I love films as much as the next person, but I’ll be the first to admit that while putting this list together, I found myself constantly questioning my own instincts—moving titles higher or lower than I (keyword: I) initially thought they belonged. Sometimes that was due to social chatter, sometimes critical consensus, and other times just the unavoidable second-guessing that comes with sitting on something for too long. After plenty of rethinking and rearranging, I ultimately decided to trust my gut and present you with my truest-of-the-true Top 30 Films of 2025.
I originally planned to stop at 25—Top 25 of ’25 felt clean and catchy—but the reality is that there were simply too many films hovering just outside that cutoff. Expanding the list to 30 felt more honest to the year I experienced. That’s not to say I don’t deeply love and appreciate the films that landed lower or didn’t quite make the final ranking. Different films trigger different emotions in different people, and there will never be one universally loved piece of art. That’s part of what makes cinema—and art as a whole—so exciting. It’s tribal, it’s personal, it’s messy. Films create communities, subcultures, and sometimes outright devotion. There really is something out there for everyone; you just have to find your thing. These are my things—the films that stuck with me, challenged me, and defined my year.
I should also acknowledge why this list is arriving a bit later than usual. Accessibility played a major role, particularly in the U.S. market. A couple of films I was especially eager to see—The Sound of Falling and Pillion, both of which were already being discussed as standout titles—don’t receive U.S. releases until next month. So I ask for a bit of grace when it comes to the “modest” résumé behind this list: roughly 140 films watched this past year, give or take, and not all of them new releases. Many of these viewings were small independent films, often experienced in independent theaters, and whenever possible I tried to catch Netflix or streaming-first titles during theatrical runs or limited engagements rather than at home.
Narrowing this list down proved far more difficult than I anticipated and was another major factor in the delay. There was constant reshuffling—films swapping places, dropping out, clawing their way back in. In some cases, repeat viewings played a role; a few of these films earned second or even third watches, and if I kept gravitating back toward them, that felt significant. A film that demands revisiting is clearly doing something right.
Before diving in, I also want to highlight a handful of honorable mentions—titles that lingered until the very last stages of editing. Films like Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon, two Richard Linklater projects that explore the inner lives of pivotal artists such as Jean-Luc Godard and Lorenz Hart, narrowly missed the cut. Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind offered a slow, observational take on a 1970s robbery story, finding tension and meaning in restraint rather than spectacle. While I’m not much of a romantic myself, Roshan Sethi’s A Nice Indian Boy genuinely surprised me, challenging societal norms not only through a queer love story, but through its nuanced depiction of cultural belonging and family. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s Freaky Tales delivered a vibrant, anthology-style love letter to Oakland in 1987, packed with nostalgia, personality, and an all-star ensemble that converges in memorable ways.
Other standouts that stayed with me include Companion by Drew Hancock, The Assessment by Fleur Fortuné, and even a few superhero films that felt like meaningful course corrections—James Gunn’s Superman and Marvel’s Thunderbolts* by Jake Schreier, both of which suggest promising futures for their respective franchises. There are countless other films worth mentioning, and undoubtedly some I missed entirely. As the years go on, and as I continue writing, watching, and analyzing, I’ll only get better at preparing these lists in real time and catching early screenings before the calendar turns.
With all of that said, here are my Top 30 Films of 2025.
30. Hedda
Director & Writer: Nia DaCosta
Cast: Thessa Thompson, Nina Hoss, Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nicholas Pinnock, Finbar Lynch, Mirren Mack, Jamael Westman, Saffron Hocking, Kathryn Hunter
Nia DaCosta delivers an entertaining, volatile reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, updating the classic with just enough precision to make it feel urgent rather than ornamental. Centered around a single 1950s London house party, Hedda places Hedda Gabler (a magnetic Tessa Thompson) at the center of a carefully orchestrated social implosion, manipulating guests and situations for her own psychological survival.
DaCosta’s most effective revisions deepen the text rather than overwrite it: queer undercurrents, racial and class-based isolation, and a deliberately ambiguous ending that punctuates the story’s destructive spiral. The gender-swapped perspective adds sharp texture to Hedda’s alienation, while the production design and ensemble performances elevate the tension simmering beneath every interaction. The film’s fractured timeline sustains intrigue, pulling us forward not toward answers, but toward consequences. With Hedda, DaCosta closes out 2025 strong and further solidifies her voice, now complemented by her now-playing entry in the 28 Days Later universe, The Bone Temple.
29. Die My Love
Director: Lynne Ramsay
Writers: Lynne Ramsay & Enda Walsh
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield
In a year saturated with explorations of parenthood and motherhood, Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love stands apart as one of the most quietly unsettling entries. Adapted from Ariana Harwicz’s novel, the film constructs a fractured aesthetic around Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson), mirroring the instability and emotional violence of their relationship.
Ramsay leans fully into discomfort: the film is erratic, nauseating, frustrating, and intentionally abrasive. Lawrence delivers one of her most fearless performances to date, grounding the chaos with a ferocity that reminds us why she remains one of the most compelling actors working today. In a year crowded with formidable female performances—many circling similar themes of postpartum disorientation—Die My Love feels like a hidden gem, refusing sentimentality in favor of something rawer and more volatile.
28. Frankenstein
Director & Writer: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Charles Dance, Ralph Ineson, David Bradley, Christian Convery
A lifelong dream realized, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein thrives not only on reverence for Mary Shelley’s original text, but on a deep understanding of its emotional and philosophical core. Del Toro delivers a faithful yet newly intimate interpretation, allowing the story’s darker corners to breathe in ways previous adaptations often avoided.
Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi anchor the film with extraordinary chemistry, with Elordi emerging as a standout as the Creature—his performance capturing both rage and aching vulnerability as he experiences humanity beyond his creator, Victor Frankenstein. Del Toro reframes the familiar tragedy with renewed empathy, emphasizing introspection over spectacle while still delivering awe-inspiring visuals. What emerges is not just another adaptation, but a deeply human reexamination of creation, abandonment, and moral responsibility.
27. Resurrection
Director & Writer: Bi Gan
Cast: Jackson Yee, Shu Qui, Mark Chao, Li Gengxi, Huang Jue
Would you give up dreaming in exchange for longevity? Bi Gan poses this haunting question in Resurrection, a visually transcendent meditation on memory, mortality, and imagination. The opening alone is unlike anything seen this year, but the film sustains its hypnotic beauty across shifting timelines, bodies, and realities.
Structured as a journey through a man’s final dreams before death, Resurrection invites us into multiple surreal universes—each rich with tension, wonder, and emotional gravity. Rather than assembling a tidy portrait of a life lived, Bi Gan asks us to sit with the consequences of choosing dreams over survival. The result is mesmerizing, confounding, and deeply reflective, urging viewers to consider their own relationship to time, desire, and remembrance.
26. Lurker
Director & Writer: Alex Russell
Cast: Théodore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe, Zack Fox, Havana Rose Liu, Sunny Suljic, Daniel Zolghadri
Parasocial relationships have become an unavoidable reality, especially in a city like Los Angeles. Alex Russell’s feature debut, Lurker, dissects that reality with unnerving precision, charting the transformation of Matthew Morning (Théodore Pellerin) from casual fan to indispensable presence in the orbit of rising musician Oliver (Archie Madekwe).
What begins as ambition quickly mutates into moral ambiguity. Matthew’s escalating behavior forces both the audience and Oliver himself to question where admiration ends and exploitation begins. Russell crafts a tense psychological portrait that refuses easy answers, asking how far artists—and those who orbit them—are willing to go in the pursuit of relevance, success, and validation.
25. 28 Years Later
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Cast: Alfie Williams, Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell, Ralph Fiennes, Edvin Ryding
The 28 Days Later franchise has never shied away from political urgency, and 28 Years Later continues that legacy, even as it subverts expectations. While discourse initially centered on the film’s perceived tonal shift away from relentless zombie horror, Boyle and Garland redirect the focus toward something more intimate and devastating.
At its core, the film is a coming-of-age story anchored by twelve-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), navigating survival alongside his father, Jaime (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). What begins as a ritualistic initiation into adulthood soon reveals deeper threats—not from the infected, but from within the community itself. By reframing apocalypse through the eyes of a child, 28 Years Later delivers its most haunting commentary yet: sometimes the most dangerous systems are the ones we inherit.
24. The Chronology of Water
Director: Kristen Stewart
Writers: Kristen Stewart & Andy Mingo
Cast: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Susannah Flood, Tom Sturrige, Kim Gordon, Michael Epp, Earl Cave, Esmé Creed-Miles, Jim Belushi, Anna Witowsky
A project long in the making, Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut adapts Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir with striking emotional honesty and formal daring. Imogen Poots delivers a career-best performance as Yuknavitch—competitive swimmer, daughter, lover, teacher, writer—ultimately presenting her as a fragmented, searching human being shaped by trauma and survival.
Stewart resists polishing Lidia’s life into something orderly. Instead, she embraces discomfort and imperfection, allowing the film’s nonlinear structure to mirror the instability of memory itself. The imagery is fluid and disorienting, echoing Lidia’s connection to water—formless, shifting, impossible to contain. Memories collide rather than unfold, creating a viewing experience that feels raw, immersive, and deeply personal. It’s not a film about healing so much as one about enduring, and that refusal to offer neat catharsis is precisely what makes it linger.
23. The Testament of Ann Lee
Director: Mona Fastvold
Writers: Mona Fastvold & Brady Corbet
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, Stacy Martin, Christopher Abbott, TIm Blake Nelson, Viola Prettejohn, Matthew Beard, Jamie Bogyo, David Cale
Mona Fastvold crafts a singular historical spectacle with The Testament of Ann Lee, blending religious fervor, musical expression, and feminist reckoning into something quietly radical. Anchored by an extraordinary Amanda Seyfried performance, the film traces Ann Lee’s journey within—and eventual leadership of—the Shaker movement, whose followers believed the second coming of Christ would arrive as a woman.
Spanning years and continents, the film moves rhythmically through devotion, exile, grief, and transcendence. Fastvold’s use of music feels organic rather than ornamental, allowing song and movement to function as emotional release rather than spectacle. Seyfried carries the film with an intensity that captures both spiritual conviction and the immense burden of leadership placed on women who dare to claim authority. In a year with few true musicals, this stands not only as the genre’s strongest entry, but as one of the year’s most resonant meditations on faith, power, and perseverance.
22. Bring Her Back
Directors: Danny & Michael Philippou
Writers: Danny Phillippou & Bill Hinzman
Cast: Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Sally Hawkins, Mischa Haywood, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton
Following the breakout success of Talk to Me, the Philippou brothers return with something colder, heavier, and far more devastating. Bring Her Back abandons levity almost entirely, unfolding as a harrowing meditation on grief, control, and emotional rot.
Sally Hawkins delivers a chilling performance as Laura, a bereaved former counselor who takes in recently orphaned siblings Andy and Piper. What begins as refuge slowly curdles into something far more sinister. Barratt and newcomer Sora Wong ground the film emotionally, while Jonah Wren Phillips’ unsettling presence deepens the sense of dread. The Philippous show remarkable restraint, allowing horror to emerge through atmosphere, implication, and character psychology rather than excess. It’s an unforgiving watch—but one that confirms the brothers as fearless, uncompromising voices in modern horror.
21. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Director & Writer: Rhian Johnson
Cast: Josh O’Connor, Daniel Craig, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Thomas Haden Church, Daryl McCormack, Jeremy Renner, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington, Mila Kunis, Jeffrey Wright
Rian Johnson delivers the most introspective entry in the Knives Out franchise, reframing the series’ playful mystery mechanics through themes of faith, moral authority, and institutional power. Josh O’Connor leads as Jud Duplenticy, a disgraced boxer-turned-priest navigating a deadly mystery within a deeply insular church community.
Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc remains a welcome constant, but it’s O’Connor who anchors the emotional stakes. Glenn Close is particularly inspired casting, weaponizing devotion and social hierarchy with chilling precision. Johnson layers the narrative with questions about belief, conformity, and the dangers of hive-minded morality, rewarding repeat viewings with carefully planted details and subtext. Familiar in structure but richer in thematic weight, Wake Up Dead Man proves the franchise still has room to evolve.
20. The Long Walk
Director: Francis Lawrence
Writer: JT Mollner
Cast: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Roman Griffin Davis, Mark Hamill, Ben Wang, Judy Greer, Charlie Plummer, Jordan Gonzalez, Tut Nyuot, Joshua Odjick
Francis Lawrence brings grim clarity to Stephen King’s The Long Walk, adapting the novel into a stark dystopian vision that feels disturbingly relevant. Set in a post–civil war America ruled by a militarized state, the film follows teenage boys forced into a televised endurance contest where stopping means death.
Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson form the film’s emotional backbone, building a fragile bond that makes the inevitable cruelty hit harder. What begins as spectacle quickly reveals itself as an indictment of violence-as-entertainment and a society numbed to suffering. Lawrence resists spectacle for spectacle’s sake, instead letting tension accumulate through exhaustion, fear, and quiet despair. It’s a brutal watch—but one that lingers precisely because it refuses false hope.
19. The Plague
Director & Writer: Charlie Polinger
Cast: Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin, Kenny Rasmussen, Joel Edgerton, Elliot Heffernan, Lucas Adler, Lennox Espy, Caden Burris, Kolton Lee
Set at a boys’ water polo camp in 2003, Charlie Polinger’s The Plague reframes adolescent cruelty as a slow-burn horror, capturing the terror of growing up inside hierarchies you don’t yet understand but already feel trapped within. Puberty, masculinity, and social dominance collide in an environment where belonging is currency, and exclusion becomes a quiet, festering threat. Polinger genre-bends with restraint, allowing the setting itself—chlorinated pools, locker rooms, and sun-bleached cabins—to become sites of dread rather than spectacle.
What makes The Plague so unsettling is its refusal to exaggerate childhood trauma; instead, it observes it with unnerving clarity. The performances, largely carried by a cast of young actors, feel painfully authentic, while the film’s hypnotic visuals and score heighten a sense of looming psychological collapse. Polinger transforms bullying into an existential threat, using horror not to shock but to excavate the lasting damage of isolation at a formative age. By the time the film ends, the question isn’t whether these boys survive the camp—but what parts of themselves are lost in the process.
18. Eddington
Director & Writer: Ari Aster
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Deirdre O’Connell, Luke Grimes, Michael Ward, Amélie Hoeferle, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Cameron Mann
Ari Aster’s most divisive film to date, Eddington plunges headfirst into the psychological chaos of May 2020, weaponizing the discomfort of recent memory rather than softening it with distance. Framed as a dark satire that plays more like a pressure cooker, the film examines conspiracy, governance, and performative morality through the escalating rivalry between Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), two figures whose authority quickly collapses into ego and paranoia.
What makes Eddington so abrasive—and for some, alienating—is its refusal to offer relief. Aster recreates the suffocating atmosphere of early pandemic life with unnerving precision: misinformation spreads faster than truth, ideology replaces empathy, and leadership becomes indistinguishable from personal grievance. Phoenix embodies this collapse with exhausting commitment, while Pascal provides a charismatic counterweight whose own compromises are no less damning. The town itself becomes the film’s most haunting presence, making Eddington feel uncomfortably close to lived experience and impossible to dismiss once it’s over.
17. Marty Supreme
Director: Josh Safdie
Writers: Josh Safdie & Ronald Bronstein
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Kevin O’Leary, Tyler Okonma, Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher
Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme interrogates the cost of obsession through Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a shoe salesman whose ambitions push him toward the unlikely and hyper-competitive world of professional ping pong. Safdie frames Marty’s pursuit of greatness as both absurd and punishing, transforming what could be a sports underdog story into an anxious character study fueled by ego, desperation, and self-mythology. The journey is intentionally exhausting, mirroring Marty’s own refusal to slow down or self-reflect.
Safdie shows little interest in making his characters likable, instead focusing on the collateral damage left behind by unchecked ambition. Marty’s boundary-pushing behavior—legal, moral, and emotional—becomes less about winning and more about validation, leaving the film’s ending deliberately ambiguous. Whether Marty arrives at fulfillment or emptiness is left unresolved, underscoring the film’s central question: when greatness is achieved at all costs, what is actually gained?
16. Bugonia
Cast: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Stavros Halkias, Alicia Silverstone
Yorgos Lanthimos continues his run of cerebral absurdism with Bugonia, a reimagining of Save the Green Planet! filtered through his unmistakable aesthetic and contemporary anxieties. Anchored by Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, the film weaponizes language—corporate jargon, intellectual elitism, and rhetorical manipulation—against characters unequipped to defend themselves. Lanthimos leans fully into tone and structure, crafting a modern fable that feels both playful and corrosive.
What elevates Bugonia is how Lanthimos reframes power as performance, allowing miscommunication and perceived intelligence to become tools of control. The film’s humor is sharp but unsettling, constantly inviting the audience to question who holds authority and why. By the time the film reaches its conclusion, certainty has evaporated, leaving behind a destabilizing meditation on belief, manipulation, and the dangers of mistaking confidence for truth.
15. Weapons
Director & Writer: Zach Cregger
Cast: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Amy Madigan Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, Cary Christopher, Justin Long
Zach Cregger’s Weapons announces itself as a mystery—seventeen children disappearing at 2:17 a.m.—but slowly reveals itself as something far more ambitious and disorienting. Told through fragmented vignettes, the film withholds information with surgical precision, shifting perspectives until the full scope of the tragedy comes into focus. Cregger’s nonlinear structure transforms the suburban setting into a pressure cooker of paranoia, guilt, and dread.
The film’s surprise centerpiece, Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys, becomes emblematic of Weapons’ larger thematic concerns: accountability, denial, and the quiet horrors embedded within communities. Balancing genuine terror with moments of dark humor, Cregger crafts a film that resists easy answers. Its power lies not just in shock, but in how it implicates everyone—forcing the audience to reckon with how tragedy is absorbed, deflected, and ultimately weaponized.
14. Eephus
Director: Carson Lund
Writers: Carson Lund, Michael Basta & Nate Fisher
Cast: Keith William Richards, Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Joe Castiglione, Cliff Blake, Wayne Diamond, Stephen Radochia, Frederick Wiseman
Carson Lund’s Eephus captures the quiet devastation of endings, stretching a single Sunday baseball game into a meditation on memory, ritual, and impermanence. Set within a local recreational league, the film lingers on casual conversations, familiar routines, and unspoken bonds, slowly revealing how deeply ingrained this weekly ritual has become for its players. What appears trivial at first gradually takes on emotional weight.
By allowing the day to unfold organically, Lund creates the illusion of years passing in real time. New faces, old rivalries, and shared histories emerge as the park becomes a living archive of community. When the final pitch is thrown and the lights go out, Eephus leaves behind a profound ache—not just for a game ending, but for the inevitability of change and the fragile permanence of shared memories.
13. Hamnet
Director: Chloé Zhao
Writers: Chloé Zhao & Maggie O’Farrell
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Joe Alwyn, Noah Jupe, Jacobi Jupe, Emily Watson
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet reframes Shakespearean tragedy through domestic intimacy, centering Agnes (Jessie Buckley) and William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) long before grief reshapes their lives. Rather than focusing on legacy or authorship, Zhao constructs a tactile portrait of family—one shaped by mysticism, creativity, and deep emotional interdependence. The film’s naturalistic beauty grounds its mythic undertones.
Buckley delivers a transcendent performance, anchoring the film’s exploration of maternal grief and spiritual endurance, while young Jacobi Jupe brings heartbreaking vulnerability to Hamnet himself. Zhao’s restraint allows sorrow to emerge gradually, culminating in a devastating but tender meditation on loss. Hamnet doesn’t retell a classic—it excavates the emotional wound beneath it, leaving the audience to sit with grief rather than escape it.
12. Sirāt
Writers: Óliver Laxe & Santiago Fillol
Cast: Sergi López, Bruno Núñez Arjona, Richard Bellamy, Stefania Gadda, Joshua Liam Henderson, Tonin Janvier, Jade Oukid
Óliver Laxe’s Sirāt immerses the viewer in a desert rave that feels suspended between transcendence and collapse. Following a father and son searching for a missing daughter amid pulsating music and looming geopolitical tension, the film blurs the line between realism and hallucination. The environment itself becomes disorienting, echoing the characters’ emotional and spiritual unrest.
Named after the bridge between Hell and paradise, Sirāt lives in that liminal space, overwhelming the senses while never losing narrative clarity. Sergi López delivers a raw, grounded performance that anchors the chaos, while Laxe’s use of sound and landscape pushes the film toward something almost ritualistic. It’s an exhausting experience—thrilling, devastating, and unforgettable—one that leaves its emotional impact long after the music fades.
11. The Voice of Hind Rajab
Director & Writer: Kaouther Ben Hania
Cast: Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Clara Khoury, Amer Hlehel
Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab confronts unbearable reality with restraint and reverence, chronicling the events surrounding a young girl trapped under fire in Gaza. Rather than sensationalizing violence, the film centers on the logistical and emotional processes behind rescue efforts, exposing the systemic failures that allow such tragedies to unfold. Its quiet approach amplifies its urgency.
By incorporating real audio recordings and focusing on the Red Crescent’s response, Ben Hania avoids exploitation while preserving the gravity of Hind’s story. The film becomes a devastating indictment of institutional inertia, forcing viewers to confront the cost of delay and indifference. It’s a difficult, necessary work—one that understands art not as spectacle, but as witness.
10. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Director & Screenwriter: Mary Bronstein
Cast: Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien, Danielle Macdonald, Christian Slater, A$AP Rocky
Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You plunges headfirst into the psychological chaos of caregiving, filtering motherhood through anxiety, exhaustion, and simmering rage. Anchored by a ferociously committed performance from Rose Byrne, the film adopts a surreal, almost claustrophobic perspective that mirrors its protagonist’s mental state—one defined by responsibility without relief. Bronstein weaponizes frustration as form, crafting a narrative that feels intentionally destabilizing.
Byrne balances intensity with empathy, grounding the film’s heightened scenarios in emotional truth. Bronstein’s sharp comedic instincts prevent the film from collapsing into misery, allowing humor to surface in moments of absurdity and despair. The result is a nerve-fraying but deeply human portrait of burnout, one that refuses catharsis in favor of recognition. It’s uncomfortable by design—and impossible to shake.
9. Twinless
Director & Writer: James Sweeney
Cast: James Sweeney, Dylan O’Brien, Aisling Franciosi, Lauren Graham, François Arnaud, Chris Perfetti
James Sweeney’s Twinless blends sharp comedy with emotional excavation, using the concept of twins as both narrative device and psychological mirror. Sweeney stars as Dennis, a lonely young man whose fixation on twinhood exposes a deeper longing for connection, while Dylan O’Brien delivers a dual performance that destabilizes the film’s emotional equilibrium. What begins playfully soon reveals darker undercurrents.
Sweeney’s control over structure, repetition, and visual misdirection elevates the film beyond its indie trappings. Humor softens the blow, but the film’s insights into male loneliness and identity cut deep once the laughter fades. Twinless thrives in contradiction—inviting empathy while quietly dismantling it—leaving viewers to reconsider how intimacy, comparison, and self-worth shape personal isolation.
8. Sorry, Baby
Director & Writer: Eva Victor
Cast: Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, Kelly McCormack, Louis Cancelmi, John Caroll Lynch
Eva Victor announces herself as a formidable new voice with Sorry, Baby, a deeply intimate reorientation of survivor-centered storytelling. Drawing thematic influence from Lolita, Victor shifts the narrative lens entirely, prioritizing agency, humor, and emotional specificity over sensationalism. Her performance as Agnes is layered with restraint and vulnerability, capturing trauma without allowing it to define the character’s entirety.
The film’s nonlinear structure mirrors Agnes’s internal fragmentation, gradually rebuilding her sense of self through small, human moments. Victor’s tonal control allows dry humor to coexist with grief, resulting in a film that feels both gentle and resolute. Sorry, Baby isn’t about reclaiming narrative power through confrontation—but through presence, patience, and self-recognition.
7. Train Dreams
Writers: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy, Nathaniel Arcand, Clifton Collins Jr., John Diehl, Paul Schneider, Will Patton
Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is a quiet epic, following Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) across decades of labor, loss, and solitude. The film observes its protagonist with restraint, allowing life to unfold in fragments rather than milestones. Edgerton’s stoic performance conceals immense emotional weight, revealing itself through silence rather than declaration.
Bentley’s naturalistic cinematography and understated narration give the film a mythic quality, transforming ordinary existence into something profound. Train Dreams understands that grief doesn’t always announce itself—it accumulates. By the end, the film leaves behind a lingering ache, reminding us that the most devastating stories are often the ones lived quietly.
6. The Secret Agent
Director & Writer: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Cast: Wagner Moura, Udo Kier, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leone, Carlos Francisco, Tânia Maria, Robério Diógenes, Alice Carvalho, Hermila Guedes, Isabél Zuaa
Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent explores memory as both refuge and weapon during Brazil’s military dictatorship. Wagner Moura stars as Armando, a man on the run attempting to reconnect with his son while navigating political surveillance and personal loss. Filho immerses the film in atmosphere, balancing warmth and paranoia with meticulous control.
Moura carries the film with understated intensity, supported by a cast that enriches its emotional texture. The vibrant setting contrasts sharply with the danger simmering beneath, reinforcing the film’s tension. The Secret Agent is both a political thriller and a meditation on how history is remembered, distorted, and inherited—an achievement of tone, restraint, and moral clarity.
5. One Battle After Another
Director & Screenwriter: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another confronts the cyclical nature of political struggle, examining how revolutionary ideals are inherited, diluted, and weaponized across generations. Through interconnected characters and explosive set pieces, Anderson dissects themes of immigration, extremism, and ideological fatigue with relentless momentum. The film is sprawling, volatile, and unmistakably urgent.
Anchored by towering performances, the film thrives on contradiction—its characters infuriating yet deeply human. Anderson’s command of spectacle never overshadows emotional complexity, allowing personal relationships to carry political weight. One Battle After Another positions resistance as both necessity and burden, acknowledging the cost of fighting endlessly while refusing the comfort of apathy.
4. Sinners
Director & Writer: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo, Miles Caton, Li Jun Li, Omar Benson Miller, Jayme Lawson
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a genre-defying spectacle that fuses horror, music, and historical reckoning into one audacious vision. Set in 1930s Mississippi, the film frames vampirism as both literal threat and metaphor, intertwining religious iconography with racial terror. Coogler weaponizes genre to confront violence that has long existed outside fiction.
The film’s ensemble elevates its ambition, grounding spectacle in emotional urgency. Musical numbers and visceral imagery collide with moments of dread, creating an experience that is as seductive as it is horrifying. With Sinners, Coogler reasserts himself beyond franchise filmmaking, delivering one of the year’s most daring and resonant works.
3. Sentimental Value
Writers: Joachim Trier & Eskil Vogt
Cast: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Cory Michael Smith, Anders Danielsen Lie
Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value constructs an emotional architecture built on memory, art, and inherited pain. Centered around a family home weighted by generations of history, the film navigates reconciliation and regret with quiet precision. Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve anchor the story with performances that feel lived-in and raw.
Trier’s strength lies in accumulation—moments layering upon moments until emotional truths emerge naturally. The house becomes a vessel for grief, creativity, and unresolved longing. Sentimental Value understands that family wounds rarely heal cleanly, but through confrontation, storytelling, and the courage to remain present.
2. It Was Just an Accident
Director & Screenwriter: Jafar Panahi
Cast: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident disguises its political defiance within an intimate, deceptively simple framework. Featuring a largely unknown cast, the film unfolds with emotional immediacy, grounding its critique of injustice in lived experience rather than rhetoric. Panahi’s restraint amplifies the film’s power.
A devastating long take and a haunting final act solidify the film’s impact, leaving viewers suspended between forgiveness and fury. Humor flickers briefly, only to sharpen the tragedy that follows. It Was Just an Accident is both an act of resistance and a masterclass in controlled storytelling—one that lingers with quiet devastation.
1. No Other Choice
Writers: Park Chan-wook & Jeong Seo-kyeong
Cast: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, Cha Seung-won, Kim Woo-seung, Choi So-yul
Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice reimagines Donald Westlake’s The Ax as a searing indictment of modern capitalism and moral erosion. Centered on Lee Byung-hun’s Yoo Man-soo, the film examines how systemic pressure can mutate survival into monstrosity. The question is never whether alternatives exist—but whether they’re truly accessible.
Chan-wook modernizes the narrative through sharp editing, visual precision, and the looming presence of artificial intelligence. The film’s elegance contrasts its brutality, reinforcing the horror of ethical compromise disguised as necessity. No Other Choice is a chilling, timely masterpiece—one that understands how easily humanity fractures when worth is measured by productivity alone.
Lists like this always feel provisional, even once they’re finished. Not because the films themselves change, but because we do. What resonated with me in 2025—stories about power, endurance, obsession, grief, and survival—reflects the year as I lived it, not some objective hierarchy of “importance.” These films didn’t just entertain me; they lingered, challenged, and in many cases unsettled me. They asked difficult questions and, more often than not, refused to provide comforting answers.
No Other Choice rises to the top precisely because it crystallizes so much of what defined this year in cinema: moral compromise shaped by systems larger than the individual, the quiet violence of capitalism, and the terrifying ease with which survival becomes justification. It’s a film that doesn’t let you walk away clean—and neither did 2025.
This list isn’t meant to be definitive. It’s a snapshot—of a year, of a viewing life spent largely in independent theaters, of rewatches that deepened rather than softened impact. If nothing else, I hope it sparks conversation, disagreement, curiosity, or discovery. That’s always been the point. Cinema is alive when it’s debated, revisited, and felt differently by everyone who encounters it.
These were my thirty. Next year’s will inevitably look different—and that’s exactly how it should be.