Best Movies of 2025
Honorable Mentions: Hamnet, Sentimental Value, The Life Of Chuck, Highest 2 Lowest, Black Bag, and Rental Family.
10. The Naked Gun
Considering some of the very good and highly decorated films that make this reviewer's honorable mentions, readers might raise their eyebrows at this selection for not being serious or "important" enough. However, in an era where the news is so often a soul-crushing mix of depressing, horrifying, and sad, it could be argued that laughter is more important than ever—this is also the moral of Preston Sturges' classic Sullivan's Travels. Akiva Schaffer's new installment to The Naked Gun franchise made this critic laugh harder than he's laughed in a theater in a long time. If critics can argue recognition of the horror genre is long overdue, it can also be argued that recognition of comedy is also overdue. Too many 21st century parodies just fall back on lazy pop-culture references, but Schaffer and his co-writers and cast understand what made Airplane! and the original The Naked Gun great.
9. Materialists
Writer-director Celine Song follows her outstanding Past Lives with Materialists, the story of a Manhattan matchmaker (Dakota Johnson) who navigates her own romantic issues with a rich new beau (Pedro Pascal) and her struggling actor ex-boyfriend (Chris Evans). That description makes the film sound trite, but it's a very thoughtful exploration about the perils of romance and how both men and women often enter into it with completely unfair and unrealistic expectations of the other person.
8. Is This Thing On?
Co-writer/director Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On? is an examination of both stand-up comedy culture and a marriage that is struggling to survive. Will Arnett and Laura Dern, both terrific, play a married couple who still care about each other but have grown deeply unhappy. However, once Arnett tries stand-up comedy and Dern, whose character is a former Olympic volleyball player, starts coaching volleyball, they find themselves again and their attraction is rekindled. This is warm, funny, character-based filmmaking.
7. Blue Moon
Movies with unlikable protagonists walk a tightrope. They need to present a warts-and-all portrait of the anti-hero without making the audiences resent spending time with them—critical darlings Raging Bull and Marty Supreme fell short for this reviewer because of their protagonists' loathsomeness. However, writer/director Richard Linklater's Blue Moon, featuring Ethan Hawke as self-destructive lyricist Lorenz Hart, walks that line beautifully. It is the night of the premiere of Oklahoma!, and Hart must face the fact that his former partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) is clearly moving onto greater successes without him. Hart is an annoying alcoholic, but Hawke also captures the charm and sadness behind the man. When a young woman (Margaret Qualley) that Hart is infatuated with tells a story of being spurned by someone she loves deeply and asks if he can relate, Hart replies "No one ever loved me that much" in a way that is matter-of-fact and heartbreaking but not self-pitying. Hawke absolutely deserves his nomination for Best Actor here.
6. Weapons
There are many instances where it feels like modern critics grade horror films on a substantial curve as a sort of over-correction to previous generations of critics and awards ceremonies not giving proper due to classics such as Halloween or The Thing. However, writer-director Zach Cregger's story of how a class full of students abruptly ran from their homes in the middle of the night never to be seen again actually deserves the hype and praise. It works as a mystery, it works as an examination of mob mentality, it's structurally inventive, and, when push comes to shove, it's legitimately terrifying—there are definitely things to like and admire about Best Picture favorite Sinners but one of its main flaws is the film's vampire stuff just isn't that scary. Amy Madigan will probably, and deservedly, win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in her iconic villainous turn here.
5. One Battle After Another
This reviewer has never been much of a Paul Thomas Anderson fan, but credit is due here for Anderson's sprawling, epic action-comedy about a washed-up former revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) who must rescue his activist daughter (talented newcomer Chase Infiniti) from a deranged right-wing colonel (Sean Penn) who has personal reasons to want her out of the picture. There's a lot of laughs to be had from DiCaprio's exasperation as he realizes how out-of-his-depth he is and from a group of superficially pleasant but sinister billionaires Penn aspires to be accepted by. There's a lot to praise, but first-time actor James Raterman also stands out as Penn's chief interrogator. It's an eye-catching debut performance on par with R. Lee Ermey's turn as the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.
4. The Choral
The brilliant Ralph Fiennes plays the conductor of the chorus in a British mill town in the early days of World War I in director Nicholas Hytner's moving tribute to the ways in which artistic creation and performance can soothe the soul even when it seems like the world is falling apart. It's a movie that shines a light on all of its characters flaws while having empathy for all of them. This is another example of how dramas for adults are still being made; viewers just need to seek them out.
3. Wake Up, Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
After a decent-but-nothing-special second Benoit Blanc outing, writer-director Rian Johnson returns to form with this third movie in the series. It centers on the locked-room murder of a charismatic right-wing Catholic pastor (Josh Brolin). The mechanics of the crime are fun to figure out, but the film really excels in its exploration of organized religion, which it shows as something that can either be a very positive force in a person's life or a very negative one depending on the people making the sermons. It's also a reminder that in 2020s America, Hollywood is still capable of making pointed, wickedly funny, and thoroughly entertaining satires of right-wing culture as opposed to ones that feel like hamfisted Sunday school sermons. Josh O'Connor is a revelation here as the well-intentioned young priest who seeks Blanc's help.
2. It Was Just An Accident
Writer-director Jafar Panahi's film follows a disparate group of Iranians who believe they may have found the member of the secret police who tortured and tormented them in prison. However, they are not completely sure it is him, even though they strongly think it is, which leaves them in a moral quandary. The film is a harrowing examination of the indelible mark trauma leaves on people. Whether or not they ultimately choose to take revenge, the pain, physical and emotional, of what they endured will remain.
1. Eephus
On
the surface, writer/director Carson Lund's movie is about two adult rec league
baseball teams playing their final game on their beloved field before it is
paved over to build a school. It's more than that, however. It's a bittersweet
meditation on aging, mortality, and how the passage of time eventually takes
everything from us all. Eephus received highly positive reviews, but as
a true indie, it didn't have the budget to run an awards campaign or even get a
major release—it played for a single week in New Orleans at the Broad. Check it
out.
