

When I “think back” on horrible years for movies I usually only really thought of one in particular – 1963. Especially when it came to the 1963 Academy Awards when the Academy had to reward the “best of the worst” in the year of Tom Jones… an absolute embarrassing year of bad movies.

Now, about to turn 34 next month, I can say I have lived through just as bad, if not worse year for movies since 1963, and that is 2025. 

Whoa, what a load of sh*t that came out this year and here we are going into the 2025 Academy Awards where they will be rewarding the “best of the worst” with the slop that came out this year. And if you want to argue or be a keyboard warrior in the comments, I truly don’t care. I have a platform here and you don’t so na-na-nah-boo boo, cry me a river. I will not be gaslit anymore this year that One Battle After Another or Sinners are good movies, they aren’t. Paul Thomas Anderson went from a masterpiece with Licorice Pizza to that and Sinners has such a giant plot hole that no one wants to address that all I can say is “ nice gowns, beautiful gowns.” Everything else feels like such “pick me’s” for awards that nothing stands out.

Except these two films which are easily the best two films of 2025. 

Weapons and Friendship are easily the best two films of the year – both absolute original greats where they not only perfectly balance multiple genres in one but they are entertaining and great rewatches. 

Zach Cregger coming off of Barbarian with a strong story, marketing campaign, and cast then becoming another hit for him and reintroducing the world to Academy Award Nominee Amy Madigan has been a fantastic journey. Seeing the public fall in love with a character like Aunt Gladys has been heartwarming and what a moment for Amy Madigan this has been, seeing her finally get her dues after 40 years post Oscar nomination of success that should have been. (I would like to shout out that if Karen Black had been alive to see Weapons…this role would have been hers and my God!!!) 

Friendship was an absolutely hilarious good time that was so up Tim Robinson’s alley that it still shocks me he didn’t write or direct it, LIKE HOW?! The smart, dead pan, dry sarcastic humor in this movie alone makes it a comedic masterpiece, then you add in the comedic performances of Tim Robinson (who should be SWEEPING the Best Actor awards race this season and yet is nowhere to be found) and Kate Mara and you had this golden film written and directed by Andrew DeYoung. All these months later and I truly need to know how DeYoung pitched this movie because it just doesn’t “work” on paper, like you needed the right actors to pull this off. HOW DID HE PITCH THIS?!

No one purposefully goes out of their way to make a bad movie, making movies is hard and I know this first hand, as my first is almost done and I know there will be people who don’t like it and that’s fine. Me saying I think these movies are bad or good is just as okay as you thinking mine will be bad or good, glad you have an opinion and glad you saw the movie. 

Just like I refuse to be on the Leigh payroll saying Vivian Leigh deserved to win both of her Oscars when I believe that woman couldn’t out act a paper bag, I refuse to be on the payroll of Anderson and Coogler amongst pretty much every other payroll this year. 

It was a bad year for movies, and onto 2026.

2025 has been a complete buffet of great cinema. In fact, while writing this list, I found myself constantly shifting choices every five minutes. Looking back, this year has been a big win for films about fractured motherhood, desperate fatherhood, the pursuit of greatness, the healing power of art, and the rebellious spark for change. Despite a rough year for animation, this awards season will struggle to accurately represent each category with only five spots. Shoutout to the rising recognition of world cinema—have we ever seen so many international films make the Best Picture lineup? 

Before we get to the 10 I settled on, here are my many honorable mentions in no particular order: 

The Voice of Hind Rajab, It Was Just An Accident, Hamnet, My Father’s Shadow, Black Bag, Twinless, Eddington, Bugonia, Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Perfect Neighbor, Train Dreams, No Other Choice, Nouvelle Vague, Weapons, Sirāt, Pillion, The Mastermind, The Testament of Ann Lee, Late Shift, 1000 Women in Horror, Happy Birthday, A Useful Ghost, Splitsville, Wake Up Dead Man, Bring Her Back, and Final Destination Bloodlines. 

10. Bob Trevino Likes It

Sometimes your chosen family is more powerful than the family you’re given. Bob Trevino Likes It is a profound symphony of cinema’s ability to empathise. Tracey Laymon’s semi-autobiographical weepy comedy-drama is a complete delight from start to finish, conveying one of those rare stories where the internet is used for genuine human connection rather than a vapid, predatory hellscape.

There are few pairings this year that bounce off each other as perfectly as Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo, imbuing Lily and Bob with so much humanity, humor and heart that you quickly forget they met through a mistaken Facebook friend request. With an exceptional coda about healing, parenthood, and the simple act of kindness, the ending alone had me sprinting out of the cinema thanks to the sheer embarrassing amount of ugly crying it inspired.

9.  If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

A relentless nightmare. Cinematic anxiety at its finest. Rose Byrne’s tour de force as Linda encapsulates a fractured mother who is stressed, sleep-deprived, and stretched impossibly thin. With an incredibly apropos title, Linda isn’t even permitted the strength to properly kick or scream.

I was lucky enough to listen to director Mary Bronstein in a post-screening Q&A, where she fully articulated her well-realized vision of exhaustive parenthood, surreal angst, and the regressive limits of human care. Conan O’Brien rises to the occasion, delivering a surprisingly serious performance as Linda’s therapist.

The unwinding nature of the piece may have tested many, but I was enraptured the entire time—gasping at everything from squashed hamsters and absent fathers to void-filled roofs and left-behind babies. As far as double features go, this makes for a fantastic pairing with its meaner older sister, (and also the next film on this list) Die My Love. 

8. Die My Love 

The most fully embodied performance of the year belongs to Jennifer Lawrence’s postpartum-riddled mother, Grace—an unbridled display of psychosis, resentment, depression, yearning, and raw, passionate discontent. Die My Love features some of the most feral moments you’ll see from a protagonist all year: clawing at walls, animalistic stalking, condoms as bubble gum, music playing at double speed—you can’t help but both laugh and cry at a mother having the ultimate crash-out. 

With phenomenal support from Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte, alongside what is likely one of Robert Pattinson’s most underappreciated roles, this film is pure cinema— all feeling, all-encompassing, and unabashedly challenging. If you’re someone who revels in Lynne Ramsay’s discombobulating direction, this is the film for you.

7. Left-Handed Girl

An extremely assured debut from Shih-Ching Tsou, Left-Handed Girl mixes intergenerational expectation, social realism, Taiwanese classism, and the bustling excess of Taipei’s urban sprawl to tell a boots-on-the-ground story about four generations of women fighting misogyny, superstition, fraud, and wealth inequality.

With Sean Baker’s deft editing touch, the humane intertwines with the hurting, shedding light on a working-class family with secrets to reveal, bills to pay, and lessons to pass down. It’s tender, it’s cheeky, it’s funny, and even profound in places. The color-grading alone is wondrous.

Whether it’s sweeping shots of mopeds weaving through overcrowded streets, a little girl’s ‘devil hand’ stealing a necklace, or the lowly image of a grandmother, mother, and daughter working together as a family, Left-Handed Girl is a reminder to never let society cement who you are—or what is expected of you.

6. Sentimental Value 

A tender, intimate, and profound exercise in cinema’s most powerful capability: expressing through art what the soul struggles to communicate through the body. A film about fractured relationships, distant families, arrogant directors, corporate exploits, and softening reconciliations. The objects and places in this film carry as much memory and weight as the people who create them—Sentimental Value and I’m Still Here should face off over which family home has the more richly lived-in and troubled character.

Renate Reinsve and Elle Fanning are gorgeous here, but it is truly Stellan Skarsgård and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas who steal the film. Stellan’s eyes guide the audience through a smorgasbord of regrets, ideals, and emotions, burdened by the weight of so much history. Sentimental Value is a film that so expertly captures the feeling of trying to make something work that, in essence, never truly can. Life-affirming, truth-upholding, and poignantly playful cinema.

5. The Secret Agent

Covering every genre from historical drama to political thriller to absurdist neo-noir, The Secret Agent is a multifaceted marvel. From its establishing scene—where a dead body is treated as much an inconvenience as a banana peel—this is a stylistic epic in which the banality of a dictatorship becomes disturbingly normal. The police are so hopelessly corrupt that a Belgian Jew (Udo Kier, in a pitch-perfect final film role) is instantly perceived as a former Nazi soldier without hesitation.

Wagner Moura delivers one of the year’s best performances as Armando, making his journey as a former professor feel tragic, emotive, and deeply investing. Every supporting character gets their moment too—the pace and editing frequently shifts perspectives without any complaint. The production design of 1977 Recife feels as lived-in as it is astonishingly detailed. Smart, funny, incisive, and rebellious, The Secret Agent is an understated masterpiece—a reminder of how easily progressive and marginalized thought can be comically branded as law-breaking espionage.

4. Sorry, Baby

Sorry, Baby delivers profound truths through Eva Victor’s assured, distinctive debut voice. Their performance as Agnes covers so many adjectives. Dry, witty, charming, and somber, while equally emotive, damaged, scarred, and lonesome. Watching their journey unfold in non-chronological form is riveting, somehow balancing measured laughter against traumatizing heartbreak. Fantastic supporting performances across the board from Naomi Ackie, John Carroll Lynch, Hettienne Park, and Lucas Hedges.

Whether it’s the open honesty of admitting bias to a jury, smashing a mouse to death with a book, sitting in stunned awe of a flaccid penis, or simply being consoled by the most supportive friend in the world, Sorry, Baby charts the winding road to survival. Assault is never easy to live with—but as always, we laugh not only to escape, but to process our pain and forge a new path forward. Up with resilient survivors, and down with corrupt, abusive men.

3. Marty Supreme

Josh Safdie almost lulls his audience into believing they’re watching a typical sports drama, only to rapidly remind you that this is from the director of Good Time and Uncut Gems. Marty Mauser’s arrogant and all-consuming quest to become the greatest table tennis player takes some of the wildest turns you’ll see in a movie theatre this year. Once Marty Supreme grabs you, there’s no option but to laugh, kick, scream and howl just to feel its grip loosen.

Anchored by Timothée Chalamet’s career-best, mile-a-minute, and wildly expressive performance—alongside Daniel Lopatin’s kinetic, overwhelming score and breakneck editing from Safdie and co-writer Ronald Bronstein—this is a three-course comedy-drama about ambition, self-destruction, humiliation, and the relentless lengths of human tenacity.

Nerve-pinching, electrifying, and enthralling cinema, Marty Supreme is one of those rare films where you want to strangle the protagonist just as much as you want to see them succeed in their hopes and extremely daring dreams. In a year where the Safdie brothers go head-to-head in sports dramas, Josh’s paddle certainly delivers the winning blow.

2. One Battle After Another

This film is a home run. Every actor knocks it out of the park—it’s funny, smart, surprisingly original, and deeply pressing for our times. It almost falls apart under the weight of just so much movie and so much narrative, but it somehow seals the deal with bewildering cinematography, slick editing, and a relentlessly eclectic yet playful score. 

What a find Chase Infiniti is; she gives Willa as much emotional depth as she does brains and brawn. Sean Penn shines as a broken action hero toy. Leonardo DiCaprio is on another level entirely—I could watch him and Benicio Del Toro’s screwball antics for hours on end. Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia carries such unquenchable rage for the system, so much so her limited screen time powerfully lingers throughout the entire runtime. 

Featuring an iconic car chase that is equally unwinding, sloping, and tremendously bumpy, the rolling river of hills comes to represent the state of America today. As a modern adaptation of “Vineland,” the audience is reminded that the U.S. ‘s pursuit of endless conflict in the name of jingoistic nonsense is a symptom of a country where words and debate are no longer prerequisites for action. Such counteractions, no matter how bold, still require constant, cyclical reinvention. This is a film in which the next generation is forced to clean up the previous generation’s messes—rarely succeeding, but compelled to try.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is an open book with a blood-soaked cover. It’s emblematic of an America that hasn’t written a final chapter yet, let alone a single dry page. Let’s all hope and strive to contribute to a more inspiring narrative—one that reminds us what true freedom should be.

1. Sinners

Sinners is the cinematic achievement of a director building upon his previous successes to produce something wholly singular. On paper, mixing the genres of horror, action, historical fiction, and even musical into a blockbuster with a coherent narrative is a tall order. Yet Ryan Coogler embeds such an aching love for the genre conventions he is remixing and challenging that the final product absolves the film of any sin of creative overreach.

As my favorite film of the year, it is impossible not to mention Miles Caton’s transcendent musical number, “I Lied to You.” A sequence that exceeded all expectations, its anachronistic jukebox becomes a mighty rallying cry for ancestral preservation and an outstanding feat of technical prowess. Thanks to Sammie’s harmonizing power, the beautiful melody ripples, echoes, and chimes through the America of old, new, and emerging.

With its reverence for Delta blues’ spiritual and historical power, Sinners is a triumphant reminder of the fight for truth, culture, and free will—forces that overcome the boundaries of oppression, assimilation, and systemic erasure. Featuring stellar performances, a killer score, and boundary-breaking filmmaking, the film ought to be baptized as an all-time classic.

2025 was a bizarre year for my movie watching. The theatrical experience, an experience I carry much reverence for, was placed on the backburner and most of the newer movies I watched were either in the comfort of my apartment or on the Delta In-Flight movie catalog. I sought out older films and crossed off multiple blind spots that I’ve had (All the President’s Men is the greatest movie of all time), I’m hoping to catch up on the newer films I missed here soon, and I’m already up to a few new films in the year of the Horse, 2026. While I intend to watch some 2025 releases that I’m certain would shuffle some of my top 10, this is my top 10 of 2025 as the great crystal ball rang in this already bizarre (and terrifying!) new year.

10. The Phoenician Scheme

Wes Anderson is a huge hit or miss type of filmmaker. Some people (like me) will be there, day 1, for whatever new release he has, others find his style insufferable. From the multiple viewings of Rushmore with my dad growing up, I have a huge nostalgic and personal soft spot for his surgically framed and emotionally potent films. The Phoenician Scheme is not one of my favorites out of Wes Anderson’s latest batch of films, but it still got me nonetheless. While Wes Anderson’s films mostly deal with mortality and legacy, these ideas were always on projected onto the characters in the prior films. After COVID, it seems he is in conversation with himself, and by proxy the viewer on what mortality, art, or legacy means. Granted, there were two films that he started after COVID-19 in 2020 (excluding The French Dispatch as that was in production prior to the pandemic), but both Asteroid City and now The Phoenician Scheme seem to grapple mortality and legacy much more in a personal sense rather than a loose theme in the sea of ideas or set pieces he had in his prior films.

9. Ne Zha II

Ne Zha II was a film I was curious about for a while before I got my screening invite. By the time I caught wind of it, it had already ended its first North American theatrical run. Disappointed that I would have to watch it off of something like YouTube, it was then announced that A24 was picking it up in North America and releasing an English dub to go with it (gag). While it would’ve benefitted me to have seen the first film, the film stood entirely on its own with some loose references to the original. Ne Zha II is a spectacle on the big screen and I caught myself in awe of its scope and visual direction at times. The dub itself left a lot to be desired, but once Ne Zha II got going it kept you in its grasp until the end.

8. Splitsville

This was a movie I watched by chance. I was in Phoenix with a good friend of mine to watch Nine Inch Nails, acting amuck for a few extra days, and on the day before we were supposed to leave we saw that there was a screening of this happening next to where we were staying with a Q&A with the film’s two male stars. We said whatever, and gave it a whirl. Splitsville was a really fun time at the movies with the quirky late-80s style of comedy I’d expect from someone like Albert Brooks. It never really punched above its material but it certainly wasn’t a disappointment. A totally content experience and a really fun time overall!

7. Weapons

Zach Cregger has been a creative that I’ve adored since I was in middle school. The Whitest Kids U’Know was a staple for me, and Barbarian absolutely ruled. With Weapons, I was elated that a new labyrinth of a horror film was being made by him since the hammer drop of a twist that came in Barbarian knocked me off of my feet. The twist in Weapons wasn’t as shocking as I had anticipated, but horror Magnolia was so good of an idea I was surprised that it hadn’t been done previously. Also, the Looney Tunes style ending worked for me a little too well – I was hootin’ and hollerin’ in the theater like a fool.

6. The Naked Gun

The Naked Gun (1988) is my favorite movie of all time. I adore it to a sick degree, I show everyone I know The Naked Gun if they say they hadn’t seen it. I even have an on-set polaroid picture of Leslie Nielsen from the costume designer of The Naked Gun 33 ⅓ on my nightstand. The trailers for this new reboot of The Naked Gun looked a little annoying at times, borderline insufferable. My expectations were in the hole and I was preparing to be disappointed. Obviously, I’m teeing this all up as if you don’t see that I have the movie at #6 on my list – which is to say, The Naked Gun (2025) absolutely rocked. No other notes, fun time at the movies! The Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn lost their collective mind and was an all time theater experience.

5. Marty Supreme

In 2019, when Uncut Gems was on the precipice of release, I craved it in a fiendish way. The energy and excitement I had was indescribable, and once it was released I was blown away. The momentum of that film would catapult the directors, Benny and Josh Safdie, into insane star appeal. Now, fast forward to today, neither brother works together anymore, we get Josh Safdie’s return to solo direction work with Marty Supreme. In 2025, my excitement was nowhere near as intense as it was in 2019, but I also wasn’t disappointed by this film. It has its hiccups, but what we do get is one of the most interesting versions of the type of scumbag that Josh Safdie enjoys making movies about. George Gervin, Tyler the Creator, Kevin O’Leary, and Penn Jillette should not have been as good as they were but their presence make the film that much better.

4. Sinners

The tweets regarding the start of Sinner’s production still ring in my head when I think of this movie. A movie from Ryan Coogler – Hollywood’s best blockbuster-locked filmmaker – relieving himself of his superheroic obligations, starring Michael B. Jordan as twins, and it’s a horror movie about vampires. Every bit of that sounded like an ass kicker in moving picture format. Fortunately, the prospect of the film being great held up – Sinners is the best original new film I saw in 2025. Plus it being set in the American south, and having a blues heavy score/soundtrack? #YES. Sultry as all get out, salivatory cinema, Coogler and Co announcing their arrival to theaters with little regard to whatever nonsense was playing that same month (sorry Angel Studio’s The King of Kings). I could rave at length, but it was (as the kids would call it) a hit on every front so the film can clearly speak for itself.

3. Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro is one of my absolute favorite filmmakers ever, and Frankenstein is one of the most incredible novels ever written. Once it was announced that visionary genius, the aforementioned Guillermo del Toro, was making a film adaptation of Frankenstein there was no reality where I wasn’t going to love this. Guillermo’s adaptation is less pulpy than other adaptations, and it tackles the more sensitive aspects of the novel with a tenderness I’d expect from del Toro. The interpretation of the monster between the novel and the film are severely different, but in terms of the film’s ultimate direction the differences work. We are so fortunate to see a master at work.

2. One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson making a movie about California is never going to be bad. Leonardo DiCaprio rarely stars in bad movies. I don’t think it’s the masterpiece that a lot of other writers made it out to be, but by no stretch is it a bad movie. This movie feels like a victory lap for Paul Thomas Anderson, every element of this film he has done before in previous films but never all in one go like he has it here. It is The Paul Thomas Anderson film, and could not have been made at a better time. When I watched this, it was an early showing, we were fresh into the fallout of the Charlie Kirk situation – way before the current phase of “Kirkification”. The bleak nature of the world was rearing its ugly head, so for Paul Thomas Anderson to come in at the time that he did and articulate a cinematic call for community was eerily impeccable.

1. 28 Years Later

My favorite kind of movies are like an emotional full course meal. Entrees of drama, tragedy, romance, comedy – hell, a little optimism for dessert – all goes a long way. For my money, Danny Boyle’s latest, 28 Years Later, is the best spread of emotional wealth put to film in 2025. I am a fan of the zombie genre, the original film – 28 Days Later, and Danny Boyle (minus Yesterday), so this was always going to be an easy win for me. However, I did not anticipate just how much I would feel from this film. One moment I’m in disbelief over a scene with a zombie in a train, the next I’m near tears about the fragility and importance of life. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is my most anticipated movie of 2026 at the moment, and the fact that press reactions alone gave Sony enough to fire up the third installment in the Years movies makes me incredibly excited to see where they go next. I didn’t expect this to be my movie of the year, but good lord this was an incredible film.