Jack Draper is a film writer for Boston Hassle and author of the ongoing Diractors column. He also co-hosts the podcast Exiting Through the 2010s.
Top ten list season is probably my favorite time of the year. No matter how many I’d align with, there is this real sense of community when everyone compares notes on what the year of movies shows us. Hell, I love the bizarro lists that are as inspired as the ones that start to mirror each other as consensus picks. One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Weapons bring some hope to the health of the box office and how to open a movie while vying for audiences’ attention– especially this year, with the typical box office anxiety mixed with retaliation against AI slop. Yet this was a rewarding year with lots to like, despite typically blockbusters that feel all the more disposable. Below are my ten favorites of the year, a bevy of honorable mentions, and a roundup of movies directed by actors!
Honorable mentions:
28 Years Later, Black Bag, Presence, Die My Love, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Hedda, Misericordia, Nouvelle Vague, The Perfect Neighbor, The Phoenician Scheme, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Sorry, Baby, The Testament of Ann Lee, Urchin, Videoheaven, Wake Up Dead Man, Weapons
10. Eephus (dir. Carson Lund)
Starting the list is the film I saw the earliest, all the way back in early 2024 (though it was officially released in the spring of 2025). Despite seeing it the least recently of any of the entries, Eephus moved me greatly. By centering a New England baseball rec league on its last legs, Lund says something profound about how life’s final eras are greater than the sum of its parts. It would almost sound diluting to think New England baseball is the main character, but there is immense power in giving this ensemble little snippets during their final game rather than a grand narrative. Eephus shares DNA with last year’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (Miller’s Point filmmaker Tyler Taormina produced Eephus, and Lund photographed Miller’s Point). Like that film, Eephus has a power in what it feels like for something to end, and how funny it is that it’s a middle school constitution that interrupts the continuation of the rec league.
9. Blue Moon (dir. Richard Linklater)
It’s become a bit of a tradition for my lists to embrace the wonderful Richard Linklater. From last year’s Hit Man to 2022’s Apollo 10½, Rick is someone I’ll consistently be in the bag for; as a generational cusper myself, I am in awe of how he toys between the sensibilities of Boomers and Gen X. Linklater’s youthful outlook on characters stuck in liminal spaces here brings us his most tragic character to date. Lorenz Hart, realizing his creative efforts are expired, is also one of the I was born in the wrong generation characters in which Linklater has always taken interest. Ethan Hawke’s deeply lived-in performance walks that perfect line as that guy who yaps a little too much, yet you’ll miss greatly when they’re quiet. Blue Moon reveals itself to be a beautifully articulated chamber piece on what it feels like to have life pass by when you’re no longer valued.
8. The Shrouds (dir. David Cronenberg)
Leave it to David Cronenberg to make a love letter to his late wife that speaks so eloquently to the modern, lonely world. Vincent Cassel has never been more moving as a Toronto millionaire looking to elevate what it means to preserve one’s literal memory after their last moments alive. How exactly to keep someone’s memory exactly with you is an examination that only the master of body horror is capable of. As tender as it is creepy, The Shrouds speaks to Cronenberg’s belief that grief exists in a rapidly evolving world of convenience and surveillance. A sad attempt at continuing life beyond its natural conclusion.
7. Predators (dir. David Osit)
My lone doc inclusion this year goes to the gripping Predators, focusing on the moment of relevancy that Chris Hansen had with the show To Catch a Predator. Watching the doc is what I’d imagine watching the show was like in real time, a mix of entertainment in seeing these ghouls taken down and some questions of the morality of the experiment that are better left unanswered. The moral quagmire then becomes what kind of responsibility Hansen and his team would be held to, considering what they inspired. Filmmaker David Osit investigates YouTube copycats in between setting up the significance of TCAP and his own interview with Hansen, allowing us to see what we now know as the modern true crime pipeline. The shine of journalism/interrogation lives on, yet with no judicial work to finalize these men being put away for their crimes.
6. It Was Just an Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi)
It’s such an accomplishment and vital to have a filmmaker like Jafar Panahi. Panahi’s films, made under the extreme boundaries of the current Iranian administration, are as close as American viewers will get to feel the kind of loneliness an entire country feels. Panahi’s most “conventional” film to date, It Was Just An Accident focuses on the rippling effects of the regimes decision to misuse power. A direct confrontation with what was once wrong and nobody can forget– at least parts. What still strikes me is the community that’s still managed to be strung together. Life continues on and people work jobs, yet these memories only time can’t heal.
5. Eddington (dir. Ari Aster)
In a year of old masters showing they still have their stuff, like James Cameron, Jim Jarmusch, or David Cronenberg, it’s amazing to see a newer auteur finally find a singular voice. Ari Aster struck a nerve in the psychological horror genre, yet Eddington feels like a daring new direction that lets him intertwine the best of his humor and anxieties. The dreaded “2020 Covid western” could have been ill-timed, but for as clever a writer as Aster, it only makes sense to process that era as an Albert Brooks comedy meets an Anthony Mann western. Aster has mentioned something poignant in a few interviews that’s deeply felt in Eddington: “Something broke in 2020, and we never bothered to put it back together.” In Eddington, we can see this social contract being torn in real time.
4. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (dir. Mary Bronstein)
Mary Bronstein’s piercing If I Had Legs I’d Kick You makes for a great pairing with Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, both for the Elara Pictures vibes I’m very much in the bag for (see also Funny Pages ranking highly in my 2022 list), but especially how the two films are about people who are at a constant misunderstanding with each other and a failure to communicate. It’s especially tragic seeing Rose Byrne’s Linda as a working therapist to provide care for others, care for her child who is ill, receive help from a peer who says nothing and everything, or meeting someone that can maybe listen to her but she refuses to be heard. If not refused, then a resistance that intersects with post partum depression that is constantly hovering around her like the hole in her home. All of this intersects with the modern day you go mommy! niceties sprinkled throughout the doctor’s office. There’s an inside joke on TikTok lately (stay with me) where you’ll see young people complain about their days and then end that with “At least you don’t have kids to come home to,” which gets more true each time I see that no matter the desire for kids, the demands from life are only more heightened once the being uncomfortable is all you really feel.
3. Marty Supreme (dir. Josh Safdie)
We’ve been seeing the ripple effects this year of the Safdie split, which has given us two valid sides for a way to achieve greatness. Benny’s The Smashing Machine is ripe for reappraisal, even with such blemishes as its lack of tension or condemnation. Josh’s Marty Supreme, meanwhile, is just as eager to show the work of this athlete who was always on the outside looking into the world of success. Marty Mauser is his own worst enemy, constantly setting up hurdles he can’t clear all for the purpose of economic growth and leverage. He has a reply to a question before it’s even done being asked. This constant self preservation is just as exhausting as it is extremely compelling. Safdie’s Rube Goldberg tapestry of kinetic motion has never been more rewarding than it is for something with no integrity. Besides being so deeply lived in, Safdie refines once more what he is great at with building up this self destructive protagonist and slowly picking up good will with the audience.
2. Caught by the Tides (dir. Jia Jhangke)
As a novice for the films of Jia Zhangke, it was a real treat to have seen the beautiful Caught By the Tides as my first exposure. As there’s been many retrospective’s of the 25 years in the 21st century, it’s especially moving to have an artist with a real interest in the passage of time. Caught by the Tides a stitched up quilt made up of Jia’s films and significant Chinese events like Covid, TikTok and the Olympics. It feels like memories of the characters lost on a drift, for the audience and Jia himself when reflecting what he was doing while time kept spinning. It’s a real breaking of new ground when seeing lead actress Zhao Tao act in Tides, then juxtaposed with herself in Jia’s early work like Platform. Sublime.
1. One Battle After Another (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
Oh, this was number one before the year even began. I’m not sure what to say that hasn’t been said already. It’s not exactly a unique opinion to say “Paul Thomas Anderson means the world to me,” yet as a young film nerd, he was the first filmmaker I got. I’ve loved seeing the way he sees the world and how that further revealed itself into One Battle and his position as a protector. Even at his most mysterious or obtuse, seeing how PTA has gotten to letting his guard down and finding a voice so uniquely his own is a true thrill to see. The skillful imitations of Altman or Scorsese still linger but no longer is that controlling every decision. Radical and urgent, all while being widely entertaining. Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction.
Diractors of 2025
Millers in Marriage/The Family McMullen (Ed Burns is on his journey to become Woody Allen)
Eric LaRue (Michael Shannon gives us the most exciting debut that isn’t Urchin)
Summer of 69 (This is what Jillian Bell has been up to, cute!)
Goodbye June (Kate Winslet’s directorial debut– actually really bad!)
Eleanor the Great (Didn’t see this, as it interfered with some of the horror diractors, but we’ll catch ScarJo on the next one)
Is This Thing On? (Coming soon!)
Good Fortune (It charmed me– what can I say)
Urchin (My favorite director of the year! More here)
John Candy: I Like Me (Colin Hanks is a decent filmmaker, but there’s just no thesis here)
Trouble Man (Michael Jai White woefully brings back the 90-minute action movie)
Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight (Really interesting work from Embeth Davidtz that didn’t totally click for me)
Sorry, Baby (Great movie, lovely to chat with Eva Victor)
Hell of a Summer (Decent cast, but it’s a horror comedy that’s not very scary and can’t find the humor in most of the characters)
Wish You Were Here (Completely forgot about this one, Julia Stiles gives this thing no life)
