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Uncertainty surrounded us this year, the ground metaphorically shifting beneath our feet every day. When the doomscrolling became too much, the movies — one drug of choice — always waited to provide respite from, escape from, or philosophical reflection on our sociopolitical and existential anxieties. Perhaps it was that peculiar uncertainty that saw an uptick in ticket sales this year, in defiance of the “loneliness epidemic.” As Nicole Kidman infamously says on behalf of one theater chain, “Heartbreak feels good in a place like this.”
Even feature-length comedy made a tentative comeback this year: the genre that has of late produced meager results, mostly in poorly made and indifferently promoted streaming titles, made a stand in public spaces again this year. Crowds could laugh together at Liam Neeson in the “Naked Gun” reboot, smile at the deadpan humor of writer-director Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” and even laugh at our own paycheck-to-paycheck woes and fears by way of the Keke Palmer-SZA friendship romp “One of Them Days.” In days like them, it was good to laugh.
The big news around Hollywood in 2025 centered around the influence of the Oval Office. When not trying to cancel late-night hosts for their satirical ribbing, the President of the United States personally greenlit “Rush Hour 4” as he inserted himself into the giant merger details currently remaking the industry. First, David Ellison’s Skydance media swallowed Paramount Global in a deal that hinged on Trump’s approval; now, Netflix appears poised to swallow Warner Brothers Discovery despite Ellison’s last-ditch hostile takeover bid.
What does it all mean for the average movie consumer? We’ll find out soon enough, but it’s more bad news for the people who produce filmed entertainment in a shrinking industry. Worse, like every other industry, Hollywood must “danse macabre” with the specter of A.I.: what now, when screenwriting and acting and even physical production can be outsourced on the relative cheap to one of the massive, energy-sucking data centers springing up to drink our milkshake.
Raoul Peck’s “Orwell: 2+2=5,” one of our picks for best documentary, combines archival newsreels, film clips and contemporary news footage in exploring the career of George Orwell, author the novel “1984.” Courtesy Neon.
But that’s a tomorrow problem. We’re here to celebrate what went right this year at the movies. It was a year when mainstream American cinema again occasioned to reckon with the upheaval of political norms, whether it be the revolutionary race-war comedy of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” Ari Aster’s pandemic-paranoia throwback “Eddington,” the creeping life-size fascism in Jan Komasa’s domestic thriller “Anniversary,” the politically charged violence of father-son drama “Sovereign,” or the dystopian nightmare “The Long Walk,” which the inhabitant of the Oval Office accidentally evoked two weeks ago when announcing his “Patriot Games.”
Read on for Your Friendly Neighborhood Film Critic’s idiosyncratic take on the most intriguing and satisfying films of the year. This year, I’ve lined up some of the runners-up as a kind of “shadow list” built for double-feature viewing. As always, your mileage may vary, but clip and save this list, and you may discover a few new favorites of your own in the new year.
The top 10 films of 2025
10. ‘One Battle After Another’ (HBO Max, Digital)
Leonardo DiCaprio leads a killer ensemble in this satirical tale of the radical left pitted against the far right. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s big-scale revolutionary adventure accidentally landed at the perfect time to reflect a year of civil-rights-violating ICE raids and skewer the moneyed white nationalism behind the New American Order. Pair with: “The Secret Agent” (now playing in theaters). If “One Battle” looks into tomorrow, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s quirky, ’70s-set political thriller offers hindsight on a Brazilian military dictatorship that keeps a set of activist political refugees on the downlow and on their toes.
9. ‘Sorry, Baby’ (HBO Max, Digital)
In a year when the headlines came to be dominated by the Epstein Files, this deeply empathetic comedy-drama (yes, comedy!) explored the upsides and downsides to womanhood under a literally rapacious patriarchy that refuses to die. Writer-director-actor Eva Victor made their directorial debut with this quirky tale of resilience, which hopefully celebrates the nurturing instinct while acknowledging the psychic scarring of sexual assault, all the while reminding us that sometimes, even in our darkest hours, we just need to laugh to stay sane. Pair with: “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” (HBO Max/Digital), Rungano Nyoni’s powerful diagnosis of Zambian sexism, which issues a prescription of breaking from tradition to stand up to male predation.
8. ‘The Chronology of Water’ (local theaters in January)
In another of the year’s auspicious directorial debuts, Kristen Stewart jumps in the deep end of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir. Through non-linear narrative, Stewart paints a distinctive and bracingly daring, boldly fragmentary and psychologically intimate portrait of a young queer woman (Imogen Poots, never better) struggling to come into her own, pursue success, and live her truth even as sexual abuse, depression, and addiction existentially threaten her. Not an easy watch, but shouldn’t be. Pair with: “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” (Digital), a black comedy with Rose Byrne delivering one of the year’s best performances as a mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
7. ‘The Baltimorons’ (AMC+, Digital)
A balm to soothe the savage breast this year, “The Baltimorons” offers the pure pleasures of laughter and two relatable humans falling in love. No ordinary rom com, this indie helmed by Jay Duplass has a charm and warmth that belie its wintry setting as fresh faces Michael Strassner (who co-wrote with Duplass) and Liz Larsen banter with palpable chemistry as a meet-weird situation keeps two lonely souls hanging on (and hanging out) for more. Pair with: “Oh, Hi!” (Netflix, Digital), a black comedy that’s as gleefully dark about (disastrous) dating as “The Baltimorons” is light.
6. ‘The Oslo Trilogy: Sex/Dreams/Love’ (Digital)
Cheating here, but this deceptively casual, quietly ambitious trilogy of films from Norwegian writer-director — and novelist — Dag Johan Haugerud should stick together (even though each film satisfies on its own). Constructed of everyday profundities, confusions and insecurities, the films follow well-drawn characters on humble journeys of self-discovery with no fixed destinations but plenty of conversation and relational negotiation. Pair with: “Splitsville” (Digital, Blu-ray), Michael Angelo Covino’s tonally opposite raucous comedy of relationships flying off the rails and the search for satisfaction … and sanity.
5. ‘Blue Moon’ (Digital)
This one’s for the show-biz nerds in the house. Richard Linklater serves up another Robert Kaplow-penned story — after “Me and Orson Welles” — of artistic neuroses and greatness going hand in hand. Ethan Hawke will break your heart as Lorenz Hart — half of the legendary songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart — jealously weathers the smash opening-night Broadway success of Rodgers’ collaboration with a new partner: Oscar Hammerstein II. Alive with the love of witty dialogue, this esoteric story flies by with theatrical brio. Pair with: “Nouvelle Vague” (Netflix), Linklater’s equally esoteric, equally thrilling recreation of the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s influential debut “Breathless.”
4. ‘Eddington’ (HBO Max, Digital, 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray)
When the arguments stop, the shooting begins in Ari Aster’s sharply scripted, deliberately maddening button pusher. Joaquin Phoenix’s alt-right sheriff squares off with Pedro Pascal’s corrupt left-wing mayor in a film that dares to go there, albeit there being 2020 at the height of COVID paranoia and Black Lives Matter outrage. This black comedy of American division incorporates pernicious conspiracy theories, data centers, anger-fueled internet/cell-phone/talk radio culture, the masking debate, small-town American blight, and false flags to form a prism refracting the truths and lies driving us to something much worse than distraction. Pair with: “No Other Choice” (now playing), Park Chan-wook’s zeitgeisty, dog-eat-dog marketplace murder comedy, which plays like “Kind Hearts and Coronets” were it directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
3. ‘The Mastermind’ (MUBI, Digital)
Kelly Reichardt strikes again, with this highly anxious, highly amusing anti-heist thriller starring Josh O’Connor in his finest of four great performances this year. This is not your father’s “Thomas Crown Affair,” but rather an insinuating genre subversion and a character study of privilege and ambition not unique to America but emblematic of it. Pair with: “Marty Supreme” (now playing), with Timothée Chalamet doing the character work as another American striver whose ping-ponging path to greatness reveals the limits of the American Dream.
2. ‘Resurrection’ (local theaters in January)
Few filmmakers working can rival the visual precision and dark beauty of Bi Gan’s aesthetic, which finds its apex in this sprawling science-fiction fable of infinite ambition. At once a scarcely veiled critique of authoritarianism (poking the bear of the Chinese government) and a meditation on Buddhist belief, “Resurrection” also serves as a tour of 20th-century film history as it makes a heartfelt plea for our continued ability to dream big, including on movie screens. Pair with: “Sinners” (HBO Max, Digital), Ryan Coogler’s ambitiously artful elevated-horror blockbuster that’s as meta-musical as “Resurrection” is meta-cinematic.
And the best film of 2025 goes to:
1. ‘Hamnet’ (now playing in local theaters)
Sometimes nothing satisfies like a classically structured, good old-fashioned awards-friendly drama — at least when it’s as ideally executed as Chloe Zhao’s earthy and deeply moving “Hamnet,” adapted with Maggie O’Farrell from her own speculative historical novel about Shakespeare’s marriage and family. Never contradicting the historical record, “Hamnet” fills in the gaps while exploring the cavernous grief of Agnes Shakespeare and her dramatist husband, who transforms their pain into deathless art. Pair with: “The Shrouds” (Criterion Channel, Digital) A weirder take on grief and loss: David Cronenberg’s deeply personal, deliberately ambiguous musing on the ultimate body horrors of death and decomposition.
Runners-up:
“Misericordia,” “It Was Just An Accident,” “Peter Hujar’s Day,” “Sentimental Value,” “Hedda,” “Sirât,” “Train Dreams,” “When Fall Is Coming.”
Top documentaries
- “Orwell: 2+2=5” (Digital)
- “The Alabama Solution” (HBO Max)
- “The Encampments” (The Roku Channel, Xumo Play, Digital) & “The Librarians” (see thelibrariansfilm.com for upcoming screenings) (TIE)
- “Zodiac Killer Project” (Digital Jan. 6)
- “Come See Me in the Good Light” (Apple TV)
The bottom five films of 2025
5. “Star Trek: Section 31”
This deadly dull streaming feature — starring Oscar-winning world treasure Michelle Yeoh — put another nail in the coffin of the current misguided “Trek” TV regime.
4. “Oh. What. Fun.”
Though the message of gratitude for mothers is a good start, this holiday “comedy”/sad waste of Michelle Pfeiffer gets sadder the more it flop-sweats trying to be funny.
3. “The Home”
Ridiculous, derivative, and starring Pete Davidson, this horror quickie proved there’s no place like wherever this movie isn’t.
2. “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2”
Again? Really?
1.“Bride Hard”
I may have dreamed this nightmare comedy starring Rebel Wilson as a spy trying to be a bridesmaid. Laugh-free but annoyances aplenty.
The animated winners
“Little Amélie or the Character of Rain” (digital)
“Ne Zha 2” (HBO Max, Digital)
“Arco” (local theaters in January)
“Predator: Killer of Killers” (Hulu)
“Boys Go to Jupiter” (Digital)
