THE BEST (and worst) OF 2025

This is certainly a list of "ranked" films in various categories but it's also a personal log of every new release I watched in 2025. I say this because my personal favorites don't really reflect the movies that you're supposed to have on your 2025 list. This might lead one to believe that I didn't watch many movies this year but I assure you I did. For the last half of 2025 I was out of commission and had nothing to do but watch movies. 

I certainly thought Sinners was fun but I just didn't think it was the culturally defining movie that people are being bullied in to thinking it is. I was indifferent towards everything from Weapons and The Long Walk to almost every superhero/comic book movie. I absolutely hated One Battle After Another, and was let down or disappointed to varying degrees by personally anticipated films like Friendship and Highest 2 Lowest. Emma Stone gave it her all for a pretty bad movie (Bugonia), Johnathan Majors participated in a feature length humiliation ritual (Magazine Dreams) and the superhero fatigue is in full effect. I guess I appreciate the continuous theme of looking at America through varying degrees of cynicism (Eddington, Bugonia, One Battle After Another, Highest 2 Lowest, Sinners), but everyone's final executions mostly fell flat or couldn't stick a proper landing.

As disappointing of a year that 2025 was for movies, I still managed to scrape together a top 10 along with an honorable mention of other pretty good movies that the year had to offer. And with the exception of all the films in the last category, I was able to write about everything listed below. So if you're looking for some insight as to why I put each movie in to their respective categories - click the titles underneath the images to be taken to my review/thoughts/rants.

1-2: Personal favorites (10 out of 10. No notes)

Timestalker / Train Dreams

3-5: Personal favorites (2nd tier)

The Smashing Machine / Lurker / Nevermore : The Raven Effect

6-9: Personal favorites (I wouldn’t blindly recommend these but I liked them very much)

Where To Land /Vulcanizadora  

Rats / Slugs

10: Personal favorites (Didn’t completely work but I still liked it or found something positive or interesting about it)

Eddington

Special Category: I know the director (but the movie is still great!)

Secret Mall Apartment

Honorable mention: it’s good but can we calm down a little bit?

Sinners

Honorable Mention: fun mindless entertainment

Sisu: Road to Revenge

Honorable Mention: It’s pretty ok!

The Accountant 2

Honorable mention: somewhat disappointing but there’s still something there

Friendship

Honorable Mention: I dunno what everyone’s problem is. I liked it...

Thunderbolts*

I Did Not Like These:

Pandering Nonsense: One Battle After Another

A movie about football made by someone that has never watched a game of football before: Him

Spike Lee is officially out of touch: Highest 2 Lowest

The humiliation ritual award: Magazine Dreams*

 The SyFy Channel movie award: War Of The Worlds

No real category to put these in but I found something worthy to write about:

Captain America: Brave New World

The Woman In The Yard

Other movies I saw this year that I just have no real strong opinion on and didn't have the motivation to write about:

Weapons

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

28 Years Later

Kraven

F-1

Frankenstein

Knives Out 3

Heads Of State

Caught Stealing

After The Hunt

The Long Walk

Bring Her Back

Fantastic Four

Bugonia

Superman

Random movie thoughts from 2025:

-Emma Stone gave it her all for that??? (Bugonia)

-The Bresson award: Ryan Bader (The Smashing Machine)

-This is what everyone thought The Beast (2023) was (Timestalker)

-It's always nice to see Shea Whigam show up in a movie (F-1 & Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning)

-The Terrence Malick award (Train Dreams)

-This seems to be the movie he always wanted to make (he's been making variations of it for years). Now that he's gotten it out of his system - maybe he can make a truly interesting movie (Frankenstein)

-Was I supposed to be laughing this much? (Magazine Dreams)

-People are weird about biracial identities and interracial relationships, aren't they (One Battle After Another, Sinners & Him)

-It seriously wasn't that bad (Thunderbolts*)

-A Hulk sequel without The Hulk? (Captain America: Brave New World)

-Lots of dumb decisions in horror movies this year (Weapons, 28 Years Later, Sinners)

-TAR-sploitation? (After The Hunt)

-Product placement award (War Of The Worlds)

-Finally a black horror movie that isn't trying to be Get Out (The Woman In The Yard)

-The Yorgos Lantimos fatigue sure came, didn't it?

-The Pedro Pascal fatigue sure came, didn't it?

-The superhero fatigue is warranted (Kraven, Fantastic 4, Superman, Captain America: Brave New World)

-I can feel the Tim Robinson fatigue coming (Friendship, The Chair Company, etc)

-Happy to see Hal Hartley return (Where To Land)

SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE

Sisu: Road To Revenge is what you should want in a fun non-groundbreaking sequel (click here to read my thoughts on the first film). There’s continuity, the tone is the same, there’s a more interesting villain, and the violence/action sequences are upped a little more this time around.

Even the visual references and homages are the same...

The spirit of First Blood is still there

I could talk a whole day about this. What First Blood did to me when / was 10 years old basically changed my life - Jalmari Helander, Collider.com

First Blood / Sisu: Road To Revenge

First Blood / Sisu: Road To Revenge

We still get references to old westerns like Stagecoach

The biggest influences style-wise were a lot of old Western movies - Jalmari Helander, loudandclearreviews.com

Stagecoach / Sisu: Road To Revenge

Stagecoach / Sisu: Road To Revenge

And while it isn’t identical, the usage of chapters is very similar to Inglorious Basterds (chapters one going in to their respective opening scenes are incredibly similar in spirit).

Inglorious Basterds / Sisu: Road To Revenge

This time around, instead of nameless third reich soldiers, “The man who refuses to die” is battling soviet soldiers led by the man who killed his family years ago (there’s a bounty on our protagonist's head for a war crime he committed against the soviet army years ago). It’s important to note that the story is set during the final year of World War 2.
Like I already mentioned, this movie is similar in tone to the first one but takes the action sequences up a notch. Sisu: Road To Revenge is incredibly fast paced and far from boring. Stephen Lang gives the standout performance as the lead villain and arch nemesis to the film's hero. On a sidenote - I like how much Lang has been leaning in to being typecast as the tough menacing older guy in most movies these days (Avatar, Don’t Breathe, Public Enemies, etc).
While we aren’t killing Nazis this time around, the gratuitous violence is still kind of justified. Sisu: Road To Revenge leans in to the 80s stereotype of killing evil Russian soldiers hellbent on destruction.

I don’t mean to call this movie mindless fun as an insult, but it is some of the best mindless entertainment you’ll find in a movie this year.

WHERE TO LAND *UPDATED*

Please don’t treat this like a traditional review. I am a big Hal Hartley fan and pretty biased. Much like his last feature film; Ned Rifle, the band has gotten back together again on a slightly smaller scale. Ned Rifle featured almost every Hal Hartley stock actor from every era of his filmmaking. This time around the movie stars all of his “day ones”: Robert John Burke, Bill Sage and Edie Falco (non-day one Hartley regular Dwight Ewell also makes an appearance). Even the score, done by Hartley himself, is reminiscent of early stuff like Unbelievable Truth and Trust. Just off of those aspects alone, I am very nostalgic. It’s difficult for me to shake all the underlying history associated with Hartley’s latest film (again - do not take this as a traditional review).

Where To Land is extremely meta to Hartley’s life. I know filmmakers don’t always like when critics or analysts forcibly connect events in a movie to their personal life but the story is about a once popular aging semi-retired filmmaker of romantic comedies who’s having a midlife crisis. He doesn’t have any children and is unmarried. He’s drawing up a last will and testament and suddenly wants to stop filmmaking all together and work as a groundskeeper (he develops a fascination with cemeteries). He also may or may not be the biological father to an aspiring young film writer. Because of all these recent changes in his life, everyone around him mistakenly assumes he’s going to die soon when in fact he’s just making arrangements for later in life and is looking to do something new.

I can’t speak to Hal Hartley having a mid-life crisis because I don’t know him, but he is a filmmaker who’s output isn’t as steady as it used to be. He doesn’t have any children and while his movies are considered “art house” or “indie”, they are in fact romantic. Love and romantic relationships are a major part of almost every film he’s made over the last 40 years. 

Speaking of “arthouse” - Hartley makes sure to portray his cinematic-self as a down to earth “every man” instead of a pretentious cigarette smoking artsy filmmaker that dresses in all black. I’m not saying that’s an accurate description of art house filmmakers, but from Bergman to Godard, there’s this basic American SNL/Simpsons stereotype of the depressed artsy filmmaker. Of what little I know about Hartley outside of filmmaking, he’s a very nice guy that’s down to earth (he is from the working class neighborhood of Lindenhurst, Long Island).

Hartley even throws in a self-referencing easter egg. How else am I supposed to take this??

Where To Land

Bill Sage 30 years apart in similar scenes/moments in Hartley's Flirt and Amateur...

Flirt / Where To Land

Not only is Flirt (1995) one of his most romantic films, but it’s also the film he’s most proud of (he said this years ago in an interview for the AVclub).

This is in no way a late period film from a legendary director just going through the motions or "playing the hits", but there are a lot of callbacks to his earlier works...

Theory Of Achievement / Where To Land

Ambition / Where To Land

Trust / Where To Land

  

Another interesting Easter egg is Hartley’s ongoing nod to Godard. After almost 40 years it could be seen as lazy to keep comparing Hartley to Godard, but he certainly goes out of his way to reference or namedrop Godard in his work…

Where To Land

Hartley referencing Godard over the years...

Alphaville / The Book Of Life

Alphaville / The Book Of Life

Oh, Woe Is Me / Henry Fool

First Name Carmen / Simple Men

First Name Carmen / No Such Thing

Band Of Outsiders / Amateur

It’s common for filmmakers to have one of their regular actors play them in their own movie. Both Harvey Keitel and Matthew Modine have played iterations of Abel Ferrara. Denis Lavant has played slightly fictitious versions of Leos Carax throughout their 40 year actor/director relationship. This time around, Bill Sage plays a slightly fictitious version of Hal Hartley. Who better to play "Hartley" than his most regularly used actor?


This isn’t a movie that you just stumble upon. You’re either a Hal Hartley fan like myself that sought this out, or a film critic/writer that covers independent cinema. At this point, Hartley is an American independent film legend so his features will always gain attention from specific publications and journals (this is his first feature in over a decade).
I know this is a contradiction but Where To Land is one of my favorite films of the year but I would only recommend it to other Hal Hartley fans or folks that are in to interesting independent/art films outside of movies that might play at an AMC.

On a personal note, as someone who questioned their morality a lot this year (due to serious health issues which have now been dealt with) and was constantly surrounded by loved ones - it hits close to home when one of my personal favorite directors makes a film dealing with the same stuff.

THE SCHOOL OF DAVID LYNCH: THE CHAIR COMPANY *UPDATED*

Lost Highway / The Chair Company

If you read this blog regularly then you know I hate the term “Lynchian” or when any recent movie/tv show/online skit/whatever gets compared to the work of David Lynch. I’m saying this as a fan of his work. It’s not just that the comparisons are usually bad, but it always gets whittled down and simplified to something “weird” or “goofy”. I don’t deny that there are in fact weird and/or goofy moments in Lynch’s work or that he played a part in his own memefication, but there’s so much more to what he does. There is some thought and a lot of craft that went in to his films but it always gets over simplified to something random or surreal as if David Lynch is the only filmmaker to ever explore surreality. He’s not. And the more people call something “Lynchian”, the more I’m convinced they don’t actually pay attention to his movies and only go off of out of context clips they see on Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.

Recently I’ve seen a lot of people compare Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company to the films of David Lynch and I blindly protested against it in a very overly protective way on behalf of one of my favorite filmmakers. It’s not even that I dislike The Chair Company. I’m enjoying it so far. I love just about anything that Tim Robinson does even if I do feel the Tim Robinson fatigue slowly approaching. But comparing a comedy or anything that can be easily memefied to Lynch’s work always feels cheap to me.

But I went back and rewatched episodes of the Chair Company and now I’m starting to rethink my stance.

Wild At Heart / The Chair Company

 

The overall plot of the show isn’t really something David Lynch has explored, but isolated moments and sequences are starting to feel quite Lynch-esque.

I’ve compiled some visual comparisons below that I’ll be adding on to as The Chair Company isn’t finished yet. But for now I’d like to apologize for my cynicism and pushback. Maybe in this one particular case, the Lynch comparison actually makes sense… 

Lost Highway / The Chair Company

Lost Highway / The Chair Company

Lost Highway / The Chair Company

Lost Highway / The Chair Company

Twin Peaks / The Chair Company

Inland Empire / The Chair Company

Twin Peaks / The Chair Company

Twin Peaks / The Chair Company

Twin Peaks / The Chair Company

Inland Empire / The Chair Company

Mulholland Drive / The Chair Company

Lost Highway / The Chair Company

Blue Velvet / The Chair Company

Mulholland Drive / The Chair Company

Blue Velvet / The Chair Company