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Another year, another great batch of movies.
So many films almost made it onto this list, and not the typical Oscar fare you might suspect. From the hilarious Zootopia 2 to the surprisingly captivating Predator: Badlands, 2025 offered up a satisfying mix of mainstream crowd-pleasers.
The horror genre teed up some sublime offers as well, with Together, Bring Her Back and the morbidly hilarious The Monkey just missing the cut.
More traditional “award-worthy” fare, such as Sentimental Value, Train Dreams, and Song Sung Blue shouldn’t be overlooked as well, with indie dramas including Twinless, Bob Trevino Likes It, and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You also captivating. Bugonia was also really good, even if not measuring up to director Yorgos Lanthimos’ best works. And in the foreign language category, Left-Handed Girl and the “didn’t see that coming” desert jaunt Sirat stood apart from the rest.
But enough about the runners-up—here are the ten best movies of 2025:
For a guy who generally likes dark and brooding, I have a surprisingly high number of movies on this list I’d describe as “uplifting.” The Ballad of Wallis Island, a quirky yet grounded drama-comedy about a musician who travels to a remote island for a gig only to learn that a rich recluse and superfan has hired him for other reasons, is just so damned heartwarming and funny I’d be remiss to exclude it. Wallis Island is the kind of movie that’s easy to overlook, but you shouldn’t—it’s that good.
2025 was another great year for horror. But Final Destination: Bloodlines surprised me in a way others didn’t: 25 years since the original, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein deliver the franchise’s best and most ruthless entry. Starting with a long, elaborate, and gruesome opening sequence, Bloodlines goes on to dispatch with generations of a single family in clever and gory ways, feeding into the franchise’s strengths while simultaneously breathing fresh (or dead?) air into its inner workings.
Of the few who saw Good Fortune—you know, the one you didn’t watch where Keanu Reeves plays a guardian angel and swaps the lives of struggling Aziz Ansari and rich tech bro Seth Rogen—most would likely call it an amusing little film. I saw something more: a rewardingly pleasant and kind movie that scathingly critiques the faults of today’s economic divides while remaining consistently entertaining and upbeat throughout. Good Fortune isn’t a movie I expected to end up on this list, but I can’t stop thinking about it, its message, and the way it made me feel as I walked out of the theater.
There are so many alternate universes where yet another comic book movie, another Superman movie, could fail to take flight. Instead, we get James Gunn’s reinvigorated take, a funny, [mostly] lighthearted, and action-packed re-introduction to the timeless character that is pulsing with Kryptonian energy. What really made me love it: in two hours, Gunn built a world that I want to see more of, no small feat after more than a decade of endless superhero movies. It may not be perfect, but Gunn’s confident filmmaking and his ability to defy the odds warrants a solid spot on this Top 10 List.
Had The Life of Chuck, based on a novella by Stephen King and directed by all-star director Mike Flanagan, been released in December, I’m pretty certain this unique drama would have been a box office hit and a major awards contender. Instead, it dropped in May to little fanfare. It’s a real shame, because this thing is brimming with life–even if it’s about death. Split into three wholly unique acts, presented in reverse and each unlike anything else released in recent memory, The Life of Chuck is a must-see.
As I sat down to watch this drama about grief and the inspiration for William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” I fully expected to be bored to tears. Instead, writer/director Chloé Zhao delivers the most poignant movie of the year. Powered by award-worthy performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, Hamnet shakes you to your core and then reinvents your soul. I’ll say one other thing I’m ashamed to admit: as someone who never cries at movies, I may have had slightly wet eyes at the end of this thing.
Arguably the best-made movie of the year, Paul Thomas Anderson’s dark comedy/thriller defies convention. It’s oddly thrilling while simultaneously hilarious if you vibe with it. It masks its calculating nature behind a seemingly meandering and surprisingly quirky story. The performances are intensely good, with Sean Penn giving us the most hated villain of the year while Leonardo DiCaprio drops a sneakily fantastic physical performance that will be overlooked by many. And then there’s the climax, a cinematography feat that stands apart from just about anything else in recent memory. Combined, One Battle After Another is a strangely excellent film, even if it doesn’t fit into a nice, clean box as some would prefer.
If a movie could win awards for individual scenes, Sinners deserves all the plaudits for what Ryan Coogler did in that one stretch where he plunges his film—and the audience—into a transcendent musical journey through time. The rest of the movie sizzles, too, with Michael B. Jordan(s) powering an epic cast on a captivating ride about race, culture, and bloodsucking pariahs.
What makes Marty Supreme so great is that Josh Safdie lets his movie hurtle ahead with the same (seemingly) reckless abandon his character embraces to achieve greatness. Timothée Chalamet’s Marty is an absolute scumbag, a sociopath even, whose awful nature is softened slightly by the fact that he only wants to accomplish one thing: to be named world table tennis champion. Safdie winds us so tightly around this character that as he ping-pongs his way to complete success or utter failure–who knows which, it doesn’t really matter–it’s impossible to look away.
Weapons may not be as traditionally “perfect” as some of the other movies on this list, but boy does it succeed at the most important thing: sheer entertainment value. Scary, creepy, unpredictable, and shockingly funny, Weapons is a riot from start to finish. How writer/director Zach Cregger peels the onion on what turns out to be a fairly straightforward story, revealing additional details and juicing every moment for maximum fun, is insanely effective. And then there’s that climax, easily one of the most satisfying endings of the year and one that had audiences laughing and gaping in communal delight. For these reasons, Weapons is the best movie of 2025.
View a full ranking of 2025 movies, from the best to the worst.
By Erik Samdahl
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