best films of 2025

another little list! for christmas!

Is it weird to drop this on Christmas Day? Merry Christmas, by the way, if you celebrate it in any way, shape, or form. I did with a sunny little hike yesterday and a gorgeously chill Christmas Eve dinner with a friend. Here’s proof:

I chronically forget the Phone Eats First liturgy, for which I can only apologize.

I assume that like me, many of you are also lounging and vegetating today/until the New Year. And if that’s the case, then why not spend a few minutes reading about movies? There were, after all, so many great ones this year.

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Like I said a few weeks ago, I really do love a year in review moment. And I watched a lot of films this year. I wrote a little bit about it in my foreign film recap a few weeks ago, but I’m basically at the cinema as often as possible. When an evening cannot be improved by a walk to the theater and 90-130 minutes in a dark room alongside a few dozen strangers, life becomes slightly unbearable.

I couldn’t manage to log every film I watched in 2025. For instance, I know for a fact I rewatched Jerry Maguire on a flight at some point over the last twelve months, and I know this because I ugly-cried whilst doing so, and the feeling of shedding tears in front of an eight-inch screen showing a 1996 Tom Cruise is visceral enough not to be forgotten. But I didn’t remember to log it. Alas. Still: according to the letterboxd account I finally succumbed to making this year, I watched somewhere between 70 and 80 films. Not bad for a girl with no talent.

Below are my Favorite Five released this year, as well as a couple of honorable mentions and a couple of new-to-me films (embarrassing).

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Sinners (dir. Ryan Coogler)

The first time I watched Sinners was on my own. The second was a few days later, on a second date, with someone who didn’t particularly enjoy the film. Now, I won’t say that was the only reason there was no third date, but it wasn’t not a reason!

I felt alive watching Sinners. This is a feeling I typically enjoy, which is why I watched it twice in theaters. That, and it’s a film that begs to be seen with as many people as possible. It is a film that delights in a large audience, and I was only too happy to oblige. Twice. I’m not a horror girlie (although this year I’ve been tepidly branching out), and sure there were a couple of scenes that qualified as personal jumpscares (what if I told you that the snake on the bed of the truck got me every single time), but Sinners is more than a horror film in the same way The Godfather is more than a mafia film. It’s worth seeing just for that one music-through-the-ages scene, but then again for Michael B. Jordan’s performance¹, Wunmi Mosaku’s magnetism, the unexpected charm and sweetness of “Will Ye Go, Lassie Go?”² Even the somewhat empty satisfaction of that ending—it was all worth it.

Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)

I don’t want to say too much because I’m writing about this film, as you may have seen if you follow me on Instagram and watch my little stories. I have oodles and oodles of handwritten notes on Sentimental Value and the Trier multiverse, jotted down in cafes and my own very messy desk at home. It really boils down to: Joachim Trier has somehow discovered each and every single one of my insecurities and decided to examine and portray them on film via statuesque Norwegians. Aren’t. We. Lucky! Anyway, look for my essay on Sentimental Value in the coming days.

It was just an accident (dir. Jafar Panahi)

About a month after I waxed poetic (see below link) about It was just an accident, Iran sentenced its director Jafar Panahi to a year in prison and imposed a two-year ban on his leaving the state. Panahi, who was in New York when this sentence was issued and remains engaged in the film’s press tour, has stated his intention to return to his native Iran despite what troubles³ may await him.

Anyway, I don’t want to repeat my praise from November, but suffice it to say I can’t recommend this film more wholeheartedly. A story about pain, pride, and forgiveness, not unlike the director’s own, that will necessarily make you think about your relationship to your home.

at the cinema

Loveable (dir. Lilja Ingolfsdottir)

I wrote about this one for my foreign film round-up, as well. I wish I’d seen it again before it left theaters, but I’m sure it’ll be streaming somewhere soon enough, if it isn’t now. Again, I won’t bore you with thoughts I’ve already shared, but I will say that this film succeeded where a lifetime of small woes has not: it made me want to go to therapy.

One Battle After Another (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the film everyone and their mother has been talking about for the last three months. My specific claim to fame is that I saw this opening weekend because my friend and I had been talking about it for what feels like months prior to its release, and I think we can all agree: we were right to be hyped! If anything, our anticipation should’ve been even greater!

It felt so right to be watching this in a crowded theater, the collective holding of our breath to see how exactly Leo would screw up next or what fucked-up task Sean Penn’s steroidy little body would unsuccessfully attempt or how the mesmerizing Chase Infiniti would steal a scene yet again. That last action scene alone—I won’t say anything further in case any of you philistines haven’t seen it yet even though it is literally streaming now—was worth the price of the movie ticket. Sorry to sound like Tom Cruise for a second, but: not only are movies Back™ … baby, they never even left.

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Three honorable mentions:

Morlaix (dir. Jaime Rosales)

Listen, if God had wanted me to be a francophile he would’ve made me Argentinian, not Uruguayan. That being said, and I’ve mentioned this before, I do enjoy French cinema. That being said², although Morlaix’s cast is French, Jaime Rosales, its director, is Catalan. I teeter on the edge of inconsistency, I know. You win some, you lose some, etc. Was this a great film? Frankly, no. But it was raining when I saw it, and coming out of a dark theater into a grey, cloudy sky always puts me in a sentimental mood. And there were scenes that stayed with me for a long time, and I’m very much of the opinion that even a single great scene makes an otherwise average movie worth watching. It’s a film that takes children and the things they experience seriously, with a tenderness and earnestness that deeply moved me. Morlaix is observant, which you’d be forgiven for thinking all films are, but they’re not, not really. You know what … I might even rewatch it during this last week of the year.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (dir. Michael Morris)

I’m as surprised as you are! But this was such an unexpectedly moving film, I didn’t really want to leave it by the wayside. Was I prepared to have snot running down my face after watching Renée Zellweger, a person I genuinely forget exists despite her literal multiple Oscars and my deep love for Jerry Maguire⁴, bravely wrestle her life back together following the death of her husband and your mother’s favorite crush, the inimitable Colin Firth? No, I cannot say that I was. But down my face snot did run, and suffice it to say, lest I reveal the secrets of my local cinema’s ladies’ bathroom: I was not alone.

Weapons (dir. Zach Cregger)

I made a minor allusion above to shifting slightly away from my strict non-horror film tendencies, yes?⁵ The truth is, I still wouldn’t watch one of these at home alone, because at the end of the day I remain in possession of some self-preservation tendencies, but I am leaning into the experience of an in-theater horror film. Being part of an audience and sharing a single nervous heartbeat … that’s just fun, isn’t it? Weapons did not terrify me and it was almost perfectly paced. That’s two for two, babes!

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And two new-to-me films I loved:

Paris, Texas (dir. Wim Wenders) (1984)

Glorious. The definition of you can never go back but the attempt alone might be worth the effort. I felt torn apart and made anew (complimentary) after watching.

Cold War (dir. Pawel Pawlikowski) (2018)

The concept of not happiness, but worse, contentment, forever eluding two people in love because they’re always chasing the lure and the freedom of the hazy unknown … well, folks, that’s post-WWII Poland for you! Maybe it’s because I’d just finished my The Americans rewatch a few weeks prior or maybe it’s because I relate to characters who simply refuse to find inner peace, but Cold War became an instant favorite. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its all way and all that.

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Did I miss any major films you loved? TELL ME.

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1. I’ve gone back and forth on Jordan since his turn as Vince Howard in Friday Night Lights (2009-2011) and I think his magisterial Lindsay Lohaning of Smoke and Stack finally cemented his status in my mind as a Good Actor™.

2. Also, and perhaps better, known as “Wild Mountain Thyme.” I say this as someone who does not really fuck with the Kirke girlies because they’re deeply annoying to me: Lola Kirke’s voice was made for this song.

3. One thing about me is I will employ a little euphemism.

4. If you’re keeping score, yes, that is the second Jerry Maguire mention of the day. We might bump it up to three before I’m done, who knows.

5. Pretend that sentence made sense. It’s Christmas, ffs.