The 10 Best Movies Of 2025

2025 was a strange year for movies. We had plenty of great ones, one immaculate one that released early in the year, and a sagging box office that wasn’t an indication of the quality of the movies, but something else entirely. As with any year-end list, this is my list, not yours, so if you have an issue, take a tissue, and leave a comment below. Without further ado, let’s get to the list.

Honorable Mentions:

Marty Supreme

Superman

No Other Choice

Novocaine

F1: The Movie

10. Thunderbolts*

Kicking off the list is the best superhero movie of the year (just barely beating out Superman). Whereas Superman went for hope and bright colors, Thunderbolts* went for a story about how mental health issues and loneliness can consume you. When Marvel is cooking, they combine human emotions that we all feel with superheroes. That’s the secret sauce.

It follows a group of heroes/antiheroes that get thrown together to deal with a threat that only the Avengers would have the chance to stop. The group features Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko). They form the main group, but the film also features Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), her assistant Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan), and the mysterious Bob (Lewis Pullman).

So what about this story makes it so relatable? I mean, I’m not part of a superhero team trying to fight a newly created all-powerful villain. Well, if you’ve dealt with depression in your life, you know how it feels. It’s like a weight all over your body at points. Sometimes it even gets to the point where it’s crippling. Each of the characters in Thunderbolts*, even Valentina, feels lived in. They feel whole and have edges. It’s even something that it is a team of basically regular people (besides Bucky and Red Guardian) going up against a foe that will knowingly decimate them. That’s how we live our lives. We’re going up against things that are far more powerful than us, and regular people still do it.

For those who dislike superhero movies or those who checked out after Avengers: Endgame, you missed out on a fantastic movie.

Read our review of Thunderbolts* here.

9. Strange Harvest

I had no idea what to expect going into Strange Harvest. I am not a huge fan of found footage movies, but this year (including movies like Shelby Oaks and Dream Eater) changed that tune a bit. Strange Harvest emulates the style of true crime series or documentaries like Forensic Files or The First 48.

In the case of Strange Harvest, they emulate it so well that it all feels entirely too real. Strange Harvest tells the story of Mr. Shiny, a serial killer in the Inland Empire area of Southern California who operated from the 90s until the 2010s. It comes from writer/director Stuart Ortiz, and if you’ve ever seen any of those true crime documentaries or shows, you’ll be right at home.

Told through the lens of surveillance footage, home videos, bodycams, dashcams, and other non-movie cameras, the film is told from the testimony of the people involved with the case like Detective Joe Kirby and Detective Lexi Taylor. They’re played excellently by Peter Zizzo and Terri Apple, respectively. Mr. Shiny, the serial killer at the center of the story is played by Jessee J. Clarkson. And whew, he’s goddamn creepy.

In a year with plenty of great horror movies, Strange Harvest makes for one of the best.

Read our review of Strange Harvest here.

8. Predator: Badlands

Predator: Badlands was a much-hyped film from Dan Trachtenberg that released later in the year. It was everything people wanted out of a Predator movie and then some.

It stars Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi as Dek, a young Yautja trying to impress his father to earn his cloak. He ends up being betrayed by his father and goes to Genna in a hunt for one of the most fearsome creatures in the universe, the Kalisk. Dek is the runt of his clan, and his brother, Kwei sacrifices himself to get him off the planet and to Genna.

That wound and the familial relations that Dek goes through in Predator: Badlands is the HEART of the film. It’s not just his family, though. While on Genna, he meets a Synthetic Weyland-Yutani android named Thia, who’s played by Elle Fanning. Thia is missing her legs, but she knows where the Kalisk is and can assist Dek in getting to it, in exchange for finding her legs. She has her own issues; she was partnered with another synth named Tessa, who was lost when the Kalisk attacked them. Tessa is also played by Elle Fanning, but in a much colder and calculating way.

This is the closest we’re going to get to a modern-day version of those classic 80s and 90s action films that brought together heart, emotion, violence, and made you feel uplifted when they were over.

Read our review of Predator: Badlands here.

7. The Monkey

I didn’t get the chance to review The Monkey fully, but I saw it after the whole hullabaloo of its release. This one is an adaptation of the Stephen King short story. It stars Theo James in a double role (the second of three on this list), Tatiana Maslany, Rohan Campbell, and written and directed by Osgood Perkins.

The Monkey follows Hal and Bill, two twins that run into a curse involving a wind-up monkey that brings death anywhere it goes. Their lives diverge and splinter, but they’re intrinsically linked and it goes along with Hal and his son. I thought that Theo James was just a teeny-bopper heartthrob before this movie, and boy, was I very wrong. He puts in an exceptional performance and while this is a lot of comedy, it’s still a horror film as well.

Read our review of The Monkey here.

6. Wake Up Dead Man

It turns out that the third in the Benoit Blanc series of movies from Rian Johnson is the most introspective and thought-provoking. This time around, it brings into question the idea of faith and how that changes people.

Craig returns as Benoit Blanc, the world’s greatest detective, while Johnson returns to write and direct the film. Surrounding them are a new cast of characters in Josh O’Connor as Father Jud, Glenn Close as Martha, Josh Brolin as Jefferson Wicks, Mila Kunis as Chief Geraldine, Jeremy Renner as Dr. Nat Sharp, Kerry Washington as Vera Draven, Andrew Scott as Lee Ross, Cailee Spaeny as Simone Vivane, Daryl McCormack as Cy Draven, Thomas Haden Church as Samson, and Jeffrey Wright as Bishop Langstrom.

So, how exactly does this story unfold? Well, it starts with Father Jud. He’s a man that finds faith after a difficult youth, Josh O’Connor handles this role with passion and grace, stealing the show from Benoit Blanc. Unlike the previous two movies, this one heavily features Father Jud, with Blanc taking a backseat in the storytelling and the big finale. That wrinkle extends to the ensemble cast, who don’t quite get as much development, but still keep the pace of the story going along.

This isn’t a cheap attack on religion, it’s taking a magnifying lens to the human condition. And I never thought that a murder mystery could do that before. Wake Up Dead Man is haunting, and even after the mystery is revealed, there’s plenty to learn from this one.

Read our review of Wake Up Dead Man here.

5. Predator: Killer of Killers

Now, for the Predator movie, that was a complete surprise earlier in the year. Between The Predator and Prey felt like a huge gap, and we got another gap with Prey and this film. Well, the wait was worth it, because this is the most satisfying Predator movie we’ve had in a long time. People have been clamoring to see a Predator fight a Samurai, well, we got them fighting TWO in this movie. The anthology style storytelling mixed with a converging of all three stories, and then even more so with the connections to the previous films in the series.

It stars Michael Biehn, Doug Cockle, Rick Gonzalez, Damien Haas, Lauren Holt, Lindsay LaVanchy, Jeff Leach, Piotr Michael, Louis Ozawa, and Britton Watkins.

The story in The Shield follows Ursa in Scandinavia, 841. She’s a Viking warrior who leads her clan on an expedition to destroy a rival faction. Along the way, the Predator shows up, slaughters her men, and her son dies in the battle. The next is Japan, 1609, which features two brothers fighting to be the next successor to a samurai warlord. A Predator begins hunting them and the two brothers have to set aside their differences to fight it. Finally, The Gun features Torres, a fighter pilot. His squadron investigates a mysterious aircraft that destroyed another unit, which happens to be a Predator ship. All three stories end up connecting for an explosive third act with the three warriors.

Read our review of Predator: Killer of Killers here.

4. One Battle After Another

One Battle After Another was another one that took me a bit longer to watch, I didn’t catch it when it first was in theaters, but boy, oh boy, was I missing out. Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Stean Penn, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti. DiCaprio’s character, Bob Ferguson, is multilayered, and might be his best performance of his career so far. He’s been amusing before, like in The Wolf of Wall Street, but here, he’s outright hilarious.

So, with a performace like that, it takes a gargantuan performance to overtake Leo for best in the movie, and Chase Infiniti does that as Bob’s daughter, Willa.

Like most of the best movies out there, this one combines together several different subgenres for a gripping masterpiece.

Read our review of One Battle After Another here.

3. The Long Walk

In a year that was quite frankly, horrifying, it’s pretty crazy that a movie like The Long Walk ended up feeling like a life-affirming work. The film is extremely dark, but the human condition and how we feel as humanity shines through, even with a backdrop of horrible circumstances.

There are plenty of characters in the film, one boy for each state, but the ones we focus on are Raymond Garraty #47 (played by Cooper Hoffman) and Peter McVries #23 (played by David Jonsson). Outside of them the cast also features Garrett Wareing, Tut Nyuot, Charlie Plummer, Ben Wang, Jordan Gonzalez, Joshua Odjick, and Roman Griffin Davis. The military and the contest are led by The Major (played by Mark Hamill).

The Long Walk is a masterpiece. Haunting, beautiful, immensely thought-provoking. One of the most captivating movies of the year, which should see David Jonsson with plenty of awards. For as devastating as the movie is, there’s so much beauty in it as well. I was emotional, I cried twice, and yet, there’s so much to enjoy about this movie. There are definitely some portions that are hard to watch, but it’s a necessary watch.

I haven’t ugly cried in a movie theater in a long time, this movie made me cry three times.

Read our review of The Long Walk.

2. Avatar: Fire And Ash

Should people continue doubting James Cameron? Avatar: Fire and Ash proves that you should not.

In a theatrical landscape that’s missing true events and spectacles, we got two films like that that were nearly equal in quality. Avatar: Fire and Ash is quite simply, stunning.

This is the continuing story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his family as they deal with the human incursion on Pandora and the prolonged quest from Quaritch (Stephen Lang) to take him into custody. The film also stars Zoe Saldana as Neytiri, Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, Oona Chaplin as the villainous Varang, Kate Winslet as Ronal, Jack Champion as Spider, Cliff Curtis as Tonowari, and features performances from Edie Falco, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Brendan Cowell, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, David Thewlis, and Trinity Jo-Li Bliss. Of course, the film was directed by James Cameron, and written by Cameron, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is stunning. A true triumph. James Cameron has crafted a beautiful movie that is among the most satisfying of the year. Across the board, it’s got everything you’d want out of a spectacle at the movie theater.

Read our review of Avatar: Fire and Ash here.

1. Sinners

Sinners was the bar to judge all other great movies when it was released earlier this year in April.

The recipe for success in movies today is making your movie FEEL like an event. Sinners focuses on multiple characters, but it all comes back to the trio of Smoke, Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) and Sammie (played by first-time actor Miles Caton). These three are the crux of everything that goes on in the film.

Sinners is about as perfect as a movie can get. It’s one that’ll thrill you, entertain you, make you think, and keep you on the edge of your seat all at the same time. Ryan Coogler builds a world here that is fascinating, one where mysticism meets horror (both fictional and real life). I can see Sinners being a movie I rewatch over and over again, and that’s all you can ask for these days.

I said that every movie after this one would have to put up or shut up to knock it off the top spot, and no one did. Sinners is exquisite and very much deserving of the best movie of 2025.

Read our review of Sinners here.

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