Top 10 First-Time Watches of 2025
Kicking off my coverage of the best movies of 2025, I’m starting with my favorite first-time watches in 2025. From filling in a blind spot to discovering hidden gems to catching a movie I had never heard of, I had a lot of new cinematic experiences in 2025, and I wanted to highlight my favorites. This is an unranked list of my ten favorite first-time watches of 2025 and why I liked them so much. You will also notice that no movie from 2025 is on this list, allowing me to highlight a wide variety of movies from several genres and eras. Here are my ten favorite first-time watches of 2025
Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges, 1951)
John Sturges’s film appears to be a Western but is actually a potboiler. Spencer Tracy, in one of the best performances of his career, plays a one-armed man named John Macreedy. Macreedy gets off a train at Black Rock, an isolated California desert town, where he is met with hostility by the local townsfolk. As Macreedy searches for the man he was sent to find, he uncovers something more violent within the town. Tracy is joined by an excellent supporting team, including the likes of Lee Marvin and Earnest Borgnine, and the film was shot in glorious Cinemascope, which gives the colors and textures of the California desert additional pop and layers. Bad Day at Black Rock is a great thriller I want to see on the big screen.
Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1997 thriller shook me to my core when I watched it in October. The film follows a detective (Kenichi Takabe) who slowly starts to spiral out of control when a series of bizarre murders start to stack up in Tokyo. Hypnotic, chilling, masterfully paced, a spectacular performance by Takabe, and a haunting ending, Cure is one of the great crime films of the ’90s.
Deep Cover (Bill Duke, 1992)
I’ve owned the Criterion Blu-ray for a while and finally watched it this year. Why did it take me so long to watch this?! Bill Duke’s brutal cop drama features a smoldering Laurence Fishburne as a cop who goes deep undercover in an L.A. drug ring. Gorgeously shot, a killer soundtrack, and powerful themes of Black identity and systemic racism.
Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001)
There was a superb curation of Altman films on the Criterion Channel this year, which allowed me to dive into the illustrious director’s filmography a little more. While I wish I had watched more of his films, Gosford Park was my favorite first-time watch from him (though The Long Goodbye is a very close second). It features all the hallmarks of a great Altman film: a spectacular cast, overlapping but clear dialogue, intricate plotting and characters, and outstanding cinematography that perfectly captures a vast set, while also being an intriguing murder mystery.
High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
In preparation for Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest in August, I finally dove into Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic, and I’m mad that it took me this long to watch it. Equally heart-wrenching as it is heart-racing, with excellent performances. This might be the best movie of Kurosawa’s career.
It Could Happen to You (Andrew Bergman, 1994)
Andrew Bergman’s It Could Happen to You is a lovely movie about good things happening to good people. Nicolas Cage stars as Charlie Lang, a New York City cop who, after finishing a meal at a diner, realizes he has no money to tip the waitress, Yvonne (a delightful Bridget Fonda), so he promises her half of his lottery winnings if his numbers hit. Sure enough, they do, and Charlie keeps his promise to pay Yvonne, which causes Charlie’s scheming wife to try and take their money. Sweet, funny, and wonderful turns from Cage and Fonda, It Could Happen to You is a great time and the kind of positive movie we hardly see anymore.
Judgement Night (Stephen Hopkins, 1993)
Equal parts a great Chicago movie and a terrible Chicago movie, Stephen Hopkins’s Judgement Night is a rough and rowdy night-from-hell movie with a stellar cast featuring Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., Denis Leary, Jeremy Piven, and a devilishly fun Denis Leary. While it seems like a ’90s junk crime movie, Judgement Night is elevated by its performances and the strong themes dealing with toxic masculinity.
Memories of Murder (Bong Joon Ho, 2003)
I did a complete analysis of Bong Joon Ho’s filmography this year, which allowed me to fill in blind spots I had in the great auteur’s filmography. Of all the first-time watches of Bong’s filmography, Memories of Murder was by far my favorite and could be argued as the best film of Bong’s career. The second film in his filmography is a thrilling police procedural about two detectives who struggle to catch a murderer who is terrorizing rural South Korea. Chilling, captivating, and masterfully made, Memories of Murder might be the best thing I watched in all of 2025, new or old.
Say Anything… (Cameron Crowe, 1989)
I’m not sure how Cameron Crowe’s directorial debut slipped by me for so long, but I finally got around to watching it, and it did not disappoint. While John Cusack showed signs of the actor he would become in later years, I was blown away by the performance of Ione Skye as Diane Court, the overachieving love interest of Cusack. It’s a beautiful and brilliant performance in a film that completely subverts the expectations of an ’80s teen comedy, yet rightfully deserves its place as a classic in the genre.
El Vampiro Negro (Román Viñoly Barreto, 1953)
I had never heard of Román Viñoly Barreto’s El Vampiro Negro (The Black Vampire), but I was intrigued when it was described as “a feminist reworking of Fritz Lang’s M.” M is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I gave the Argentinian horror film a watch. This is a perfect reimagining of Lang’s masterpiece. It has a similar, but more female-focused plot, focusing on the mothers of children who are being stalked by a pedophile, and is just as creepy and chilling as M, while also being brilliantly shot and crafted. I went into this one completely blind, and it did not disappoint.
Follow Kevflix on Twitter, Instagram, and Letterboxd, @kevflix, and Facebook by searching Kevflix.
