Top 10 Movies of 2025
If I had a week, I still wouldn't have enough time to list all of the ways that 2025 was terrible. You know what wasn't bad, though? Movies.
If I had a week, I still wouldn't have enough time to list all of the ways that 2025 was terrible. You know what wasn't bad, though? Movies. It was a damn good year a the theater. It was an especially great year for studio horror movies (even if Weapons didn't awe me in the way it did the rest of the world).
That made it especially hard to narrow down my Top 10 picks for the year. As always, I feel like I didn't watch enough movies (I watched over 150 films). And as always, there are so many that I either loved or found remarkable but didn't ultimately make it to the top. The Housemaid was my favorite theatrical experience of the year while Rabbit Trap wins my personal Lore Shit™ Award. Meanwhile, heavy hitters like Hamnet, Rental Family, Train Dreams, Hedda and One Battle After Another didn't cross the finish line for me either. (Don't start with me on OBAA. It's exceptional but unforgivably long, and I am not one of the folks the runtime "breezed by" for. If you'd like to yell at me over it, feel free to subscribe for comment privileges!)
My 2025 list might be more basic than recent years, but sometimes the heart yearns for comfort. That feels especially true now.
10) Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Directed By: Rian Johnson
Written By: Rian Johnson
There hasn't been a Knives Out movie that I haven't loved, but I am most certainly in agreement with most of my peers that Wake Up Dead Man is the best of the bunch. (Wake Up Dead Man > Knives Out > Glass Onion, for all of you ranking sickos. But the difference between Dead Man and the original is at a fraction of a point.)
I am a theology nerd to my core, and as a heathen I live for media that challenges Christians to actually live by the words of their god. I struggled with Benoit Blanc not showing up until the second act on first watch, but it's impossible not to be moved by Father Jud's struggle between justice and faith. You can watch it now on Netflix, but if you're extra lucky you might still find it at a theater near you.
9) The Ugly Stepsister
Directed By: Emilie Blichfeldt
Written By: Emilie Blichfeldt
My stance on One Battle After Another isn't my most controversial take of the year. Indeed, it's that The Ugly Stepsister is a better The Substance than The Substance. Tonally, the latter is two separate films, and I struggled getting past the odd superhero-style battle that started the third act. The Ugly Stepsister has no such tonal whiplash. Instead, Blichfeldt delivers one hell of a feature debut by honoring the Grimm fairy tale. Classic storytelling meets modern themes in an exploration of beauty standards and the expectation that women meet them no matter the cost. It's on Shudder. Seek it out immediately.
8) Black Phone 2
Directed By: Scott Derrickson
Written By: C. Robert Cargill
I wasn't sure about Black Phone 2 when it was first announced. While I trust Cargill and Derrickson as a creative team and believed them when they said that they had no intention of continuing the story without the right idea, I had a hard time seeing the vision. I should have had faith. Black Phone 2 doesn't just deliver, it surpasses The Black Phone in quality (and I love The Black Phone). My primary "complaint" about the first film was that it needed more Gwen. Given that Black Phone 2 focuses way more heavily on her, there was very little chance I wasn't going to fall in love. Madelaine McGraw is one of the most exceptional young actresses working today, and I cannot wait to watch the rest of her career unfold. You can rent it now from your favorite platform.
7) KPop Demon Hunters
Directed By: Chris Appelhans & Maggie Kang
Written By: Danya Jiminez, Hannah McMechan & Maggie Kang
I'm still reaching out to Netflix to work out my royalties for the theft of my entire personality in the creation of Mira. My being a walking stereotype aside, KPop Demon Hunters is everything you've heard and more. It's beautifully animated, wonderfully performed, heartfelt, and filled with wall-to-wall bangers. The trio of Mira, Rumi and Zoey fits into the standard tropes when it comes to any team of three, but it's handled so well that it falls more into the "if it ain't broke" category than the "rote" one. There's never a bad time for a "coming together and celebrating our differences" movie, but it made me cry especially hard in 2025. Watch it on Netflix to find that "Golden" isn't even the best song on the soundtrack.
6) Sisu: Road to Revenge
Directed By: Jalmari Helander
Written By: Jalmari Helander
It's appropriate that Sisu: Road to Revenge and KPop Demon Hunters are next to each other on this list, because every time I talk about the Sisu sequel I become the "Yeah? Yeah? YEAHHHHHH!" Huntr/x meme. I like Helander's first entry into the saga, but I wanted every part of it to be more than what it was. More action! More doggy! More fucking up Nazis and fellow Axis members! Sisu: Road to Revenge is "more" on every level. When I walked out of the movie I described it as Mad Max: Fury Road meets the Fast and the Furious franchise, and I stand by that description months later. Road to Revenge is deliciously unhinged and equally heartfelt, and it makes me feel like I can fight a bear. What a joy. You can rent it now on your favorite platform.
5) Predator: Badlands
Directed By: Dan Trachtenberg
Written By: Patrick Aison, Dan Trachtenberg & Jim Thomas
I was in no way prepared for a Predator sequel to be my favorite comedy of the year, but I belly laughed my way through Predator: Badlands with absolute glee. If you know me in any measure, you're very aware of the fact that if it involves a found family I'm probably going to be on board. Badlands is obviously no exception to that rule. Elle Fanning is a hoot as a dismembered Weyland-Yutani synth, and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi delights as the little yautcha that could. Bud is the best little alien since Blarp and, yes, I do mean that as compliment. You can rent Predator: Badlands on your favorite platform.
4) The Life of Chuck
Directed By: Mike Flanagan
Written By: Mike Flanagan (adapted from Stephen King)
I weep from start to finish in The Life of Chuck for reasons that extend beyond the beauty of the project (Scott Wampler forever), but it's one of the few tear-jerkers that I'll happily rewatch again and again. My feeling that we failed this movie in theaters extends well beyond my personal connection to the film, as its exuberance and turmoil deserve to be felt in a larger-than-life capacity. We are specks, we are whole universes... we contain multitudes. Mike Flanagan continues his trend of taking on the unadaptable and making the most beautiful piece of art possible, and if you haven't seen it yet you deserve to start off 2026 with a gift to yourself. You can rent it now on your favorite platform.
3) The Long Walk
Directed By: Francis Lawrence
Written By: JT Mollner (adapted from Stephen King)
It was a big year for King stories. Two of them appearing back-to-back so high up on this list should easily indicate their quality but, unfortunately, The Long Walk didn't get the attention it deserved in theaters either. Cooper Hoffman and David Johnsson's rapport in this film elevates an already remarkable script to an unmissable film. King's story remains frustratingly poignant decades after it was penned, but it's the emotion that those two actors bring to the screen that make a cruel, complex story at once achingly human. You can rent The Long Walk on your favorite platform.
2) Superman
Directed By: James Gunn
Written By: James Gunn (character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster)
All of the other images for my picks are clear and concise, but there was no other choice for Superman than this frame. It's the exact moment in the trailer where I burst into tears after being completely overwhelmed by the idea that this big dumb boy scout was back at the exact moment we needed him. I'm not going into the Snyder war nonsense, but there is no Superman without unchecked earnestness. Where the trailer left me hopeful that aspect of the character was returning, the film itself unequivocally confirmed that the big gall00t from Kansas was back in his purest of forms. I laughed, I cried, I hooted and hollered, and I reveled in the belief that things were going to be OK. Messy, fraught, and frustrated... but OK. Superman is streaming on HBO Max.
1) Sinners
Directed By: Ryan Coogler
Written By: Ryan Coogler
Coogler is yet to deliver a film I'm not in awe of in one way or another (Black Panther 2 remains Marvel's fault in my eyes), but Sinners is on a completely different level for countless reasons. Blending the horrors of the time with vampires; showcasing unfettered Black joy amidst it all; the framing; the score; Coogler's devotion to succinctly teaching millions of men how to please a lady with a few lines of dialogue... king shit. All king shit. I don't know that there will ever be a scene that makes me feel the way the Juke Joint scene in Sinners does again. I was levitating. The movie is streaming on HBO Max.
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