The Best Films of 2025, according to Will

It seems as though these articles are just kinda gonna come out a month or two late then. 

Welcome to my ranking of the 10 best movies of 2025, where I learn I should be more careful with what I wish for. Last year, I felt there was a lack of truly great films to choose from (aside from the wonderful Anora). This year I wound up far more spoiled for choice, with the top 4 on this list all rotating through the top spot at one point or another (woe is me, my steak is too juicy). Suffice to say, there will also be a few more honorable mentions this time around. 

As with last year, it goes without saying that I have not seen every film that came out in 2025. Some notable misses would include the third Avatar film, Fire and Ash, the Jennifer Lawrence - Robert Pattinson collaboration Die, My Love, and as with its predecessor, Wicked: For Good. The only film I really want to see that I haven’t yet seen is The Testament Of Ann Lee (however I’ve been putting off this article too long, so I’m just going to pray this ranking doesn’t end up changing later).

Something I didn’t say last year that I want to mention now is that these aren’t detailed reviews of each film, more like brief (ish) highlight reels. There’s a lot more I want to say about these films than I’m able to here. Also, much like last year I didn’t bother with enough genuinely bad movies to make a worst of the year list. Let it be known that the first (last?) place would go to A Minecraft Movie. Which I saw twice. I try not to think about it too much. 

That aside, now to explore a list featuring vampires, conspiracy theorists, a concerningly large number of deeply flawed parental figures, and multiple instances of existential dread. As with the 2024 list, I really encourage you to seek out the films you might not have seen. You might find something that sticks with you. 

A Few Honorable Mentions

Blue Moon - Richard Linklater is one of my favorite directors, Ethan Hawke is one of my favorite actors. Not a huge surprise to see this here. Blue Moon is a biopic following Lorenz Hart, a Broadway lyricist watching his former partner, Richard Rodgers, receive the most acclaim of his career, with a new lyricist and a play Hart despises (it’s Oklahoma!). We spend the film with Hart in a bar, in what results in a very talk-y, single location drama that fittingly feels like a play. Naturally these limitations make this a tricky story to tell, but the director and star of the Before Trilogy happen to know how to make a series of conversations engaging. Ethan Hawke deserves the most praise. His performance as Hart pulls the entire thing together, tearing through the witty and verbose dialogue, snarky attitude, and fake smiles to conceal the deep sadness of a man desperate to know he still matters. 

Bring Her Back - Most consider 2025 to be a great year for horror, a notion that isn’t super well represented on this list (Weapons just didn’t work for me, I don’t know what to tell you). That being said, in a year full of crowd pleasers, Bring Her Back does not get enough love. It’s full of shocking plot turns, it’s willing to go in some absolutely demented directions (the cantaloupe scene, man), it’s got Sally Hawkins playing against type perfectly. But overall, this is a story about people struggling to process grief and hold onto the ones they love. Hawkins’ villain is abhorrent, but the film takes time to make her sympathetic, creating a woman broken enough to do anything to end the pain. In that way, it’s a gorgeous film. It’s also a kinda messed up and gross film, but that’s awesome. 

Black Bag - Steven Soderberg is a director I need to pay more attention to. Black Bag is actually his second release of 2025, and the first, Presence, very nearly made this list. Black Bag’s story takes place in the twisty world of British Intelligence, following a number of couples in the agency as the search for a traitor tests their relationships. This film was a notable bomb in 2025, which sucks, because audiences missed out on an excellent thriller, featuring a stacked cast in Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, and Pierce Brosnan. Aside from boasting a tightly plotted and intelligent script, Black Bag’s greatest strength comes in how it plays with its character dynamics. After all, how are relationships supposed to work in a job where you aren’t supposed to trust anyone?

It Was Just An Accident - The night before the Academy Award nominations were announced this year, I put down my predictions for Best Picture nominees. I correctly guessed 9/10 of them. Apparently it was a mistake to mark this one down (but also did anyone actually put their money on F1 what even is this). Mild bitterness aside, the newest by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi earns my respect just for the nature of its creation (illegally filmed in secret due to the Iranian regime’s habit of imprisoning those who speak against it, including Panahi). Fittingly, IWJaA follows a group of former political prisoners who come across a former tormentor of theirs and have differing views of what to do with him. While Panahi explores distinctly Iranian subject matter, themes such as revenge, justice, forgiveness, survivorhood, and corruption give IWJaA a universal quality that will hopefully keep it from being a hidden gem. The final shot alone makes it deserving of more love. 

Sorry, Baby - This is the first movie on this list that spent a good chunk of time in the top 3. Sorry, Baby takes us on an achingly human exploration of depression and recovery after trauma. First off, Eva Victor is a talent to watch out for, pulling off a beautiful story in their directorial debut, and starring in it to boot. The film features one of the best depictions of mental health struggles I’ve seen. Victor never over exaggerates anything, avoiding a melodramatic depiction. Every erratic action, every desperate reach for a sense of feeling normal again, feels real. There aren’t any overly cinematic bursts of emotions. The emotions are subdued, the pain is quieter (that whole driving home scene, I mean come on). The recovery itself is slow and arduous, and maybe nothing will be the same. But the hope is there. This one deserves to be in the top 10. I mean it when I say I’ve had a very hard time figuring this list out. 

10. One Battle After Another

I feel like this is one people would expect to be higher. Let me just assure you this film is another that spent a lot of time in the top 3. Paul Thomas Anderson is a legendary director for a reason, and this thing is shot beautifully, edited perfectly, and achieves this wonderful balance of funny, at times dark and terrifying, tense, and ultimately hopeful. Leonardo DiCaprio is as good as ever, and yet is still upstaged by newcomer Chase Infiniti (should’ve gotten an Oscar nomination honestly) and surprisingly Sean Penn (I didn’t even know pathetic and goofy could be mixed with intimidating. I have no idea how you get that in a performance). I also need to reiterate how well put together this film is. If you’ve heard anything aout the third act car chase, it really is that good. So why is this not higher up? Weirdly, I think it could very easily be if I rewrite this in a few years. The emotional crux of this movie revolves around being a parent in a politically divided climate, and the anxiety around their children growing more active in it. I have a strong suspicion that this film will age incredibly well, and for those of us who watch it again as a parent, or at least with a little more mileage, One Battle After Another will hit in an entirely different way. 

9. Train Dreams

Train Dreams is probably the most subdued and low key film here, following the life of railroad worker Robert Grainer (played by Joel Edgerton, who I now realize is a seriously underrated actor) throughout the 20th century. During this time, Robert builds a family, works, and witnesses tragedy and pain he can’t explain. My favorite aspect is the film’s subtlety. This is a film about the passage of time, taking place over 80 years. You don’t see the changes right away, you just sort of notice that the world around Robert has changed beyond recognition, and you didn’t realize it was happening. It’s a quiet and gentle film that some might find too slow, but contains a deeply moving story about our place in the world. It’s worth your time, especially if you can’t get enough of films shot at golden hour. Possibly the best cinematography of the year. Stop sleeping on this thing. 

8. The Chronology Of Water

The last article I wrote on this website was my ranking of the Twilight Saga, in which I made a point to try and shift the blame for the quality of those films off the shoulders of Kristen Stewart. It’s nice to feel even more vindicated in that choice. The Chronology Of Water is Stewart’s directorial debut (which she also wrote), adapting the memoirs of swimmer and writer Lidia Yuknavitch. This film is in no way an average, pedestrian, actor-turned-director debut film. It feels less like a plot and more like a semi-abstract stream of consciousness, flowing through Lidia’s traumatic life and self discovery. It’s hard to explain how she does it, but once you get on this film’s wavelength and get used to the approach, it really works. It also has one of the best performances of the year. Imogen Poots portrays Lidia as a deeply flawed and complex figure who spends a long time hurting herself and others. It helps that the script doesn’t psychoanalize Lidia. A lesser film would do more to hold the audiences’ hand, but Stewart simply presents Lidia as she is. I can’t explain how hard it would be to create the film in this way and still have it work this well, especialy as a first time writer and director. This film is also harrowing. As much as I would love these films to get more attention, Chronology Of Water is an incredibly raw exploration of abuse and the fallout of that. It’s a difficult, difficult watch, and I do feel I should warn people of that. I’m not sure I’d watch it again, but I’m glad I saw it at all. 

7. Marty Supreme

As a director, Josh Safdie seems to be carving out a very specific niche for himself: down on their luck yet overly ambitious guys making a series of poor decisions in pursuit of success, getting increasingly in over their heads in films that are frantic, stressful assaults on the senses. This time, Safdie follows Timothee Chalamet as Marty Mauser, a ping pong player determined to be the world champion, and his efforts to reach the Championship in Japan by any means necessary. I’ve never really gotten the Timothee Chalamet hype. To me he’s been good, great even, but I’ve always found the admiration a tad hyperbolic. In Marty Supreme, he earns it. This is a disgusting character, using and manipulating anyone who gets close enough for him to do so, and overall being a narcissistic, cocky jerk. And yet, Chalamet perfectly pulls off the fast talking wit and charisma that keeps Marty’s head above water, so much so that the audience falls into the same trap as the people he abuses, no matter how obvious his intentions. As I described earlier, Marty Supreme really is another example of the tried and tested Safdie formula (the typical fast paced, loud, and overwhelming Safdie style is also used to great effect. Anyone who can make ping pong look intense deserves praise). But it feels like an evolution of what came before rather than a retread. This isn’t just a depiction of another character who doesn’t know when to quit or a manipulative emotional abuser. It’s Safdie’s most glaring takedown of the mindset (or “hustler grindset” as it were) that fuels such behavior, depicting the sort of person that will sacrifice family, friends, and even dignity for a shallow dream of success. 

6. No Other Choice

There’s always at least one film in my yearly top 10 that makes me say this: WHERE WERE THE GODDAMN OSCAR NOMINATIONS FOR THIS? Anywho. No Other Choice is the newest by legendary South Korean director Park Chan-wook. It’s a black comedy following a well paid employee of the paper industry who is suddenly laid off. In order to maintain his family’s wealthy lifestyle, he chooses to kill off the competition for new jobs. For one thing, I adore the premise alone. For another, I love the performance by lead actor Lee Byung-hun (another like Joel Edgerton in the sense that I did not know he was this good). But overall, this is a deliciously dark film with a number of layers, some easy to see, others less clear (the ending with the main character’s young daughter tied this whole thing together perfectly). There are a number of well explored themes that I love, but am choosing not to list because I want people to discover them for themselves. The fact that this didn’t get nominated for even Best International Film is incredibly frustrating to me. Again, this is another film that deserves some more appreciation. 

5. Bugonia

So yeah speaking of black comedies, Yorgos Lanthimos. Kind of his whole deal. Lanthimos’ newest film follows two conspiracy theorists who kidnap the CEO of a pharmacutical company under the belief that she is a disguised alien. The vast majority of the film takes place in the theorists house, where the CEO in question is locked in the basement. On paper this is a thin premise for a 2 hour movie, yet Lanthimos packs every second with one of my favorite scripts of the year. For one thing, the excellent tonal shifts between anxious tension and hilariously dark humor. Writer Will Tracy also packs this with little twists and drip-fed bits of information that make it genuinely hard to piece together what exactly’s going on. I feel like I’m going to pick up on a lot more details upon each rewatch. Lead actors Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone absolutely make the most of this as well, especially with the fact that both of their characters seem like bad people and it’s impossible to know who to side with. Of course, newcomer Aiden Delbis deserves praise as Plemon’s cousin and the tragic beating heart of the film, an audience surrogate torn between believing his domineering cousin and Stone’s seemingly helpless captive. Bonus points for one of the most memorably bonkers third acts of the year. I’ve heard a lot of different interpretations of it, and it makes for such a fun movie to discuss with people. 

4. Rental Family

There really haven’t been that many feel good movies on this list have there? Luckily we have Rental Family, our newest addition to the Brendan Fraser renaissance. Here Fraser plays Phillip, an actor based in Japan stuck in minor roles who comes across an unusual job offer: working for a company that employs actors to stand in as friends and family members for clients. From here, director Hikari crafts a story about the nature of feeling empty and the nuances of human connection. Fraser of course continues his winning streak with a gentle, compassionate turn as a man seeking some sort of purpose, but he’s supported by a number of strong performances, my favorite being Akira Emoto as a retired, fading actor and one of Phillip’s clients. The story may not be as layered as some of the other films on this list, but it’s important to acknowledge that layers and complexity isn’t always essential to great films. Sometimes art can be as simple as good actors and a good director reminding you what it means to be connected and matter. Honestly, I teared up a little in the theater, and I don’t get to say that often. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the mark of one pretty solid film to say the least. 

3. Sentimental Value

And now, a Norwegian tragicomedy about the downsides of having a filmmaker as a father. Sentimental Value follows Nora and Agnes reuniting with Gustav, their estranged father, as he attempts to gain their involvement in his next film. This is another one of those films that doesn’t hit you with big moments. I find it has a quieter impact, a subtler way of getting into your head and presenting the dynamics of these broken people to you. The highlights here are of course Renate Reinsve as Nora and Stellan Skarsgård as Gustav, selling pain between two people who just don’t know how to communicate with each other. More than being about generational trauma however, it’s a film about communcating through art, and the frustration of trying to say something important but never knowing how. It’s also really nice to look at, and I love how Joachim Trier lets visuals communicate the story for him. Also, thank god Stellan Skarsgård is getting more recognition for this. I’ve been a big fan of his for a while, and this is among his best works.

2. Sinners

I didn’t say Bring Her Back was the only good horror movie this year. On one hand, Sinners works as an incredibly effective horror. The vampires here are terrifying, the survivors’ attempts to fend them off are intense and thrilling, and most importantly, this is a film that takes time to establish who these people are before the horror sets in. When blood starts being spilled, we already care for these characters. Every death feels tragic. For me, that’s the mark of good horror. For another thing, everyone involved here is firing on all cylinders. Michael B. Jordan in a dual role, Hailee Steinfeld, newcomer (another one!) Miles Caton, one of my underrated favs Delroy Lindo, and of course director Ryan Coogler. But Sinners wouldn’t be this high on the list if it was just a great horror movie. This is also a deeply moving film about cultural identity and preserving and integrating it, or losing it, within different societies, and a lot of that is explored through music (everyone who’s seen it is thinking of the exact same musical moment when I say that, I guarantee it. Yes, that is one of the best scenes of the year, I could write a paragraph on that alone). I’m also a sucker for blues music, so I’m definitely a bit partial to the soundtrack (the musician cameo at the end oh my god that blew my mind). 

1. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

In my favorite movie of 2025, Rose Byrne delivered the single best performance of the year. Put her up with Joel Edgerton and Lee Byung-hun as someone I didn’t realize was that good (Miss Byrne I am sorry I should’ve seen sooner please forgive me). Byrne plays Linda, a therapist and mother of a child with a feeding disorder, requiring intensive care and a feeding tube. If I Had Legs is an exploration of Linda’s life under considerable pressure and expectations and her slow, painful breakdown. Byrne delivers an absolute masterclass in selling this here. The slow buildup to each new breaking point is immensely stressful, harrowing, and frustrating as each desperate call for help falls apart or gets ignored. What really makes this film work for me is the genre blending however. Director Mary Bronstein has made a psychological thriller mixed with drama, dark comedy, and in a brilliant move, a very slight touch of ominous horror. It makes for one of the most immersive films of the year, fully enveloping you in Linda’s struggle as she hits low point after low point. A car crash that you want to end but can’t look away from. I encourage you to seek out all of these films, but if I’m going to encourage one above all others, here you go.