2025 just came to a close, which means that the final 2025 movies are coming out (yes, I am aware it’s 2026, but that’s how awards season works—it’s confusing) and we can say goodbye to another year of film. I was fortunate enough to see a great number of new release films (the best of which I will soon unveil), however, I was not able to see everything before making this list. So before I get into what I think are the best films of 2025, here’s a list of everything I intend to watch that I just haven’t gotten to yet (or that hasn’t been released in my area): 

–The Testament of Ann Lee (dir. Mona Fastvold)

–Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (dir. Sepideh Farsi)

–Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (dir. Scott Cooper)

–Play Dirty (dir. Shane Black) 

–The Lost Bus (dir. Paul Greengrass) 

–The Voice of Hind Rajab (dir. Kaouther Ben Hania) 

-Cloud (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa) 

–Sister Midnight (dir. Karan Kandhari) 

–Warfare (dir. Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland)

–Eephus (dir. Carson Lund) 

–On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (dir. Rungano Nyoni) 

–Die My Love (dir. Lynne Ramsay) 

–Is This Thing On? (dir. Bradley Cooper)

12. Avatar: Fire and Ash (dir. James Cameron) 

Like it or not, there’s nothing quite like the Avatar films. We live in an age where—due to serialized storytelling becoming the norm in Hollywood—the lines between television and film have blurred. This has gradually led to the “biggest” movies feeling increasingly smaller. Films like Zootopia 2 feel like the first episode of the second season of a new animated series. This is why it’s so impressive that—as he is wont to do—James Cameron has made three serialized movies that feel bigger than anything we’ve ever seen before. Avatar: Fire and Ash isn’t quite as perfect as Cameron’s last trip to Pandora, The Way of Water, and indeed, it does repeat a few of the same beats, but it never feels overly repetitive—partly because Cameron’s still showing us things we’ve never seen before. And even if there are things we’ve seen before, they’re the type of thing you can only see in an Avatar film (such as my friend Payakan, the space whale), and that’s always welcome. There’s nobody better at this sort of thing than James Cameron and I, for one, cannot wait to see 4 and 5. Whenever those may be. 

11. Jay Kelly (dir. Noah Baumbach)

The tonal line between comedic romp and depressing character study that writer-director Noah Baumbach walks in his new film (about an older movie star reflecting on his life over the course of a few days) is just one of the reasons that Jay Kelly is one of the best films of the year. Another is, of course, George Clooney. It’s impossible to talk about Jay Kelly without talking about Clooney, and it’s an astounding look in the mirror. Regardless if Clooney’s actual personal life really reflects that of Kelly’s, it’s undeniably a personal performance that weaponizes Clooney’s shoe salesman charm. “You know how difficult it is to be yourself? You try it,” Kelly waxes to a skeptical younger woman in one of the scenes. The film is also elevated by a wonderfully classical score by Nicholas Britell, which is just one of the things about Jay Kelly it seems the major awards bodies have overlooked. 

10. The Phoenician Scheme (dir. Wes Anderson)

The Phoenician Scheme isn’t Wes Anderson’s best movie, but it’s still a Wes Anderson movie, which means…it’s still pretty great and a grand ol’ time at the pictures. Benicio Del Toro is perfect in the leading role of Zsa-Zsa Korda, a wealthy businessman with a turbulent relationship with his religious daughter (Mia Threapleton), and the supporting cast is one of this year’s best, with each performance being a little gem (Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston are particularly delightful). Anderson’s new existential trip might not be quite as profound as his last few, but it might be his funniest and a worthy addition to one of our finest living filmmaker’s filmographies.  

9. 28 Years Later (dir. Danny Boyle) 

28 Years Later isn’t necessarily what anybody might’ve wanted out of a 28 Days Later legacy sequel, but it might’ve been what we all needed. It’s entirely standalone from the previous two films, and instead of lore and callbacks, it offers real emotion and introduces us to characters we’ve never really seen in this type of film before. Whether the franchise can sustain this originality and (more importantly) its heart will remain to be seen for another few days before the next installment comes out from director Nia DaCosta. READ FULL REVIEW HERE.

8. Mickey 17 (dir. Bong Joon Ho) 

Once every year, there’s a movie that I love unabashedly. A movie that, when I tell other people how I feel about it, they roll their eyes. It was somewhat of a shock to have that movie this year be the follow-up to Bong Joon Ho’s last movie, the best picture-winner Parasite (which was proclaimed the best film of the 21st century by the New York Times mere months after Mickey 17 was released). Mickey 17, while viewed to some as a disappointing follow-up, is exactly the type of thing I think should be a director’s follow-up to a Best Picture win. It’s weird yet gentle, funny yet dark, big yet focused. It’s not subtle, but Bong’s films don’t take themselves seriously enough for that to be a strain on the characters or film as a whole. The vibes Bong is able to create with this sci-fi trip of a movie are reminiscent of those in a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, and I fell so in love with them. 

7. No Other Choice (dir. Park Chan-wook) 

Speaking of Korean directors, Park Chan-wook’s new film about a laid-off man who convinces himself that the only way he can provide for his family and attain a new job is by killing off the competition for another job sounds like it should be the darkest film of the year. However, it might be the most fun I had all year. There’s very little that’s pretentious about the way Park sets up his new film. For a movie that few would call an action movie, it might have my favorite action setpiece of the year in it (you know the one if you’ve seen the film). Park Chan-wook tricks us into having a total blast with these characters just before he reminds us of how perverted they (and maybe you) really are, and I know I’ll be returning to them very soon. 

6. Peter Hujar’s Day (dir. Ira Sachs) 

Ira Sach’s 76-minute long exploration of what it’s like to be an artist on a day to day basis is affecting on another level and is an incredible acting showcase for Ben Whishaw (who plays the titular character), but what really makes the film is Rebecca Hall (as Linda Rosenkrantz). Hall spends much of the film just listening to Whishaw, but it’s here that the film really shines and we can feel the two lead actors’ real friendship seep through the cracks. It’s quietly one of the most underrated of the year. 

5. The Mastermind (dir. Kelly Reichardt) 

There’s something about writer-director Kelly Reichardt’s new film that feels like it was made especially for me. Maybe it’s that the opening credits feel like something straight out of a Jean-Pierre Melville movie. Or maybe it’s that its protagonist (the—as always, but here especially—terrific Josh O’Conner) is so confident in his own abilities to be an art thief despite almost never pulling off anything he says he’s going to. It’s a slow-burn of a movie, but everything (thematically) clicks into place in the last scene and I anticipate this will soon become a comfort movie for many. 

4. Marty Supreme (dir. Josh Safdie) 

In a year that wasn’t particularly good for America (2026 isn’t off to a great start either), we got a lot of good movies about America. Josh Safdie’s new film about ping-pong player Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet, in a role that’ll probably win him his first Oscar) stands among the very best of those. There have been a lot of movies about the “American Dream” over the years, but Marty Supreme’s take on that theme is one of the more fascinating ones. Mostly taking place over the course of a couple weeks, Marty Supreme follows its titular character trying to get enough money in order to get to Japan for the World Championship. It’s a ticking time bomb of a movie that sets up so many elements that I found myself doubting they would all pay off at the end only to be proven entirely wrong in the final few minutes with an explosion of emotions, tying everything together. 

3. It Was Just an Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi) 

He might not be a household name yet, but in the filmmaking world, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi is a superstar. Banned from making movies by his government in 2010, that hasn’t stopped Panahi from getting movies made and released internationally (one of his films, This Is Not a Film, was embedded on a flash drive and hidden inside of a cake in which it was smuggled out of the country). This is impressive enough on its own, but what’s all the more impressive is how good his films are, despite these challenges. If you didn’t know that his most recent movie, It Was Just an Accident was filmed without permits or government approval, you’d never be able to guess. It’s a distressing (yet surprisingly funny) story about a man (Vahid Mobasseri) who kidnaps another man (Ebrahim Azizi) he believes to be his former torturer in prison. Panahi has such a mastery over his craft and the primarily unknown actors are so captivating that the film’ll go ten, twelve, thirteen minutes before you realize they haven’t cut. 

2. Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier) 

If Peter Hujar’s Day is the best movie of the year about what it’s like to be an artist on a daily basis, Joachim Trier’s new film is the best one about how they communicate on an emotional level. I watched Sentimental Value four times in theaters and every time I did I felt as though I was watching a completely different movie. Trier is such an intentional filmmaker and you can tell that everything is in the movie for a reason, yet it never feels staged or artificial (except for when it’s that way intentionally). Additionally, Renate Reinsve gives the best performance of the year and Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, are close behind her. READ FULL REVIEW HERE. 

1. One Battle After Another (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) 

It’s not a rare thing to watch a good new movie, even a great one, but it is a much rarer thing to watch a movie that you can watch and say—with confidence—will remain a movie that cinema lovers (as well as casual viewers) will watch, rewatch, and love for decades to come. There’s something undeniable about how iconic all of the characters are in One Battle After Another. Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), doesn’t even do that much in the movie (at least nothing that advances or changes anything in the “plot”), yet I think it’s safe to say he’s already become one of Leo’s most totemic characters. The film’s cinematography (short primarily in glorious Vistavision) helps to give it a feeling of a sort of synchronization of a hundred years of cinema and filmmaking techniques, while also showing that there’s still so much you can do with this beautiful artform. What more could you want from the best film of the year? READ FULL REVIEW HERE. 

And what the hell? It’s the beginning of a new year and I’m feeling sentimental. So, with that, here are ten more movies (in no order whatsoever) that I love (or love parts of) that didn’t quite make the list, but still deserve a shoutout: 

–The Ice Tower (dir. Lucile Hadžihalilović) 

–April (dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili) 

–Highest 2 Lowest (dir. Spike Lee) 

–Sinners (dir. Ryan Coogler) 

–Blue Moon (dir. Richard Linklater)

–Materialists (dir. Celine Song)

–The Naked Gun (dir. Akiva Schaffer)

–Weapons (dir. Zach Creggar) 

–Superman (dir. James Gunn) 

–Train Dreams (dir. Clint Bentley)