The Best Movies of 2025

2025 is officially over, and now it is time for my picks for the best movies of 2025. I thought 2025 was a great year for movies. Easily one of the best of the 2020s. I think I will remember 2025 as an epic year. It felt like there was a real effort to make movies on the biggest scale possible to bring people back to the theater. While we saw tentpole films like A Minecraft Movie, Superman, and Jurassic World Rebirth dominate the box office, films like Sinners and Weapons, both original stories, made waves at the box office and told grand stories. Even films that were mostly streaming, like Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams, felt epic even when watching the films on TV.

We saw great work from legendary directors in 2025. Directors like Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Steven Soderbergh, Park Chan-wook, Jafar Panahi, and Wes Anderson made some of the best movies of their careers. It was another strong year for horror films, with Sinners and Weapons leading the way, along with anticipated sequels like Final Destination: Bloodlines and 28 Years Later. It was a relatively weak year for animated films, but comedies made a comeback with films like The Naked Gun and Friendship, which was a welcome surprise.

I saw 176 movies in 2025, nearly 20 more than last year. There were some movies that I missed, but that will be the case every year, as I am only one man and can only watch so many movies. 

Below you will find my picks for the best movies of the year. I first listed ten honorable mentions: excellent movies that just missed the cut, followed by my personal top ten with a brief analysis of why I chose that movie. Here are my picks for the best movies of 2025.

 

Honorable Mentions

Black Bag/Presence (Steven Soderbergh)

• We got a double dip of Soderbergh in 2025, with a slick, cool spy thriller in Black Bag and an experimental horror film in Presence.

F1® The Movie (Joseph Kosinski)

• Brad Pitt stars in Joseph Kosinski’s big, loud, glossy, expensive, rousing film that’s filled with action, comedy, romance, and great, immersive racing.

The Housemaid (Paul Feig)

• Paul Feig’s bloody, sexy, twisted trashy domestic thriller.

No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)

• Park Chan-wook’s darkly funny thriller features a sensational Lee Byung-hun as a man who goes to desperate lengths to get a job.

Pavements (Alex Ross Perry)

• Alex Ross Perry’s unconventional documentary about the slack-rock group Pavement is unlike any musical biopic I’ve ever seen.

The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson)

• Wes Anderson’s latest is a globe-trotting father-daughter tale that is artfully constructed and features one of the best performances of Benicio Del Toro’s career.

Rental Family (Hikari)

• Hikari’s sentimental film about connection features career-best work from Brendan Fraser.

Resurrection (Bi Gan)

• Bi Gan’s dreamy vision is the most gorgeous movie of the year.

The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho)

• Wagner Maura is sublime in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s political Brazilian thriller.

Together (Michael Shanks)

• Michael Shanks’ delirious body horror film features a jaw-dropping ending.

 

And now, the top ten movies of 2025.

 

10. KPop Demon Hunters (Chris Appelhans, Maggie Kang)

The phenomenon of 2025 deserves its spot amongst the best movies of the year. KPop Demon Hunters, which follows a musical trio who must balance their global stardom with their secret identities as demon hunters, is a bright, colorful, beautifully animated blast of entertainment. It features great songs, cool fight scenes, great humor, and a strong message about identity, belonging, and finding your purpose. It’s a perfect animated movie for kids and adults, and as fun as movies got in 2025.

9. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson)

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is a testament to Rian Johnson and his skills as a writer and director. It’s another thrilling and expertly crafted mystery from Johnson that, despite being the third entry in a franchise that’s only been around for six years, feels fresh and new. It marks the return of our charismatic and quirky detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, pitch-perfect once again) as he tries to solve a murder at a church. It once again features an all-star cast, including a magnificent Josh O’Connor, Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, and Mila Kunis, among others.

What elevates Wake Up Dead Man to one of the year’s best is Johnson’s screenplay. The mystery is great, but Johnson handles themes of religion smartly and delicately. There is nothing cynical about Johnson’s approach, despite modern religion being a cynical subject. Johnson looks at all aspects of present-day Catholicism and gives everybody, from the ultra-believers to those who have never stepped into a church, their say. It’s exceptional work from Johnson and makes me want him to make a new Knives Out movie every year.

8. The Long Walk (Francis Lawrence)

Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson lead the best ensemble of the year in Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a group of young men who enter a contest to walk as far as they can. If they stop, they die. The last one standing gets “whatever they want” as a prize. Lawrence’s film is harrowing, as we watch this group of men go down one by one in hopes of winning the prize. It’s a brutal watch, as Lawrence doesn’t shy away from the violent, nasty, painful journey. But The Long Walk is ultimately a film about hope and friendship, and the finale is a real gut punch. The Long Walk was arguably my biggest surprise of the year.

7. The Naked Gun (Akiva Schaffer)

The Naked Gun is a comedy the likes of which we haven’t seen in years. Akiva Schaffer’s legacy sequel/remake of the Zucker and Abrahams classic is a comedy that isn’t concerned about the quality of the joke, but the quantity. It isn’t looking for one big laugh every twenty minutes; it’s looking for twenty laughs every minute. It’s one of the movies where if you laugh too hard or too long, you’ll miss the next one. And the best part? The jokes are hilarious. Credit to Schaffer and co-writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand for giving us jokes that are at times incredibly clever and at other times remarkably lowbrow, and to Liam Neeson for delivering the jokes with a perfect cadence in a performance I didn’t know he had in him.

Does the plot matter? Definitely not. Are the characters developed? Not even a little. Do we care? Not at all. The Naked Gun is non-stop hilarity for 90 minutes and is the best studio comedy of the decade.

6. Train Dreams (Clint Bentley)

Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is both an American epic and an intimate portrait of a man caught in a changing world. The film follows Robert Granier (Joel Edgerton), a logger and railroad worker at the turn of the 20th century, who witnesses the beauty, loss, and randomness of life. It tells an epic American story but feels intimate due to its perfectly meditative pacing and its focus on Granier and Edgerton’s subtle but brilliant performance. In under two hours, Bentley delivers a rich, lived-in story about getting lost in time.

Train Dreams is a beautiful movie in every way imaginable. Visually, it is one of the best-looking movies of 2025. The cinematography of Adolpho Veloso is extraordinary, immersing us in the stunning locations filled with eye-popping forestry. The score matches the film’s epic but intimate feeling, at times quiet and other times sweeping. Train Dreams’ story and emotion are matched perfectly by its craft.

5. Eephus (Carson Lund)

Eephus is the best baseball movie since Moneyball. It’s a quiet, authentic slice of life about two baseball teams playing the last game in their beer league before the field gets demolished. The players all know each other and vary in age from their early 20s to almost 60. Some are there to get out of the house, some are there to have a beer with the boys, and some are there for the love of the game. Anyone who has ever played in any recreational sport post-college will find some joy in Eephus, whether it’s the umpire having to leave mid-game or the lights turning off early, forcing everyone to turn on their car lights to finish the game.

As the game draws to a close, reality starts to set in for the players, and Eephus becomes a profound and moving look at how we move on in life and how change affects everyone differently. Eephus is a beautiful film hidden beneath tattered uniforms and an old diamond.

4. Weapons (Zach Cregger)

Weapons has a great hook: one night, at 2:17 am, 17 kids from the same class woke up, ran out of their houses, and seemingly disappeared into the night. Nobody knows where they went, nobody knows why they ran out of the house, and nobody can find them.

Weapons lived up to its hook and more. I loved the film when I first saw it, but found it even better upon rewatch.  Weapons is genuinely creepy and terrifying, with some of the best jump scares I have seen in a movie in years. It also features devilish humor and interesting ideas on addiction, grief, and communal anxiety. The world writer/director Zach Cregger builds is complex and intriguing. Cregger crafts a world I want to explore further, whether it’s the happenings with Aldon Ehrenreich’s tormented cop, the life of Austin Abrams’ scene-stealing crackhead, or the aftermath of the events that took place. With Weapons, Cregger solidifies himself as one of the great horror directors and premier original voices working today.

3. It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi)

Shot in secret without permits from the Islamic Republic, director Jafar Panahi, who has been in conflict with the Iranian government several times, made a rebellious political film that is also a top-notch thriller and surprisingly funny. It Was Just an Accident is a tale of vengeance, but also a comedy of errors, as a group of former political prisoners tries and figure out if a squeaky-legged man is the one who tortured them in prison and goes through the wringer to solve this, while also going back and forth between whether or not this is the man they think it is. The events that transpire are unpredictable and masterfully staged, and the film concludes with the best final scene of 2025 and possibly the decade. It Was Just an Accident is arguably the best film from a world cinema icon.

2. One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)

One Battle After Another is the funniest and most entertaining movie of director Paul Thomas Anderson’s illustrious career. Leonardo DiCaprio, in one of his best performances, stars as a former revolutionary who must find his daughter before Colonel Steven Lockjaw (a despicably brilliant Sean Penn), who has been hunting him for years, captures her. Chase Infiniti, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, and Benicio Del Toro round out the stellar cast.

One Battle After Another is a pulsating film. The editing by Andy Jurgenson, coupled with Johnny Greenwood’s jazzy, percussion-heavy score, keeps the film moving at a kinetic pace, zipping through its 161-minute runtime without ever letting up. It features exciting action sequences and is Anderson’s most deeply emotional film, as the film’s heart is about a father trying to save his daughter from his past. One Battle After Another is an exciting, intense, perfectly acted, and expertly directed film, with timeless themes and a strong heart at its core.

1. Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

It was a close battle for number one, but at the end of the day, Sinners has been the movie of the year for me since I saw it back in April. Ryan Coogler’s epic, thrilling vampire-music film was made with blood, sweat, passion, and skill. Coogler is in complete control of his vision, crafting a complex screenplay that blends Black history, white colonialism, the importance of music throughout time, and a vampire origin story. It features a jaw-dropping sequence showing the history of music through time that was, for my money, the single best cinematic moment of the year. Sinners is brought to life by Coogler’s masterclass filmmaking and gorgeous sets, costumes, and songs. Michael B. Jordan pulls double-duty playing twins of differing personalities, but the same goal in mind, and is accompanied by a stellar supporting cast featuring Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Delroy Lindo, Wunmi Mosaku, and Miles Canton in the breakout performance of the year.

Sinners is an important, timely, masterfully crafted, ridiculously entertaining triumph and the best movie of 2025.

 

 

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