2025 has been a fantastic year for movies, and thanks to streaming, you can catch up on all the top awards contenders and audience favorites that defined the year.
Between its original and licensed content, Netflix has a particularly great slate of 2025 movies to watch from the comfort of one’s own home.
This week, Watch With Us has picked three of the platform’s highest-rated films of the year as reviewed by audiences on the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter.
Our picks include an arthouse novella adaptation, the new Knives Out story and Guillermo del Toro’s fantastical take on a classic horror icon.
3. ‘Train Dreams’ (2025)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90 percent
Train Dreams is based on Denis Johnson‘s acclaimed novella of the same name, and since its premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, it has received a large amount of praise from both critics and audiences. The film is a moving story of love, compassion and perseverance, and Joel Edgerton‘s lead performance as Robert Grainier has been considered a career-best. Despite the movie’s arthouse aspects that could seem alienating to some on the surface, its visual poetry is instantly immersive, and you’ll find yourself swept up in the beauty and tragedy of Robert’s story.
At the turn of the century, Robert Gainier leads a quiet life working on the development of the North American railways in the Pacific Northwest, which forces him to spend long amounts of time away from his family. As Robert struggles to keep up with a fast-changing world, he grapples with grief and loss amidst a backdrop of societal progress and a natural world that has as much difficulty adapting as Robert does.
2. ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ (2025)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93 percent
After young pastor Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) punches a rude deacon, he’s sent to work at the church run by Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin), a divisive but charismatic priest who leads a small flock of devoted but deeply broken disciples. Wicks and Duplenticy quickly butt ideological heads, so when Wicks turns up dead by a seemingly impossible murder, all eyes are on the young pastor. Jud must work with the famous Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to clear his name and bring the real killer to justice — while dodging the eccentric parishioners of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude.
Director Rian Johnson delivers another heater in his now-trilogy of Knives Out films, with Wake Up Dead Man being hailed by some as his best Benoit Blanc whodunit yet. The film astutely mediates on themes pertaining to hypocrisy, faith and redemption, expertly deployed within an entertaining romp of a mystery film. Ultimately, the movie has everything you want from a good crime caper, with a scene-stealing turn from O’Connor and Craig’s usual scenery-chewing to boot.
1.’Frankenstein’ (2025)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 94 percent
Guillermo del Toro tackles one of history’s most iconic monsters in this new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s famous horror novel. Frankenstein chronicles the strange, tragic journey of Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), who goes from respected surgeon to exiled quack to a man who resurrects life with his bare hands. But playing God always comes with a price, and after Victor tries to damn his creature (Jacob Elordi) to death, the creature endures a lengthy journey to find his creator and seek revenge.
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Frankenstein bears the unmistakable imprint of del Toro’s signature style, perspective and love of horror, writing the creature with immense empathy and giving more of Shelley’s novel its due. The film is an aesthetically stunning and lavish period epic that features a standout performance from Elordi, cementing the young actor as a true tour de force. Frankenstein will likely please literary fans of the original novel while also being a sumptuous and moving piece of philosophical horror.