The Best Films of 2025

2025 was a “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” kind of year for movies.

For months, the box-office figures, especially for independents and smaller Hollywood films, have been apocalyptically bad. Amidst mass media consolidation, the remaining studios are making fewer films and taking fewer risks, like Colin Farrell’s wayward gambler from Ballad of a Small Player they seem to believe the only way out of a losing streak is by placing one big bet on one massive hand at the baccarat. This may not be an age of wisdom; it’s certainly an age of foolishness.

But it’s still an age with so many great movies, both big and small, hits and flops, American and international. In some ways 2025 was unusual; a lot of the fall’s so-called “awards contenders” were massively disappointing. At the same time, a lot of the so-called “dumb summer movies” were thoughtful and bold. As studios cut back, streamers kept pumping out content, some of it as beautiful as anything you could see on the big screen. Maybe that makes this the spring of hope. Maybe it’s closer to the winter of despair.

While we wait to find out, here is my personal list of the 20 best movies of 2025, along with additional honorable mentions. (A few years ago I switched from making annual top tens to top 20s. Whoever decided a critic should only list the ten best films of a given year did not watch enough movies.) It’s very easy feel pessimistic about the state of cinema, and the future of the medium. But it’s also hard not to feel excited about the movies we got over the last 12 months. It’s sort of a season of light, season of darkness type deal.

Honorable Mentions (In Alphabetical Order): Ballerina, Companion, Hamnet, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, The Mastermind, One of Them Days, 28 Years Later, Wake Up Dead Man, Wick Is Pain, Zodiac Killer Project

READ MORE: The 40 Best Movies of the Last 40 Years