Flying Lotus turns space horror into a tight, nervy pressure cooker with Ash. As its starting point, Eiza González wakes up alone on a research station orbiting a distant planet, surrounded by the mutilated bodies of her crew and haunted by flashes of something she might have done. When Aaron Paul shows up claiming he’s there to rescue her, the film shifts into a two-hander about memory, guilt, and whether you can trust the person saying they’re on your side when you can’t even trust your own mind.
Running under 100 minutes, Ash moves like a nightmare that keeps finding new ways not to end. The visuals lean into jagged edits, oil-thick blood, and strobing red emergency lights, all driven by a score that feels like it’s melting your speakers from the inside. Critics haven’t lined up on the story (their loss), but most agree on one thing: as a piece of sensory cinema, it absolutely rips.
Yorgos Lanthimos takes the already-bonkers South Korean cult film Save the Green Planet! and runs it through his own brand of bleak comedy with Bugonia. In this adaptation, Emma Stone’s Michelle, a pharma CEO, is snatched by Jesse Plemons’ conspiracy theorist Teddy, who is convinced she’s a powerful alien sent to wipe out humanity. What begins as a basement hostage scenario keeps widening into something stranger, angrier, and unexpectedly sad, built on elaborate schemes that feel like they were mapped out on a corkboard with red string and bees. So many bees.
After premiering at Venice to a mix of stunned laughter and uneasy applause, Bugonia settled into a sweet spot. In fact, it quickly became Certified Fresh in the 90s and pulled in a modest but impressive box office haul for something this deranged. It’s Lanthimos in full “what if society is the real freak” mode, and even when it drifts or loses you, it never stops being gripping to watch.
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners feels like the kind of studio horror people insist doesn’t get made anymore. Set in 1932 Mississippi, it follows Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, who return home with stolen money and a plan to open a juke joint, only to discover the Delta is hiding something ancient and hungry. From there, the movie turns into a vampire siege wrapped in Southern Gothic atmosphere and half a musical, with Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s camera soaking in heat and shadow while Ludwig Göransson’s score turns every set-piece into a full-body jolt.
The release hit like a lightning strike: number one at the box office, more than $350 million worldwide, and a rare A CinemaScore—the first time a horror film has pulled that in decades. Coogler swings big, blending politics, pulp, and musical bravado without losing sight of the brothers at the center. This is, without a doubt, a film people will still be talking about years from now.
F1 might be the purest “find the biggest screen you can” movie of the year—largely because filmmaker Joseph Kosinski shoots racing like a contact sport, with practical on-track footage, trackside camera placements that feel suicidal, and an IMAX mix that makes every gear shift hit. Threaded through all that is Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes, a legendary Formula One driver coaxed out of retirement to help rescue a struggling team and mentor Damson Idris’ rookie phenom. The story rides a familiar underdog rhythm, but its the film’s execution that makes it feel unique.
Commercially, it blew past expectations: more than $600 million worldwide, Apple’s highest-grossing film to date, sitting comfortably in the same box office lane as Superman. Part of the appeal is how straightforward it is—no franchise homework, no multiverse, just immaculate craft and cars moving at a speed your brain can barely process. You leave wanting to stand in a pit lane just to feel the air tear past.
Eva Victor’s debut feature is the kind of indie that really sneaks up on you. Conceptually, Sorry, Baby follows Agnes, a reclusive literature professor in rural New England who is trying to keep living after being assaulted by a former mentor that the film never shows head-on. Instead, Victor writes, directs, and stars in a story that moves between past and present, balancing Agnes’s friendship with Lydie, awkward new romance, jury duty, stray animals, and the slow work of figuring out how to inhabit her own life again.
The film’s best attribute is arguably that the film also uses dry humor and fractured structure to tell a story about trauma without reducing Agnes to it. In a year packed with loud studio swings, this small, funny, quietly devastating film feels like a hand on your shoulder, and it more than earns a spot on our list.
James Gunn’s Superman finally gives DC a clean page that feels worth turning. In this version of Superman, David Corenswet’s Clark arrives fully formed, already in the suit and on the job, balancing Daily Planet deadlines with Justice Gang missions in a Metropolis that’s still learning how to love its hero. The film leans into the hopeful, slightly dorky charm that’s always been baked into the character, with Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor turning legacy roles into sharp, modern interpretations that feel tailored to this era instead of borrowed from another.
Like any major overhaul, there’s been plenty of noise around DC’s revamp, but beneath it all is a reminder of how bright and earnest a superhero movie can be when it’s not embarrassed to care. As a reset, it also lands where it counts. It’s fun, colorful, sincere, and confident enough to give Clark Kent a beating heart instead of another stoic, world-weary speech.
On Swift Horses is one of 2025’s true conversation pieces. Directed by Daniel Minahan and adapted from Shannon Pufahl’s novel, it spins a glossy 1950s drama where the gambling heat of racetracks and Vegas bars runs alongside quieter questions of identity and desire. The film also gives its all-star ensemble room to move: Daisy Edgar-Jones anchors the story as Muriel, with Will Poulter as her new husband Lee, Jacob Elordi as his restless brother Julius returning from Korea, and Diego Calva as the fellow gambler Julius drifts toward in Vegas.
What stands out is that the film’s queerness isn’t framed as a twist or built-in tragedy. Minahan leans into the idea of connections that “transcend sexuality,” letting Muriel and Julius both edge toward versions of themselves that feel less boxed in by the era’s expectations. It’s a slow burn, but the performances and lush period detail carry it, and it earns a year-end spot as one of the rare adult dramas that actually sparked real discussion.
Predator: Badlands could have coasted on the success of Prey and just run the same play in a new setting. Instead, Dan Trachtenberg shifts the focus directly onto Predator culture. Here, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi voices Dek, a young outcast trying to survive on a brutal alien world, where he forges an uneasy alliance with Thia, a synth played by Elle Fanning. With humans—and their red blood—largely out of the equation, the PG-13 rating pivots from the norm into stylized, neon-soaked combat and surprisingly intricate creature politics.
That shift in perspective is what gives the film its charge. As a franchise entry, it’s still tough and gnarly, but there’s a real emotional core in watching an awkward young hunter figure out what kind of warrior he actually wants to be—and what strength looks like when the rules of his own culture stop making sense.
Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme is a spy caper that feels like someone wound up a cuckoo clock and filled it with movie stars. From a plot standpoint, Benicio del Toro plays Zsa Zsa Korda, a reclusive industrialist who has somehow survived multiple assassination attempts and now finds himself tangled in an international conspiracy that also ropes in characters played by Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, and more.
Many have labeled the film as an intricate Rube Goldberg machine of a movie, with the usual symmetrical frames and deadpan delivery aimed at espionage tropes rather than family melodrama. And above all, it’s a reminder that precision and playfulness can still co-exist in the multiplex.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is the big-canvas studio movie that feels like it escaped from another era. In this particular story, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob, a former revolutionary pulled back into the life when his daughter is targeted by a vengeful enemy, sending them into a dusty, paranoid road thriller that mutates into something stranger and more satirical as it goes.
There are gunfights and chases, but also long, funny, uncomfortable conversations about what any of it was actually for in the first place. If you’re into action thrillers, this one is definitely for you.
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