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)
3-5: Personal favorites (2nd tier)
6-9: Personal favorites (I wouldn’t blindly recommend these but I liked them very much)
10: Personal favorites (Didn’t completely work but I still liked it or found something positive or interesting about it)
Special Category: I know the director (but the movie is still great!)
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| Secret Mall Apartment |
Honorable mention: it’s good but can we calm down a little bit?
Honorable Mention: fun mindless entertainment
Honorable Mention: It’s pretty ok!
Honorable mention: somewhat disappointing but there’s still something there
Honorable Mention: I dunno what everyone’s problem is. I liked it...
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:
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)
For a more in-depth look in to my 2025 movie year, check out the yearly Wrong Reel year-end episode
I also contributed a more ranked list to the yearly Toronto Film review end of year blog post...
