Did I see as many movies as I wanted to? I eventually did towards the later part of the year, when I crammed Hamnet and Tron: Ares into the same screener marathon. I might be in the minority of people who like to watch certain movies at home, though I concede to those who rightfully argue that many things belong only on the big screen – and yes! For the times that I did come out — Sinners on IMAX, One Battle After Another in VistaVision (thanks, Coolidge Corner!), The Naked Gun on a prickly whim (and the praise is true; the row that took my seat was having a damn blast) — I would not change those experiences.

But even with the grandness of this year’s releases, there were also many that felt intimately close to the heart. Beyond Superman and Fantastic Four (both of which ended up being very fine entertainment), it’s hard to imagine how I could watch Rose Byrne’s performance with other people. Even Bradley Cooper, a director I’ve initially bristled at the name of, has really won meover in Is This Thing On?, both as a director unwilling to turn away from marriage’s hard truths and as an actor splattering a whole quart of oat milk for the slapstick of it all. There is a particular gasp that I imagine happens in most showings of Sorry, Baby that makes me believe in humanity, but the movie moves me in its quietness, the kind that makes me appreciate people once I return to the real world. Which, as it’s been for the whole year, is violently divisive and terribly bleak.

I guess there ain’t nothing to it now except to do it.

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2025

10. LEFT-HANDED GIRL (dir. Shih-Ching Tsou)
I think about this fictional family a lot and hope they’re doing okay 🙂

9. DEAR STRANGER (dir. Tetsuya Mariko)
I love the nuanced clash of the Asian American experience in this that captures the alienating experience from society and the ones you love. Hidetoshi Nishijima reprises his Dark Lord costuming from Drive My Car as an architectural professor who feels the distance between his wife Jane (Gwei Lun-Mei) and her step-son. Everyone is sad, well-dressed, and attractive, which might be a few notches above the average experience, but loneliness on screen is a feeling that’s welcome in my house.

8. THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER (dir. Kristen Stewart)
If I had not let it be known before, let me share now: I was a Kristen Stewart hater. I could not talk about her acting without vivid gesticulation on what felt wrong, but this movie truly made me rethink about her…everything (and her impression of herself has got me spinning). The Chronology of Water is so purposefully jolting and disorienting yet tasteful that I have to give credit where credit’s due: she did THAT!

7. THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE (dir. Mona Fastvold)
Who said that white people don’t have culture?

6. RESURRECTION (dir. Bi Gan)
You know how we do!!

5. SORRY BABY (dir. Eva Victor)
“I think we’re gonna need a tonal shift.”

4. THE SECRET AGENT (dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)
You don’t necessarily need to see Pictures of Ghosts to enjoy it, but there is a deep-seated pleasure in one particular shot of Recife that makes me so happy for the movie, Mendonça, and the spirit of Señor Alexandre.

3. HAPPYEND (dir. Neo Sora)
I’m very much guilty for the crevices in our youth that have the shape and power to become influential later. This really is the teenage experience.

2. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
I didn’t know what a PTA action movie was going to look like, but holy moly.

1. SINNERS (dir. Ryan Coogler)
I watched this movie three times in theaters, and there is a part of me at the beginning of the rewatches that pauses in fear that it might not be as good as I remember. But when the church doors kick open, I remember that the sermon that we come to see is worth sitting down for again and again.

Big love to the following: Naomi Ackie supporting actress supremacy, “Will you be brave?”, Daniel Blumberg for the score of the year (followed by Jonny Greenwood, Rob Mazurek, and Nala Sinephro for their contributions to the “Skittles cascading on a full drum set” soundscape), Predators + Afternoons of Solitude + Pavements for being banger documentaries, the international films that work hard to get their films out there