List making is a uniquely personal endeavor. When I make my list of the top films of the year, I never want it to fully align with someone else’s. Because I do not want to live in a world where we all love the very same films, and frown upon the same others. Life would then be awfully boring.
Each person sitting down in a theater seat to watch a film brings something different to it, their life’s experiences, their implicit biases, their previous conditioning to a particular type of film, heck even what kind of day they are having then.
That is a lot of highfaluting text to say that we should celebrate all reactions to a film. All opinions on film are valid. We feel what we feel when we watch a film, and I have learned to not be too quick to toss my reaction to a film just because it runs contrary to mainstream thinking.
So here is my own list of the better films from 2025. They all, in some way or another switched on something within my emotional circuitry. I hope you, reader, can also make a similar list. And that it is nothing like mine.
- SINNERS – Pound for pound, this was the most ambitious, original, accomplished and genre-bending film of the year. It resists categorization, and so easily straddles incisive commentary (racism is literally a vampire sucking the blood out of minority culture!) and outrageous entertainment.
- TWINLESS – This film is not on anyone’s year-end list, but I believe no film in 2025 had a better script: sly, acerbic, funny, and deviously adept at pulling the rug from under your feet. The film begins with two individuals who develop a friendship after meeting at a support group for siblings who have recently lost their twin. And then that marvelous script starts its alchemy.
- BUGONIA – Yorgos Lanthimos was precariously at a point of becoming a parody of himself. But he is back in fine form with this film, coming back to his hallmark giddily weird ways. Two men kidnap the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, convinced that she is an alien wreaking havoc. And thus starts a cat and mouse game between captors and prey. Which goes marvelously off page.
- IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT – Very well the most topically relevant film for our current time, the simple structure of this film belies how masterfully it has been constructed. If in the real world, you saw your torturer from the time when the government wrongfully imprisoned you, what action on your part is justified. Exacting revenge? Letting the past not ruin the present? What is the moral imperative.
- ROOFMAN / THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND / A NICE INDIAN BOY – while most films trying to elbow for attention at this of the year tend to be serious and weighed down by so many tough issues, one learns to appreciate films that are kind and sweet and have a big heart, standing in relief to heavier cinema. And the three films here were the equivalent of a great big hug to me. ROOFMAN is based on the mostly true story of a man who escaped prison and for months slept in the local Toys R Us at night; Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst bring their considerable charms to a surprisingly wholesome movie-watching experience. THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND is about a popular musician brought to an island to perform a concert for a rich client only to find that the truth may be a little further from what he was told. And finally, A NICE INDIAN BOY reminds us that there is still juice remaining in the age-old story of bringing your love to meet the parents.
- MARTY SUPREME: Let’s face it, Marty is a selfish jerk and elicits chaos in the lives of every single person he encounters. The obsession to get to his championship dreams is absolute. And he will remove everyone in his way. Why should a film about this character be worthy of anyone’s time? It is because of how this film is made, with all guns firing, and with a pace that is determined to have you forget to breathe. The bravura filmmaking is the reason to get to know Marty.
- A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE: How much have we missed you, Kathryn Bigelow. No one does nail-biting tension as well as her. This film is on nobody’s list. For one and only one reason: it is the way the film ends. The film’s shrewd decision to withhold the final outcome of this story has frustrated most, who feel betrayed. But I see it as Bigelow asking the audience to ponder on how we may see this end in the real world; I found this rich for introspection especially in our current world where nuclear annihilation seems that much more likely. P.S. Someone please compensate Rebecca Ferguson for the Best Supporting Female Actor Oscar nomination that she was robbed out of.
- THE SECRET AGENT: This film is alchemy. A glorious immersion into 1970s Brazil when the government was clamping down on dissenters, the film tells the story of a teacher forced to go into hiding as adversaries are close on his heels. Of course, the film is an indictment of authoritarianism, but it is also time-travel to another time and place. It is also playful and mischievous, while being tragic yet unsentimental. It is also rich with so many fully realized side characters. And it is blessed by a lead performance for the ages by Wagner Moura, at once so soulful and quietly human.
- SENTIMENTAL VALUE: What is this film about? Ostensibly about a father trying to make amends with his grown daughters who he ignored while pursuing his career as a filmmaker. But this movie is about so much more. About how so much of what we settle down with in life, is often a pale imitation of what we really want. About how a brick-and-mortar house can come to measure our life and provide a definition of home. About sibling dynamics. About the hungry demands of tough careers. And about seeking redemption despite our crusty, hardened, imperfect selves.
- ALL THAT’S LEFT OF YOU: If the Best International Feature category at this year’s Oscar were not already chockful of marvelous films, this film from Jordan would have a place of pride within the nominations. Tracking three generations of a Jaffa family dealing with merciless displacement, war and questioned alliances, the film, directed by its leading lady, feels like a self-contained epic. That is deeply contemptuous of ordinary people paying the price for generations for the whims of the powerful who call upon war.
- RESURRECTION: Any true lover of cinema needs to do whatever they can to watch this Bi Gan film. Few movies can claim to further the language of cinema itself, through invention, and jaw-dropping bravado. RESURRECTION is that film. It looks back on a hundred years of cinema with awe and glee, while telling three stories filmed in the style and format of moviemaking that was prevalent during the time period in which that story is set. As icing on the cake, the last story is a single unbroken shot of bravura filmmaking. Seek this one out.
- MICKEY 17 / COMPANION: Both films are goofy yet smart. Ambitious yet playful. And,entertaining yet worthy of discourse. MICKEY 17 tells the story of the 17th version of a synthetic in a future world in need of ‘dispensables’ for its experimental warfare. Robert Pattinson proves again how game and supple a performer he can be, especially when paired with gifted filmmakers such as the director of PARASITE here. And COMPANION is a film that is …..best left undescribed and enjoyed for the all the sleights of hand it has in store for the viewer.
- SOVEREIGN / RELAY: These are two films that deserved better at the box-office. Both are exceptionally sturdy, hard-working thrillers. SOVEREIGN, based on a true story, sheds light – and this is key, without judgment – on those who are convinced of conspiracies. Jacob Tremblay plays a teen going through the initial germs of recognition that the father he admires so much could be at violent odds with how everyone else sees the world. RELAY is reminiscent of the pressure-cooker spy thrillers from the seventies that hold up so well even today. Both films need wider exposure.
- WAKE UP DEAD MAN: The third installment in Rian Johnson’s KNIVES OUT films reminds us that this franchise has a lot remaining to say still. And to delight us with. More solemn that the prior two outings – the murder in question here after all happens right in a church in the middle of an active service – the liturgical setting allows Johnson to comment on so many things, the least of which is the nature of faith. Lest anyone worry though, the film doesn’t hold back on the usual labyrinthine plotting leading to the reveal of whodunit.
- BLACK BAG: Delightfully old fashioned as an impossibly clever spy-thriller, and yet gleamingly modern in its sensibility and slick visuals, BLACK BAG is a throwback to times when we all enjoyed a cerebral, smart, cat-and-mouse caper. With a cast that is a gift to cinephiles, Steven Soderbergh gives us a film to consume while smacking our lips at our good fortunes to have him as a prolific filmmaker in our midst.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Even with some ties in my top fifteen films, many others also deserve recognition. These are films could have proudly taken a top spot in another year, but here they are listed as honorable mentions: THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE, ONE OF THOSE DAYS, HEDDA, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, IF I HAD LEGS I WOULD KICK YOU, MAGELLAN, HAMNET, LEFT HANDED GIRL, FROM GROUND ZERO, JANE AUSTEN WRECKED MY LIFE, FANTASTIC FOUR, CAUGHT STEALING, HIGHEST TO LOWEST, PREDATOR: BADLANDS and THE HOUSEMAID.
1. TAR: this film reminded me what cinema should be, and how we have so lost our way. At once, unapologetically cerebral, ruthless, and crafted with precision, TAR engages us with all the questions that gnaw on us in 2022. With a career already as storied as that of Cate Blanchett, it says something to claim that this might yet be her finest achievement. The film is smart for as much information it withholds from the viewer as what is given to us. Just as in real life, where we contend with questions around privilege, abuse of power, sexual misconduct and the scrutiny of public gaze with incomplete information. We almost never know the full truth. 
2. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN: This was the funniest film I saw this year, and also at the end the most heart-rending. While the film is ostensibly about a simple friendship between two men (played by Colin Ferrell and Brian Gleason) wherein one suddenly decides one day that he wants to terminate the friendship, it could be about any type of relationship. Have we not all dealt with individuals in our life who mean well, but will just not take no for an answer? Also, what do you do when one person in a relationship wants out and the other doesn’t. Writer-director Martin McDonaugh takes this premise and runs with it to the extreme with his characteristic flair for absurd and unexpected violence. Also this film that is nominally about the sundering of the friendship between these two men is perhaps in reality only a stealth setup to actually tell the story of the character of Ferrell’s sister, played wonderfully by Kerry Condon. 
3. EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE: What more is left to say about this film at this time. Yes the film’s title is apt, it is indeed about seemingly a hundred things at once, and the first hour appears so gonzo as to seem that the directors, The Daniels, have no plan in mind and are just throwing things at the screen randomly to see what sticks [BULLET TRAIN also suffers from the same misperception]. But through all of the craziness that unfolds on screen, there IS a plan, there is a method to the madness. And a message as old as the hills, about the need for tolerance and the value of family over all else. The mile a minute leaps in the film also afford the filmmakers to pay quick homage to so many other films. Perhaps none as wistful and lovely as the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it section set in Hong Kong that venerates the woozy romanticism of Wong Kar Wai films, principally, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. That this little film, released in February is holding up strong late in the year and is at the forefront of every discussion about the best films of the year speaks to how indelible an impact the film has had. That and the fact that this film finally gives Michelle Yeoh the opportunity to prove once and for all that she is a film god. 
4. ARMAGEDDON TIME: There is something about the pandemic that has made many top-end filmmakers look back upon their childhoods and to make films that look back upon their time growing up. Kenneth Branagh did this with BELFAST, Sam Mendes with EMPIRE OF LIGHT, and most recently Steven Spielberg with THE FABLEMANS. But of all these films looking back at a specific place and time when these directors grew up, ARMAGEDDON TIME from James Gray is perhaps the most emotionally honest and effective. Based in the eighties when he was growing up as a teen in New York in an immigrant family, James Gray presents the entire film I think, as an apology. As we transition from kids to adults we are also growing up in terms of moral rigor, and the ability to take stands on issues political or otherwise, and we are developing the confidence to speak up. With the giddy energy of a teen that doesn’t always allow for full understanding of social, moral or racial issues, Gray failed to stand up for a friend when he was a child, and this film is his mea culpa. I do not think he is asking us to absolve him of what happened, but just document those events. And to his great credit, Gray is not afraid to show himself and his family with all their imperfections, with a brutal honesty that puts this film ahead of others in this genre. 
MENU. What good fortune to have, not one, not two, but three intensely entertaining films come to us this year, all about the indulges of the uber-rich. And as broad and on the nose as all three films may be in dialing up their satire of the gruesome excesses of the wealthy, the great satisfaction they deliver in seeing them get their comeuppance cannot be denied. 
the year. Rian Johnson pulls off another delicious Agatha Christiesque whodunit by retaining the beats from KNIVES OUT but opening it up to more hijinks, more commentary, and more visual candy. When you have a murder mystery set on an island owned by a tech bro, you just know that the super-privileged have their comeuppance served steaming on a hot platter. Add to that some uncanny casting (hello Janelle Monae, why aren’t you a major star yet?) that eschews high voltage stars for more apposite casting, and you have a true charmer on your hands. 
THE MENU: this one is yet another film about a group of superrich invited to a private island. The upper echelon chef who owns the island wants to deliver not just the ultimate in experience in food, but something a little more transcendent. With a script that always leaps a few steps outside the viewer’s grasp, and a premise that at its core is so absurd that you cannot do much else than shrug your shoulders, this is a glitzy piece of undeniable entertainment. Plus committed performances from the likes of Ralph Fiennes, Anya-Taylor Joy, Nicholas Hoult and Hong Chau never hurt a film. 
8. DUAL: Riley Stearns has been quietly making dryly absurdist films for the last few years and we are ignoring the intricate world-building of this smart filmmaker at our own risk. If you were already a fan of his THE ART OF SELF-DEFENCE from 2019, then you will find his latest just as hard to resist. Consider the premise of DUAL. Learning that she has a terminal disease a woman arranges to have a clone made to outlive her. Only she somehow prevails over her disease and now there’s two of her, which the cloning company will not allow, and now she has to fight herself to the death so that only one remains, thereby restoring order. Like a quieter Yorgos Lanthimos, Stearns sticks by the absurd rules he has created to deliver a smarting thriller that will long stick with you. 
‘em by the numbers indie film script. But writer/director Cooper Raiff has an earnestness that you either buy and settle in with or roll your eyes over; it was the former for me. The screenplay has a specificity that rings true and the characters never stray from who they are for an easy laugh. A paid for hire bar/bat mitzvah party-starter builds an unusual rapport with the mother of an autistic girl. See what I mean? This film made me smile the whole time I was watching it and I am learning that Dakota Johnson may be one of our great stealth actors. 
found the film shrill and exhausting and overly affected. CORSAGE this year attempts a similar approach and comes out aces. It is a fictionalized accounting of the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Anachronistic, stylized and often a wishful-thinking revisionist, feminist take on the life of the real empress, the film is an attempt to do a biopic through a punk-rock lens. As played by Vicky Krieps, this empress is exhausted from the role of just the royal clotheshorse and wants more: more men, more political authority, more agency. I can see why this take on a historical figure may upset Austrian traditionalists looking for a onscreen adaptation faithful to real life. But like Sofia Coppola in MARIE ANTOINETTE, the filmmaker Maria Kreutzer here is more interested in capturing what might have been the inner life of this historical figure through a resolutely modern lens. 
11. THE INSPECTION: Write about what you know, they say. And first-time writer and director Elegance Bratton tells a story based on his own experience as a lost man who enrolls in the Marines and must contend with being a gay Black man at boot camp. The film lives by the grays it creates; this is not the by-the-books retelling of homophobia in a training regiment that you might expect. The writing is nuanced and fluctuates back and forth between the lead (played by Jeremy Pope) dealing with the physical requirements of the boot camp and his emotional setbacks. Of particular impact are the few but sharply abrasive interactions between Pope’s character and his mother, played by Gabrielle Union. This is a coming of age film with uncommon honesty that never settles for pat, unrealistic resolutions. 
12. THE WONDER: This film lives up to its pedigree, and it is a shame it hasn’t gained more awards traction. Based on the book by Emma Donoghue (writer of THE ROOM), directed by one of our most consistently adventurous directors Sebastian Lelio, and starring the best-in-her-generation Florence Pugh, the film is about a puzzle that needs to be solved. During the 1850’s, an English nurse is sent to a small Irish town to investigate the ‘miracle’ of a young girl who is able to survive without eating. As she spends more time with the girl and her immediate family, the nurse is convinced there is a scientific reason why the girl is able to survive without food. Part detective story, part commentary on the eternal clash between faith and scientific reason, and part angry indictment of predominantly men’s spaces that will not let a woman in, this is a well rendered piece of work. Special bonus: the opening and closing shots which economically convey the magic of moviemaking itself. 
13. HONK FOR JESUS, SAVE YOUR SOUL. This film from first time director Adamma Ebo is structured as a mockumentary and saves its indignation for the very end. It is a funny yet scathing look at the institution of the megachurch in southern United States. In its telling of the fictional account of a pastor and first lady of one such megachurch trying to recover from a scandal and build back their congregation, the film offers, finally, a great opportunity for Regina Hall to demonstrate how good an actor she can be when given the chance. The film has been criminally overlooked for its controversial subject, but gives us that outsider view of the hypocrisy that pervades most religious powerhourses today. 
14. EMILY THE CRIMINAL. Aubrey Plaza is almost always hired to play the smartest person in the room, the one who will cut you down with the slyest, driest retort. But we ignore her versatility at our own peril. When given the opportunity, she can pull off complex characters with easy gait; see the criminally overlooked BLACK BEAR from last year alone. Now this year EMILY THE CRIMINAL gives Plaza a lead role that she chews up with ace commitment. Plaza plays someone crippled by student debt who slowly embarks on at first small, then large jobs that function outside of legal propriety. Each job puts her in greater mortal – and moral – danger, and the film smartly depicts how difficult it is to pull out of a criminal setup once you are already a part of it. For a small independent enterprise, this film gave me more anxiety in my theater seat than any other this year. The action is tightly written and constructed to play out dangerously in real time. In our minds, we repeatedly beg the lead character to walk away, to not make another bad decision. Even as we fully know that we too would lack the luxury of moral fortitude if faced with the same circumstances as the lead character. 
15. BULLET TRAIN. Is this the most misunderstood film of the year? Based on a Japanese manga of repute, all this film wants to be is a lark, a giddy piece of entertainment that would win the admiration of Tarantino. The plot is complex web of players and killers and too smart for this own skin hustlers whose lives cross-connect on the bullet train of question. The labyrinthine plot especially in the first hour where characters and their motivations are thrown at you in rapid succession has turned off many viewers. TOP GUN: MAVERICK came in a close second, but BULLET TRAIN was the film that gave me the giddiest joy in my theater seat this year. Is the plot too complicated? Are these characters impossibly smart? Do they talk with the sort of rapidfire wit that is entirely unrealistic? Yes, yes, and yes. But we go to the cinemas fully aware of the make-believe we are going to see on screen. Sometimes it is good to just to embrace the artifice and go along for a hyper-violent, fast paced ride. Also of note, I believe that years/decades from now, people will look back on the current time as the finest hour of Brad Pitt’s career. Ever since he has embraced the supporting character role, he has been doing work that most other actors lack by way or charm or effortless cool; see also Pitt’s solid turn in BABYLON. 
