The Best Movies Of 2025

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

It was a bad year for the human race (although I have hopes that it will slowly start getting better this coming year), but a good one for movies. 

Ignore the naysayers who say it was an off-year. My list of the year's best includes a fairly tight top 10 and a solid second 10 that excludes a number of other good movies that I would have been glad to include there.

There are still at least five major movies I have yet to see - Charlie Polinger's "The Plague" (coming to my neck of the woods on Jan. 2), Jim Jarmusch's "Father Mother Sister Brother" (Jan. 9), Park Chan-wook's "No Other Choice" (Jan. 16), Bi Gan's "Resurrection" (Jan. 16), and Mona Fastvold's "The Testament of Ann Lee" (Jan. 23) - as well as some others such as Bradley Cooper's "Is This Thing On?" (Jan. 9) and Kaouther Ben Hania's "The Voice of Hind Rajab" (who knows). As I see and review these films, I'll add them to the list, if warranted.

Overall, it was a decent enough year for American movies. The ones in my top 10 include what I believe to be the year's best horror movie, a film that I think was the most neglected picture of 2025, and a movie in the top slot that was way ahead of all of its competition. That film captured our present moment better than any other I've seen. It was a gangbusters year for foreign films, with movies from Iran, Brazil, Spain/Morocco, and Norway all making their way into the top 10.

There were a number of very good movies that didn't crack my top 20 to which I wanted to give a shout out - including "On Swift Horses," "Sunfish and Other Stories," "Misericordia," "A Desert," and "The Ballad of Wallis Island."

And, yes, you'll notice that Ryan Coogler's much acclaimed "Sinners" (reviewed here) is also missing. While I liked the film and thought it was good, it just wasn't one of my favorites of the year. I found myself much more compelled by its first half before it turned into a vampire movie. Overall, still thought it was a solid film and I wouldn't feel the need to debate anyone who included it on their own list.

So, here are my 10 runners up for the year:

20. Highest 2 Lowest (Spike Lee) - Reviewed here
19. Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro) - Reviewed here
18. Blue Moon (Richard Linklater) - Reviewed here
17. Jay Kelly (Noah Baumbach) - Reviewed here
16. Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater) - Reviewed here
15. Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh) - Reviewed here
14. If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You (Mary Bronstein)
13. Train Dreams (Clint Bentley) - Reviewed here
12. The Friend (David Siegel and Scott McGehee) - Reviewed here
11. Sorry Baby (Eva Victor)

And the top 10:

10. A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow) - Reviewed here
  9. Hamnet (Chloe Zhao) - Reviewed here
  8. The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonca Filho) - Reviewed here
  7. Weapons (Zach Cregger) - Reviewed here
  6. It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi) - Reviewed here
  5. Sirat (Oliver Laxe) - Reviewed here
  4. Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie) - Reviewed here
  3. The Life of Chuck (Mike Flanagan) - Reviewed here
  2. Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier) - Reviewed here
  1. One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson) - Reviewed here

Review: Marty Supreme

Image courtesy of A24.

Marty Mauser is a fast-talking huckster who uses people and has no deficits in the confidence department. He also happens to be an incredible ping pong player, and will stop at nothing to raise the money to pay for his overseas travels to compete in world tournaments. As portrayed by a very good Timothee Chalamet, Marty talks a mile a minute and is always scheming and trying to throw others off balance to get what he wants. 

Director Josh Safdie employs a unique method to translate Marty's personality into the film's overall visual and aural style. From its opening scenes, the film is meant to disorient you. The picture opens in 1952, but it's shot in the style of - and employs the acting method of - 1970s character studies about flawed individuals. The soundtrack is populated by 1980s New Wave music and includes some well-considered needle drops by Tears for Fears, The Korgis, and an especially solid usage of Peter Gabriel.

When the film opens, Marty is working at a shoe store in New York City that he later (sort of) robs, although he only takes the money that he's owed but that his boss (a relative) is withholding in an attempt to bribe him into becoming a manager. He is having an affair with a childhood friend, Rachel (Odessa A'zion), whom he will later impregnate and draw into his schemes, much to the chagrin of her ill-tempered husband (Emory Cohen).

Once he has raised enough money and fled to London to take part in a world championship ping pong tournament, he ends up in the orbit of a rich pen salesman, Milton Rockwell (Kevin O'Leary), and his once-famous actress wife, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow). But while he glides his way to the top of the tournament - there's a great match between Marty and a pal in which they show off to impress Kay in the audience - he ends up losing to a Japanese player, Endo (Koto Kawaguchi, a real-life ping pong champion), whose impenetrable style of playing is difficult to defeat.

Nursing his wounded ego, Marty returns to America, only to find himself mixed up in numerous schemes and on the run from various individuals, all the while trying to convince Rockwell - while sleeping with his wife behind his back - to fund a rematch with Endo in Japan ahead of the next world tournament.

During its middle section, "Marty Supreme" takes some surprising turns - there's a search for a gangster's missing dog, Rachel's pregnancy, Kay's return to the stage, and the introduction of a fellow con artist portrayed by rapper Tyler the Creator, who along with Marty takes part in a ping pong hustling scheme at a bowling alley that's among the film's best sequences.

Meanwhile, Safdie - who started his career with his brother Benny by churning out gritty, low-budget New York-centric crime sagas such as "Heaven Knows What," "Good Time," and the superb "Uncut Gems" - populates the film with a Who's Who of New York figures, from legendary director Abel Ferrara as the aforementioned gangster to Fran Drescher, Sandra Bernhard, Penn Jillette, and even grocery store magnate John Catsimatidis. 

It's an amusing - and, perhaps, not entirely inconsequential - time to release a film, which is dominated every minute by Chalamet's committed performance, about a slick American huckster who is constantly burdened by the thought that he might not be considered as anything other than the best at everything he does. The manner in which he responds to failure also rings a familiar bell to another New Yorker, albeit one of unfortunate national consequence, who has a massive - though unwarranted - ego. 

For a movie about table tennis, "Marty Supreme" is often thrilling and the high-octane matches alone are worth the price of admission. As I'd mentioned, Chalamet is a real force of nature in this film as the titular character, who might at the same time be the smartest and most annoying person in the room at any point in the picture. This is a great character study and one of the year's most memorable movies.

Review: Song Sung Blue

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

Some critics have complained that Craig Brewer's "Song Sung Blue" tugs a little too hard at the heartstrings, but what they fail to mention is that when it does it's a relief from the surprisingly bleak turn the film takes about halfway through its running time.

The film comes amid a wave of recent music biopics - "A Complete Unknown," "Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere," "Elvis," the upcoming "Michael" and the Cameron Crowe film about Joni Mitchell - but what differentiates it somewhat is that the film is about a duo about whom most viewers, unless they're from Milwaukee during the 1980s and 1990s, haven't heard.

The picture follows the true story and struggles of Mike (Hugh Jackman) and Claire Sardina (Kate Hudson), two musical impersonators (she performs as Patsy Cline, he as a variety of entertainers such as Elvis or, much to his chagrin, the occasional Don Ho). She's a single mother of two, while he's a Vietnam veteran who we are led to believe has seen the worst of it and who was a past alcohol abuser. The film opens with him singing a song in an AA meeting.

However, the performer whom he holds in the most esteem is Neil Diamond, whom he claims helped him to get through some hard times (this is not elaborated on), and he therefore refuses to perform as the so-called "Jewish Elvis" because he reveres him too much.

But upon meeting Claire at an impersonator concert - where Michael Imperioli gives a surprisingly believable Buddy Holly tribute - she convinces him otherwise. He performs under the stage name "Lightning" and she decides to join him in the act as "Thunder." 

The first half of the film portrays their often joyous and amusing rise to the top of local Milwaukee talent. There's a particularly amusing - and apparently true - sequence in which Lightning and Thunder are asked to open for Pearl Jam (this is now into the early 1990s) when they pass through town, and a game Eddie Vedder joins them on stage for "Forever in Blue Jeans."

Then, something unspeakable happens that I won't give away - but of which you may be aware if you've read a review or even seen the trailer. One of the members of the duo is incapacitated and goes into a downward spiral that threatens both the act and the marriage after Lightning and Thunder not surprisingly tie the knot.

In between, there's a whole lot of what one might expect when the couple brings their children from previous marriages together, including some not quite surprising strife, although a nice friendship is struck between each of the musician's teen daughters.

But what really surprised me is how dark "Song Sung Blue" gets in its middle section. For a Christmas weekend movie about some Neil Diamond impersonators, it gets a bit dark. The other thing that knocked me a bit sideways was Hudson's vocal abilities. She gives one her best performances here since her breakout performance in 2000's musically inclined "Almost Famous." So, while it didn't surprise me that Jackman could carry a tune - he started out on Broadway - I was impressed by Hudson's vocal talents.

Brewer has long made movies having to do with music, some to solid effect ("Hustle & Flow") and others to lesser effect (the "Footloose" remake). "Some musical biopic cliches aside, Song Sung Blue" is among his better films, and it's mostly due to the abilities of his two leads. Also, there's a running "Soolaimon" joke that I found amusing. This is a movie that I liked a little better than I expected. 

Review: The Secret Agent

Image courtesy of MUBI.

Kleber Mendonca Filho's "The Secret Agent" might be set during an actual historical period - 1977 in Brazil, about halfway through the country's military dictatorship - but it marches to the beat of its own drum from the opening scene. The film may be a period piece during a fraught moment in that country's history - much like last year's very good "I'm Still Here" - but its surreal touches and offbeat narrative turns give it a mysterious, dreamlike quality.

For example, the film opens with Armando (Wagner Moura) - who is going by the alias Marcelo - pulling into a deserted gas station in Recife, located in Brazil's state capital of Pernambuco, in a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle. He spots a dead body just barely covered in newspaper on the gas station's grounds. The station's owner tells him that the body belonged to a man who was shot trying to rob the station and that it has been lying there for days. The police pull up to the station - but rather than investigate the body, which seems not to interest them at all, they search Armando's car and ask for his papers. 

The entirety of Mendonca Filho's offbeat crime drama has scenes like this that take place in the real world but with a sense of absurdity and peculiarity. We won't know until much later in the film why Armando has come to Recife or why he appears to be living on the down low at a boarding house run by a quirky, tiny older woman named Dona Sebastiana (Tania Maria). It's also unclear why a pair of hitmen appear to be on his trail.

Violence is everywhere and often comes unexpectedly, from the body at the gas station to the two aforementioned hit men disposing of a body by tossing it off a bridge. The public seems to be obsessed with "Jaws," which is apparently screening all over town, and with an actual shark-related incident in which a human leg was found in the stomach of one, leading to a grim and graphic autopsy. Later, a shootout outside a police station results in a gory aftermath.

Meanwhile, Armando appears to be taking great risks as he checks in on his young son, Fernando (Enzio Nunes), who is living with his maternal grandfather, Alexandre (Carlos Francisco), who runs one of the movie theaters showing "Jaws." There's also a particularly amusing - and wholly bizarre - series of scenes revolving around audiences' wild reactions to "The Omen," which is also screening there.

Each character in the film seems interesting enough to have their own movie, from Dona Sebastiana, who regales her tenants with stories, to a single mother named Claudia (Hermila Guedes). There is the pair of hitmen, who give off a father-son vibe (although we later learn of their actual relationship) and another man (Kaiony Venancio) hired to pull off an assassination who chews up every scene he's in. 

There's also a corrupt police chief (Roberio Diogenes), a young woman (Laura Lufesi) set in the present time who is listening to recordings from that era for purposes we won't discover until the end, and a former World War II soldier (the late Udo Kier) who is prompted by the police chief in one of the film's strangest scenes to show everyone his war scars.

This is a film that is bursting with memorable characters, shocking outbreaks of violence, surreal touches that one might expect in a Luis Bunuel film, political unrest, and a surprising ending that makes all that has gone on before to be quite moving. And I haven't even touched on the disagreement between Armando and his wife (Alice Carvalho) with a corrupt businessman that set everything in motion - or the disembodied leg that walks around the city at night, randomly kicking strangers (you have to see this to believe it).

Mendonca Filho's previous films - especially "Neighbouring Sounds" and "Bacurau" - also incorporate an offbeat, and occasionally shockingly violent, tone that utilizes surreal imagery, but "The Secret Agent" is his most successful blending of these tones and moods to date. It's one of the year's best and includes one of its finest performances - Moura as the mysterious Armando - although the entire cast's work will likely stick in your mind long after it's over. 

This is not a movie with easy answers or explanations - but it's a fascinating look at the attempt to survive under a brutal dictatorship that rarely goes places you'll expect it to go. It's also a powerful story about the importance of archiving the past and the attempts to fill in the gaps of history. What a strange and unique picture.

Review: Ella McCay

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

On the one hand, it's great to see that James L. Brooks is stepping behind the camera again. The director - whose best work includes "Broadcast News," "Terms of Endearment," and "As Good As It Gets" - hasn't made a feature film in 15 years. 

But it's also unfortunate that his first film in so long, "Ella McCay," never really comes together in a satisfying way, despite having such a solid cast that includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Albert Brooks, Woody Harrelson, Ayo Edebiri, Rebecca Hall, Julie Kavner, Kumail Nanjiani, and Emma Mackey as the titular character.

McCay is an overachiever and the current lieutenant governor of her home state - which is kept sort of nebulous - who suddenly finds herself thrust into the spotlight when the current governor (Albert Brooks), her mentor, is chosen for a cabinet position with the incoming president. 

As McCay becomes the governor, she is faced with a whole lot of problems - mostly of the personal variety - as she attempts to get her agenda in order. Meanwhile, we get numerous flashbacks involving her estranged father (Harrelson), a philanderer who now begs her forgiveness, as well as her eccentric younger brother and the aunt (Curtis) who helped to raise her after her mother (Hall) died.

Then, all hell breaks loose when Ella's shady husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), finds himself mixed up in a payoff scandal and, to make matters worse, attempts to extort his wife for power in her new administration, threatening to do even worse things if she doesn't agree to his demands.

One of the biggest problems with "Ella McCay" is that it positions its lead character as a hard working, overachieving person who isn't great at fundraising - as Brooks' character was - or connecting with people on a personal level, but who has the drive and passion to see things through (in this case, it's a bill that benefits women with young children).

And yet, the film - which is supposed to depict McCay's first few days in office - finds her doing nothing but being bogged down in personal problems all day long. When she's not trying to fend off Harrelson's pleas for reconciliation or dealing with the machinations of her sleazy husband, she's mostly slumped on the couch of her awkward brother (Spike Fearn), occasionally stoned, and trying to deal with his big emergency: He hasn't left the house much lately and has romantic troubles.

By the time we get to the point that the state legislature wants to force her out of office - for the scandal involving her husband trying to pay off a reporter not to publish a story about how he and Ella sort-of accidentally used an apartment considered state property for their sexual rendezvous because she was too busy to spend time at home - it's not hard to see why, though for different reasons - she hardly seems to be doing the job.

One thing that "Ella McCay" seems to understand about politics is how a scandal can quickly metastasize and overwhelm a public figure. But it doesn't seem to understand much else. We hear early on that her approval rating upon entering office is 81 percent (something that in our polarized country sounds like pure fantasy) and her dealings with other elected officials and the media feel like a somewhat dated Hollywoodized version of the world.

There are some amusing moments, mostly due to the talents of the cast, especially Harrelson and Curtis. Then again, there are some painfully awkward sequences - especially one in which Fearn and Edebiri come to terms with their failed relationship. 

Some of Brooks' previous movies - "Terms of Endearment" or "As Good As It Gets," for instance - managed to be funny, witty, and warm all at once, while others ("Broadcast News") were sharp and insightful. While it's great to see Brooks back at work as a director, this is unfortunately one of his lesser efforts.

Review: Hamnet

Image courtesy of Focus Features.

There have been two great movies in recent weeks - Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value" and, now, Chloe Zhao's "Hamnet" - that have examined how lived experience can result in great art, though the latter's example is of the more extreme variety.

Based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell, "Hamnet" does what so many other films about the Bard have done - fictionalized a moment in the life of William Shakespeare to explain how he created one of his greatest works. The Oscar winner "Shakespeare in Love" was on the light-hearted side, while Zhao's film takes a moment of great anguish and connects fictional dots to explain how he wrote what is considered to be his greatest work, "Hamlet."

Much like Zhao's earlier films, "Eternals" notwithstanding, the film is attuned to the natural settings in which the story is set. The forested area in which Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) lives with his unsupportive father and stern mother (Emily Watson) almost feels like a character - much like nature does in the films of Terrence Malick - in the picture.

It is in the woods that he meets Agnes (Jessie Buckley), whom local lore has pegged as the child of a forest witch, and becomes entranced by her. Against both of their families' wishes, they marry and have three children, two of whom are twins. Those not looking for any of the story to be spoiled should read no further - however, it's no secret that Shakespeare was devastated by the loss of his young son, Hamnet.

It doesn't help matters between William and Agnes that the former must go away for long spells to London, where he is responsible for managing a theater where he puts on his plays. It's curious that the film basically makes no mention of any other Shakespeare work other than the one that we finally see enacted near the film's end.

This is a film - much like some of Zhao's others - that requires patience. It's what you might call a slow burn, but it pays off, especially when Agnes and her supportive brother (Joe Alwyn) make a surprise visit to the theater in the months after Hamnet's death and witness the first performance of "Hamlet." The filmmakers allow the production of the play to act as a means of healing between the brokenhearted Shakespeare and his wife in an extended scene that might have not worked in the wrong hands, but is extremely powerful here.

Mescal gives one of his best performances as Shakespeare, although his character feels more like a supporting role to Buckley, who gives one of the year's best and most devastating portrayals as Agnes. There's a fair amount of drama on display, not surprisingly, after the death of their child, but it's in two other scenes that each actor especially shines - Mescal as he impatiently gives direction to actors rehearsing for "Hamlet" and Buckley as she has what appears to be an almost spiritual connection to the young man playing the Danish prince onstage.

Much like the recent "Sentimental Value" - in which a movie director who has long been a non-presence in his grown daughters' lives writes a deeply personal screenplay as a means of healing his family through the creation of a movie - "Hamnet" also explores how lived experience can result in great art. In this case, of course, that experience is a tragedy - and one that experts on the life of Shakespeare might claim is a stretch to explain the creation of "Hamlet." Whether there's any truth in this fictional account is mostly unimportant because, as art, it works.

Zhao's "Nomadland" is among the best films of the 2020s so far, but her follow up - the Marvel movie "Eternals" - was widely considered a major flop (while I wasn't particularly wild about it myself, it's not nearly as bad as all that). If she was considered to be in need of a comeback, "Hamnet" is it.

Review: Jay Kelly

Image courtesy of Netflix.

"It's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself," Sylvia Plath said. "It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all." 

This quote appears before the credits of "Jay Kelly," Noah Baumbach's latest film that stars George Clooney in the titular role of an actor who has used his profession to mostly avoid responsibility for others, the result of which is that he has one daughter, Daisy (Grace Edwards), who runs off to be with her friends after graduating college, rather than spend the summer with him, and another, Jessica (Riley Keough), who actively avoids him.

The only person who appears constantly by Jay's side is Ron (a very good Adam Sandler), his personal assistant who believes that his client is also his friend but whom Jay points out collects 15 percent of his earnings. As the film opens, Jay has just finished shooting a movie and is about to jump right into another - something which we are led to believe is probably common for him to avoid much downtime - when Ron tells him about a film festival in Italy that wants to give him a lifetime achievement award.

At first, Jay balks at the idea of attending the festival, but thinks twice about it when he realizes that it gives him the chance to essentially stalk Daisy and her friends as they travel around Europe. Because Jay can't travel without an entourage, he is also accompanied by a number of others in his orbit, including his agent (Laura Dern).

But before all this takes place, two important moments occur. Jay learns that the director (Jim Broadbent) whom he viewed as his mentor has died and, at his funeral, he listens as the man's son talks at great length about how his father was rarely present in his life. Then, at the funeral, Jay runs into an old pal, Timothy (Billy Crudup), with whom he started out as an actor. The two go out for drinks and the scene quickly goes south.

Clooney has long been considered one of the last Hollywood movie stars and the portrayal of the lead character gets a lot of mileage out of this. There's a scene in which he's mobbed while boarding a train in Italy - something Clooney has likely experienced in the real world - which then morphs into an amusing sequence in which Jay holds court with all of the passengers in one of the train's cars and goes as far as inviting them to the reception for him at the film festival. 

This may be due to the fact that few others in his life have any intention to attend the festival. His father (Stacy Keach) briefly shows up but there are obvious signs as to why their relationship is frosty, and his daughters want nothing to do with the occasion. Ultimately, Jay only has Ron to depend upon to attend, but Ron often speaks to Jay in the same patient mantras that he also uses toward his young children, with whom he mostly conducts a relationship over the phone as he flies all over the place with Jay.

"Jay Kelly" keeps its central character at somewhat of a remove in the present but deepens his character as he reflects upon moments in the past - most notably, reminiscing on a scene with an actress (Eve Hewson) from a film early in his career and another in which his rivalry with Timothy becomes a little clearer. It's not until the film's finale that Baumbach takes the picture in a direction that's surprisingly sentimental, considering that the film is from the director of "The Squid and the Whale" and "Margot at the Wedding."

While I wouldn't rank "Jay Kelly" among Baumbach's best, it's a very well acted film that ends up packing an emotional punch when it needs to. Clooney is solid in the titular role, Keough makes her few moments onscreen count, and Dern is very good as always, but it's Sandler who steals the show as the devoted but understandably frustrated Ron. 

It's an overall thoughtful film that takes Plath's opening quote seriously as it observes the life of a man who felt the need to fill most of his hours and years pretending to be someone else to avoid having to be himself.