What Are the 25 Best Movies of 2025?

6 hours ago

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At the end of the year, I like to go through everything I’ve watched and try to assemble a list of the 25 movies I loved the most.

This year it was pretty hard, since most of the movies I watched were on screeners or at home, thanks to a very busy end of the year. It’s taken me a while to assemble my thoughts and feelings, and I may have a few spicy takes in here as well.

One of the reasons I love making these rankings is that they force me to really think about what I feel about them and how I engage with the art.

Now, these lists are all subjective, so don’t get mad if you didn’t love what I loved.

Let’s dive in.

2. One Battle After Another

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Writer: Paul Thomas Anderson (Loosely based on the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon)
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

A deeply personal movie for PTA that theorizes that the kids will be alright if we let them change the world. I loved the performances in this story, and the cinematography was epic. It felt like a movie with scale, scope, and a lot of vision.

3. Marty Supreme

Director: Josh Safdie
Writer: Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary
Studio: A24

4. No Other Choice

Director: Park Chan-wook
Writer: Park Chan-wook, Don McKellar (Based on the novel The Ax by Donald E. Westlake)
Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jinPark Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, Cha Seung-won
Studio: NEON

This is a sadistic look at late-stage capitalism that feels so poignant and so darkly funny. I love how it uses a thriller plot to unpack the world’s problems and how it gets you to root for murder.

5. Train Dreams

Director: Clint Bentley
Writer: Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar (Based on the novella by Denis Johnson)
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Clifton Collins Jr., Kerry Condon
Studio: Netflix

This lyrical movie takes us through time and shows us that, like a train, it keeps moving forward no matter which stop you get off at. I loved the imagery in this and also its willingness to be weird and solemn.

6. Weapons

Director: Zach Cregger
Writer: Zach Cregger
Cast: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Amy Madigan
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

A ripping horror movie that takes us through what it’s like to be in the suburbs and have an idyllic life that gets torn apart. There are so many different perspectives and a real peeling back of the layers of society here.

7. Sentimental Value

Director: Joachim Trier
Writer: Joachim Trier
Cast: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning
Studio: Mubi

There are a lot of movies out this year that force us to deal with how we see the world. And this is one that forces us to talk about how we see our family and how we reconcile their perceptions of us as well.

8. Eephus

Director: Carson Lund
Writer: Michael Basta, Nate Fisher, Carson Lund
Cast: Keith William Richards, Frederick Wiseman, Cliff Blake, Bill “Spaceman” Lee
Studio: Music Box Films

Man, this movie hits so hard. It’s ostensibly about baseball, but there’s so much more to unpack as well. It’s about friendship and time, and it will stick with you after watching it.

9. Splitsville

Director: Michael Angelo Covino
Writer: Michael Angelo Covino, Kyle Marvin
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Adria Arjona, Michael Angelo Covino, Kyle Marvin
Studio: NEON / Topic Studios

This is easily the funniest movie of the year. From what could be the best opening scene in over a decade to a fight scene that feels like an all-timer, and a montage that is an elegant oner, this deconstruction of modern relationships and people has so many inventive and beautiful moments.

10. Hamnet

Director: Chloé Zhao
Writer: Chloé Zhao (Based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell)
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal
Studio: Focus Features

As a parent, this one was hard to sit through. It’s about grief and mourning, but also about marriage. It’s a beautiful portrait of art and life.

11. The Ballad of Wallis Island

Director: James Griffiths
Writer: Tom Basden, Tim Key (Based on their short film)
Cast: Tom Basden, Tim Key, Carey Mulligan
Studio: Focus Features / Universal Pictures

I feel like this is one of the most overlooked movies of the year. Everyone should be talking about these wonderful and emotionally deep movies. There’s a stunning amount of heart in its runtime.

12. Sinners

Director: Ryan Coogler
Writer: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Jack O’Connell
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

Ryan Coogler gave us what many consider the scene of the year, when we swirl around the dance floor and take in music from many different eras. The center of the movie is genre, but there’s so much more going on.

13. Twinless

Director: James Sweeney
Writer: James Sweeney
Cast: Dylan O’Brien, James Sweeney, Lauren Graham, Aisling Franciosi
Studio: Lionsgate

Another movie I think was criminally underseen. I thought this was a fun look at siblings, grief, and all the thrilling parts of what it means to be at the center of a mystery that unravels around you.

14. Bugonia

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writer: Will Tracy (Based on the film Save the Green Planet! by Jang Joon-hwan)
Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Alicia Silverstone
Studio: Focus Features

How far are you willing to go for what you believe? In this movie, we see two guys attack a woman they believe is an alien, and peel back the layers of what it means to be a human. Absolutely crazy movie.

15. Warfare

Director: Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland
Writer: Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland
Cast: Charles Melton, Joseph Quinn, Kit Connor, Will Poulter
Studio: A24

In America, we have a whole series of people, veterans, who have committed to risking their lives for us. We may not always agree with the wars, but these are the human beings who put it all out there to ensure our freedoms. This is an unflinching look at those sacrifices and what it’s like to be a part of a team where you know not everyone is going to make it home. Powerful.

16. Black Bag

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: David Koepp
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Regé-Jean Page
Studio: Focus Features

I absolutely love spy movies, and this one sizzles. It’s such a tight little yarn about government secrets being sold and how you may not be able to trust the people around you.

17. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Director: Mary Bronstein
Writer: Mary Bronstein
Cast: Rose Byrne, Christian Slater, Conan O’Brien
Studio: A24

I found this chaotic and stressful movie to be a whirlwind deconstruction of parenting. We see a whole world falling apart as a woman struggles to make everything happen for her kid and herself.

18. Eleanor the Great

Director: Scarlett Johansson
Writer: Tory Kamen
Cast: June Squibb, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Hecht, Erin Kellyman
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics / TriStar Pictures

This movie snuck up on me. I thought it was going to be boring, but it was a great look at death and life, and how we keep on living for the people we left behind.

19. Sorry Baby

Director: Eva Victor
Writer: Eva Victor
Cast: Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch
Studio: A24

This movie is so funny, and then it can jump to being so sad as we follow a woman trying to get over a sexual assault that rocked her world. It’s one of those messy stories where we see people deal with issues in real time.

20. The Secret Agent

Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Writer: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Cast: Wagner Moura, Carlos Francisco, Tânia Maria, Udo Kier
Studio: Vitrine Filmes (Brazil) / Port au Prince Films (Germany)

One of the best movies of the year, it’s a harrowing and thrilling story of a dictatorship falling and the people caught around it. Especially one man who wants to leave the violence behind.

21. Blue Moon

Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Robert Kaplow
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

This is a movie about making a play. The characters here bounce off the screen and have so much heart and interesting things to say that you can’t help but sink into the world and root for them.

22. Zootopia 2

Director: Jared Bush, Byron Howard
Writer: Jared Bush
Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman
Studio: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

This sequel is great and might even be better than the original. It takes us into a world that’s been established and is so funny and so imaginative, it captures the hearts and minds of everyone watching.

23. Avatar: Fire and Ash

Director: James Cameron
Writer: James Cameron
Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang
Studio: 20th Century Studios

James Cameron making the most visually stunning movie of the year feels like old hat. The guy takes us back to Pandora for another installment of a movie about family and the environment, which happens to contain some of the best action scenes of the decade.

24. 28 Years Later

Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes
Studio: Sony Pictures

There’s a lot of life in this movie that is about dealing with grief. It’s a film that has to be about letting go, but I feel like it’s also about living for those of us we lose.

25. Naked Gun

Director: Akiva Schaffer
Writer: Akiva Schaffer, Dan Gregor, Doug Mand
Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson
Studio: Paramount Pictures

Summing It All Up

This was a pretty interesting year for movies. I love how many diverse genres and ideas we got and how many new voices I was able to discover.

Do you have titles you think should be on this list?

Let me know what you think in the comments.

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