Arts Feature: Best Movies (With Some Disappointments) of 2025

Compiled by Bill Marx

Our demanding critics choose the best films (along with some disappointments) of the year. And there is plenty of disagreement.

Nicole Veneto

Narrative

Fucktoys

I can only compare being among the earliest audiences to see Annapurna Sriram’s campy retelling of Nights of Cabiria to witnessing the birth of Venus. Sriram’s odyssey through American decay in a story about a sex worker seeking to lift a curse is a stunningly assured debut, fluent in the very specific cinematic love languages of Waters, Russell, and the Czech New Wave. And, to my complete and utter disgust, Fucktoys is still without distribution. I’m calling on all distributors who claim to put their money where their mouths are when it comes to valuing queer cinema and female filmmakers of color: cut Annapurna a deal immediately. Whatever she wants, no questions asked.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

A Woman Under the Influence by way of Eraserhead; the most anxiety-inducing portrait of motherhood since Shinya Tsukamoto’s Kotoko. Highest of praises to any film that makes me want to take a vegetable peeler to my skin. If I Had Legs encapsulates every single fear I’ve ever had about the work-life balance and the prospect of becoming a parent. The panic in Rose Byrne’s eyes is so painfully familiar that I choked on my own sobs. An excruciating, eviscerating, exposed nerve of a movie about barely treading water when it’s so much easier to drown. Thank your mom right now and tell her you love her.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie

As Sabrina Carpenter says, “I like my men all incompetent.” Not that incompetence ever stopped Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol from attempting all sorts of stunts and schemes in trying (and failing) to play the Rivoli. NtBtStM is the gonzo apotheosis of seventeen years of friendship, guerilla filmmaking, and testing the limits of Fair Use with a time travel epic ripped off from Robert Zemeckis. Co-funded by the Canadian government; we need to nationalize the American film industry so Nathan Fielder can reenact Fury Road with taxpayer money.

Sinners

Second only to NtBtStM as 2025’s greatest blank check investment. Ryan Coogler made Kevin Feige a shit ton of money and Marvel movies viable awards season contenders. He then turned around and made a film where Black creatives are besieged by white money men trying to get into the function uninvited. Were Coogler not attached to another Black Panther I’d call this the definitive Marvel bridge-burner. A Wunmi Mosaku snub for Best Supporting Actress will go down in history as an egregious oversight. Please don’t send her back to the IP mines!

One Battle After Another

Who knew Paul Thomas Anderson had a Terminator 2 in him? PTA’s loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Viceland focuses on a burnt-out revolutionary stumbling through our modern dystopia to save his daughter from a white supremacist who really wants to become a member of a secret Christmas club. A key text for what I like to call “The Years of Stupid Lead.” Teyana Taylor is electric, PTA and Johnny Greenwood’s continued support of the Zionist project less so. This pussy don’t pop for any of this fascist bullshit!

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

K-Slop: Demon Hunters? Demon Slayer: Bore-finity Castle? With its emotional undercurrents and spectacularly kinetic animation, Reze Arc sits high above the competition for best animated feature of the year. (It is the only one that references Ballad of a Soldier for that matter.) My submission for the 2025 Oscar Cheer Moment: Reze throwing her head like a grenade into the Public Safety office and chasing a dozen devil hunters around like a decapitated chicken. I levitated out of my seat.

Castration Movie Anthology i. Traps and Castration Movie Anthology ii. The Best of Both Worlds

The way forward for queer cinema in these troubling times is to eschew respectability politics and marketability altogether, as Louise Weard does in her nine-plus hour (and still ongoing) saga of trans women in trouble. Provocative, confrontational, and deeply uncomfortable, Castration Movie picks away at scabs no other contemporary queer art is willing to touch: AGP brainworms, the /lgbt/-induced incel to trans pipeline, Discord “community”-turned group-think cults, etc. The ensemble cast(s) of the year. Thank you Louise, for turning me completely against hot dogs.

The Ugly Stepsister

The Substance signaled a new wave of feminist body horror films, and Emilie Kristine Blichefeldt’s debut sprints through the door Fargeat propped open with a horrifically gross retelling of Cinderella. I spent the first few months of 2025 dealing with a PTSD-induced stomach problem and intense body dysmorphia, so to call that Boston Underground screening a “4DX” experience would be an understatement. Another harsh reminder to be kind to yourself, because the beauty industry sure won’t be.

The Shrouds

I’d be remiss not to include Cronenberg’s sardonic conspiracy-thriller in my year end list. After suffering a cold reception from Cannes in 2024, The Shrouds found new life and relevance in a year that’s bending to the ludicrous reality Cronenberg envisions under late-stage techno-capitalism. The world is a worse place because tech-pervert entrepreneurs are enthralled with the digital women who live in their phones.

 28 Years Later

My mother was diagnosed with kidney lymphoma earlier this year. She was in the hospital for weekend observation when I saw Danny Boyle’s unexpectedly moving coming-of-age threequel, a graceful rumination on memento mori embedded in a zombie post-apocalypse. (Mom’s eight out of twelve BiTE treatments are down and the prognosis is great.) We’re all living in a dead empire stuck in its End of History ways, doomed to repeat the cycle of nostalgic barbarity unless we find a way towards memento amoris.

Documentaries

Pee-wee as Himself

I owe so much to Paul Reubens beyond questionable taste in home decor and knowing there’s no basement in the Alamo. This two-part docuseries on the reclusive man behind Pee-wee Herman lets Reubens have the final word on his legacy, reasserting Pee-wee as the queer icon we always knew he was. I miss you so much Paul, thanks for giving me permission to be a little weird with it.

The Encampments

The most infuriating thing I’ve seen all year. The exact same tactics the Biden administration used to suppress and punish college students protesting institutional complicity with Israel’s genocide in Palestine are being deployed by Trump en masse in an ongoing war against political dissent and foreign/domestic “enemies.” Mahmoud Khalil has more courage in the tips of his fingers than the IDF and an army of Oakley-wearing ICE goons combined.

Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt

My boyfriend is a big Butthole Surfers fan. I think Freaked (co-directed by Tom Stern) is one of the funniest movies ever made. The Hole Truth is where our mutual interests collide in a music doc as anarchic as its underground subjects. I got to meet Tom Stern after the IFFBoston screening and he called me “The World’s Best Film Critic” for my impeccable taste in ’90s comedies. The honor was all mine Tom!

Shifty

Adam Curtis does it again! Unlike his previous BBC docuseries which was about neoliberal psychosis and how Thatcherism/Reaganism destroyed everything, Curtis’ exploration of societal atomization and the gradual loss of universal truth innovates (or rather, remixes) his usual archivist formula by depriving us of his signature vocal narration, self-questioning the very foundation of this career-long project. Long live Alexander McQueen.

The Best of Me

Heather Landsman’s archival documentary on Ricardo López (a.k.a. the Björk stalker) paints a devastatingly prescient picture of pop star parasociality. Comprised almost entirely of Lopez’s confessional tapes, Best of Me is an unvarnished look into López’s self-destruction and suppressed queerness. I’ve had the immense privilege of seeing Heather grow as a filmmaker, so if you’re a betting person, put your money down on Landsman.

Honorable Mentions

Sister Midnight, Lurker, Weapons, Queens of Drama, No Other Choice, Reflections in a Dead Diamond, Happyend, Eephus, Eddington, Sorry, Baby, Cloud, Seven Veils, Mickey 17, Bugonia, Resurrection, Vulcanizadora, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, The Phoenician Scheme, Friendship, Frankenstein, The Ice Tower, Die My Love, Toxic, Boys Go to Jupiter.

Most Overrated

Hamnet

A better effort than Eternals, but not by much. Chloé Zhao continues to be on Fraud Watch for this maudlin awards-bait weepy that probes the connection between grief and artistry as deeply as Taylor Swift bungling basic literary metaphors. Pure puppet theater symptomatic of Zhao’s usual Malickian facsimiles of artistry. I’m convinced that if you banged on Zhao’s chest she’d echo like the Tin Man.

Worst

Shelby Oaks

Putting either War of the Worlds or A Minecraft Movie is too obvious. And check back on me in two years after I have to watch every IP franchise film released this year for my podcast. So I’m giving the honor to Chris Stuckman, a YouTube “critic” turned “film director” whose deeply uninspired horror movie begins as discount Lake Mungo and ends in terms I can only describe as offensively tasteless. We used to have Godard and Truffaut. Now we have Chris Stuckman. I dread to see what TikTokkers will produce in ten years’ time.

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Gerald Peary

Best Narrative Film: Sentimental Value

The Rest of the Ten Best: Bugonia, Nouvelle Vague, Die My Love, The Secret Agent, Marty Supreme, A Little Prayer, Griffin in Summer, Rebuilding, Souleymane’s Story, Blue Moon

Best Documentary Film: Afternoons of Solitude

The Rest of the Ten Best: The Tale of Silvan; Butthole Surfers: the Whole Truth and Nothing Butt; Come See Me in a Good Light; Pee-Wee Herman as Himself; Creede USA; Billy Joel, and So It Goes; Are We Good? Marc Maron; Zodiac Killer Project; Predators; The Librarians

Best Actor: Abou Sangare, Souleymane’s Story

Runners-Up; Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon; Josh O’Connor, Rebuilding; Jesse Clemons, Bugonia; David Strathairn, A Little Prayer

Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Die My Love

Runners-Up: Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value; Zoey Deutsch, Nouvelle Vague; Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You; Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue

Best Supporting Actor: Stellan Skarsgsard, Sentimental Value

Runners-Up: Andrew Scott, Blue Moon: Peter Dinklage, Roofman; A$AP Rocky, Highest 2 Lowest; Archie Madekwe, Lurker

Best Supporting Actress: Jane Levy, A Little Prayer

Runners-Up: Inga Insdotter Lilleas, Sentimental Value; Lily La Torre, Rebuilding; Texans Taylor, One Battle After Another; Kirsten Dunst, Roofman

Best Director: Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value

Runners-Up: Lynne Ramsay, Die My Love; Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme; Richard Linklater, Nouvelle Vague; Angus MacLachlan, A Little Prayer

Best Editing: Marty Supreme

Best New Filmmaker: Nicholas Colia, Griffin in Summer

Best Cinematography: One Battle After Another

Best Original Screenplay: Blue Moon

Best Adapted Screenplay: Bugonia

Best Mainstream Movies: Roofman, Song Sung Blue

Best Genre Movies: Invader, Good Boy

Most Overrated: Hamnet, One Battle After Another, Dead Man’s Wire, Frankenstein, A House of Dynamite

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Peter Keough

The year’s ten best features, ten best documentaries, and three that I just don’t get. In alphabetical order

Best Films (feature)

Eephus
It Was Just an Accident
Misericordia
Endless Cookie
Resurrection
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Souleymane’s Story
Sound of Falling
Train Dreams

Best Films (documentaries)

2000 Meters to Andriivka
Every Little Thing
Grand Theft Hamlet
I’m Not Everything I Want to Be
The Librarians
Predators
Prime Minister
Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
Riefenstahl
Secret Mall Apartment

The “I Must Be Taking Crazy Pills” winners (films everyone loved but me)

Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another

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Ed Symkus

So (with apologies to Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles), you think it would be fun to be a film critic? Sitting at my keyboard, ready to reveal my favorite and least favorite movies of the year, a quick glance at my “Movies I’ve Seen in 2025” spreadsheet tells me that, as of this writing, I’ve seen 268 of them. OK, three of those were shorts. Still, it wasn’t easy! But, here you go: Ten favorites, 10 runners-up, five that took up too much of my time. They’re in alphabetical order.

Favorites

Blue Moon – It’s confined to a single setting, a bit over-talkative, and has a few distracting moments of visual effects. But this look at a dismal point in the life of lyricist Lorenz Hart comes together into a fascinating whole. And the endless piano music is a big plus.

Bugonia – Director Yorgos Lanthimos once again succeeds in his journey though cinematic weirdness, this time focusing on conspiracy theories about aliens. No, not foreigners crossing borders illegally, but beings from another planet taking over Earth.

Dead Man’s Wire – Bill Skarsgård stars in this based-on-fact story about a man who was wronged by a loan company and decides to get even. Austin Kolodney’s script is very darkly funny, and Gus Van Sant’s direction taut and tense.

Marty Supreme – I’m not sure who deserves the most praise in this dramatic comedy about professional table tennis – writer Ronald Bronstein, director-writer Josh Safdie, or star Timothée Chalamet. I mean, how often do you find yourself rooting for such a despicable protagonist?

No Other Choice – Korean director Park Chan-Wook and a gaggle of scripters adapted Donald E. Westlake’s grim and nasty 1997 revenge novel The Ax, relocated it from New York to Korea, and lightened up the story considerably. Watch out, it’s still pretty darn nasty.

Nuremberg – Rami Malek stars as the psychiatrist assigned to evaluate Nazi officers at the Nuremberg trials, and he’s terrific in the role. But the film is driven by the riveting supporting performances of Russell Crowe, as Herman Göring, and Michael Shannon as Justice Robert Jackson.

One Battle After Another – In this second excellent adaptation by Paul Thomas Anderson of a novel by Thomas Pynchon (the first was Inherent Vice), the screen explodes with storytelling, humor, violence, good guys, bad guys, a superb car chase, and plenty of explosives.

One to One: John & Yoko – Yes, it’s a documentary about John and Yoko, and they’re at the center of it. But there’s so much more to it. It’s about them in 1972, when they lived in Greenwich Village, and it absorbs the events and zeitgeist spinning around them — political events, TV commercials, live concerts. It’s a dazzling and dizzying documentary.

Sentimental Value – Set in contemporary Norway, this film offers an intimate look at the strained relationships between the artistic members (a father and his two adult children) of a fairly screwed-up family. The serious dramatic atmosphere is nicely leavened by some light spots.

Sinners – It’s a period piece (1932), set in the Deep South (Clarksdale, Mississippi), about racism (Jim Crow-era). It’s pulsating with music (blues); it has Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers Smoke and Stack (relax: they wear different colored hats). And, oh yeah, it’s a vampire movie!

RUNNERS-UP

Caught Stealing
Good Boy
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Is This Thing On?
Jay Kelly
The Life of Chuck
The Plague
The Secret Agent
Wake Up Dead Man
Warfare

DISAPPOINTED BY

Ella McCay
Fountain of Youth
Materialists
The Monkey
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

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Steve Erickson

Top 10 list (in alphabetical order):

The fact that two of these films – Reflection in a Dead Diamond and The Temple Woods Gang – bypassed a theatrical run to debut on streaming is a bad harbinger of where film culture is right now. I could throw in several equally strong contenders that did not receive any form of U.S. release: Masao Adachi’s Escape, Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley’s Room Temperature, and Jason Baker’s BBC documentary Louis Theroux: The Settlers.

BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions (Kahlil Joseph)

How can one adapt an encyclopedia of the culture of Africa and its diasporas? How about mixing afrofuturist sci-fi, historical drama, documentary, and interpolations of other directors’ work. Kahlil Joseph proves how compelling this eclectic approach can be.

Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)

Made up of material edited from two earlier Jia films combined with newly shot film, Caught by the Tides examines the changes China’s gone through in the 21st century, The protagonist is played by Zhao Tao, who we see making a life across the years.

Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Cloud is a follow-up to the internet-driven apocalypse of Kurosawa’s 2001 Pulse. This is a deconstructed action film, in which a man who sells shoddy goods faces the consequences for his harmful products.

The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)

Director Reichardt pries apart the male anti-hero and the cool posturing of the heist movie, eschewing cheap thrills in favor of a methodical slowness that forces her protagonist to engage with the consequences of the past and his actions.

Predators (David Osit)

A doc that will make anyone’s skin crawl. Predators pursues the ambivalent/conflicted legacy of Chris Hansen’s punishing-pedophiles-for-entertainment TV show To Catch a Predator. It comes to no settled conclusion.

Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani)

Cattet and Forzani’s take-offs on Euro-pulp give postmodernism a good name. Their best film yet, Reflection in a Dead Diamond probes the subconscious of an aging spy…or an actor, or an ordinary man who has a very active fantasy life.

Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

Although there’s good reason to be suspicious of “instant classics,” Sinners represents something practically extinct in 2025 Hollywood: a film of high artistic ambition and thematic substance whose story is told with epic sweep. In a world of copycat horror films, Sinners feels like something new, and we can be thankful it found a large, enthusiastic audience.

The Temple Woods Gang (Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche)

One of the best French directors currently working, Ameur-Zaïmeche dives into the tradition of the heist movie as the means to investigate the invisibility of power.

Vulcanizadora (Joel Potrykus)

Bleak poetry, crafted out of the psyches of inarticulate American men. It shows that nature offers no chance for male rejuvenation.

Disappointments:

Highest 2 Lowest (Spike Lee) – This is far from Lee’s worst film, but when he indulges in his excesses the results are at least oddball and personal. His Kurosawa remake reeks of complacency.

The Perfect Neighbor (Greta Gandihir) – Despite its festival pedigree, this is just a rote exercise in the true crime genre, profiting from footage of a child learning about his mother’s death. The police are depicted as saintly throughout — was that the condition the filmmakers had to agree to use the cops’ bodycam footage?

Train Dreams (Clint Bentley) – So much wasted potential. The sad mood would be more affecting if the voice-over didn’t tell the audience how it should feel. Bentley’s eye for striking images would find real beauty more often if he didn’t lift so heavily from Malick.

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Sarah Osman

The Long Walk: Director Francis Lawrence’s take on Stephen King’s dystopian novel isn’t an easy watch. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever watch it again. But boy, is it powerful. The premise is simple: keep walking at three miles per hour, or die. Heart-wrenching performances by leads Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson, combined with stomach-churning cinematography, ensure that The Long Walk stays with you for a very long time.

One Battle After Another: Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film is arguably his most timely. A conspiracy thriller about ICE, One Battle After Another is also a father-daughter tale, and an ensemble comedy. While Leonardo DiCaprio is hilarious as a stoner dad trying to save his kidnapped daughter, he’s not the star of this production. Benicio Del Toro shines as a character who is described as “a Harriet Tubman running a Latino underground railroad.” Sean Penn, showing off the weirdest walk in cinematic history, is terrifying as the kidnapper. Teyana Taylor is among the sexiest queens of guerrilla warfare, and newcomer Chase Infiniti should receive an Oscar nomination.

Sinners: Director Ryan Coogler knew the world needed not one, but two shirtless Michael B. Jordans. In this musical/horror flick, Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers who, in the early ’30s, open a juke joint in the Mississippi Delta. Unfortunately for them, the bopping music attracts vampires. Specifically, white vampires. Hailee Steinfeld is a standout as one of the twin’s fiery love interests.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery: The third entry in the Knives Out verse is as fun as the first one. Josh O’Connor stars as a priest sent to help a troubled parish in upstate New York. When the Monsignor is murdered, a mystery’s afoot, and it’s up to Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to solve it. With a stacked cast that includes Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, and Kerry Washington, and a zany script that satirizes the current state of the Catholic church, Wake Up Dead Man puts a clever twist on the murder mystery genre.

KPop Demon Hunters: If you have children, you’ve listened to the soundtrack of KPop Demon Hunters on repeat. If you don’t have children, you’ve also most likely listened to the soundtrack of KPop Demon Hunters on repeat. I was first introduced to the girls of Huntrx by my friend’s eight-year-old daughter, who first played (and sang) the entire soundtrack for me. The songs do slap, but the movie itself is a charming, original adventure that’s fun for kids and adults. What really wowed me was the beautiful animation. Disney better watch out: Sony Pictures Animation is giving the mouse a run for its money.

The Naked Gun: Comedic reboots are always tricky, but the 2025 reboot of The Naked Gun is as stupid and funny as the original. The chemistry between Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson is perfect; the pair deliver every punch line with perfect deadpan sincerity. One of the best gags includes a threesome with a snowman and the following line: “She had the kind of butt that made a toilet beg for the brown.”

Friendship: In what is essentially an extended Tim Robinson sketch, Friendship proved that Robinson’s oddball sense of humor has cinematic potential. When suburban dad Craig (Tim Robinson) is befriended by his new neighbor, Brian (Paul Rudd), he takes the friendship too far, scaring Brian. Like I Think You Should Leave, Friendship is filled with ridiculous moments, like Brian’s friend group singing to each other, Craig’s wife losing her way in an aqueduct, and a party guest claiming we shouldn’t have left Afghanistan. This was the most cringeworthy comedy (bordering on horror) of the year.

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Tim Jackson

A subjective list of the year’s best films — it had to be at least a dozen.

Marty Supreme – With its wild energy and colorful cast, including Timothée Chalamet in possibly his best performance, director Josh Safdie’s solo effort hits a grand slam home run — script, set design, editing, casting, and score.

One Battle After Another – PT Anderson takes another swing at a Thomas Pynchon novel (Vineland) for a wild ride through the troubling politics of contemporary America.

When Fall is Coming – Prolific French director François Ozon scores with a psychological mystery story about a mother and daughter at odds and a caretaker with ambiguous motives.

Edington – Ari Aster’s compendium of pathologies that plague the American political landscape in the long shadow of the Trump years spares no one. It features another unhinged performance by Joaquin Phoenix as the sheriff of the small town whose authority curdles into paranoia and madness.

Highest2Lowest – Spike Lee adapts and updates Kurosawa’s High to Lowest (1963), itself an adaptation of Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom. A compelling moral tale about power, compromise, and ethical erosion.

Sinners – Ryan Coogler’s a blend of horror, mysticism, family dysfunction, social upheaval — along with great music — is an allegory about the white appropriation of African-American culture. It is a witches’ brew of vampires and of merciless revenge. Brilliantly bonkers — some sequences will leave you gasping.

Bugonia – Emma Stone takes center stage again in another Yorgos Lanthimos film, an adaptation of the Korean film Save the Green Planet. It is  an unsettling blend of horror, suspense, and science fiction. Two men, played by Jesse Plemons and a strange actor named Aiden Delbis, kidnap Stone’s CEO overachiever to prove that she is actually an alien.

Sirāt – In Óliver Laxe’s expansive and unsettling film, a father searching for his missing daughter falls in with a band of freakish outsiders roaming the Moroccan desert in pursuit of a distant music rave. What begins as a rough-edged road movie erupts into a gripping adventure of survival, gradually evolving into become a haunting metaphor about exile, rootlessness, and the global plight of displaced people, in Óliver Laxe’s expansive and unsettling film

The Sound of Falling – Mascha Schilinski traces the lives of four girls over a century, weaving their stories into a fluid, dreamlike tapestry of images. Moving freely through time, the film connects private moments of fear and curiosity to the broader currents of German history. This is a haunting meditation on memory, inheritance, and the echoes of the past.

The Mastermind – Another fine performance from Josh O’Connor (History of Sound, Rebuilding) anchors this film about an ordinary family man who foolishly believes he can get away with an art theft. Director Kelly Reichardt’s latest is a quietly incisive portrait of an average guy suddenly — and disastrously — in over his head.

The Left-Handed Girl –  In her first solo feature, Shih-Ching Tsou, a collaborator and producer for Sean Baker, channels his kinetic vérité style into a fast-moving story set amid the clamor of a Taipei night market. Ostensibly about a single mother hustling to support her two daughters by selling food, Left‑Handed Girl quietly takes a narrative pivot when the younger daughter, warned by her superstitious grandfather that her left hand is “the devil’s hand,” begins using it — mischievously and subversively — to shoplift her way through the market’s glittering chaos.

Afternoons of Solitude – Albert Serra turns his camera on Peruvian matador Andrés Roca Rey, a superstar of the contemporary bullfighting circuit. The film presents the corrida with an intimacy and severity that been rarely captured. What emerges is an oddly, though unsettlingly beautiful, meditation on spectacle, mortality, and the ancient rituals of the art and its traditions

Runners-up

Nouvelle Vague, Frankenstein, Peter Hujar’s Day, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Griffin in Summer, Souleymane’s Story (French), Santosh (Indian), Misericordia (French), The Plague (French), Linda (Argentina), The Dreamer (French), Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (South Africa)

Documentaries

1. 1. No Other Land
   2. Riefenstahl 
   3. Pee Wee as Himself
   4. My Mom Jayne
   5. Eno
   6. Megadoc
   7. One to One: John & Yoko
   8. Butthole Surfers: The Whole Truth and Nothing Butt
   9. Meredith Monk in Piece
   10. Orwell 2=2+5

 

Disappointments

The Ballad of Wallis Island with Carey Mulligan

Ella McCay with Emma Mackey

Death of a Unicorn with Paul Rudd and Jenny Ortega

Wolf Man with Julia Garner

Hot Milk with Emma Mackey