It’s that time of year again: critics have filed their “Best Of” lists, the Oscar nominations have been announced (justice for Ann Lee!), and the world collectively mutters, “I haven’t seen any of these!” Fortunately, the Brattle Theatre has come to the rescue (as they so often do) with yet another spectacular program of (Some of) The Best of 2025. As we do every year, the Hassle has compiled a handy guide to the year’s program, with links to our writers’ original reviews (and, in several cases, our interviews with the filmmakers). By the end of the program, you’ll be fully prepared, if not for your Oscar prediction ballot, then at least to complain about the most egregious snubs— which, as any film snob worth their salt knows, is way more fun.

Thu 1/22: ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL (dir. Rungano Nyoni)
“There is comedy within the painful wails and scornful remarks, reflective of how life goes on even in death. Filmed in Zambia and spoken mostly in Bemba, the story is grounded in customs, which ends up working as a curious and ultimately effective gameplay to audiences unfamiliar with the region.” (Anna Hoang)

Thu 1/22: SENTIMENTAL VALUE (dir. Joachim Trier)
“Sentimental Value challenges the temporal spaces of feeling sentimental: it doesn’t have to exist for the closed chests of the past, but to power the forgiveness and opportunities of the present.” (AH)

Fri 1/23: THE MONKEY (dir. Osgood Perkins)
“Despite being quite the opposite of an elevated horror film, The Monkey still has an interesting heart, and a far more wicked sense of humor. The film makes many effective changes to the source material while maintaining King’s strong voice, and indulging heavily in the bloody zaniness the premise has to offer.” (Karenna Umscheid)
35mm! Double feature w/ Final Destination: Bloodlines

Fri 1/23: FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES (dir. Adam B. Stein, Zach Lipovsky)
“Everyone’s getting set on fire, ripped in half, or just splattering on the ground. No one is spared. Just a total riot, worth the price of admission alone.” (Kyle Amato)
Double feature w/ The Monkey

Sat 1/24: BUGONIA (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
“Like most of Lanthimos’s work, Bugonia is far from an easy watch, but it is also hysterically funny…In another movie, in another year, the ending of Bugonia might be a bridge too crazy; here and now, it’s just about right.” (Oscar Goff)
35mm! Double feature w/ Eddington

Sat 1/24: EDDINGTON (dir. Ari Aster)
“At its best, Eddington captures the madness of that maddest of years, that terrifying mix of dopey cabin fever and the very real sense that the world actually might be coming to an end. It also firmly announces the arrival of Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ as a pop cultural punchline, and honestly thank god for that.”
Double feature w/ Bugonia

Sun 1/25: FAMILIAR TOUCH (dir. Sarah Friedland)
Perhaps the realest film ever made about aging and memory loss; harrowing yet never hysterical, with touches of warmth and grace seldom seen in more melodramatic films on the subject. Kathleen Chalfant delivers one of the best performances of the year (and H. Jon Benjamin, in a rare dramatic turn, proves he’s more than just Bob Belcher). (OG)
Also screens 1/26

Sun 1/25: FRÉWALKA (dir. Aislinn Clarke)
“A solid Irish-language faerie horror for those who want a bit more mysticism with their old person frights…Plus, how often do you get to hear someone say ‘faggot’ in Irish?” (KA)
Double feature w/ Weapons

Sun 1/25: WEAPONS (dir. Zach Cregger)
“Here, as in Barbarian, Cregger proves himself a master of seemingly contradictory tones, modulating between offbeat humor and horrifying visuals, and combining the two as effectively as any film since Evil Dead 2. It all builds to one of the most gloriously bonkers horror finales in recent memory, at once deeply unsettling and hysterically over-the-top.” (OG)
Double feature w/ Fréwalka

Mon 1/26: SORRY, BABY (dir. Eva Victor)
“Funny without being cringe, warm without being saccharine, entertaining despite the frightening event at the film’s center.” (Jack Draper)
6:00pm screening presented by Strictly Brohibited, with discussion to follow

Tue 1/27: MISERICORDIA (dir. Alain Guiraudie)
“In cinema, there’s very few movies with actual sex. And maybe in this one, the project was to make an erotic film without sex. Erotic and sensual without sexual acts.” –director Alain Guiraudie, in conversation with the Hassle’s Kyle Amato

Tue 1/27: RESURRECTION (dir. Bi Gan)
“It’s unquestionably a movie about movies, and its conclusion feels like acknowledged resignation to an uncertain death, but it holds a simplicity about the truth in connection we have with each other, which can only sometimes be understood when we see it on screen.” (AH)

Wed 1/28: DIE MY LOVE (dir. Lynne Ramsay)
“Like the books of Otessa Moshfegh… the point is the mood, to spend a couple of hours in the head of its tragic, deeply toxic protagonist. Die My Love is not a horror movie in the strictest sense of the word, but will still likely leave you in a daze.” (OG)
Double feature w/ If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Wed 1/28: IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU (dir. Mary Bronstein)
“With audacious originality and directorial fearlessness, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is the kind of film that makes me optimistic about our current cinematic landscape. The film is fresh at every turn, from an unfriendly Conan O’Brien to existential visual motifs, an expanse of vivid colors, and sound design that further raises audience stress levels.” (KU)
Double feature w/ Die My Love

Thu 1/29: NOUVELLE VAGUE (dir. Richard Linklater)
“At times, Nouvelle Vague recalls Slacker, Linklater’s own guerilla-shot debut, which possessed less of a sustained narrative than a series of monologues delivered by a procession of increasingly eccentric hipster oddballs. Here, of course, those oddballs are well-known historical figures of a major 20th century art movement…The glee with which he inserts each of these characters mirrors the vitality of the scene itself.” (OG)
Presented by A.S. Hamrah. Double feature w/ Vulcanizadora

Thu 1/29: VULCANIZADORA (dir. Joel Potrykus)
“Sometimes I’ll go peek in at some screenings and people are giggling. Which is cool, and weird, because the movie is supposed to keep you off balance, so some people laugh at somebody’s suffering, or certain dialog.” –director Joel Potrykus, in conversation with the Hassle’s Oscar Goff
Presented by A.S. Hamrah. Double feature w/ Nouvelle Vague

Fri 1/30: FRANKENSTEIN (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
“With elegantly crafted sets and costumes, a refined score composed by Alexandre Desplat, top-notch performances, and heavy doses of humanity’s best and worst traits, Frankenstein is a strong example of why empathy and connection are vital to humanity—and how complicated relationships can get.” (Charlie von Peterffy)

Fri 1/30 ONE OF THEM DAYS (dir. Lawrence Lamont)
“The script and the neighborhood feels lived-in, as if the cast had written their own characters based on experience. I can imagine that each comedic scene has three variations with improvised lines and equally hilarious outcomes because the talent and passion into the details on making this realistic, from loan-shark businesses to gentrification, is unmistakable.” (AH)

Sat 1/31 HAPPYEND (dir. Neo Sora)
“The consideration in making this film look beyond its supposed genres is quite meaningful. Teenagers aren’t stupid, that spooky sci-fi thought bubble isn’t that far away from us, and politics do have a heart beating within.” (AH)
Double feature w/ Cloud

Sat 1/31 CLOUD (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
“Similar to Kurosawa’s To The Ends of the Earth, a film that blends a creepy edginess with trendy tourism, Cloud is about a topic that deserves a movie of some sorts, and it’s pretty neat that Kurosawa is the one to do it.” (AH)
Double feature w/ Happyend

Sun 2/1 EEPHUS (dir. Carson Lund)
“We kind of operated from a starting point of ‘There aren’t any really great baseball movies,’ or just none of them kind of hit that sweet spot that we want to get. We were like, let’s start from scratch. Let’s pretend that there’s a blank slate and just go in and make it exactly how we want to make it.” –director Carson Lund, in conversation with the Hassle’s Kyle Amato

Sun 2/1 FRIENDSHIP (dir. Andrew DeYoung)
“The experience of watching Friendship is similar to a horror movie, but instead of gore and violence, social ineptitude is the tool and Robinson and DeYoung are the craftsmen. I felt my intestines tightly wrung inside me when Craig does yet another misguided, embarrassing thing, and yet, I have laughed at scenes that I could not envision any other movie this year trying to pull off.” (AH)
Double feature w/ Splitsville

Sun 2/1 SPLITSVILLE (dir. Michael Angelo Covino)
“Both the humor and sincerity of Splitsville is imbued by the messy, chaotic nature of personhood, the cognitive dissonance between what we want and what we say we want. Splitsville urges us to smash our preconceptions of relationships like a clay vase.” (KU)
35mm! Double feature w/ Friendship

Mon 2/2 PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK (dir. Sepideh Farsi)
“I decided to focus on her face. The war is always there and the destruction, not shown in the image, but in the soundscape that we have around her. Her face becomes a territory that I explore, it becomes Gaza.” –director Sepideh Farsi, in conversation with the Hassle’s Joshua Polanski

Mon 2/2 TRAIN DREAMS (dir. Clint Bentley)
“Joel Edgerton leads a life of quiet dignity at the dawn of 20th century America. Featuring a top notch supporting performance by William H. Macy, the film plays in a minor key with stunning natural landscapes across the Midwest.” (KA)

Tue 2/3 THE HISTORY OF SOUND (dir. Oliver Hermanus)
“The History of Sound is, at its core, then, a demonstration of love and music’s endlessly valuable impacts on our lives and how they make it worth living—a feat brought home by its central duo.” (CvP)
Double feature w/ Peter Hujar’s Day

Tue 2/3 PETER HUJAR’S DAY (dir. Ira Sachs)
“It’s a very handmade film, I would say. It was ours. We could just do what we wanted. There was a lot of creative freedom to that that I think is in the DNA of the film.” –director Ira Sachs, in conversation with the Hassle’s Kyle Amato
Double feature w/ The History of Sound

Wed 2/4 CAUGHT BY THE TIDES (dir. Jia Zhangke)
“[Jia Zhangke’s] newest released film, Caught by the Tides, is the apotheosis of his life’s work and one of the most profound and emotional wrestlings with one’s own artistic catalogue ever released.” (Joshua Polanski)
Double feature w/ An Unfinished Film

Wed 2/4 AN UNFINISHED FILM (dir. Lou Ye)
“The pandemic was such an unprecedented time in our lifetimes that people acting erratic and overcautious was quickly accepted as the new norm. But the world made do with the weirdness, quarantine was lifted, and we’re still recovering from the spiral. For Ye and us, An Unfinished Film can feel like a good send-off to the time that we never asked for.” (AH)
Double feature w/ Caught by the Tides

Thu 2/5 WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (dir. Rian Johnson)
In his third Benoit Blanc whodunnit, Rian Johnson once again presents a pointed critique of contemporary conservatism— in this case, the decidedly un-Christlike hostility of fire-and-brimstone Christianity— wrapped inside a very funny star-studded murder mystery. Daniel Craig is wonderful as ever as the southern-fried investigator, but it’s Josh O’Connor, as a conflicted but true-hearted young reverend, who steals the show. (OG)
Double feature w/ The Mastermind

Thu 2/5 THE MASTERMIND (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
“Once again, Reichardt’s longtime cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt captures the natural lighting and the New England weather so beautifully in this film. The sun’s tertiary role in presenting the story in broad sunlight has the kind of muted brightness that puts us in the sleepier part of the afternoon, the perfect kind of timing for J.B.’s operations in his caliber.” (AH)
Double feature w/ Wake Up Dead Man

For showtimes and ticket info, see the Brattle’s website