Yes I know the list is late this year, while I was really behind on things and needed every last second to catch up, I also was waiting on a couple of films I had high hopes for to actually open in Seattle, so forgive the ask to look back on last year when we are already in February. On top of that an unexpected hospital stay delayed it even longer.

So how was 2025 for film? It was pretty damn good. While it may not live up to 2019 which I consider to be arguably the high-water mark for the century, I would consider this to be the best year since COVID permanently changed the landscape. This year had plenty of auteurs making big movies to help create a vibrant top end but also managed to survive some missteps from them (Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme being a clear example). I haven’t gone back to look at past lists, but this also seems to have been a banner year for documentaries with quite a few of them making the list. The list this year represents films from 8 different countries with special congratulations to Norway which had an all-time great year with 3 films making the cut. For as happy with my list as I am with this list, I’m a little disappointed in my volume this year. I feel well short of my normal goal of 100 new releases only seeing 90 this year.

The last thing that I like to check in on is the representation of women filmmakers in the scene as a whole as well as on my list. Looking at the top grossing films of the year only 9 of the top 100 were directed by women which is a down tick from last year and a pitiful amount. My year end list as always ranked much better with 9 out of 25 being directed or co-directed by women or non-binary people.

With my initial thoughts and stats out of the way here’s my year end list.

25. Materialists (Dir. Celine Song)

Starting off the list with a divisive one, I am a huge defender of Celine Song’s deconstructed romantic comedy coming off of her earnest romance Past Lives from two years prior. Materialists stars Dakota Johnson – who I believe is criminally underrated – as a matchmaker for wealthy Manhattanites. Song tries to keep the romantic comedy façade in place as long as possible which may have hurt the film in its initial reception as the movie is much more a commentary on the vapidness of the relationship industry. Johnson’s strengths as an actress is her ability to command dry humor (nothing will live up to her declaration of love for limes to which it turned out she was allergic), and Lucy is the perfect character for her to portray.

24. The Alabama Solution (Dir. Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman)

Composed of interviews from Alabama inmates and shot on contraband cell phones in secret, The Alabama Solution exposes the deadly coverups from Easterling Correctional Facility in Alabama. What began as puff piece on a religious meeting at the facility, once directors Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman were approached off camera by incarcerated men to discuss the conditions at the facility they began a journey that would lead to a years long investigation that took on a matter of life and death for the men in prison after the death of Steven Davis was covered up and lied about to the public.

23. The Perfect Neighbor (Dir. Geeta Gandbhir)

America is racist to its bone, and no film exposed the deep seeded racism inherent in the country more this year than Geeta Gandbhir’s The Perfect Neighbor. Composed of grainy cell phone and police body cam footage, The Perfect Neighbor chronicles Susan Lorincz, a white woman in a primarily Black neighborhood in Florida, as she repeatedly calls the cops on Black children for playing in the lot next to hers which they have every right to do. While the police thankfully don’t take her side and punish the Black residents, they also do nothing to curtail the inevitable tragedy that takes place when, after researching the state’s Stand Your Ground law, Lorincz murders a Black woman by shooting a shotgun through her closed, locked door.

22. Splitsville (Dir. Michael Angelo Covino)

Let it be known that I put a explicitly comedic movie on my year end list. While blunt comedies are not my normal cup of tea, the complete audacity of Splitsville managed to win me over. Absolutely packed with absurd jokes Michael Angelo Covino’s film succeeds not because every joke lands, but because when one fails another takes its place almost immediately. My major complaint with the film is that Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona are largely wasted as the film is much more interested with the men in the film, Kyle Marvin and the director Covino. And while disrespecting Dakota Johnson whom I’ve already gone to bat for in this list should be a criminal offense, Splitsville just worked on me for how extreme it was willing to go.

21. Love (Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud)

A late discovery for me in 2025 was The Oslo Trilogy from Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud: Sex, Love, and Dreams. The middle entry Love was something that it may be difficult to sell others on as it does not sound inherently cinematic, but it touches on a sweet spot for me: European (especially Nordic) films about adults experiencing adult situations. The film follows a doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen), as they both explore the meaning of love to them in their relationships as adults who are uninterested with the idea of settling down and committing themselves to a traditional marriage role. There is just something refreshing about viewing true to life experiences on the screen in between giant spectacle movies.

20. Peter Hujar’s Day (Dir. Ira Sachs)

Ira Sachs is a director who I’ve always wanted to love but had never completely resonated with me before. That all changed with this year’s two hander Peter Hujar’s Day. Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall are two excellent actors to build a film around, and the contained nature of the film allows both of them to give remarkable performances with nothing distracting from their acting. This single conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his writer friend Linda Rosenkratz is somehow both incredibly banal and endlessly captivating. The portrait of an artist is something that it is easy to glamorize even in the mundane and the trio of Sachs , Whishaw, and Hall do just that in this quite yet entrancing piece of film.

19. Predators (Dir. David Osit)

The secret third predator film to come out in 2025 after Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Killer of Killers and Predator: Badlands, Predators is not actually an entry into the sci-fi franchise but is instead a documentary on the legacy of Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator. Shot in three parts, the film examines the original series with an emphasis on the impact it had on the young adult actors who were “decoys” for the predatory men, the legacy of the TV show and the YouTubers who attempt to follow in its shoes, and on Chris Hansen, the host of the show and his feelings on the impact he had. Near the end of the film, director David Osit reveals that he was a victim of predatory exploitation and how that impacts his viewing of the infamous reality television show.

18. It Was Just an Accident (Dir. Jafar Panahi)

I almost worry that Jafar Panahi has made so many films while still technically barred from making them that the subversiveness of each film risks being undersold. It Was Just an Accident is an incredibly brave film for the oft incarcerated director to release. It calls back to the director’s own time in solitary confinement blindfolded while the government interrogated him. Panahi takes these experiences and exposes the atrocities of the Iranian powers while proving that despite the injustices perpetrated upon them, the revolutionaries refuse to fall to the same depths of depravity.

17. Cloud (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a director I need to see more of. Cloud is only my second viewing from the Japanese genre director (I had previously only seen Cure), but it will definitely not be my last. From the first scenes it is obvious that Cloud will be some sort of genre picture, however, what that genre would end up being is harder to pinpoint exactly. Even when the film decides that it wants to be a thriller, Kurosawa transforms it into a mesmerizing action film. By constantly keeping the audience on their toes, the film is one of the year’s most entertaining views, and if it convinces some people to be less awful on the internet lest the people they slight organize together to kill them, that’s a plus as well.

16. 28 Years Later (Dir. Danny Boyle)

One of the biggest surprises of the year for me was Danny Boyle and Alex Garland reuniting 23 years removed to add on to their zombie franchise with 28 Years Later. While their original 28 Days Later is a classic that may be the best example of the early aughts, low-res digital cinema movement, the sequel (28 Weeks Later) in lesser directorial and writing hands was less artistically successful. Last year’s entry, however, brings back a real artistry to the franchise though in a very different way than the first film. Social commentary is very common in zombie films, but 28 Years Later tackles the human understanding of death in a way that other films in the genre have not despite the obvious connection.

15. Black Bag (Dir. Steven Soderbergh)

The first great film of the year was actually Steven Soderbergh’s second release of 2025 (Presence was solid but did not make this list.) Black Bag is an espionage thriller that largely “forgets” to include the espionage though that doesn’t lessen the thriller aspect in any way. What the film lacks in action it more than makes up for in pure sex appeal. Even fully clothed Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender assert their dominance as two of the sexiest people alive. The ooze sensuality through their smoldering demeanor, and Soderbergh plays that sensuality up to delectable results. Even if the food they make is lightly poisoned, it would be impossible to deny their request for a dinner party.

14. Dreams (Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud)

The second of Haugerud’s Oslo Trilogy to make the list – despite loving these two, Sex actually fell quite lower on my total rankings – Dreams was my favorite of the bunch, and I’ll admit that the sapphic central story definitely had something to do with that. A seventeen-year-old’s crush over her teacher becomes a scandal when she writes a novel length narrative of the relationship the two have and the yearning that first loves bring with it. An intriguing motif in frequent shots of stairways. They represent moving from one period of a life to the next, and without exception they are all brilliantly photographed often times in very eerie manners.

13. . Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (Dir. Sepideh Farsi)

The penultimate documentary on this list is a devastating reminder that the world is still in the midst of an ongoing genocide in Gaza, and that the “ceasefire” is in name only. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk centers around director Sepideh Farsi’s video calls with 25-year-old Palestinian, photojournalist Fatima Hassouna. Hassouna lives in Gaza and works sharing the destruction of the Occupied Palestinian Territory with the outside world. While she begins the film surprisingly happy despite her situation, as the film progresses hope leaves her eyes and she becomes distracted or dissociated on calls with increasingly worse internet. The end credits inform the viewer that this story ends the only it could have given the world’s collective turned blind eye.

12. Blue Moon (Dir. Richard Linklater)

I will happily admit that I’m a mark for a showy filmmaking gimmick, especially if that gimmick is done at the hands of Richard Linklater. Blue Moon is both a single location film, as well as a nearly one man show. Playing real lyricist (and real alcoholic) Lorenz Hart at the end of his working relationship with Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), Ethan Hawke reminds audiences that he is an exceptional actor, especially when working with Linklater. While Scott along with Bobby Cannavale as Eddie the bartender, Patrick Kennedy as E.B. White the author, and Margaret Qualley as Elizabeth Hart’s protégé whom he has a crush on provide Hawke different people and perspectives to bounce off of, Blue Moon remains a singular performance.

11. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Dir. Mary Bronstein)

This is where it gets really hard. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You would have been an easy top five film any other year, but in 2025 it can’t even crack the top 10. Mothers going through it has been a popular genre of film as of late (Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love just missed this list at number 26). Mary Bronstein’s entrant into this genre may be the most affecting one yet. Shot primarily in uncomfortably close close-ups or Linda (Rose Byrne), a mother being asked to single parent a high needs child while her husband is away for work, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is not for those with a weak heart. The film is significantly more stressful and horrific than any of the horror films released this year, despite the “comedy” genre the film is often labeled with. In any other year in the past decade, Byrne would be walking away with an Oscar for her phenomenal performance, but this year she’s in all likelihood destined to be runner up to a film higher on this list.

10. My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow (Dir. Julia Loktev)

The final documentary on the list was predestined to hit with me. A five-and-a-half our Russian documentary about a group of people resisting Putin’s regime just speaks to me. Julia Loktev makes the exact use of the long runtime in a way that I find most compelling. She manages not only to focus on the work that these people are doing in conflict with the Russian government, but also on their lives outside of work. The entire middle section of the film mostly spending time with the TV Rain journalists as they celebrate New Year’s Eve. Building this parasocial relationship with the reporters makes their impending exile hit all the harder

My extended thoughts on the film can be found here.

9. The Secret Agent (Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)

A year after winning its first ever international feature Oscar for I’m Still Here, Brazil is in serious contention to repeat with Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent. Set in late 70’s Brazil during Carnival, the film centers on Oscar hopeful Wagner Moura as Armando or Marcelo, a man who is not inherently political though has managed to make powerful enemies, nonetheless. A favorite part of The Secret Agent for me is its willingness to meander down tangents without resolving them. The remaining mysteries left unexplained build a world that is endlessly fascinating. The hair leg is more powerful as a myth than had it been explained.

8. Sinners (Dir. Ryan Coogler)

Not going to lie, after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, my faith in Ryan Coogler had fallen pretty substantially, but I will not doubt him again after this film which manages to be both contained and still worthy of the “epic” superlative. At times the film can feel overstuffed and a little bloated, but all that can be forgiven as the highs of the film are so high. The “I Lied to You” scene in particular will be used in montages explaining the power of cinema for the foreseeable future. Also, any film that dedicates as much time to the importance of cunnilingus as Sinners is an automatic winner.

7. One Battle After Another (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

It is a little weird knowing that having the most recent Paul Thomas Anderson film at “only” number seven on my year end list puts me significantly outside the critical consensus. Like I said, this year the top of the list is packed! Equal parts farcical and thrilling, One Battle After Another is destined to win a bucket full of Oscars. There is so much to praise about the film, but I want to highlight two things in particular. Jonny Greenwood’s score is a perfect piece for the film, which would not succeed nearly as well with a lesser non-diegetic accompaniment. Secondly, despite being devoid of any real action, the climatic car chase is one of the tensest scenes committed to celluloid.

6. Marty Supreme (Dir. Josh Safdie)

Between the disappointing Ethan Coen film Honey Don’t! and the battle of the Safdie brother pictures, 2025 was the year we learned which brother in famous American directing pairs had the juice and which ones did not. While Benny’s The Smashing Machine wasn’t awful, Josh’s film Marty Supreme blew it out of the water. The Timothée Chalamet vehicle is oozing with the kinetic propulsion that made the brothers famous in the first point, and the somewhat episodic New York period piece captures it in a way that may be slightly less stressful than the likes of Uncut Gems and Heaven Knows What, but still manages to pack a significant punch in its slightly easier to digest package. It’s extremely hard for me to pick a best score of the year as 2025 had many brilliant ones, but Daniel Lopatin’s work here is definitely in contention.

5. Train Dreams (Dir. Clint Bentley)

Netflix has become a bit of a pejorative in film circles lately. The leaked information that they specifically request that characters in their films speak about the plot and what they are doing in the moment so that viewers can follow along while distracted with their phone is antithetical to an artistic vision of cinema. Train Dreams despite being distributed on Netflix has none of these second screen optimizations and is in contrast an extremely visual forward piece of poetry. Robert Grainier’s (Joel Edgerton) life feel eons away from ours even if we later see that it is closer in time than we thought. Still the emotions experienced by Grainier resonate throughout time.

My extended thoughts on the film can be found here.

4. Sorry, Baby (Dir. Eva Victor)

Since the beginning of the Me Too movement, cinema has been attempting to capture how “the bad thing”, as it is called in Sorry, Baby,leaves a lasting impact. Eva Victor’s take on processing the trauma of the event is innovative in structure and tone which allows it to paint a more complex picture of recovery. Between non-linear storytelling, extensive usage of levity and humor, and a gut punch of an ending monologue, they deliver a stupendous first picture that will justifiably clean up any and all debut feature awards.

3. Hamnet (Dir. Chloé Zhao)

While if you follow the same people I do on Bluesky you might assume that the field of film criticism is a bunch of women and David Ehrlich, in reality it is still primarily a boys’ club despite the progress that is being made. This boys’ club mentality made itself unfortunately known with the prevailing backlash to Hamnet online; specifically that it is emotionally manipulative. To that I say, fair, it is emotionally manipulative, but so are One Battle After Another and Sinners, they just manipulate different emotions. Hamnet being directed by a woman and being a romance means that it manipulates emotions that the boys’ club derides while they forgive Anderson and Coogler. Movies exist to make you feel things, and only one movie made me feel more than Hamnet in 2025.

My extended thoughts on the film can be found here.

2. Sentimental Value (Dir. Joachim Trier)

Despite loving Trier’s last film, The Worst Person in the World, and Elle Fanning being likely my favorite young actress, I still came into Sentimental Value with some hesitancy. Given its placement on the final list, that was obviously for not as I found the film to be utterly brilliant. A family drama at its heart, Sentimental Value relies heavily on the power of art as a theme for expressing feelings when other forms of communication breakdown. Maybe the most impressive part of the film to me was that at the half way mark, I thought the film was juggling far too much and that it would never be able to nail the landing, but it did with a brutal gut punch that left me rather stunned.

1. The Testament of Ann Lee (Dir. Mona Fastvold)

In 2024 my number two film of the year was a Daniel Blumberg scored epic about a European Immigrant being worn down by America directed by Brady Corbet and written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold. In 2025 my number one film of the year is a Daniel Blumberg scored epic about a European Immigrant being worn down by America directed by Mona Fastvold and written by Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet. In my opinion, The Testament of Ann Lee manages to surpass The Brutalist by managing to increase the spectacle of the 70mm behemoth by turning it into a musical, albeit an unconventional one. This film has etched its place in my soul and I assume it can only increase in my estimation as it sits as a part of me through the rest of the decade.

My extended thoughts on the film can be found in my review here.