Dec. 10, 2025, 11:20 p.m. ET
At the movies this year, it was one battle after another.
It was either fears of AI or worries that audiences aren’t going to the theater anymore, or franchise fatigue and concerns about consolidation of the business and what it means for the future of the industry.
It was also “One Battle After Another,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s triumph of old-school moviemaking, which showed what’s possible when a top director is given the tools he needs and the backing of a major studio to see his vision through. “One Battle” is Hollywood at its best, at a time when the sky seems to be falling on that very business model.
Which is to say it was an up-and-down year at the movies, understandable given all the turmoil in Tinseltown. Some movies and filmmakers were able to rise above the fray, creating works that excited and challenged audiences, and a whole lot of other movies and filmmakers were in the fray, clogging up the pipeline with sequels and reboots that failed to ignite the box office or the interest of moviegoers. Grand opening, grand closing.
Well, we made it through the year, so let’s celebrate the good stuff. Here’s a list of 2025’s 20 best movies, some from established Hollywood heavyweights, some from up-and-comers, all with a clear point of view and a beating heart inside their chest, keeping the blood flowing through the movies and doing the work, grinding it out, one battle after another.
The 20 Best Movies of 2025
20. ‘Sinners’
Director Ryan Coogler’s Southern-fried take on vampires, the blues and race in America features perhaps the boldest, most audacious sequence of the year, a jaw-dropper that elevates this exercise well beyond its genre restrictions. And as twin hustlers Smoke and Stack, Michael B. Jordan sizzles. (Available on HBO Max)
19. ‘Friendship’
Metro Detroit native Tim Robinson takes the “I Love You, Man” formula and factory resets it to bizarro land in this demented take on male friendship and the lengths guys are willing to go to appear normal to one another and the world. (Available on HBO Max)
18. ‘Die My Love’
A feral but focused Jennifer Lawrence taps into something primal as a new mother struggling to find her center in Lynne Ramsay’s difficult and unflinching portrait of depression and despair. (Available for rental)
17. ‘Splitsville’
One of the year’s funniest movies, co-writer, director and star Michael Angelo Covino’s sad sack rom-com is a hilarious study of relationships, commitment and the pratfalls of open marriage, with the “how can this guy get Dakota Johnson?” mystery baked into the story’s DNA. (Available for rental)
16. ‘Sentimental Value’
Joachim Trier’s tale of family and filmmaking is heartfelt and emotional, with sterling turns from Elle Fanning as a young actress and Stellan Skarsgård as an aging director, mining his own personal history and picking at still-unhealed wounds for an attempt at one last late-career masterwork. (In theaters)
15. ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’
The Grim Reaper works in mysterious ways, as does this 25-year-old franchise, which makes elaborate puzzles out of death’s mechanics. That’s par for the course, but the touching exit of Tony Todd’s character added a touch of class — and unexpected poignance — to this gruesomely enjoyable tale of not-so-happy endings. (Available on HBO Max)
14. ‘The Naked Gun’
No joke is too dumb for Akiva Schaffer’s gag-a-minute reboot of the 1988 comedy classic, and they fly so fast that by the time you’re done choking at one, you’ve missed three more subsequent laugh lines. Long live Miss Cherry Roosevelt Fat Bozo Chowing Spaghetti. (Available on Paramount+)
13. ‘Predator: Badlands’
Who knew a “Predator” movie could be this much fun? Nearly 40 years after the Arnold Schwarzenegger original, Dan Trachtenberg turned this “Predator” entry into a sort of buddy comedy, with Elle Fanning as an android torso who becomes the alien killer’s trusty pal, as they traverse a far-off world in pursuit of validation, redemption, and — just maybe — friendship. (In theaters)
12. ‘Nouvelle Vague’
More like the French New Rave. Director Richard Linklater, master of making movies that feel like hangouts, pays loving tribute to the making of Jean Luc Godard’s “Breathless” with this beautiful black-and-white homage to the late ’50s French New Wave film movement that is, in every way, inviting rather than intimidating. (Available on Netflix)
11. ‘Blue Moon’
Linklater again, here with a sad valentine to Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (a career performance by Ethan Hawke), a tortured but fiercely eloquent soul who realizes his career is coming to a close as his old partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) moves forward on the opening night of “Oklahoma!” A heartbreaker, and a beautiful portrait of a brilliant artist. (Available for rental)
10. ‘Highest 2 Lowest’
Spike Lee’s highly stylish remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 tale of a botched kidnapping is so-so as a crime thriller but a pure blast as a flex of all the things Spike Lee does well, chiefly playing in his sandbox with Denzel Washington and paying grand tribute to his beloved New York City. (Available on Apple TV)
9. ‘The Phoenician Scheme’
Benicio’s del Toro’s other great performance this year was in Wes Anderson’s tricky little caper, in which he stars as “Zsa-Zsa” Korda, a worldly business tycoon who’s trying to reconnect with his daughter (Mia Threapleton) by making her heir to his fortune. It’s quirky and ornate and more than a bit messy, but it’s worth digging through its complications to find its emotional center. (Available on Amazon Prime Video)
8. ‘The Perfect Neighbor’
A fascinating, disheartening look at America, as a nightmare slowly unfolds in a Florida neighborhood where the cops, a group of kids and one unruly neighbor are on a slow-motion collision course with tragedy. Director Geeta Gandbhir directs from footage collected entirely from police body cams, a scarily effective new storytelling tool. (Available on Netflix)
7. ‘Black Bag’
Steven Soderbergh’s sleek, clever spy thriller is a buttoned-up exercise in efficiency, with Michael Fassbender as a counterintelligence officer tasked with shaking down several co-workers, including his own wife, played by Cate Blanchett. Movies don’t get much smarter — or sexier — than this. (Available on Amazon Prime Video)
6. ‘Bring Her Back’
Australia’s Philippou brothers, following up 2023’s “Talk to Me,” return with this chilling tale of a foster mother who takes in two children while secretly trying to bring her deceased daughter back from the dead. Sally Hawkins is terrifying, playing fully against her usual whimsical type, and the Philippous stage several of the decade’s most disturbing sequences, which even hardened horror vets will watch through the cracks of their fingers as they cover their faces. (Available on HBO Max)
5. ‘Marty Supreme’
Timothée Chalamet is electrifying in Josh Safdie’s dramatic thriller about a hotshot 1950s ping-pong player who will do whatever he needs to do, and work over whomever he needs to work over, and cut whatever corners he needs to cut, in order to make it. It’s a shrewd portrait of relentless tenacity unfolding at a breathless, breakneck pace. (In theaters Dec. 25)
4. ‘Warfare’
War is absolute, utter hell, and co-directors Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza plunge viewers straight into the action in this harrowing, unforgettable descent into battle, which unfolds during the War in Iraq in 2006. No movie this year was more audibly haunting. (Available on HBO Max)
3. ‘Weapons’
Zach Cregger’s horror funhouse is the year’s most original thriller, and at any given time, it’s impossible to see what’s coming around Cregger’s next storytelling corner. A group of schoolchildren mysteriously disappears into the middle of the night, and as a creepy figure at the center of the film’s mystery, Amy Madigan gives one of the year’s best and most surprising performances. (Available on HBO Max)
2. ‘Eddington’
Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, people were saying they never wanted to see a movie about this maddening chapter in our history, because it would be too frustrating to endure. Well, Ari Aster went and made one, and it’s every bit as tense as you’d expect, its politics a little too close for comfort for both sides of the aisle. If you manage to make that many people angry, you’re clearly doing something right. (Available on HBO Max)
1. ‘One Battle After Another’
The crowning achievement of Paul Thomas Anderson’s career is equally fiery and warm, about a revolutionary for whom the fight is over, until it comes knocking on his door again with a vengeance. Leonardo DiCaprio leads a cast of heavy hitters — Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn are all out of their minds — as PTA turns his lens on today’s America, its dismantled systems, and those still fighting the good fight. (Available for rental)
10 honorable mentions:
“Companion,” “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” “One of Them Days,” “Paddington in Peru,” “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” “It Was Just an Accident,” “The Friend,” “Lurker,” “Familiar Touch,” “Eephus.”
agraham@detroitnews.com