The Ten Best Films of 2025
2025 was a great year for good movies, but not a great year for great movies. Not including documentaries, which get their own list, I only awarded seven films my highest four-star rating over the past twelve months, in part because a few of the most acclaimed titles (e.g. Marty Supreme, Hamnet) didn’t hit me as hard as they hit many others. Usually, there are more than ten films in contention, meaning I need to pare down a Best-Of list – a process that can be painful.
It was therefore necessary to reconceive how I do these things. After scanning all the three-and-a-half star movies of the year, I found that there were three that really stuck with me. Pictures I couldn’t stop thinking about, that I was kind of obsessed with. They round out this list and, frankly, they deserve to be here. After all, what’s a year-end recap if not a final chance to celebrate the movies that most worked their magic on me?
These are my picks for the Ten Best Films of 2025:
10. Hurry Up Tomorrow - This movie has a 14% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Of the few critics who did like it, I’m one of only three who gave it an unqualified rave. Visually inventive director Trey Edward Shults teams up with The Weeknd for this semi-autobiographical drama about a pop star who forms a dangerous connection with a fan (Jenna Ortega). Many of my colleagues called Hurry Up Tomorrow self-indulgent. Well, it’s partially about self-indulgence, so that’s fair game. It is also, fascinatingly, about the perverse psychology of fame.
9. Sirat - This French/Spanish co-production follows a worried father (Sergi Lopéz) as he and his young son venture to a rave in the Moroccan desert, hoping to find his missing daughter. What happens is harrowing, thanks in part to a gasp-inducing twist you won’t see coming. Director Óliver Laxe makes the rave culture feel both authentic and threatening.
8. Wake Up, Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery - Rian Johnson’s third entry in the Knives Out franchise isn’t just a top-notch murder mystery, it’s also one of the most sincerely thoughtful movies about religion I’ve ever seen. This one puts most traditional faith-based films to shame.
7. Eddington - Director Ari Aster takes us back to the stressful days of the Covid pandemic for this incisive satire about the political divide in America that has only gotten worse since 2020. Joaquin Phoenix is sublime as the conservative sheriff of a small town who becomes fed up with a society that values compassion and inclusion. In fairness, the movie sticks it to liberals, too.
6. Avatar: Fire and Ash - James Cameron’s sci-fi epics are genuine theatrical experiences. You need to see them on the biggest screen possible, preferably in 3D. This third entry in the franchise builds nicely on what the two previous films established, while offering the most thrilling action sequences of 2025. What a ride!
5. Weapons - Director Zach Cregger tops his box office hit Barbarian with this even more twisted tale about a teacher (Julia Garner) whose entire classroom of kids goes missing. The ever-twisting plot keeps you on the edge of your seat, as do the shocking bursts of violence. Best of all is Amy Madigan, giving a hall-of-fame horror performance as the sinister “Aunt Gladys.”
4. Lurker - This blistering psychological drama follows a Los Angeles clothing store worker (Théodore Pellerin) who, after a chance encounter, ends up inside the inner circle of a pop star (Archie Madekwe). Staying there, however, requires a lot of work, some of it on the devious side. Writer/director Alex Russell investigates the nature of opportunism with his story, which is anchored by two exemplary lead performances.
3. Christy - Sydney Sweeney gives a career-high performance as professional boxer Christy Martin. The boxing aspect of the story isn’t the highlight, though, as Martin’s marriage to her manipulative manager (Ben Foster) proves to be a far more brutal fight than anything taking place inside the ring. Sweeney and Foster are phenomenal, and the film’s precisely observed portrait of a toxic relationship left me holding my breath due to its tension. Christy is Rocky-meets-Star 80.
2. Sinners - Michael B. Jordan gives two of the year’s best performances as twin brothers in Ryan Coogler’s bold, thrilling, unconventional vampire movie. Although it certainly features the bloodsucking creatures prominently, the overall theme has much more to do with Black ownership of business and how threatening that can be to the white establishment. In other words, this is a rare picture that offers scares and provokes thought simultaneously.
And my choice for the Best Film of 2025 is:
1. One Battle After Another - Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is pretty clearly the movie of the year. Its plot, detailing the efforts of a former revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) to save his biracial daughter from the clutches of a white supremacist (Sean Penn), speaks meaningfully to the combative political dynamics currently pulling our country apart. There’s a lot to chew on, but the film is also funny at times, exciting at others, and massively entertaining throughout. No motion picture represents 2025 better than One Battle After Another.
© 2025 Mike McGranaghan