Joey Moser’s Top Ten Films of 2025

The more that I combed through the films that I saw in 2025, the more I fell in love with it. I was fortunate enough to attend four film festivals (Indy Shorts, Telluride, Toronto, and Middleburg), so I was feeling rather thankful at the end of last year. When I was making up my list, one thing stood out to me, and most of these films brought a level of emotion out of me that I am almost afraid of. Maybe it’s something that I unexpectedly need to confront within myself or it’s a film whose emotion knocked the wind out of me. Everything on my top ten is something that I would like to revisit again and again.

Before we dive into the final ten, I have to mention some other films that I loved as honorable mentions…

• Is This Thing On? for proving that Bradley Cooper’s interest in the intersection of performance and relationships can be analyzed over and over again
• Griffin in Summer for Glenn Bening
• The History of Sound for showing how big passion can remain even if the flame is turned down for protection
• The Naked Gun for letting us laugh like we haven’t in twenty years
• Weapons for Aunt Gladys and a new way to run
• It Was Just an Accident for that stunner of a final shot
• Black Bag for showing that adult thrillers can be sexy and sleek and under 100 minutes
• Roofman for giving us yet another unexpected side to Channing Tatum
• Train Dreams for showing how grief and beauty can live side by side
• Final Destination Bloodlines for showing just how similar screaming and laughing can be in horror film
• Peter Hujar’s Day for stripping everything down to a conversation
• Sinners for its ambition, its music, and two times the Michael B. Jordan

Without further ado, here is my top ten films of 2025

10. Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy
Some might shrug off Ben Leonberg’s fright flick as too much of a gimmick because of its setup. A house is haunted by a sinister spirit, but we see everything from the perspective of Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. When Indy’s owner, Todd, moves them from New York City to a rural home in the woods, Indy senses something creepy in their home. We have seen countless films where a dog’s barking alerts the main characters of a horror story, but Leonberg reminds us that they deserve to be heroes too. We love pets like family, and Leonberg’s film honors the love between man and man’s best friend like no other film in the genre has done before.

9. Charlie Polinger’s The Plague
You could not pay me to be in my early teens ago, and Polinger’s thiller hints at how freedom given to young boys can lead to not just bullying but a whole bloody affair. Everett Blunck (so marvelous in another gear in Griffin in Summer) stars as Ben, a shy kid on his own at an all-boys water polo camp who witnesses firsthand how cruelty can be weaponized against other kids his age. If we celebrate Blunck’s anxiety, we must also give props to Kayo Martin’s performance as a ringleader who targets his prey with natural, casual precision. When these boys dive into the crystal blue water, we focus on limbs and legs as the electronic score from Johan Lenox blares like the most unsettling soundtrack to National Geographic’s Lord of the Flies. 

8. Harry Lighton’s Pillion
Lighton’s film could melt the hearts of the most cynical and the proudest of prudes. When Harry Melling’s Colin, a shy parking cop, crosses paths with Alexander Skarsgård’s Ray, a quietly confident and enigmatic biker, he is as curious as he is turned on by him (their first encounter in an alley will be recognizable to many a gay man), but Lighton’s film never judges either character. When Colin enters his first BDSM union, his timidity is matched only by his enthusiasm with Melling and Skarsgård creating a relationship unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Lighton’s film is handsomely shot, funny, and unexpectedly moving.

7. Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Every time Johnson gifts us with another one of his locked box mysteries, we freak out over every announcement. The casting, the setting, Daniel Craig’s wardrobe and hair. What the director did for his third Benoit Blanc outing is one of his smartest choices: he looked inward. Religion and spirituality can be a thorny topic, but Wake Up‘s screenplay balances how it can be vital to one’s own salvation but warns how it can be weaponized against the most vulnerable and frightened. Because Johnson gives this third entry that weighty direction, the characters have even more to conceal and hold within themselves–even if it is relevant to the investigation or not. With stellar performances from Josh O’Connor, Kerry Washington, and the legendary Glenn Close, Wake Up Dead Man proves that you can surprise your audience by finding the humor in the values and ideals that you keep close to you.

6. James Sweeney’s Twinless
When you are at an emotional low, discovering a connection with a new person can help you find shades of happiness again. A new persective can change your life, right? James Sweeney’s Twiness explores the beginnings of a friendship, but it surprises its audience when you realize that the parties involved have diverging intentions. Sweeney’s Dennis and Dylan O’Brien’s Roman form a bond in their twin grief support group before the black comedy takes a dark turn. Thanks to a sharp, witty screenplay, Twinless remains one of the most memorable films of the year, and O’Brien’s performance as a man trying to cope with his anger, fear, and sadness is one that is being underrewarded by critics.

5. Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another
I will admit that I was skeptical about how Anderson’s latest saga was being fawned over. I was engrossed with this drama when it debuted in theaters back in September, and so much of the story’s detailing has remained lodged in my brain. It’s a family drama interlaced with themes that feel more present and dangerous as current events unfold all around us. So many writers online have done a better job of encapsulating why Anderson’s film is one of the best of the year, but I love how every time I read something, I find something new to appreciate about it.

4. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value
“You can go home again, but it’ll cost you.” Maybe you will hve to sacrifice your dignity or your patience or make you question the tools put in place for your own self-preservation. But maybe it’s worth it. Trier’s family drama is quietly powerful, and so much lives in the silences and what could’ve been said instead. I am fascinated by how Renate Reisnve’s Nora, an actress, uses her abilities as a performer to protect herself, and it makes me wonder how much she restrains herself when an argument or emotional moment blossoms. Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, as Nora’s sister Agnes, is a revelation.

3. Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby
I remember my experience with Victor’s directorial debut quite well. I was visiting Chicago, and the film was playing at an AMC near my hotel. I went in totally blind, and I was blown away by the silence and how it shows how we can invigorate ourselves just by being in the presence of the people we love–we can charge ourselves by it. Knowing nothing going in, Victor’s screenplay latched onto the muscles around my ribs. It’s simple but uncompromising. I felt so much feeling when we see the houses against the wind of winter, and Naomi Ackie and Victor have such memorable chemistry. Their laughter, their intelligence, and their words will stick with me for such a long time.

2. Nia DaCosta’s Hedda
DaCosta’s adaptation is one of the greatest stage-to-screen entries of all time. She takes a dusty text and injects it with such verve, vigor, and sensuality that it would make Henrik Ibsen blush. As Hedda, Tessa Thompson curls her voice around every syllable like a snake ensnaring her pray, and Nina Hoss, as a character with so much to prove, ignites the screen with ferocity. So many people critique play adaptations as being stagey, but DaCosta’s version, set in the 1950s England rather than 1890s Oslo, cloaks so much in shadow. If you were at this party, do you have the gumption to discover what remains in darkness?

1.Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet
Zhao’s film has always felt precious to me. I was fortunate enough to attend its debut at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, and its hold on me has never waned. We can never measure the pain the loss of a loved one brings, and Zhao’s film connects our feet with the dirt of the earth. There is a primal element to anger and hurt but also one that can be found in joy and happiness, and her film, adapted with its author Maggie O’Farrell, takes all of these emotions and plants them within the ground under our feet but also in the words written by Paul Mescal’s William Shakespeare. Everything feels born from the ground up. We often talk about how we cannot forget certain things about the films we love, and so much of Hamnet reverberates through my body. The sound of a mother’s cry, the unflinching wind of Mother Nature, Max Richter’s wounded score, Jacobi Jupe’s childlike wonder. I will never forget this film.