Enjoyed much more than Dog Man | The Mastermind | My favorite film of 2025 is a deconstructed ‘70s heist flick that looks and smells like an ashtray. It includes a riveting, unscored seven minutes of Josh O’Connor hiding stolen artwork in a barn, and I do not mean that ironically. Gaby Hoffmann achieves more in two scenes than some actors do in their entire careers. |
| Sinners | The consensus is that this is the best film of 2025, and sometimes the consensus is right. The magical dance sequence, with time periods and musical styles converging, would be enough by itself to put this film ahead of everything else. But it also has vampires. And Buddy Guy. And the Delroy Lindo scene that will never stop destroying me. |
| The Alabama Solution | “Enjoyed” is the wrong word, but this has to go near the top. A guided tour of Hell, most of it on shaky contraband phone footage. You can feel the editing prowess, and more importantly, you can feel the brutal violence and dehumanization. |
| Eddington | The most astute reckoning with 2020 as a historical moment that I’ve seen so far. It’s smug and uncharitable toward certain Leftist tendencies, but so am I. And it knows who the real monsters are. |
| Pillion | Gay fetish motorcycle porn, except with emotional resonance and a breakout lead performance from Harry Melling, who’s emerged as one of our subtlest and most skilled character actors. |
| Jay Kelly | Every time I thought I knew what this movie was up to, it pulled the rug out again. In a year of excellent charismatic villains, Jay Kelly is terrifying in the most pedestrian way. |
| Superman | Now, this is how you reboot a franchise. And how you do political allegory in an age when people need that shit spelled out for them. |
Mostly better than Dog Man | The Secret Agent | This year’s scariest film is also a whirlwind of color and music with extraordinary performances. It drags and meanders a bit, but so does memory. |
| Zootopia 2 | Lively character design, fully invested voice performances, and heaps of hidden jokes make this the kind of mass-media product that parents won’t mind watching over and over with their kids. |
| Relay | A good, old-fashioned Hitchcock-esque suspense movie with a twist I didn’t clock until very far in. |
| Frankenstein | Hot humanist Frankenstein’s monster! More Mary Shelley fan fiction than a true-to-source adaptation (complimentary). |
| Materialists | Every complaint about this movie is the point of this movie, from the stilted dialogue to the lack of romantic chemistry to the stifling heteronormativity. |
| Weapons | A tight and clever horror film, satisfyingly big on the psychological creepiness and careful with the shock and gore. |
Enjoyed somewhat more than Dog Man | Goodbye June | Yet another weepy family drama where everyone returns to say goodbye to the family matriarch. The least famous actor in the main cast, Johnny Flynn, runs away with the show. |
| Wake Up Dead Man | I had to ask my Catholic friends to explain what this was commenting on culturally, and it was what I thought, I guess. I hope this remains my least favorite Benoit Blanc film for many franchise entries to come, because I had a lot of fun. |
| Come See Me in the Good Light | The point of this movie is to make you cry and think about gender and death, so it’s successful. My indifference to Andrea Gibson’s poetry kept me from fully investing. |
| One Battle After Another | If not for the hype, I would have loved this quirky, topical suspense romp. With the hype clouding my judgment, every Black woman in this film would have been a more interesting protagonist. |
| Thunderbolts* | The most fun I’ve had with an MCU film* in a while, despite the franchise-wide sense of aimlessness. Florence Pugh is so good in this. |
| DOG MAN |
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Objectively a better movie than Dog Man, but I enjoyed it less | Blue Moon | Depressing, cringey, anachronistic, full of stiff dialogue and stultifying monologues. But Ethan Hawke is tremendous. |
| Train Dreams | I’m sure this is making a grand statement about the myths of the everyman and the American West, but I was very bored. One of the most visually breathtaking films of the year, though. |
| The Phoenician Scheme | In a year when a lot of quirky auteurs leaned into their quirks as hard as they could, Wes Anderson got everyone else (except maybe Lanthimos) to hold his beer as usual. |
| If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You | I admire what this is doing - especially if it’s up to something that most reviewers didn’t seem to catch - but it’s an unpleasant watch. |
Enjoyed it somewhat, but Dog Man wins | Lesbian Space Princess | As cute as the title implies, and Shabana Azeez did delightful voice work. But narratively just enough of a mess that Dog Man wins the round. |
| Bugonia | Yorgos Lanthimos is so deep into his own shtick these days, even the fine performances can’t claw themselves out of the maximalist self-referentiality. |
| Honey, Don’t! | Are we still making lesbian heist movies for straight people? Are we still making ‘90s Coen Brothers movies? |
| Sorry, Baby | The most boring girl from graduate school has a genuinely traumatic experience and melts down in the most boring possible way. At least there’s a cute kitten. |
| Sentimental Value | This takes a very long time to say much less about families or art than it seems to think it does. I tried to analyze my way into appreciating it and instead fell deeper down the resentment hole. |
| Bring Them Down | If you want me to start liking dramas about sad Irish people fighting with each other, best not make the film literally about a feud over sheep. |
Preferred Dog Man, and it’s not close | KPop Demon Hunters | Sometimes you just respect that the cultural moment is Not For You. |
| Mickey 17 | Too many ideas, too many characters, not enough Mickeys 1-16. I keep coming into Bong Joon Ho films expecting to love them and leave feeling like I’m being lectured about sociopolitical concepts I already agree with. |
| SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) | I don’t know if these hagiographic music documentaries are really all the same, or if I’m just learning so much more from A History of Rock in 500 Songs that they’ve become superfluous. |
| The Fantastic 4: First Steps | Not two months after we watched this together, my wife said, “Wait, Natasha Lyonne was in this? As The Thing’s love interest?” Ironically, I remember nothing else from this film. |
| Elio | Dull, charmless, and coated with a Vaseline-like layer of executive meddling. |
| Captain America: Brave New World | I gave Thunderbolts* a pass, but the MCU needs a 10-year break, if not an outright mercy killing. Are they making enough money off these to justify them anymore? |
