One Battle After Another, Sinners

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s “28 Years Later” was named the fifth best movie of 2025 by Variety film critic Peter Debruge: “The reason this movie rocked me — emotionally, I mean — is that Boyle et al clearly recognized they were telling a post-pandemic narrative for a society (ours) that had just endured a pandemic (COVID-19), building in an opportunity to grieve and process what we’ve collectively been through via the cathartic Bone Temple sequence.”

Steven Soderberg’s excellent thriller “Black Bag” is a sturdy caper dealing in espionage thrills. The film stars Michael Fassbender as an insect-like spy, bugging out as he carefully probes his peers, including his wife (Cate Blanchett, perfect as the femme fatale), to discover a traitor among the ranks. The film was named one of Variety’s best movies of 2025: “Soderbergh’s perfectly ingenious romantic thriller about two married British spies trying to outmaneuver each other is the year’s most captivating bauble.”

“Talk to Me” directors Danny and Michael Philippou reunited with A24 this summer for “Bring Her Back,” which Variety named one of the best horror movies of 2025: “The rare horror movie unnerving enough to disturb your sleep. Its creep factor begins with Sally Hawkins’ impishly disturbing performance as a foster mother from hell, who takes a couple of orphaned siblings — 17-year-old Andy (Billy Barratt) and his legally blind sister, Piper (Sora Wong) — under her broken wing… the movie finds terrifying ways to get under your skin, pushing everything to the brink of transgression, using domestic trauma to create a symphonic projection of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, all sealed by Hawkins’ gargoyle grin of evil.”

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone’s latest collaboration “Bugonia” was named the fourth best movie of 2025 by Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman: “Lanthimos’s wild and woolly kidnap drama is a violent, hate-fueled, thrillingly warped act of cinematic screw-tightening. It’s also rooted in a humanity that sneaks up on you… For a while, it’s like watching ‘Misery’ restaged as a riveting culture-war two-hander. But Stone and, especially, Plemons keep deepening their characters. (He does a piece of acting that’s like tragedy on the high wire.) And the trick ending has a blow-you-away power that’s worth a dozen doomsday dystopias.”

Jai Courtney is a shark-obsessed serial killer in Shudder’s white-knuckle horror movie “Dangerous Animals,” which earned rave reviews out of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Courtney plays a deranged Australian tour guide who steers you out to sea and lets you swim with the sharks. Then he feeds you to them. From Variety’s review: “We have screenwriter Nick Lepard to thank for these vivid new nightmares, presented with such conviction by ‘The Devil’s Candy’ director Sean Byrne that the efficient and highly effective thriller scarcely allows a calm moment in which to question how deranged its premise truly is.”

Jennifer Lawrence’s “Die My Love” struggled at the box office this fall with $5 million domestically and $10 million worldwide, but more curious moviegoers are hopefully discovering the psychodrama on Mubi. Lawrence gives an acclaimed performance as a new mother who spirals into madness while dealing with postpartum and a husband (Robert Pattinson) who can’t support her needs.

“Christopher Landon crafts a pulpy surveillance mystery that gives way to something giddy and exciting,” reads Variety’s review of “Drop,” the Blumhouse thriller starring Meghann Fahy as a widowed mother whose first date takes a nightmarish turn when she begins receiving threatening text messages. “The film’s complicated setups are executed with a deft and capable hand. Although set in a fine dining establishment, it’s a junk-food thriller fried to near-perfection, balancing the tensions of kidnapping, conspiracy and murder with those of a nerve-wracking first date. It’s crisp and delicious.”

Ari Aster’s “Eddington” stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler. The movie is set in a small New Mexico town come undone by politics, COVID and more. “Just when you think you’ve got ‘Eddington’ pinned down as a coherent and even conventional suspense tale, the movie wriggles out from under you and enters a terrain of stranger things,” writes Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman in his review. 

Brad Pitt’s racing blockbuster “F1” is streaming on Apple TV after grossing $631 million at the worldwide this summer to become the biggest box office hit of the actor’s career (unadjusted for inflation). The movie, directed by “Top Gun: Maverick” helmer Joseph Kosinski, follows Pitt’s character as he emerges from retirement to coach a rookie driver (Damson Idris) and save a failing F1 team.

“Fantastic Four: First Steps” grossed $521 million in the theaters worldwide over the summer and got Marvel back on a more solid critical footing. Depicting the titular superhero family are Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing. Julia Garner also stars as The Silver Surfer alongside Ralph Ineson as Galactus and Paul Walter Hauser as Harvey Elder/Mole Man.

“Final Destination Bloodlines” brought the death-obsessed horror franchise roaring back to life on the big screen this summer with $285 million at the worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing entry yet. “Bloodlines” follows college student Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), who begins to receive visions about an averted disaster from 1968. After being plagued by recurring nightmares, she begins to embark on a journey to track down who may be able to help her break the cycle and save her family from their deaths.

Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is a passion project from the Oscar-winning filmmaker, who adapts Mary Shelley’s iconic novel with Oscar Isaac as the eponymous mad scientist and Jacob Elordi as his misunderstood creature. At TIFF, the film came in as the runner-up for the fest’s coveted people’s choice award — an accolade that’s traditionally a key bellwether for the Oscar race. The supporting cast includes Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz. 

The sequel to the 2003 comedy classic once again stars Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis as a daughter and mother who swap places, but this time the women find themselves swapping with the daughter and soon-to-be daughter in law of Lohan’s character. “The movie winds up being rather touching,” wrote Variety‘s film critic Owen Gleiberman in his review. “It’s all about how Harper and Lily, in trying to break up their parents’ engagement, discover that they really do want to be sisters.”

A24’s black comedy “Friendship,” starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, was a spring hit at the indie box office with $16 million domestically. Robinson plays a socially awkward husband whose infatuation with a charismatic new neighbor (Rudd) leads to unexpected consequences. Kate Mara and Jack Dylan Grazer also star. From Variety’s review: “While we may think, at first, that we’re watching a comedy about a sad-sack geek who’s drawn out of his shell, the film always makes sure that Craig, as inhabited by Robinson, is a notch weirder and more off-putting than we expect.”

Toni Servillo was awarded the Volpi Cup for best actor at the Venice Film Festival this year for his performance as fictional Italian president Mariano De Santis in “La Grazia,” the latest from “The Great Beauty” Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino. Per the official synopsis: “As his term draws to a close, amid uneventful days, two final duties arise: deciding on two delicate petitions for a presidential pardon. True moral dilemmas, which become tangled, in ways that seem impossible to unravel, with his private life. Driven by doubt, he will have to decide. And, with a deep sense of responsibility, that is exactly what this remarkable Italian President will do.”

“Candyman” and “The Marvels” director Nia DaCosta returns before next year’s “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” with a sizzling and seductive reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler.” Simply titled “Hedda,” the film stars Tessa Thompson as the eponymous woman who navigates a house she does not want, a marriage she feels trapped in and an ex-lover who has reappeared in her life. Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman, Nicholas Pinnock and Nina Hoss co-star.

Spike Lee and Denzel Washington’s “Highest 2 Lowest” marks their fifth on-screen collaboration. The film, a New York City-spin on Akira Kurosawa’s kidnapping drama “High and Low,” world premiered to strong reviews at Cannes. From Variety’s review: “Washington plays a music mogul who faces a series of big moral choices in a film whose sensational third act more than justifies what might have seemed an unnecessary update.”

Directed by Oliver Hermanus (“Living,” “Moffie”) and starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, “The History of Sound” follows two young men, Lionel (Mescal) and David (O’Connor), in the shadows of WWI who are determined to record the lives, voices and music of Americans. As they begin to log the events, the two fall in love. The film was penned by Ben Shattuck, adapted from his own award-winning short story. The movie also marks Mescal’s first project as an executive producer.

Universal’s live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” remake was a summer blockbuster with $634 million at the worldwide box office. A sequel is already in the works. Variety’s chief film critic Peter Debruge gave the film a positive review, saying that director Dean DeBlois’ “vision serves to bring the whole fantastical story one step closer to reality,” as well as praising Mason Thames and Nico Parker’s performances as Hiccup and Astrid.

George Clooney riffs on his movie star persona by playing a world-famous actor who has an existential crisis as he travels overseas to accept a lifetime achievement award in the latest from Noah Baumbach. Adam Sandler plays the actor’s manager, while Laura Dern stars as his publicist. From Variety’s review: “Directed by Noah Baumbach, from a script he co-wrote with the actor Emily Mortimer, ‘Jay Kelly’ is a fictional inside-the-movie-world portrait that’s been made with a great deal of care and affection and entertaining dish; it’s the definition of a movie that goes down easy.”

Universal’s “Jurassic” franchise roared back to life on the big screen over the summer when the Scarlett Johansson-led “Jurassic World Rebirth” earned a mighty $867 million at the worldwide box office. Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey also star in the tentpole, which follows a dangerous mission to retrieve the DNA from three dinosaurs that could lead to a medical breakthrough.

Shih-Ching Tsou’s “Left-Handed Girl” is Taiwan’s official Oscar entry this year and was picked up by Netflix earlier this year. Co-written and edited by “Anora” Oscar winner Sean Baker, the movie follows a single mother and her two daughters as they relocate to Taipei to open a night market stall. The cast includes Janel Tsai, Nina Ye, Teng-Hui Huang and Shih-Yuan Ma.

Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” is one of Hollywood’s biggest movies of 2025 with $1 billion at the worldwide box office. From Variety’s review: “Making a huge step up from ‘Marcel the Shell With Shoes On,’ director Dean Fleischer Camp delivers the same laughs and heart as the 2002 cartoon.”

Matthew McConaughey teams up with Paul Greengrass for the well-reviewed thriller “The Lost Bus,” based on the book “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire” by Lizzie Johnson. The movie is based on the true story of a school bus driver (McConaughey) and a teacher (America Ferrera) during the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California’s Butte County as they battle to bring 22 children to safety. The real-life event remains the deadliest wildfire in California history.

Alex Russell’s Sundance sensation “Lurker” was named the seventh best movie of 2025 by Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman: “In this sleek and unnerving parable of the pathology of celebrity, Théodore Pellerin, as a hanger-on who will do anything to hang on, gives a performance that lays bare the reptilian underside of wide-eyed fan worship… ‘Lurker’ has been made with the craft of early vintage Polanski crossed with an up-to-the-minute awareness of what pop culture has come to mean when the famous and their fans are now chasing each other’s tails.”

Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind” was named a Variety Critic’s Pick out of the Cannes Film Festival: “Josh O’Connor comes unstuck as a family man whose under-planned theft from a local art museum goes inexorably, amusingly awry… Reichardt has never met a genre she couldn’t meticulously deconstruct. But rarely has she done so with such offbeat wit and bluesy wisdom as with this anti-heist movie, a canny rejoinder to the glamorous high drama of the traditional robbery-gone-wrong plot.”

A24 scored an indie box office hit with “Materialists,” Celine Song’s romance movie that crossed the $100 million mark at the worldwide box office over the summer. Headlined by Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, the film centers on a New York City matchmaker caught in a love triangle between her deadbeat ex-flame and a millionaire new guy. Variety gave the film a positive review, writing: “It’s a sharp and serious social romantic drama full of telling observations about the way we live now, and about how connected that is (or not) to the way we’ve always lived. And there’s a dark side to it. It’s ‘Sex and the City’ filtered through a sobering reality check.” 

Bong Joon Ho and Robert Pattinson’s “Mickey 17” becomes available on Prime Video at no extra cost to subscribers this month. Based on the 2022 novel “Mickey7” by Edward Ashton, “Mickey 17” stars Robert Pattinson as an “expendable,” a clone that is sent on fatal missions colonizing an ice planet and then “reprinted” with most of his memories intact every time he dies. The supporting cast includes Mark Ruffalo, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie and Toni Collette.

“A Minecraft Movie” remains one of the biggest box office hits of 2025 with $940 million at the worldwide box office. The film’s $162 million opening is the top start at the domestic box office this year. The movie stars Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Emma Myers, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen and Jennifer Coolidge. A sequel is already in development and will hit theaters in July 2027.

Tom Cruise’s alleged last “Mission: Impossible” movie, “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” is streaming on Paramount+ after grossing $598 million at the worldwide box office this summer. Starring Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg and more, “The Final Reckoning” picks up in the wake of “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning,” as Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his globetrotting team of agents continue their mission to destroy the Entity, a mysterious and all-powerful AI, before it falls into the wrong hands.

Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson’s “The Naked Gun” brought old-school comedy back to movie theaters this summer to critical acclaim and $102 million at the worldwide box office. From Variety’s review: “The film is an engaging goofball grab bag, well-stocked with vintage terrible puns, nicely detonated movie conventions (in the opening heist sequence, the villain’s henchman steals a remote control marked with the words ‘P.L.O.T. Device’), and serviceable running gags (Drebin keeps getting handed oversize cups of take-out coffee).”

“Ne Zha II” made box office history this year when it grossed $2.2 billion — making it the fifth highest-grossing movie in history and the biggest animated film of all time (unadjusted for inflation). A24 released an English-language version of the hit over the summer featuring the voices of Michelle Yeoh, Crystal Lee, Vincent Rodriguez III and Aleks Le. The synopsis reads: “A rebellious young boy, Ne Zha, is feared by the gods and born to mortal parents with wild, uncontrolled powers. Now he’s faced with an ancient force intent on destroying humanity, he must grow up to become the hero the world needs.”

Richard Linklater’s Cannes darling “Nouvelle Vague” is a valentine to the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s iconic 1959 “Breathless” and to the beginnings of the French new wave movement. Shot on 35mm film in black-and-white, the film stars Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard, Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo and Zoey Deutch as New Wave darling Jean Seberg. Linklater’s movie depicts the young Godard as a film critic, as a friend to other New Wave filmmakers such as Francois Truffaut and Jacques Rivette and as a director whose relationships with Seberg and Belmondo gave birth to one of cinema’s most iconic touchstones. 

Rungano Nyoni earned rave reviews for “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” which A24 released in theaters earlier this year. The official synopsis reads: “On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family, in filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surreal and vibrant reckoning with the lies we tell ourselves.”

“One Battle After Another” was named the best movie of 2025 by Variety’s film critic Owen Gleiberman: “Paul Thomas Anderson’s greatest film since ‘Boogie Nights’ is a dystopian adventure of hair-raising relevance and haunting desperation. It’s at once a political thriller, a bravura chase movie, a world-turned-upside-down satire, a movingly fraught father-daughter love story — and, more than that, a movie that plants us in the paranoid cave of anxiety that is life in an autocratic society, in this case one that uncannily mirrors what’s happening to our own Disunited States… no movie of recent years has taken the temperature of its time like ‘One Battle After Another.’ And this one does it brilliantly enough to stand the test of time.”

Keke Palmer and SZA’s infectious chemistry powered Sony’s comedy “One of Them Days” to a great $51 million at the worldwide box office earlier this year. The duo star as lifelong buddies whose friendship is tested over the course of a zany day where they are forced to come up with rent money or face eviction. From Variety’s review:  “The movie is a likably bent portrait of a community whose residents revel in their energized dysfunction, which is never so cartoonish that it can’t inspire an honest laugh.”

Netflix picked up the acclaimed documentary “The Perfect Neighbor” out of Sundance earlier this year in a deal worth nearly $5 million. The movie examines Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws and gun regulations and uses police bodycam footage to tell the story of how a neighborhood dispute slowly escalated into a shocking act of violence. It follows a tragedy that captivated national attention, one in which a woman named Ajike “AJ” Shantrell Owens was shot and killed by her neighbor, Susan Lorincz, after Lorincz kept complaining about children playing near her apartment.

Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme” arrives on Prime Video at no extra cost to describers after streaming on Peacock earlier this year. Variety’s review reads: “Anderson taps into a softer side of Benicio del Toro, who plays a tough negotiator trying to make amends with his estranged daughter in another intricately constructed oddity from the esoteric director.”

Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst deliver winning performances in Derek Cianfrance’s true story drama “Roofman.” The film centers on Jeffrey Manchester, a U.S. army veteran who resorted to robbing various McDonalds in order to overcome financial hardship. He eventually gets caught and sent to jail, only to break out and go into hiding at a Toys ”R” Us.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman lead Jay Roach’s reimagining of the 1989 black comedy “The War of the Roses.” The film follows Ivy (Colman) and Theo (Cumberbatch), a seemingly perfect California couple with successful careers, great kids and a loving marriage. But when Theo’s career begins to nosedive as Ivy’s ambitions take off, their ideal life crumbles and the couple’s hidden resentments bubble to the surface.

Ryan Coogler’s vampire sensation was one of the biggest hits of 2025. From Variety’s review: “It’s a throat-ripping vampire movie. And a simmering, layered portrait of a small-town Mississippi Delta community in 1932… it’s exhilarating to take a ride in a popcorn fantasy this heady, where the forces of evil add up to an oppressive destiny. Coogler has vowed that there will be no sequel, but the Marvel-style post-credits teaser leaves you wanting and imagining one.”

Eva Victor’s Sundance darling “Sorry Baby” was named by Variety as one of the best of 2025: “Writer-director Victor plays a promising young grad student named Agnes whose academic career is all but derailed when her thesis adviser crosses the line. The incident occurs off-camera but redefines how Agnes perceives the world — from the judgmental classmate who sees no big deal in sleeping with her professor to the supportive best friend (Naomi Ackie) who offers unconditional understanding.”

Cillian Murphy plays a troubled teacher in Netflix’s “Steve,” which Variety praised as the year’s “best Netflix movie” last month: “Reteaming with ‘Small Things Like These’ director Tim Mielants, the ‘Oppenheimer’ star plays a desperate reform school teacher opposite a rowdy ensemble of totally convincing young actors… A profoundly moving and superbly acted diamond in the rough, ‘Steve’ is better than anything the streamer has pushed for best picture to date. Netflix famously uses the fall festivals to launch its awards contenders, but the company is playing this one close to the vest.”

James Gunn successfully launched his new DC Universe this summer when “Superman” opened to favorable reviews and $616 million at the worldwide box office. Variety’s review called the latest take on the Man of Steel an “energized reboot” that’s “winning enough to channel the spirit of the comics… David Corenswet’s slightly puppyish Superman radiates a joy in what he’s doing, but he’s far from invincible. That lends the film emotional stakes.”

Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a husband and wife whose move out of the city takes a horrific turn when their bodies start to literally mesh together in this Sundance horror sensation. From Variety’s review: “Michael Shanks’ movie is megaplex-ready, but it’s an over-the-top horror film with something on its mind… this is more of an over-the-top roller-coaster acid-trip if-it-looks-weird-do-it freak-out of a movie.”

“Clint Bentley’s moving adaptation of Denis Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize finalist novella has steadily emerged as one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year — and a potential dark horse best picture contender, Variety’s Clayton Davis recently wrote about the Netflix original “Train Dreams.” Set in the early 20th-century Pacific Northwest, the film stars Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, a solitary railroad worker navigating profound personal loss as the American frontier expands around him.

“The Ugly Stepsister” freaked out the Sundance Film Festival at the start of the year and is now arriving on Hulu this month. From director Emilie Blichfeldt comes a body-horror reimagining of the classic Cinderella story. “The Ugly Stepsister” follows Elvira as she prepares to earn the prince’s affection at any cost. In a kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, Elvira will compete with the beautiful and enchanting Agnes to become the belle of the ball. Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Naess and Ane Dahl Torp star.

Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig’s third “Knives Out” mystery, the religious-themed “Wake Up Dead Man,” stars Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack  and Thomas Haden Church. Variety’s review of the threequel called it the sharpest “Knives Out’ movie yet, adding: “Its trickiness works on a human scale, as writer-director Rian Johnson immerses us in murder logistics — and, in a playful way, the question of rationality vs. faith.”

Alex Garland’s real-time combat thriller “Warfare” could not reach the box office heights of his last A24 outing, “Civil War,” but it’s white-knuckle war movie well worth streaming. Featuring an ensemble cast that includes D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Joseph Quinn and Charles Melton, the film is based on co-director Ray Mendoza’s real experience during the Iraq War.

Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” was named the eighth best movie of 2025 by Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman: “For all the horror movies that come out each year, there’s a box they tend to put themselves into, toying (cleverly or not) with shock cuts and ghost metaphysics and bloody genre tropes. But ‘Weapons’ came out of the box as a bold new breed of chiller. What made Zach Cregger’s film the sleeper sensation of the year wasn’t just that it seemed to erupt out of nowhere, but that it was such a tingly and enticing off-ramp drama, influenced less by the dictates of horror than by the puzzle-piece gamesmanship of ‘Pulp Fiction.’”

Andrew Ahn’s “The Wedding Banquet” is a thoroughly enjoyable dramedy based on Ang Lee’s 1993 original of the same name. The film follows Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and her girlfriend, Lee (Lily Gladstone), who are trying to have a baby through IVF but can’t afford to pay for another round of fertility treatment. Their closeted friend Min (Han Gi-chan), who is also the heir of a multinational empire, has a student visa that’s about to expire. When his boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang) rejects his marriage proposal for various reasons, he pops the question to Angela instead. From there, a wedding plot is hatched that quickly spins out of control.