Top 11 Films of 2025
Arts
In 2025, movies were more than mere entertainment, and even more than great art. They served two distinct primary purposes: One, they were a much-needed distraction from the Orwellian nightmare of the worst sequel in American history unfolding around us, and two, they were a lens through which we could explore, comment, issue warnings and vent our feelings about the Orwellian nightmare of the worst sequel in American history unfolding around us. There were many standout films, and narrowing down my list has proven challenging, with several honorable mentions that didn’t quite make the cut: Avatar: Fire and Ash, Blue Moon, The Lost Bus, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Roofman and Zootopia 2.
From the early standouts at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival to the last of the platformed Oscar-bait films, here are my picks for the top 11 films of 2025.
The Ballad of Wallis Island
Director: James Griffiths
Baby Cow Productions
Released: 03.28.2025
The creative synergy of Tom Basden and Tim Key makes for perhaps one of the greatest under-recognized comedy teams of all time, and The Ballad of Wallis Island is their masterpiece. As side-splittingly hilarious as it is heartfelt and life-affirming, this moving story of love, loss, acceptance and hope is a profound meditation on the way music and love intertwine. Set against the rugged beauty of its isolated island setting, the film finds quiet poetry in awkward silences, bruised egos and unresolved feelings. Basden and Key balances sharp wit with deep emotional sincerity, crafting characters who feel achingly human. It’s a film about second chances, missed connections and the courage it takes to truly listen — to others, and to yourself.
Frankenstein
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Double Dare You, Demilo Films, Bluegrass 7
Released: 10.17.2025
A fresh and mesmerizing telling of one of fiction’s most often-told stories, Del Toro’s take on the making of a monster is a thrilling and beautiful creation, bringing new life to something long dead. Infused with his signature compassion for outsiders and exquisite gothic craftsmanship, Frankenstein reimagines the myth as a tragic fable about obsession, grief and the moral cost of creation. Rather than fixating on terror alone, Del Toro leans into tenderness and dread in equal measure, allowing the monster’s humanity to emerge with devastating clarity. Lavish visuals, aching performances and a deep emotional undercurrent transform the familiar tale into something intimate and urgent. It’s a haunting reminder that the true horror lies not in what is created, but in what is abandoned.
Hamnet
Director: Chloé Zhao
Amblin Entertainment, Hera Pictures, Neal Street Productions, Book of Shadows
Released: 12.05.2025
Hamnet is a haunting and exquisitely crafted take that traces the emotional fallout of grief and loss in Shakespeare’s family. With tender performances and a lyrical visual style, the film centers on Agnes (Jessie Buckley), Will (Paul Mescal) and their young son, Hamnet, who tragically dies of pestilence at a young age. Academy Award winner Chloé Zhao’s inspired adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel explores the fragility of life, the weight of love and the ways sorrow shapes memory and legacy. It’s a quietly devastating meditation on family, mortality and the invisible threads that bind us to those we love.
It Was Just an Accident
Director: Jafar Panahi
Jafar Panahi Film Productions, Les Films Pelléas, Bidibul Productions, ARTE France Cinéma, Pio & Co
Released: 10.15.2025
A daring and deeply human exploration of trauma, justice and moral uncertainty, It Was Just an Accident stands as one of the boldest films in years. The film begins with a seemingly small roadside incident that spirals into a gripping road-trip revenge thriller: A former political prisoner, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), becomes convinced that a man he encounters is the intelligence officer who tortured him years before, and impulsively kidnaps him with the help of other former detainees. As the group debates identity, vengeance and forgiveness — their uncertain captor packed in the back of a van — the story unfolds with absurd existential humor and piercing insight into the echoes of state violence in everyday lives.
KPop Demon Hunters
Directors: Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans
Sony Pictures Animation
Released: 06.20.2025
KPop Demon Hunters is a wildly inventive mix of music, action and supernatural thrills that evokes the spirit of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Monkees while remaining unique from the first frame to the last. By day, its main characters are dazzling K-pop idols adored by millions. By night, they battle demons threatening the human world. The film balances high-energy musical numbers with fast-paced combat, all while playfully exploring the pressures of fame, perfection and keeping and hiding from dual identities. Beneath the badass glamor, it’s a story about friendship, self-discovery and embracing all parts of yourself. Bold, colorful and full of humor, KPop Demon Hunters proves that sometimes the deadliest weapon is a perfectly choreographed dance move.
Marty Supreme
Director: Josh Safdie
A24, Central Pictures
Released: 12.25.2025
Powered by yet another exhilarating lead performance from Timothée Chalamet, this irresistible ping pong saga flies pointedly and sometimes violently back and forth but never loses its momentum or hits the ground. Marty Mauser, an irrepressibly ambitious 1950s table tennis player from New York, will stop at nothing in pursuit of greatness in a sport no one takes seriously. Marty’s chaotic quest for fame and respect leads him through wild competitions, messy romances, bold schemes and unexpected underworld entanglements — all with an audacious, darkly comic and delicious sense of fun at its core. Chalamet’s portrayal is electric and unpredictable, balancing manic energy with vulnerability, making Marty Supreme as energetic and unhinged as its title character’s own pursuit.
No Other Choice
Director: Park Chan-wook
CJ ENM, Moho Film, KG Productions
Released: 12.25.2025
This brilliantly barbed black comedy mines ruthlessly dark humor and startling empathy from the bruising realities of job loss, economic insecurity and fragile masculinity. Lee Byung‑hun gives a tour‑de‑force lead performance as Yoo Man‑su, a devoted husband and paper industry veteran who, after being laid off, spirals into absurd desperation — believing he truly has no other choice but to eliminate his competition one by one in order to survive in an unforgiving job market. Park’s audacity is evident in how he gamely blends slapstick violence, surreal set pieces and piercing social critique, turning Man‑su’s descent into something at once uproariously funny and uncomfortably resonant. The film’s satirical edge exposes not just the cruelty of economic systems but the personal cost of clinging to outdated notions of identity and worth — making No Other Choice one of Park’s funniest, sharpest and most humane works yet.
One Battle After Another
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Warner Bros. Pictures, Ghoulardi Film Company
Released: 09.26.2025
A blistering yet measured portrait of political activism and its aftermath, One Battle After Another traces how a single righteous fight fractures into years of organizing, compromise, fatigue and resolve. Anchored by a formidable ensemble, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob Ferguson, a onetime revolutionary pulled back into the fray when his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) becomes a target, while Sean Penn’s menacing Colonel Lockjaw embodies the relentless forces of ideology and power. Patient, intimate and darkly hilarious, the film lives in the consequences — offering a clear-eyed reckoning with belief as something inherited, endured and renegotiated, one exhausting struggle at a time.
Predator: Badlands
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
20th Century Studios, Lawrence Gordon Productions, Davis Entertainment, Toberoff Entertainment, TSG Entertainment
Released: 11.03.2025
The long‑running sci‑fi franchise got a makeover, with the titular warrior becoming the protagonist — an outcast young Yautja named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster‑Koloamatangi) on a hostile planet, desperate to prove his worth and find the ultimate adversary. Along the way he forms an unlikely alliance with Thia (Elle Fanning), a damaged android. Trachtenberg, who also gave us Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers, hasn’t just reinvigorated the property, he’s elevated it to new heights. Blending thrilling action with surprising heart and humor, Predator: Badlands is a character-focused adventure movie that’s markedly superior to the 1987 original.
Sinners
Director: Ryan Coogler
Warner Bros. Pictures, Proximity Media, Domain Entertainment
Released: 04.18.2025
The seductive pull of vampire lore has never been put to better use than this cinematic meditation on faith, identity and the costs of cultural domination. Set in 1932 Mississippi, the film follows a pair of twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan) who open a juke joint and find their community besieged by supernatural forces. Rather than just monsters out for blood, Coogler’s vampires symbolize the coercive promise of Christian salvation and the ways dominant belief systems have been imposed on marginalized people, shaping identity and spiritual life. In Sinners, the clash between Christian imagery and ancestral or blues-rooted spirituality becomes a powerful metaphor for who gets to define redemption, belonging and what “sin” really means in a world shaped by oppression and resilience.
Twinless
Director: James Sweeney
Permut Presentations, Three Point Capital
Released: 10.05.2025
The most unabashedly personal film on my list for many reasons — from being a twin, to hugging James Sweeney onstage after its Sundance premiere, to getting quoted in the film’s trailer and even having Dylan O’Brien use me and my brother as his real-world example of the bond this story explores in a story for The Hollywood Reporter. None of that would matter if it weren’t also a brilliantly dark, insightful and emotionally exacting work. Sweeney’s film walks a daring tonal tightrope, finding ferocious humor in unbearable pain and letting complex characters be unlikable without apology and refusing to go for an easy catharsis. Twinless earns its raucous laughs as honestly as it earns its devastating tears.
As we look ahead to 2026, there’s a lot on the horizon (though still no sign of the second part of Horizon). There will be new films from Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Sam Raimi, Luca Guadagnino, Emerald Fennell and Denis Villeneuve, as well as new Star Wars, Spider-Man and Avengers installments (the word skeptical doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel about the last one). But before that, Utah will be bidding farewell to the Sundance Film Festival with a slate of hot ticket films. A year at the movies is reaching its end, but at least the sequel looks like it could be interesting.
Read more film reviews from Patrick Gibbs:
Film Review — The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
Film Review: Avatar: Fire and Ash
