I was lucky enough to see a lot of movies in 2025. Much more than I have in the past few years. As a whole, I think 2025 was a great year for cinema. While the industry is in a messy state and faces an uncertain future, we're at least still getting a lot of good stuff for now.
Here are my top ten movies of the year, plus a special (not honorable; it'll make sense when we get there) mention. This post will be briefer than usual, as I'm currently finishing up a book about the roots and rise of Nazism in Germany, but hopefully these short explanations for why I liked each movie will do them justice.
A few honorary mentions before we get to the list: Train Dreams, Jay Kelly, Bugonia, It Was Just an Accident, and Sorry, Baby.
Happy reading!
10. Marty Supreme
Timothée Chalamet really has been on a tear as an actor the last few years. With recent roles in movies like A Complete Unknown and the Dune series, he's been making a name for himself as a genuinely talented actor. His performance in Marty Supreme just may be his best, though. Taking place in 1950s New York, the story follows Marty Mauser, a twenty three year old shoe salesman, table tennis ace, and relentless hustler. Mauser's goal is to became a champion in the table tennis world despite not having the means or connections to be able to fully dedicate himself to the game. He makes up for those shortcomings through his constant scheming. Watching everything unfold can be extremely anxiety-inducing at times, but it is always gripping. While certain elements of the movie don't work for me, overall I found it an entertaining, pulse-pounding exploration of the scummy side of the US striver-hustler mentality.
9. Left-Handed Girl
Left-handed people of the world unite! Left-Handed Girl is a sweet little slice of life movie about a young Taiwanese girl and her family as they try to make ends meet in Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. The girl is quiet and observant, taking in the world around her as her family goes through a variety of trials and tribulations. There's something comforting about this movie, yet it also has enough drama and emotional stakes to pull you in. That drama culminates in an ending that will have you almost gasping despite the relatively low stakes, as those low stakes nonetheless feel momentum to those going through it all. This is not the most ambitious movie ever made, but it does what it's trying to do well and is a lovely experience as a whole.
8. Superman
Superman has been my favorite superhero ever since I was a kid. As a teenager I briefly went through a Batman phase around the time of The Dark Knight simply based on the Bat's more celebrated movie and comic output, but in recent years I've fully gone back to team Supes. While this year's Superman isn't my definitive favorite movie adaptation of the character, there's a lot I love about it. More than anything, I love how sincere it is, and how the love for the character shines so brightly through it. Its anti-war message felt unfortunately relevant, too.
For a more detailed breakdown of what did and didn't work for me in this movie, I wrote about it on here after seeing it back in July.
7. Highest 2 Lowest
Akira Kurosawa is one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. He also happens to be my favorite director. When I saw that the great Spike Lee was remaking his classic High and Low, I was intrigued. I went in seeing it not quite knowing what to expect, since Lee called it more of a "re-imagining" than a remake. It turned out to be a great time. While not quite as strong as the original, Highest 2 Lowest is still entertaining while having a lot on its mind. It follows Denzel Washington as a music executive who, like many successful creatives, is caught in the struggle between art and profit. When his son is supposedly kidnapped, things get complicated quickly. Whether you've seen the original or not, this one is a great time.
6. The Secret Agent
During the Cold War, Latin America became a battleground between US-backed military dictatorships and popular leftwing liberation groups. In recent years, Latin American countries have made many movies about that era of tragedy and atrocity. Like I'm Still Here last year, The Secret Agent is Brazil's latest great movie about its own period of dictatorship. It's a political thriller that follows a professor played by Wagner Moura, who puts in my favorite leading performance of the year. It's a vibrant, well-crafted movie that does a great job establishing its sense of place. While certain aspects didn't work for me, this is still one of my favorite movies of the year.
5. Hamnet
William Shakespeare is one of the most celebrated storytellers in human history. In real life, there are records that he and his wife Agnes had a son named Hamnet, who died at age eleven. The movie Hamnet is an adaptation of a book by the same name that fictionalizes what that loss must have been like for the couple, and how it may have inspired William to write the play Hamlet. It is a devastating watch, but the ending is beautiful and life-affirming. While the movie took a little bit in the beginning to fully pull me in, I was completely absorbed by the middle and found myself crying at the end. In fact, the ending scene may be my favorite single scene of the year.
4. Sentimental Value
Just about everyone can relate to having a difficult family in some way or another. Sentimental Value is a heartfelt but understated family dramedy about a pair of sisters and their strained relationship with their father, a famous director. The main character is the older of the two sisters, Nora, who grapples with some serious mental health issues. The sisters remember and deal their childhood somewhat differently, but both agree things were tough with this father. What's interesting, though, is that as we see more of the father character, we learn he himself is a victim of fairly severe family traumas. He is only able to express himself through his art, which is part of why in the past he put it above everything else, including his own daughters. The movie makes no attempt to either forgive or condemn him, but instead just tries to understand him, his daughters, and their attempts to make sense of everything.
3. No Other Choice
We are in a tough stage of global capitalism where automation and outsourcing have taken a toll on job markets across the world, and therefore the ability of people to provide for themselves and their families. No Other Choice is a brilliant dark comedy about a Korean man whose company is bought off by a US company, which then lays off about 20% of the company's workforce. The protagonist is among those laid off. What unfolds is a dark and thoughtful, yet hilarious, quest for him to find some sort of employment. A lot of people have compared it to Parasite. Ultimately I'd say it doesn't hit quite as hard, but it is funnier and easier to rewatch. This and the next two movies are not only my favorite movies of the year, but already among my favorite all-time movies.
2. Sinners
Sometimes you're in the mood for a creepy vampire movie, sometimes you're in the mood for a gripping period drama, sometimes you're in the mood for a movie that celebrates music and culture. But what if you want all three- and not only that, but all three of them done well? That's where Sinners comes in. Like both the previous entry on this list and the one coming up next, it shows that you don't have to choose between artistic depth and popcorn entertainment. You can have both. Ryan Coogler really outdoes himself in this vampire movie set in the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s. It could have easily not had vampires and still been compelling, but the vampires come in both as entertainment and as a thoughtful metaphor about the commodification of cultures.
If you'd like a more thorough breakdown of why the movie is great, I wrote about it for the website Taste of Cinema.
1. One Battle After Another
Few movies do it all the way One Battle After Another does. It works in terms of the deeper stuff like character and theme, but it also works as a propulsive, perfectly paced piece of entertainment. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, it'll remind you why we go to the movies in the first place. There's a lot packed in here, including some of the most memorable movie characters of the decade (Colonel Lockjaw is an instantly iconic villain, and Sensei Sergio is a new all-time favorite movie character of mine), but ultimately it's a movie about a father and a daughter, and how they can be there for each other despite everything that has come between them. The only question that remains for me is whether it will eventually dethrone There Will Be Blood as my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie.
Special Mention: The Voice of Hind Rajab
I really am not sure how to talk about The Voice of Hind Rajab, let alone how to rank it on a list like this as if it were a normal movie. It's isn't. Not only is it about the very real, very desperate call for help of a six year old Gazan child killed by Israel in January of 2024, but it actually uses the voice recordings of the child herself. It follows call center workers at the Palestinian Red Crescent (basically their version of the Red Cross) who receive a call from poor Hind and try to organize a rescue mission to save her while comforting her over the phone. It's extremely well-crafted. But it also just doesn't feel right ranking it on a list like this, as if it's just a piece of entertainment. It's not. It's a desperate plea for help from a people undergoing a genocide. With that said, though, it is also a damn good movie, hence why it gets a special mention here. See it and support it if you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment