Films of 2025

 

Attribution: Steve Morgan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As usual, there are numerous well-reviewed 2025 films that I did not yet see during the calendar year. Many have been released in recent days and weeks and I won't see them until 2026 -- or later. Still, this year I saw many very good to excellent films from 2025. 

Long-time readers may recall that it used to take great effort to figure out which movies were released this year and which movies I saw. I used to consult various lists, box office numbers, etc. However, now that I'm using Letterboxd, I have a really good feel for the exact movies I saw this year -- and a fairly good idea of which of them were released in 2025. A few of these titles are listed with 2024 production dates, but I'm fairly confident that if they are here, they were not widely distributed in the US until 2025. This includes some that my spouse and I saw at film festivals. 

FWIW, I saw a large number of 2024 films this year too and if I was writing it now, would significantly revise last year's post on the Films of 2024. Indeed, I logged 92 films this year on Letterboxd so the list below is obviously only a sliver of my viewing. 

I write an annual version of this post so anyone interested an use that link to work backwards -- or simply click on the film labels below the post to see a list. 

We attended festivals in Collingwood, Ontario (Blue Mountain viewings are noted with ***) and Indianapolis, Indiana (Heartland is ****) and saw five films in total at those events. We also saw a couple of other films in theaters while traveling -- on a really hot day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and on a festival day in Indy when we could not get good seats for a different movie (** below). Mostly, these movies were streamed on our television, though a few involved library DVDs. 

The first few films I discuss are excellent, but really the top 15 are all worth seeing.

Both of the top 2 films deal with immigration, which confirms that this is a globally important political issue since one is from the US and the other is from France and the immigrants are from Latin America in one and Africa in the other. Paul Thomas Anderson has made a Tarantino-style movie with previous Oscar winners in key roles and Souleymane's Story is a relatively small film with a novice actor. 

Black Bag is a fun spy film that is exceptionally well done with a great cast. 

One Battle After Another

Souleymane's Story ***

Black Bag

It's hard to separate the dozen films in the next group and they cover a diverse array of topics. An interesting spin on a crime story set in Ireland, a modern take on the continuing problem of nuclear armament, and a film about recovery from sexual assault top the list, but the remainder of the films offer something for everyone -- interpersonal drama, the COVID pandemic and its politics/conspiracies, a small town baseball film, a human interest story based on a true story, a UFO movie, etc. Several are subtitled foreign films. 

Sinners has been getting substantial attention so you probably already know about it. I liked the film, but it was not among the very best movies I saw this year. 

Aontas ***

House of Dynamite

Sorry, Baby

Ballad of Wallis Island

Holy Cow ***

Eddington **

Sinners

The Phoenician Scheme

Eephus ***

Roofman **

Bugonia

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Hello Out There ****

This final group includes films that could be worth watching, but I found them to be flawed in meaningful ways. At the top is an AI story, but there's also comedy, social commentary, fun sequels, attempted satire of billionaires, a retelling of a classic superhero story, and the final Tom Cruise Mission Impossible movie. The latter was overly long and predictable, sadly, and far from the best in the franchise. Bridget Jones was a better sequel. 

I was probably most disappointed in Mountainhead because it sounded like a sharp critique of economic inequality and the "billionaire boys [tech] club." Unfortunately, the writing was just so-so and I did not find it that engaging. 

Companion

One of Them Days

Materialists

Friendship

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Mountainhead

Superman

Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

I will update this if I watch any new films before midnight on the 31st. I'm scheduled to be on a long flight and it is hard to predict what might be available and worth viewing. 


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