2025 at the Movies
- 4 hours ago
- 7 min read
2025 movies
It usually takes me until about halfway through the following year to catch up with the movie releases for any one year. It usually takes that long to be able to find most movies on streaming, although some movies don’t become available for several months after theater releases. Last year was a year with several instant favorites, and the top two, One Battle After Another and Sinners are nearly tied for my preference. This was a year that had an unusual hit rate of movies aimed right at my sensibilities, whether they were the biggest budget movies of the year, Avatar Fire and Ash or Superman or films from foreign directors (there are about six on this list) or if it is one of the smallest budget movies I have ever seen like Eephus. Apparently, this was also a year that the Oscar voters agreed, as many of the biggest winners are on here as well.
One Battle After Another
Easily one of my favorite movies of the decade so far, I have been less enthused about Paul Thomas Anderson’s films since his first handful of releases. The energy of this is so driving, so exciting, and the characters all have humorous touches to them, a reminder that Anderson took a break from his feature filmmaking career in the 2000’s to work with Saturday Night Live, where he met his future wife. This movie has a sense of urgency and absurd satire framed with incredible cinematography.
Prime
Sinners
This is as close to #1 on my list as it gets. This is a vampire movie where the vampires don’t show up until halfway through the runtime. This almost doesn’t need the supernatural element to it to be such a great movie. Just as a story of bootlegging, race and music in the deep south this is a very satisfying and beautifully shot movie, and we get the excitement of tommy guns versus vampires and Klansmen in the second half, which provides its own kind of rush.
Prime
Fantastic Four First Steps
Just after college I got my hands on a book of the first year or two of Fantastic Four comics from the 1960’s which was a really fun collection of retro-futurism and adventure. While the characters were comically hollow, and the villain of the week could be downright silly, there is a reason they are one of the longest running superhero groups and have survived several rather terrible movie adaptations. This incarnation of the team works well, Thing works as a creature and a character and the story has the retro-futurism of the original comics and massive scale of a villain (with a silly secondary villain) that get my heart racing.
Disney+
Avatar Fire and Ash
I was lukewarm on the original Avatar movie, but the sequels have entranced me with the scale of the action. I am totally willing to go along with the ridiculousness of the younger characters, they really feel inspired by the generation they are portraying in their most obnoxious as well as their most sincere. Over these movies I have come to like the original characters more than my initial impressions, but I have really loved that The Way of Water gives hints of Moby Dick and Fire and Ash gives hints of Last of the Mohegans.
Disney+
The Naked Gun
I grew up watching these movies and watching this now is such a high hit rate of flat out silly comedy that is especially needed. I love that this is a comedy that goes right after the laughs.
Paramount+
No Other Choice
A really entertaining Korean movie about a man who stumbles into being a serial killer, all to try to get a job. Park Chan-Wook’s more recent films have abandoned the sweaty and dirty revengeful movies of his early days and has moved into a brilliantly lit phase full of color and detail to highlight comedically dark situations.
Mubi
Eephus
This is one of my favorite baseball movies of recent years, and a movie with zero recognizable actors. The only face to recognize is a very old Bill Lee, who can still sling it. It doesn’t hurt that the pitch of choice here is the slowest pitch possible, but his mysterious presence practically emerging out of the cornfield to educate about the Eephus pitch brings an extra layer of wonder to a great film already layered in comedy, nostalgia and the New England sensibility.
Prime
The Long Walk
I’m not sure there are many other movies with such a powerful sense of dread and danger. The violence is graphic and horrifying and the idea that these young men who are growing so close know that they will all suffer on the walk and they will all die horribly is so painful. It’s the characters and the simple concept that make this so entertaining.
HBO Max
It Was Just an Accident
During the pandemic I got very interested in Iranian film and Jafar Panahi became one of my favorite directors. Fortunately for the world he has been very wiley about making and smuggling films out of Iran despite a ban on filmmaking. Having been released from Iranian prison as part of a diplomatic move of the Biden administration Panahi released this film about former inmates finding someone who is suspected to be a brutal guard who terrorised the inmates. Much of the story consists of these former inmates questioning whether this is the man they are looking for or not.
Mubi
Superman
The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was a Superman movie, I now understand it was considered one of the worst of those early Superman movies, but to me I had the wonder of a child and loved seeing a hero flying around in a bright red and blue. We get just that kind of wonder, a glistening Metropolis City and a fun plot peppered with jokes as well.
HBOMax
The Clubhouse: A Year With The Red Sox
While this is a bit longer, this documentary that followed the Red Sox for the 2024 season is packed with trauma, drama and the comedy of a team of baseball goofballs. The scene where two players attempt to fix an old truck after a game is so perfect that it could have been scripted for a baseball movie.
Netflix
Bugonia
I’m not the biggest fan of Yorgos Lanthimos’s films, but the mystery of this movie kept me guessing the entire runtime, and the strange reality of their universe was so odd that I couldn’t help but laugh at the feature length joke on the audience.
Prime
The Secret Agent
There’s something great about a secret agent movie with numerous casual kills that bodies almost run out of places to be hidden. Beautifully shot, I will be first in line (after the sale starts) when this is released by Criterion.
Mubi
Thunderbolts
Although the number of Marvel characters is really stretching the limits of convolution, this smaller story, much of it confined to an empty underground base, and comical dynamic of a new team resurrects the viability of a few characters in a return to crowdpleasing form.
Disney+
28 Years Later
The Danny Boyle zombie worldbuilding expands and we find ourselves entangled with new groups and new dangers. After the middle installment fell with a thud, this brings excitement back to the UK zombie apocalypse.
HBO Max
Mickey 17
Korean director Bong Joon Ho follows up the Oscar winning Parasite with this rather silly satire of a generation ship society in space. It’s funny and maybe a little too on the nose with present day parallels, but overall quite entertaining.
HBO Max
One of Them Days
For a fairly straight forward comedy this is packed with funny running jokes and makes their neighborhood of Los Angeles look pretty idyllic despite the madness around them.
HBO Max
Reflections in a Dead Diamond
I love this fever dream of a spy movie. This doesn’t hide that this is ripping off classic Bond movie characters and situations, but through the lens of warped reality and non-linear storytelling.
Shudder
Wake Up Dead Man
I’m a sucker for the Knives Out movies, and although I may not have been wowed by the setting as much as the previous two installments, this plot really stuck with me for a few weeks. The mystery is quite compelling, but the different murders are quite memorable.
Netflix
Black Bag
This dinner scene spy thriller was one of two movies from Steven Soderbergh in 2025, both very well made. This multiplies a marriage drama tenfold with questions of loyalty to their spy agency as well as questions about their dinner guests.
Prime
Caught Stealing
This is not a typical Darren Aronofsky movie to the point that most of the movie I thought this was from Guy Richie. A revenge/action movie with a loose baseball themes brings an energy that is unexpected from the director of The Whale.
HBO Max
The American Revolution
I’m a sucker for Ken Burns and I’m really glad that this extensive telling of the Revolutionary War pieced together our history that I had forgotten much of, while bringing a critical lens to the ways in which the Revolution failed many people who wouldn’t see their own opportunities for several generations.
PBS
The Phoenicean Scheme
This feels like Wes Anderson going full Wes Anderson to the point where it’s a bit detached from reality, but it is still funny and visually interesting. It might not be all that detached from reality, there are stories of ultra-wealthy families with patriarchs with this level of eccentricity, but it’s also not a reality that the vast majority of viewers encounter. I was really glad that this didn’t have the story within a story within a story of some of Anderson’s recent films.
Prime
Honey Don’t
This thriller/comedy from Ethan Coen feels like a return to earlier Coen Brothers crime thriller movies with a healthy serving of humor. A lesbian neo-noir with femme fetales in nearly every scene.
Prime
Code 3
This is perhaps the least known movie of the list but is such a great mix of health care commentary, an exploration of mental health and a well-crafted comedy that I couldn’t resist making sure this cracked the top 25. Rain Wilson is an EMT on his last shift before changing professions. He’s a difficult person to deal with, although he uses that abrasive personality to take care of his patients the best that he can.
Netflix
Others
There was a lot of fun in the 2025 movies, even outside of this top 25. There were fun kids movies like Dog Man, How to Train Your Dragon, The Minecraft Movie, Sketch and Elio. It was also a great year for oddball movies that could be considered imperfect but I really enjoyed: Eddington and Highest 2 Lowest (I’m a sucker for Spike Lee). This was a good year for visually stunning indie movies like The Testament of Ann Lee, Train Dream and The Ballad of Wallis Island. Overall, I might look back and consider this to be one of the great years for cinema this century, a return to form from the pandemic and strike that hurt releases of the last few years.
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