The year 2025 has been a well-lauded turn around the sun for film, and reasonably so. This last calendar year has brought forth a number of original productions. Films that weren’t sequels, remakes, or involved a cape. The quality of offerings has been high, but the business of film is still in turmoil. Theaters are struggling to regain a foothold in the business post-COVID. The coronavirus changed the way people consume films. Many have become satisfied with watching movies in their living rooms rather than going out, spending money on tickets, and tourist-priced drinks and snacks. In defense of the theater industry, the reason why moviegoers have to sit through so many soft-drink ads and pay those exorbitant prices at the concession isn’t as simple as corporate greed—it’s survival.
Theaters split ticket prices with the studios at a roughly 50/50 rate. If the movies don’t hit, the house has to find another way to make money. Raising ticket and concession prices, while putting you through 20 minutes of corporate ads, is the most obvious way to make up the shortfall. What is particularly painful to discuss is the fact that there are not enough hits at the multiplex.
After more than a decade of Marvel event movies, the superhero genre is taking a significant hit at the box office. Marvel and DC used to be able to count on nearly every one of their offerings reaching at least half a billion dollars at the box office and frequently surpassing the billion-dollar mark through worldwide ticket sales. Unfortunately, superhero fatigue has set in, and the films themselves have either dropped in quality (see Joker Folie a Deux and The Marvels) or are fringe characters that lack the appeal of Batman and the Avengers. Even films like The Fantastic Four: First Steps and James Gunn’s Superman, which were more warmly received by critics and audiences, have struggled to break even due to production costs and a significant reduction in international returns. Even Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible series has seen a decline in financial success, and the latest (and perhaps final) entry is likely years away from turning a profit.
An even more existential threat to the business is the likely merger of streaming studio Netflix and the vaunted, traditional film studio Warner Brothers. In the deal, Netflix will take on Warner’s entire back catalogue and future productions. At this time, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has stated that he is still committed to platforming Warner’s upcoming productions in theaters. But reading between the lines, when Sarandos says that Netflix will also be looking to make future releases more “customer-friendly,” what he means is shortening the theatrical runs of new releases. As it stands now, Netflix itself only puts even their most commercial, awards-worthy original productions in theaters for only one week. Why? These films need to run in movie houses for at least a week to qualify for Oscar consideration. In the last quarter of this year, Netflix released the following high-profile films into theaters for just one week before moving them to their streaming platform: A House of Dynamite, Frankenstein, Jay Kelly, and Wake Up Dead Man (Apple TV released Spike Lee and Denzel Washington’s Highest2Lowest in the same manner). To make matters more challenging, these films did not even receive a wide release. If the future of Warner leads to a reduction in theatrical windows, the theater industry is going to take it on the chin. Will it be a death blow? It’s hard to say, but it will most certainly change the industry. We aren’t far from it now.
As someone who consumes films at home and in theaters, I can comfortably advocate for the immersive experience one receives in theaters over home viewing. Trouble is, my perspective is increasingly becoming a minority one. It may even be quaint. Movies will undoubtedly survive, but the greater question is whether the theatrical experience will.
Nonetheless, 2025 was an outstanding year for film, especially for original productions.
Before I get into my list of honorable mentions and then my top ten, a word about One Battle After Another. You won’t find Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically acclaimed film in my top ten. I may have the only year-end list on which OBAA doesn’t appear. Like most cinephiles, I was eager and excited to see PTA’s new film, and the first 35 minutes of OBAA are electric. Then the film jumps 16 years, and slowly, the air came out of the balloon for me. OBAA has been described as a revolutionary work of cinema. While the film is certainly cinematic, I didn’t find anything particularly revolutionary or profound about the film. I’m sure it was always Anderson’s intention to pivot away from the story of a Black revolutionary movement and into satirical comedy, and his familiar themes of outsiders and created family, but spending that much time with the movement and never taking the movement seriously struck me as a mistake. Maybe that would have mattered less if the satire were sharper and the comedy funnier, but to my eyes and ears, it wasn’t. OBAA’s last 120-plus minutes can’t support the promise of its opening. It’s certainly not a bad movie, and I would encourage people to see it, but I have no room for it on my selections for the best of the year.
Let’s move on.
Honorable Mentions:
Orwell 2 + 2 = 5 (Raoul Peck, Director): Peck’s documentary isn’t just about the life of George Orwell, the writer of the dystopian classics Animal Farm and 1984; it’s also an indictment of human history and the current-day infatuation with fascism and totalitarianism. The film has been criticized for its lack of subtlety, and it’s true, Orwell is as much a punch in the face as it is a movie, but considering the times we live in, I’m not sure a punch in the face isn’t the only thing our fractured attention spans will respond to.
Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro): I questioned the need for another iteration of Mary Shelley’s literary classic, but then I saw the film. Frankenstein is Guillermo del Toro’s best film since his masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth. Del Toro keeps all the bones and most of the meat of Shelley’s novel, while also adding a deeper background to Dr. Frankenstein’s story. In far too many film versions of this seminal Gothic horror work, the bad doctor is portrayed as an egotistical maniac. Del Toro’s film provides context, through an extended exploration of Frankenstein’s youth, of why the boy grew up to become an awful man. There has been much talk of Jacob Elordi’s nuanced work as the monster, and deservedly so. But Oscar Isaac’s performance as the Doctor is one of the most underrated turns of the year.
Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh): This muted, elegant, and uncommonly efficient (clocking in at 93 minutes) spy thriller is the best film of its kind in many a year. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender have outstanding chemistry as married spies who may not be able to trust each other when Blanchett’s Kathryn is suspected of treason. Black Bag is unrushed, intelligent, and beautiful to look at. One issue with making a top ten list so close to the year that you are evaluating is that films flourish or diminish with time. If there is one film on my list that I’m certain will grow in my own personal esteem, and in the esteem of others, it’s Black Bag. I am fully aware that I may be underrating it.
Deliver Me From Nowhere (Scott Cooper): Few films from 2025 came with more hype and expectation than Scott Cooper’s biopic focusing on Bruce Springsteen’s recording of his low-fi classic album, Nebraska. Unfortunately, reviews were mixed to negative, and the film did not catch on with audiences. That’s a shame in both respects, because Deliver Me From Nowhere is a bold look at the creative process that doesn’t spoon-feed the viewer with a “greatest hits” narrative that so many musical biopics fall prey to. Jeremy Allen White learned to play guitar and to sing like Bruce in preparation for the film, and he nails his subject’s voice and on-stage mannerisms. More importantly, the film gets to the heart of depression brought on by living in a home full of fear and disconnection. For those of us who have lived that experience, Deliver Me From Nowhere rang true.
Materialists (Celine Song): Following up the exquisite Past Lives with a film nearly as good is no mean feat, but Celine Song deftly avoids a sophomore slump with an extraordinarily well-considered film about modern relationships. Dakota Johnson (in a career-best performance) plays a matchmaker who, in looking for a match for herself, has a cold calculus that includes her potential mate’s bank balance. Instead of coming off as merely shallow, Song’s film addresses the financial insecurity of city life for the middle class and how happiness and love may not trump the ability to afford a measure of comfort. The love triangle in Materialists is filled out by Chris Evans as an old boyfriend, an actor who spends more time waiting tables than he does on stage, and the suave but not entirely emotionally available financier played by Pedro Pascal. Materialists was promoted as a romantic comedy, but that was a con. Celine Song’s sophomore feature is a romantic drama of deceptive depth on the up and down sides of romantic pragmatism.
Top Ten
Train Dreams (Clint Bentley): Meditative, melancholy, and at times deeply sad, Clint Bentley’s adaptation of a novel considered unfilmable by many is a beautiful tale of woe. Joel Edgerton plays Robert Grainier, a man who spends long stretches away from his wife (a luminous Felicity Jones) and daughter as a railroad worker and logger. When unspeakable tragedy strikes Grainier’s tiny family, he slowly withdraws from the world, becoming a man out of time. Train Dreams is a beautifully shot, aching film about the people whom progress leaves behind. It’s also a movie about the healing powers of puppies. Bentley’s direction, use of voice-over, and the way he shoots the natural world earned him comparisons to the great Terrence Malick. Train Dreams is a film I believe Malick would be proud to call his own.
Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater): As a biopic(ish) of Jean-Luc Godard’s making of the French New Wave classic Breathless, Richard Linklater’s second film of the year (along with the very good Blue Moon) might also be the coolest film of the year. Shot in gorgeous black-and-white, Linklater’s film has the jazzy, Parisian feel of Godard’s films and many other filmmakers from post-war France. Linklater name (and face) checks numerous luminaries of the scene: Truffaut, Varda, Chabrol, Rivette, and Bresson (among many others) all make appearances, and are played (like Godard) by actors most will find unfamiliar. No matter, the baggage-free, unknown cast is perfectly calibrated. Guillaume Marbeck and his oh-so-cool shades make for a perfect Godard. Marbeck nails Godard’s maddening confidence and unconventional, improvisational working style, which nearly drives the star of his film-within-a-film, Jean Seberg (a terrific Zoey Deutch), off the film. Aubrey Dullin is a dead-ringer for Seberg’s co-star Jean Paul-Belmondo. I’m not sure how the film will play for those not immersed in cinema. Still, for those who are, Nouvelle Vague will likely lead viewers to begin wishing for a German spin-off focusing on the early days of Herzog, Wenders, Fassbinder, Von Trotta, and the other great filmmakers of that country’s new wave film movement.
The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kauther Ben Hania): Detailing the real-life story of a Palestinian child’s death in the war zone of Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military, The Voice of Hind Rajab is the most painful film I saw all year. Tunisian director Ben Hania’s film takes place almost entirely in a dispatch office where Palestinian men and women attempt to navigate first responders to the injured in their war-torn homeland. Despite its claustrophobic location, Ben Hania has fashioned a riveting film that brings you as close to the edge of life and death as a film can. The Voice of Hind Rajab has been criticized on moral and ethical grounds for its use of the actual voice of the little girl in peril on that fateful day. The use of the recording in the film is no mere stunt. To recreate the sound of a child in peril may have been doable, but there is something about the fearful providence, and in the knowing that her voice is real as she begs someone, anyone, to come and rescue her. In a world where immediacy matters most, The Voice of Hind Rajab is crushingly immediate. It is as it should be.
Urchin (Harris Dickinson): One year after making a splash in front of the camera as Nicole Kidman’s enigmatic young lover in Babygirl, the 29-year-old Harris Dickinson has made a remarkably assured directorial debut. Channeling the films of the great English kitchen sink director Ken Loach, Dickinson’s film focuses on a homeless petty criminal named Mike (Frank Dillane, whose career should launch based on this performance). Urchin is a true hardscrabble movie about a man who can’t get out of his own way, and might not even want to. Even when Mike gets close to some form of normalcy and function, his worst instincts take over. We never precisely learn what has led to Mike’s downtrodden, self-destructive state, but it doesn’t matter. The hollow of Dillane’s eyes tells you the ghosts that haunt him have no intention of taking their leave. As somber and sober as the film is, Urchin has real-life and cinematic verve. It’s not “just depressing,” it’s illuminating. I am utterly fascinated by the thought of what Dickinson might do next.
A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow): For her first film since 2017’s misunderstood Detroit, Kathryn Bigelow has made a nerve-rattling anti-thriller about nothing less than the prospect of nuclear holocaust on American shores. I say “anti-thriller” because it’s obvious early on that for all the armchair clutching the film’s ticking-clock narrative creates, there’s little doubt that the outcome will not be a good one. Working with an outstanding ensemble headlined by Idris Elba as the President, and Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Jason Clarke, Greta Lee, Tracy Letts, and a terrific Gabriel Basso in support roles as members of the USA nuclear response team, Bigelow fashions an unforgiving and authentic film about how all our fail-safes can fail. The fact that former national security advisers have spoken to the film’s credibility only heightens A House of Dynamite’s real-world fears. I don’t know if any film this year has a more polarizing ending, but for those who wanted bombs bursting in air, they should turn to the next fatuous Michael Bay or Zack Snyder movie for satisfaction. A House of Dynamite is for grown-ups.
Highest2Lowest (Spike Lee): One would think that a reunion of Spike Lee and Denzel Washington would have earned a better marketing campaign than the one Highest2Lowest received. Earlier this year, Apple TV gave F1 a full theatrical release and provided extensive pre-release publicity. Unfortunately, Highest2Lowest landed in theaters with little fanfare for two weeks before arriving on streaming. I don’t want to be too hard on the Apple Studios; they deserve significant credit for bankrolling a kidnapping thriller with true moral implications, but it’s hard not to think Spike and Denzel’s fifth film together didn’t deserve better. From the breathtaking opening shot of the NYC skyline moving into the swank high-rise apartment of Washington’s fading music mogul, David King, it is evident that you are in the hands of a gifted filmmaker. While the kidnapping plot is gripping, the film’s deeper subtext is the desire for an old man past his prime to remain relevant. You could parallel what happens in front of the camera with what is happening to Lee and Washington off-camera. These two titans of cinema are now 68 and 71 years old, respectively. Highest2Lowest proves that these two film elders have plenty left in the tank. I just wish more people had seen it.
The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold): A musical about the creator, “prophet,” and eventual martyr of the radical Christian sect known as “the Shakers” was the last film I expected to be knocked out by, but here we are. I walked into the Paramount Theater at the Virginia Film Festival ready to take my medicine. The Testament of Ann Lee was receiving strong reviews, with many critics noting its bold vision. It felt like a film I had to see as a film writer. A bit over two and a half hours later, I walked out of the theater, stunned by the film’s fiercely profound nature. The use of music and movement in the film was ecstatic and beautifully imperfect. Fastvold’s decision to keep the song-and-dance from being too clean was inspired. The somewhat ragged nature of the film stands in stark contrast to most musicals that focus on “putting on a show.” The Testament of Ann Lee is cinema beyond genre. It also boasts an astonishing turn by Amanda Seyfried as the title character. In most any other season, her performance would be the year’s best (more on that in my number one choice).
Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie): If you only see one movie about a malignantly narcissistic ping-pong prodigy with wildly anachronistic needle drops, let it be this one. Timothee Chalamet carries the film as the title character. Marty is a character that we should hate (and sometimes we do), but the energy and cinematic verve of the film is so full throttle, and Chalamet is so on fire that you can’t possibly resist it. Safdie’s first feature without his brother Benny is a true stunner. A period piece set in the ’50s, full of ‘80s new wave pop songs, would seem foolish enough, but ping-pong? Ping-pong?? Marty Supreme is a sports film, a comedy, a drama, a caper film, and ultimately a coming-of-age story. Chalamet has not exactly covered himself in glory with some of his recent self-aggrandizing comments about his acting skill, but after seeing Marty Supreme, I had to ask myself, “What if that scrawny little shit really is as good as he thinks he is?” The answer, at least for the moment, is yes, he is.
Sinners (Ryan Coogler): A mash-up of period race drama set in the South with third-act vampires sounds like a horrible idea for a film with Oscar intentions, but Ryan Coogler pulls it off. Coogler spends a great deal of time introducing his characters and creating an authentic post-depression Mississippi. For the better part of its running time, we are steeped in the racist world of the Deep South and the men and women of color attempting to navigate it. Michael B. Jordan holds the center, playing twins in the process of opening a juke joint in a far less-than-accepting environment. Delroy Lindo delivers one of the great film monologues on the perils of being Black in recent memory. Excellent support is offered by Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Li Jun Li, and Jack O’Connell, but Sinners truly belongs to the barely 20-year-old Miles Caton in his film debut. As the singing guitar-playing son of a preacher man, we see the world of Jim Crow and the horror to come through his eyes, and young Caton holds the screen in what should be a star-making performance. Caton also kicks off one of the two most memorable scenes of the year with the song I Lied To You, a fulsome blues song that gives way to African chants, p-funk, and hip-hop, creating a kaleidoscopic view of the history and importance of Black music in America. Even the vampires have subtext. When they first show, they present as poor Irish folk, who are turned away from the juke joint for “being in the wrong place.” In that moment, Sinners connects the enmity between marginalized classes that has been weaponized by upper-class Anglo-Saxons for ages. That’s some heady damn content for a film that ends in undead mayhem.
Hamnet (Chloe Zhao): I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Hamnet is one of the singular moviegoing experiences of my life. I saw Chloe Zhao’s bounce-back film (after the disappointment of Eternals) at the Virginia Film Festival with another one thousand souls. By the end of the screening, we were all fully immersed in grief and transcendence. Zhao’s film is based on the historical novel of the same name, which blends fact with artistic license to address the pain that William Shakespeare and his wife suffered after the death of their only son, Hamnet. As Will (Paul Mescal) pours his grief into creating his greatest play, Hamlet, Agnes (Jessie Buckley) is left adrift in a guttural sort of agony that threatens to consume her. And then she attends the opening of Hamlet. Describing what happens next would be unfair to those who have yet to see it. It’s just as well, because I don’t know the words to explain what happens in the last moments of the film. I could describe the series of events, but I’d never get close to effectively expressing what it feels like to experience it. Maybe the words don’t exist. If they do, they are beyond me. Mescal is wonderful as Will, but it is Buckley as Agnes who delivers a performance that I believe will be spoken of in hushed tones for as long as people speak of movies. She is that good, and so is Zhao’s latest picture. In fact, Hamnet is the best film of the year.
