2025 is officially over, and with it comes time for everyone to put together their list of favorite things from the past year. For the world of movies, there were tons of incredible films to pick from, so with that being said, let’s take a look at what the best movies of 2025 have to offer.
Before we get to the top 10 for 2025, there are some honorable mentions that didn’t make the list but still deserve a shoutout for being one of the very best of the year. Carson Lund’s Eephus is an amazing look at friendship, life, and memories through the lens of a rec league baseball team. Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein is an epic film that captures the legendary director’s vision of a classic, misunderstood monster.
Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident takes a simple question of morality and elevates it into an incredible, tense watch with a final 20 minutes that I still think about. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud is an unpredictable, slow-burning classic that puts a modern spin on the thriller genre, Ari Aster’s Eddington is a perfect takedown of community in the social media age, and Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby is a simultaneously devastating yet heartwarming look at healing and growth.
With all that out of the way, here’s my top 10 movie list for 2025.
10. Sentimental Value
Joachim Trier and Renate Reinsve have become close collaborators over the years, and are back yet again with another incredible movie. Similar to 2021’s The Worst Person in the World, Sentimental Value explores loneliness in adulthood, but also dives into topics that you don’t often see approached so well anymore, including familial trauma, depression, and more. Resinve is excellent here, but it’s Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who plays Reinsve’s sister in the film, that really steals the show.
9. Friendship
Tim Robinson has mastered the art of uncomfortable comedy and continues to take it another level in his first big starring role in a movie. While Friendship features tons of insane moments, at its core it’s about trying to find friends, and the absurd lengths some might go to maintain a friendship they value too much. Robinson’s comedic stylings are extremely hit-or-miss for everyone, but to me this is the funniest movie of the year, and features one of the biggest standouts moments of the year between Robinson and Conner O’Malley in that garage.
8. 28 Years Later
2025 was a standout year for the horror genre, and featured a variety of original films getting massive praise. Most surprising to me, though, was the fact that director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland came back to the “28” franchise and seemed to not miss a beat. 28 Years Later is not only one of the best follow-ups to a horror film of all time, but also one of the most dynamically filmed horror movies in some time. Equal parts terrifying, action-packed, emotional, and flat-out fun to watch, all while still exploring themes of loneliness, being stuck in time, and how far you’ll go for love.
7. Sinners
It would feel a bit wrong to do a top 10 list and not include Sinners on here. Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan come together again to make what might be their best movie yet. A big fan of horror, Coogler does what so many other great directors has and uses the genre to say a whole lot. An instant classic in the vampire genre, Sinners manages to not only produce a worthwhile horror movie, but also deliver an incredible film about culture, assimilation, faith, brotherhood, and a ton more. Jordan’s dual performance as the Smokestack Twins is deserving of all the praise, but its newcomer Miles Caton’s Sammie that is the heart and soul of the movie, and very much acts like it.
6. Bring Her Back
There’s a theme with this list, and as noted a few back, 2025 was simply too good of a year for horror. In 2022, directors and brothers Danny and Michael Philippou burst out of the world of YouTube and onto the movie scene with Talk to Me, a brutal horror movie all about grief and loss. Their follow-up, Bring Her Back, explores the same themes, but in even more horrific ways. While divisive to some, Bring Her Back captures all the best parts of the world of horror for me: genuine scary tension, brutal moments, and a heart underneath it all. Sally Hawkins’ performance as a mother trying to bring back her daughter is one of the best performances in all of 2025, and one worth watching this for on its own.
5. Weapons
Seriously, what a year for horror, huh? Similar to Jordan Peele, Zach Cregger is a director that was mainly known for his work in comedy (as a member of the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know) before delivering a horror classic. His 2022 film Barbarian was the surprise hit of that year, and his 2025 follow-up, Weapons, was already one of the most anticipated movies of the year before it even released. Thankfully, Cregger lived up to the hype and more.
While Weapons features some scary moments, where it really delivers in how it breaks down the slow and steady breakdown of a community after a big tragedy. Drawing some obvious inspiration from movies like Magnolia and Prisoners, Cregger somehow manages to keep the movie funny, scary, and tense, all at the same time. Combine that with incredible performances by Julia Garner and the soon-to-be heavily award nominated Amy Madigan, and you have the best horror movie of 2025.
4. Bugonia
At face value, a movie about two conspiracy-obsessed men who kidnap the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company because they believe she is an alien sounds wild as is. Somehow, director Yorgos Lanthimos manages to ratchet that up even more. Based on the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet!, Lanthismos’ remake manages to not only keep the flat out insane moments this movie has in it, but also explore the modern day world of conspiracy, human nature, and how we victimize each other expertly, which he’s come to do many times now in his career.
Wild plot aside, Bugonia also features what might be the best performances yet from Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, and that’s saying something. The way the pair play off each other, combined with the surprisingly excellent performance of Aidan Delbis (who plays Plemons’ cousin in the film), make for one of the most outrageous and best films of the year.
3. No Other Choice
Park Chan-wook has delivered some of the best movies ever throughout his long career, including classic thrillers like Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, and The Handmaiden. No Other Choice is a slight departure in genre, but one that very much feels right in Park’s wheelhouse. The film tells the story of a man (Lee Byung-hun) who was recently laid off, and spirals into some desperate decisions in order to try and find a job to provide for his family.
At its face, the movie is workplace soap opera. Much like Byung-hun’s Man-Su, though, the movie has a much more sinister core, and becomes an excellent satire on capitalism, unemployment, how much value one places in their job, and much more. No matter what genre he’s tackling, Park continues to show he’s still got it all these years later.
2. One Battle After Another
Perhaps the most anticipated movie of the year, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another lives up to all the hype and more. A movie about revolution, racism, time passing you by, family, and above all, why we must all stick together even when it feels like everything around you is hopeless and you might not be perfect person, anchored by some of the best performances and most exhilerating moments of the year.
Every single actor in One Battle After Another feels like they’re giving it their all, but there are some standouts here. DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson is the perfect protagonist to root, a well-meaning guy that can’t seem to do anything well. Teyana Taylor, although she’s featured briefly, steals the show as revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills, and Chase Infiniti, who plays her daughter Willa Ferguson, is also excellent here. Sean Penn’s Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw and Benicio del Toro’s Sergio St. Carlos steal the show, though, both for very different reasons.
1. Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another will likely come away from award season as the big winner, but for me, Marty Supreme reigned above all in 2025. An absolutely perfect depiction of being unapologetic in your ambitions and delusions, even if it means being a complete piece of trash to those around you. Movies these days don’t often have leads that are completely unlikable, but this shows that your lead can be a bad guy and yet still so completely captivating.
Josh Safdie’s kinetic and frantic filmmaking is on full display here. There’s some genuinely surprising, action-packed moments as things get into the final act of the film, and the movie is filled with great performances throughout. However, Marty Supreme is anchored above all by Timothée Chalamet’s incredible performance. In some ways, it feels like he was born to play this part. After his comments at the SAG Awards earlier this year about “chasing greatness,” Chalamet perfectly channels that into a character that is desperate to be great at all costs, even if the house of cards he’s building around him in the process is bound to fall.
