10 Best Films of 2025

            Why is it that anytime I sit down to make a movie “list” I can hear in the background the dulcet voice of movie star Lola Brewster (lustily played by Kim Novak) in The Mirror Crack’d, “I could eat a can of Kodak and puke a better film.” I used to religiously do a 10 best roundup when I worked for Paper magazine. But I just wasn’t up to compiling it last year, thinking to myself, “I’m over this.” After all, what are those 10 best lists? Just so a reader can scream, “You big asshole- how could you like that movie?” I do it too. Or, think to myself, “There are so many better movies that could have made their list.” But for some reason I found myself accumulating a list throughout the year anyway, and then had to ruthlessly whittle it down for a 10 Best. And I still haven’t seen a few movies like Sentimental Value and Hamnet. But, fuck it, here we go anyway. My 10 favorites:

            Sirat. Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Oliver Laxe’s nerve-shredding, trippy, nightmarish odyssey begins with a wall of weathered speakers being assembled in a gully surrounded by mountains in the barren Moroccan desert. Soon a wall of throbbing techno bass causes the crowd of stoned ravers to undulate to the music. In the crowd- Luis (Sergi Lopez) is handing out fliers searching for his missing daughter. He is accompanied by his young son Esteban (Bruno Nunez Arjona) and their little dog. After they are chased away by the military they follow a caravan of nomadic, tattooed, drugged-out travelers heading to another rave further down south. And that’s when things go from bad to hellishly worse. It’s a hypnotic, mystical, occasionally horrifying trip indeed, eventually revealing an apocalyptic landscape of grief and trauma. An extraordinary film.

            Sinners. Ryan Coogler’s visionary vampire saga, set in 1932, in the heart of the Jim Crow-South, is ostensibly about two bootlegger brothers (both played by the extraordinary Michael B. Jordan), setting up a juke joint in an abandoned sawmill for one big blowout of a night. But then things bloodily devolve as they are attacked by a crew of vicious vampires (singing Irish folk songs no less). But the film is so much more. Sure, it painfully reveals the simmering racism of the times- but then Coogler dares to take some exhilarating cinematic risks. Like when cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) steps up to the stage and launches into an electrifying blues number that bends time and space. Your jaw hits the floor. So many things that should not work do, and even the vampire action scenes at the end are gorily thrilling as they are heartbreaking. I love that this movie was a huge hit too. There is something hopeful about this.

            Eddington. At the beginning of Ari Aster’s cringe-inducing nightmare, beleaguered sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) is wearily navigating the political morass of the 2020 quarantine in the small town of Eddington, New Mexico. The first half hour paralyzed me in my seat, hearing those familiar arguments about masks, vaccines, black lives matter, and a myriad of conspiracy theories that are tearing the town in half. I thought to myself, “do I really want to go through this again?” But then the movie goes merrily, and violently, right off the rails. The kind of “bonkers” experience that Ari Aster is so maniacally good at. The cast, like Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and the deliriously great Deirdre O’Connell, are all sardonically sublime. I got just so weary of hearing people dismiss this film or complain about it politically. It is a horror movie, for Chrissakes. But talk about a scary vision of America.

             Nouvelle Vague. God, I loved this movie. Richard Linklater’s thrilling recreation of Jean-Luc Godard’s filming of Breathless. Shot in black & white, with an expertly cast ensemble, Linklater vividly recreates what was going on with young filmmakers in France at the time in the 1960s, all making their mark in “New Wave” cinema. There’s Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Jacques Demy and Agnes Varda. We see Jean-Pierre Melville on the set of a movie and Robert Bresson in the subway shooting Pickpocket. Jean-Luc Godard (played exquisitely by Guillaume Marbeck) plays a film critic watching his friends making their own films and is chomping at the bit to direct. He finally gets the chance with an exasperated producer who greenlights his meta-noirish take on a criminal and his girl on the run, starring Hollywood royalty Jean Seberg (glorious Zoey Deutch) and a relative unknown- Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin, spookily looking exactly like the real star). But Godard’s scattershot way of filming has Seberg wondering what the hell she has gotten herself into. It’s a wonderful valentine to film, and the crackpots who revolutionized cinema.

            The Phoenician Scheme. In Wes Anderson’s buoyantly funny new film, a deadpan Benicio del Toro plays the ruthless, international businessman Zsa-Zsa Korda. He has just survived his 6^th plane crash, has nine sons and is hoping to teach his daughter (Mia Threapleton), who is a nun, the ropes of his business empire. All the while trying to secure globe-trotting funding for a vast, new, money laundering scheme, and outlive the plots against his life. Aside from Anderson’s wonderful usual ensemble of actors playing eccentric roles (like Scarlett Johansson, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Hope Davis, Rupert Friend, Willem Dafoe), there’s Benedict Cumberbatch playing Korda’s murderous Uncle Nubar and Bill Murray as God. New member of Anderson’s posse, Michael Cera does steal the show as Bjorn, the weird Norwegian tutor. As much fun as this is as it crazily rolls along, the ending was surprisingly emotionally satisfying as it was very touching. 

            The Monkey. “Turn the key, see what happens,” are the instructions for an oversized, sardonically grinning toy monkey that two young twins, Hal & Bill (both played by Christian Convery) discover among their errant father’s possessions. But when they do turn the key and the monkey ominously brings down its drumstick, random people die in rather hilarious, horrible ways. Director Osgood Perkins (Longlegs) uses the Stephen King short story this is based on as a springboard to tell a very different kind of horror tale. One infused with tragedy and grief and loss not to mention absent fathers, hateful brothers, and a malevolent toy that is difficult to get rid of. Hal chops it up with a cleaver and the brothers even toss it down a well, but, like a bad penny, it keeps reappearing. The film is a free-wheeling, gleefully gruesome blast, but there are these undercurrents of genuine heartfelt sadness beneath the dark humor. (I also rather liked the other weird film Perkins made this year, Keeper).

            When Fall is Coming. In Francois Ozon’s exquisite new film, Michelle (Helene Vincent) is in the autumn of her life. She lives in Burgundy, nearby her best friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko). Both have shared a checkered past and have made peace with it. They often head into the forest to collect mushrooms, and Michelle is planning dinner for her troubled daughter Valerie (Ludivine Sagnier/Swimming Pool) and her beloved grandson Lucas (Garlan Erlos) who is going to spend the week with his grandmother. But a culinary accident causes an even further rift between mother and daughter and Lucas is not allowed to stay. Meanwhile Michelle hires Marie-Claude’s ex-jailbird son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) to work weeding her garden and clearing out her garage. All this builds to a mysterious death and Michelle and her grandson forming an unbreakable bond together in her country home. Pierre Lottin is a real standout as the ruffian with a good heart and Ludivine Sagnier is heartbreaking as the unhappy, perpetually angry daughter. What’s remarkable about this film, aside from the extraordinary performances, is how it slowly gets under your skin, making you care so much about these characters. The movie radiates such warmth and tenderness and also teases you with question marks about the mystery at the center of the film. 

              My Mom Jayne. What a terrific directorial debut for Mariska Hargitay, who takes a deep dive into the life of her glamorous, blonde bombshell mother Jayne Mansfield. After all, Mariska was only three when her movie star mom died. She was even in the car, wedged under the back seat during the accident that took Jayne’s life. For Mariska, there was always something slightly embarrassing about her mother. True, Jayne Mansfield’s outlandish, publicity-seeking stunts were sometimes grotesquely over-the-top and eye-rolling. But I was always a huge fan of Jayne– I thought she was an incredible comedienne (The Girl Can’t Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? are shining examples of Jayne’s brilliant coming timing). And she could be fantastic in serious roles like The Wayward Bus and Single Room Furnished. But she had created such an extreme, sexpot character of herself that, sadly, she was never seriously considered for dramatic roles. Mariska’s investigation into Jayne’s life reveals some startling, devastating revelations along the way and how the film navigates these surprising turns is exhilarating.

            Weapons. 17 children, from the same classroom, ran off into the night at exactly the same time, arms rigidly outstretched, never to be seen again. Their frantic parents suspiciously target the poor teacher (Julia Garner), who has, understandably, taken to vodka to deal with the threats against her. She also does some sleuthing of her own to find out what happened to the kids. Josh Brolin is quite affecting as a distraught parent, also tracking down his own clues. And then we come to one of the most fiendishly grotesque relatives seen on screen in some time- Aunt Gladys (played brilliantly by Amy Madigan). I was so impressed by the clever way director Zach Cregger structured this story, but I was still screaming along with the audience during the jaw-dropping finale.

            One Battle After Another. Paul Thomas Anderson’s delightfully deranged interpretation of the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland unleashes his filmmaking virtuosity in thrilling ways. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob, a member of a radical revolutionary group calling themselves the French 75. He is separated from his sexual partner, the volatile Perifidia (Teyana Taylor), and goes on the run with his baby daughter Willa after a disastrous bank robbery. Years have passed, and stoner Bob and his grown daughter (beautifully played Chase Infiniti) are hiding out in Northern California until the deranged Colonel Lockjaw (a riotous Sean Penn) relentlessly comes after them. Benicio del Toro is a hoot as a laid-back migrant smuggler who aids his friend Bob. DiCaprio hasn’t been this great in some time. Anderson’s camerawork and breathless pace, mixed with cracked dark humor, really all comes together beautifully in this loony, comic Battle of Algiers.