What a year. It was a year filled with excellent horror movies while Blumhouse had a series of flops. In 2025 the Marvel Cinematic Universe released one of its best movies in years and Marvel’s First Family hit the big screen. Both were forgotten about within weeks of launching in theaters. It was a year of disappointing sequels and awesome reboots. And at the end of the year came news that reinvigorated fears of streaming completely taking over theaters. Here is our look back at our favorite and least favorite movies from 2025.
Going into the packed 11:30pm IMAX screening, my expectations were high. I try not to let others’ opinions impact my own viewing but this was simply too big to ignore. Never before had I seen so many people on Letterboxd giving 5-star reviews to a brand new film. When the credits were rolling, around 3am, my expectations weren’t just met, they were surpassed. The tenth feature film from writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another, might just be his best.
The film features some of the year’s best performances. Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall and the breakout Chase Infiniti are all at their absolute peaks here. It sounds like hyperbole, but if you know, you know. And then there’s Benicio del Toro in a performance so real and lived-in, he makes it look effortless. Even more impressive when you find out he came right off of The Phoenician Scheme, where his performance could not be more different.
In 2025 it feels like this story comes to us at just the right time because at its core, One Battle After Another is about revolutionaries versus fascists. Leo himself likened the film to Star Wars, but the truth of it is that this film is more akin to Andor with even more urgency.
For years, fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have yearned for the inclusion of the Fantastic Four and X-Men characters in their films. With the power of corporate mega-mergers, the rights to these characters, which belonged to the studio formerly known as 20th Century Fox, are now under one roof. So what are the results? Deadpool & Wolverine gave us Hugh Jackman in the comic-accurate yellow and blue, hell yeah. The Marvels had a post-credits cameo from The Beast, sure. And then there’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps. A movie so sauce-less, so devoid of juice that I can only really say one nice thing about it. The sets looked cool.
First Steps was doomed (pun intended) by its proximity to Superman and its place in MCU. It feels too little, too late for this film. It has been six years since Avengers: Endgame. Then there was Covid. And then a litany of missable Disney+ series. Followed by the loss of the main villain of the meandering Multiverse Saga. VFX workers blew the whistle on how Disney and Marvel have spread them too thin. Not to mention there were strikes by SAG and WGA workers. Any one of these things could be reason enough to not be interested in the MCU. But all of these things come together like the damn Infinity Stones to create a landscape where even if Fantastic Four was truly great, it would have failed.
While One Battle After Another was a thrilling movie by a master filmmaker, Weapons was my favorite film for its sheer will to keep me on the edge of my seat. Told in vignettes for different characters similar to Pulp Fiction, the film keeps you guessing till the very end, only to wrap things up with one of the funniest scenes you’ll see all year. It also does the thing the best horror films do: deliver apt commentary on the state of the world. Be it gun violence, COVID, or addiction, there’s a lot to ruminate on after finishing this film.
Least Favorite: Black Phone 2
I had high hopes for Black Phone 2, partly because the first one was compelling enough, yet the trailers for the sequel seemed to be taking huge chances, different from what came before. Little did I know the final film was 30% good (the dream sequences), and the rest was poorly acted and poorly plotted schlock. The fact that the film ends with our dream-slasher (played by Ethan Hawk) ice skating isn’t even the worst thing about the film, which is saying something. I love Hawke, but it has to be one of the biggest disappointments of his career.
There have been plenty of great movies throughout the year, but none have hit as hard for me as Sinners has. Ryan Coogler has more than proven he’s an excellent filmmaker with his work on the Black Panther films and Creed, but in Sinners he’s working on a whole other level. The casting is on point, from Michael B. Jordan playing dual roles to Jack O’Connell playing a truly sinister villain to Miles Caton having a hell of a breakout debut. The blending of genres is outstanding: there’s crime drama, there’s plenty of horror and bloodshed, and there’s sprinklings of romance. Not to mention an ending that’ll stick with you long after the credits roll. Sinners sunk its fangs into me, and I don’t think it’s letting go.
I’ve probably incurred the wrath of my fellow movie critics for putting this one down, and there have definitely been worse movies released this year (namely anything with Sydney Sweeney). Yet The Final Reckoning feels extremely underwhelming; its need to tie together every previous M:I movie feels convoluted and it feels hacked to the bone (why was Luther in a hospital bed?) For a franchise that reinvented the spy/action genre as we know it, it didn’t stick the landing.
Favorite: Lilo & Stitch/Freakier Friday
I’m going to cheat a little and wrap two Disney movies into one spot here, all because of a single word: nostalgia. And let me tell you, nostalgia is a powerful drug—Disney basically dropped two mega-doses of it this summer. Both the original Lilo & Stitch and Freaky Friday were among the very few movies I vividly remember seeing in theaters as a kid. Stitch especially is tied to one of the rare good memories I have with my father.
So when the 2025 remakes were announced, I was instantly, unapologetically hyped. Sure, there were probably “better” movies this year—stronger acting, tighter plots, more originality, all that technical stuff critics love to pretend they don’t nitpick. But honestly? The gigantic, goofy smile on my face when the credits rolled on both Disney films outweighed all of that. Sometimes a movie doesn’t have to be perfect. Sometimes it just has to make you feel like a kid again. And these two absolutely did.
Late in 2024, trailers for Mickey 17 started popping up, and I was immediately hooked. From the first teaser, I knew I was walking into something on the weirder side—but I was absolutely not prepared for just how weird it would actually be. The clear standout of the film is Robert Pattinson, who continues to prove himself as an incredible actor. That said, the voice/accent he chose… let’s just call it “interesting.” Steven Yeun’s character, on the other hand, felt completely unnecessary. And the less said about Mark Ruffalo and Toni Collette’s characters, the better. By the time the credits rolled, I had the distinct sense that I should have been left with some profound reflection on life, death, fear, or the meaning of existence. Instead, I was simply confused—yet extremely grateful for the whole thing to be over.
It took over three decades for the Predator franchise to return to the heights of its 1987 debut. The natural question became, was 2022’s Prey an outlier? Even after some promising trailers and the excellent anthology Killer of Killers, it was hard not to worry about Predator: Badlands.
Thankfully, all fears were completely unfounded as the latest installment ended up being one of the best in the entire series. Just like the previous movies, Predator: Badlands is filled with amazing action sequences. The setting goes from appropriately barren to savagely beautiful to mechanical and lifeless. It is an audiovisual treat.
It is in the characters that Predator: Badlands truly separates itself. Somehow, Dek is an underdog that audiences can get behind. The Yautja outcast is a formidable opponent, but Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi brings charm to a character that is usually a frightening villain. Elle Fanning is amazing as the damaged synthetic Dek reluctantly helps.
This new dynamic should not work in a Predator movie, but it does, resulting in one of the most fun watches of the year.
Least Favorite: Fear Street: Prom Queen
I am a little too old to have gotten into the Fear Street books when I was a kid. So I was not expecting much from the adapted trilogy that premiered on Netflix in 2021. To my surprise, they were fantastic. They did not make me want to read any of the books, but I could not wait to see the next Fear Street movie.
I almost got what I wanted. R.L. Stine’s Pumpkinhead was a Tubi original based on the writings of the Fear Street author. And it was great. Unfortunately, the latest actual Fear Street movie is awful.
Set in 1988, Fear Street: Prom Queen tries to be in the vein of a slasher film of that time. Much like how that sub-genre had run out of ideas by the late 80s, Prom Queen refuses to do anything new. Since it lacks any wit or irony, it does not work as a send-up. And it’s not gory or tense enough to be a genuinely fun teen slasher.
The end result is a boring watch that drags for too long. None of the characters leave an impression and the ending is a twist heavy mess. Worst of all, it doesn’t even have a fun soundtrack.
Michael Rosch
Favorite: One Battle After Another
I’m not a particularly big Paul Thomas Anderson fan. I’ve liked some of his films and have more often gravitated to his lesser regarded ones. One Battle After Another may be his best. Another Anderson adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon work, albeit loosely, One Battle After Another deftly balances wildly different tones from stoner, screwball farce to moments of profound, evergreen social commentary. It exists in an eternal present where both eras depicted, separated by two decades feel like they could be taking place today. Young Chase Infiniti is a real standout here, but perhaps nobody in any film this year steals every scene they’re in more than Benicio del Toro. The film is thematically rich while being entertaining as hell.
Somehow, despite all odds, in the year that gave us the mess that was Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Star Trek: Section 31 manages to be the worst spy movie of the year. It’s perhaps possible to make a film in the Star Trek franchise that turns its previously villainous Section 31 clandestine organization into the heroes if the writers explored the ethical ramifications inherent to them.
Unfortunately, this film isn’t interested in any of those big questions because nothing matters in this version of Star Trek. Everything is just a light jaunt, careless, and slap-dash. We’re supposed to just go for the ride and not think too deeply. A more thoughtful take on this premise that centered those ethical concerns surrounding a clandestine agency operating within Starfleet but with a license to violate The Federation’s noble principles might have been far less banal. Section 31 also just looks like shit. Its visuals appear cheap and as ugly as an increasing amount of direct to streaming slop to which we’re now being subjected.
As Captain Kirk famously said, “Risk is our business!” Section 31 isn’t boldly going where we haven’t been before; it’s a rote, lazy, incurious mess too afraid to risk anything by challenging its audience at a time when we may need Star Trek‘s progressive humanism more than ever.
Superman may not be the film that most people will pick for their favorite of 2025 (Sinners, One Battle After Another, Life of Chuck, and Weapons are higher if you look at my letterboxd list), but when it comes to how a movie made me FEEL walking out of it? There was nothing that could touch it.
James Gunn’s inaugural film in the new DC Universe was not only a confident statement in how Superman can work in modern times, it was a complete repudiation of the version that came before. This is a Superman who is kind, empathetic, and wants to help as many people as he can. Watching Supes zip around saving civilians while also trying to humanely take down a giant Kaiju was one of the most thrilling sequences I have seen this year, but what made the film work best was his humanity. This was a take on Superman that made me feel genuine hope in a year that was filled with things that diminished my hope at every instance.
Was it ridiculous to take time to show Superman saving a squirrel? Yes! Was some of the dialogue, including his big speech to Lex at the end, too on the nose? You bet it was. But Superman did something few comic book movies have done in my three decades of reading comics and loving movies: it had friends and family come up to me after seeing it and say “oh I get it now! Superman IS more than just his powers!” In a very exhausting year that felt like five years while also feeling like five months, Superman was the movie that made me feel like I could still offer something to the world, and that maybe kindness IS the real punk rock.
Least Favorite: The Strangers Chapter 2
Woof, where to begin? As someone who suffered through Strangers: Chapter 1, I would like to say I knew what I was getting into here, but even I couldn’t have predicted how bad Strangers: Chapter 2 was going to be. Despite featuring my favorite Riverdale citizen Madelaine Petsch, not even she could save this mess of a middle film. It’s one of those rare bad movies that I will mention whenever someone tries to tell me “(insert recent popular movie) is the worst movie of all time”.
From hilariously off camera animal threats to a hospital fake out that can only be described as Petsch’s character learning teleportation, The Strangers: Chapter 2 took an already misguided concept (let’s make a trilogy of Strangers films that explores the origins of the killers) and didn’t double down so much as spun its wheels, dragging out the events of the day after the first film instead of doing literally anything interesting with the idea of surviving a night after the Strangers torment you. It’s not even “fun bad”, and the rumors of reshoots seemed to somehow hurt the end product even more. The news that the third installment will be releasing in a few months was met with such minimal interest that I’m shocked it’s not being dumped straight to a streamer.
The worst thing about Strangers: Chapter 2? I know I’ll be seeing Strangers: Chapter 3 in February. I can’t let Cheryl Blossom down, even though she’s already let me down twice already. Maybe the third time will be the charm? Doubtful, but hopefully Petsch takes notes from her former castmates and moves to better projects soon.
Ever since 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which broke new barriers with what you can do with animation, I have come to the realization that I love it when animation hits harder than it really should, and that includes the realm of anime. This year came the release of the new Chainsaw Man movie, produced at MAPPA, of which its staff really upped their game with animated spectacle, led by director Tatsuya Yoshihara who had previously worked as an action director on the 2022 anime series.
The film’s presentation may be closer to capturing the rough and rugged cartoonish art style of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s original manga, whilst at the same time elevating it, Reze Arc’s greatest accomplishment is its central love story that embraces some wild tonal shifts that make you wonder if the makers watched Takashi Miike’s Audition for inspiration. Fujimoto will always have his detractors that can never get past Chainsaw Man’s gory violence and crude humor. As we learned from last year’s Look Back and this other animated masterpiece, Fujimoto is never a one-trick pony as he finds various ways of telling stories about young people trying to find their place is this world.
Considering the amazing year Fujimoto has had with the various adaptations of his own work (and there is more to come), Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc solidifies not only why the author is both a genius and an outsider, but also why anime is a unique medium.
Least Favorite: War of the Worlds
There have been numerous iterations of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, ranging from the George Pal version from the fifties to Steven Spielberg’s post-9/11 adaptation; I would say Independence Day is another iteration and arguably the best one. And yet, nothing can prepare about how bad this new version is, which wants to say something about the danger of surveillance, but since this is released on Prime Video, it has wall-to-wall product placement that is all Amazon.
When this was first conceived during the midst of the Covid pandemic, there wasn’t much information other than it was an untitled film told through screenlife technology, which is not the first time this has been done (think: horror films like Unfriended). However, the way it is done here is just awful where you have Ice Cube using various social media accounts like Facebook and Skype. And the camerawork and editing is so clunky in order to achieve a dramatic reaction from the cast that it instantly breaks the central gimmick.
Whatever political thoughts you have towards Amazon, to sum up how really bad War of the Worlds is during its climax, where an Amazon employee uses a Prime Air drone to deliver to Grumpy Cat Ice Cube a flash drive, during which a homeless man is paid off with a $1000 Amazon gift card to help out with a slight setback.
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