top 10 movies - 2025

In 2025, I saw 68 films of which ~50 were new releases. That's the most trips I've made to the movie theater in a calendar year.1

As I watch more and more I find my taste simultaneously broadening and sharpening. I like more stuff in general but it's harder and harder to find something that blows my mind so thoroughly that I can't stop thinking about it.

Weirdly enough, I've become more forgiving of movies with obvious, glaring flaws if they contain short, sublime sequences that have me levitating out of my seat. Lucky for me, this year was chock full of these "moment movies" — from the heist in Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest to the midnight revelation between Pedro Pascal and Dakota Johnson in Celine Song's Materialists.

But, this year was also full of movies that just rock.

There's something clearly "in the water" — a shared cultural understanding brought to bear across the styles and stories of many distinct films. Sometimes this calcifies in a popular genre, like the conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s in the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate. Other times, it's a stylistic movement like the French New Wave, pushing in opposition to shared storytelling conventions.

In the past, it feels like these movements were isolated by space and time. They simmered for years before reaching a boil and frothing over into the rest of the world.

In a year featuring Nouvelle Vague, the cultural lag that used to exist could not be more explicit. Melissa Maerz's Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused describes the inception of Linklater's love for French New Wave. Decades after the movement took over France, Linklater discovered it in the late 1980s and early 1990s, watching countless prints at a small Austin rep theater. And in turn, it's only through Linklater's work that I discovered the new wave. The movement took 70 years of cultural transmission, but it finally found its way to me by way of The Before Trilogy, Dazed and Confused, and Everybody Wants Some.

In 2025, we've all opted into a shared consciousness. And accordingly filmmakers and audiences across the globe are conversing with each other directly in real time, irrespective of cultural differences or language barriers. The lag in cultural transmission seems to have disappeared.

As an audience member, streaming is clearly enabling this conversation. For all the handwringing about the death of the theatrical experience, it's incredible how accessible cinema has become.2

...

So what's the conversation about?

The two themes that appeared again and again across my favorite films of 2025 were:

1. Political dissidence (or lack thereof) in the wake of authoritarian regimes
2. Claustrophobia (and love) that only families can provide 3

With that prelude, let's start the list (spoilers below).

At this point, I think I've seen the teaser trailer to Dhurandhar at least 30 times. While the trailer is a masterpiece, the film sadly is not.

The Kandahar Hijacking and 2001 Indian Parliament attacks are tragedies rendered for political points rather than empathy. I could only cringe watching these unfold on screen. Beyond its dubious politics, the film itself is overstuffed and at times incoherent. I was just straight up bored in the last hour.

And yet, I could not stop thinking about this movie.

A JFK-style conspiracy connecting the underworld in Lyari to attacks in India, is a banger premise. The action is vicious and violent. Akshaye Khanna steals the movie. And most impressively, Aditya Dhar pushes the entire form forward with his preternatural ability to soundtrack. Somehow he found a new syntax with the way he combines countless needledrops à la Scorsese with original music by Shashwat Sachdev and perfectly choreographed camerawork.

Dhurandhar is the king of "moment movies" for me in 2025.

Dhar sent shivers down my spine, when he cuts from Arjun Rampal quarterbacking the November 2008 Mumbai attack over satellite phone to the blank red screen, where plays the real life conversation recordings between the command center and terrorists.

And then like many of his other interesting directorial decisions, he undermines the impact by doing too much -- this time with a cutaway to Ranveer Singh's ashamed face. 2 hours and 30 minutes in to the madness, I'd honestly forgotten that Ranveer was a spy. The film nailed the moment but lost me in its plotting.

This movie had the bones of something truly special. With some editing and tighter scripting, it could have gotten there.

I watch 95% of movies with my brother, Manu. Typically, we have similar reactions to films.4 This was one of the few times that we completely disagreed.

Manu hated Eddington. He checked out of the movie right after the supermarket masking confrontation between Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal. He found the recreation of the literal arguments of Covid-19 to be intellectually vacant. And this specific confrontation had him lose all empathy for our beta-male sheriff. I didn't bump on it; instead it worked as grounding for how off the rails the movie went in its final act.

While I don't agree with the nihilism Aster espouses, I found the movie hilarious.

Watch this for Phoenix's performance alone. It's a shame he's not in the conversation for best actor this year.

Honestly, this movie just ripped. Watching THE DANCE SEQUENCE in IMAX 70MM had me leave this plane of existence.

Some of my friends found the themes of cultural appropriation to be surface level. But, I think the film is a lot more conflicted and messy than it might seem at first glance. Especially with the post credits scene, I think Coogler is provoking us and questioning us whether the vampires are entirely misguided.

I've never seen a double role done better than this. Credit to Michael B. Jordan as well as the excellent writing and styling to keep these two brothers so distinct during the runtime of the film.

A lot has been written about the making of the film -- that it was shot in secret by a filmmaker who has been imprisoned by the secret police and will again be sent to jail upon the end of the awards season. Nevertheless, it's hard to describe how moving and sincere this film is.

While Dhurandar iterates upon Scorsese's soundtracking, It Was Just An Accident iterates upon Scorsese's humanistic exploration of faith. While Jafar Panahi does not discuss religion explicitly, there is a spiritual, almost fable-esque quality in its questioning of these characters' fate.

Why were these people from all walks of life put through the very same ringer? What would you do, if confronted with the opportunity to enact revenge on the man who ruined your life, a literal incarnation of the authoritarian regime? It's these questions and the film's ultimate conclusion that brought me back to Scorsese's perennial examination of good and evil.

Also, we're not talking enough about Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr's performance as Hamid.

Richard Linklater is my favorite filmmaker, and he's been on a heater since Apollo 10 1/2.

The craft on display here is incredible. From the in-camera tricks that fool us into believing Ethan Hawke is a man of such diminutive stature. To a career defining performance. The film somehow stifles all of Hawke's iridescent charm, only to give us grim, fleeting glimpses of the man's genius through his conversations with Qualley.

All that aside, I found the portion with E.B. White to be the most compelling part of the film. After 20-30 minutes ranting and rambling to the bartender, Hart notices White from the corner of his eye. When asked about his career, White tells Hart that he is washed -- reduced from prolific essayist to the author of a yet-to-be-released children's book.5

In that moment, Linklater crystallizes the importance of curiosity, adaptation, and reinvention in art. One man kept writing, kept making, kept expressing himself in new and profound ways, accidentally finding immortality in our elementary school classrooms. The other so crippled by his vices, could not adjust to the changing world. He lost his voice and in such was lost to himself and to time.

In the words of Bill Simmons, I have season tickets to Zach Cregger.

For me, he's up there with Jordan Peele, Greta Gerwig, and the Safdies. When these filmmakers have a new release, I avoid the trailer at all costs so that I can experience the film on my own terms. 6

There is a special alchemy between a film and the time when you see it.

In August 2022, my brother and I winded down our last startup, after working on it for a year and a half. We were living at home since the pandemic hit in 2020, so we had no expenses. Our parents are the best.7 They advised us to take some time off and just relax for a few months, before we picked ourselves off the mat and figured out what we wanted to do next. That next month and a half we went to the theater again and again and again.

When we heard rumblings about Cregger's first feature Barbarian, we got my grad school roommate to drive down an hour after work to grab bánh mì with us and check it out.8 We went in knowing nothing but the poster and good reviews. We had never seen anything like the tonal shifts that Cregger was able to pull off between horror and comedy. It blew our minds.

As a result, Weapons was my most anticipated film of the year, and it delivered. It was the most fun I had in the theater this year.

If you haven't seen it, don't read up any more about it. Just go in blind and check it out on HBO Max. You're in for a treat.

This was the scariest horror movie I saw this year.

If Uncut Gems is a 11/10 on the anxiety meter, this was a solid 9. It was the most I've squirmed in my seat the last 6 years. I know that might not sound like a compliment, but trust me it is. It's hard to describe a movie that leaves you so thoroughly wrecked and rapt in emotion. It's truly an experience.

Mary Bronstein's decision to hide Byrne's child offscreen till the very last shot is an absolutely brilliant way to create empathy for our struggling mom.

Rose Byrne gives the best performance of the year (maybe of the past several years).

Between The Smashing Machine, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, and Marty Supreme, 2025 was the year for the Safdies and their crew of NYC filmmakers.

When I watched Benny's movie this year, I had a looming feeling of dread, that a shoe would drop. But with this one, I felt the manic energy as propulsion rather than nightmare fueled stress. 9

When Forever Young started to blare and the screen turned into a bizarro CGI rendering of sperm finding eggs to create a zygote, only to transform into a spinning ping pong ball mid-match, I knew we were in for a treat.10

It was one of those moments this year where my brother and I turned to each other laughing, excited and unsure what would happen next.

I don't rewatch movies usually, but I saw this one three times this year, twice in IMAX 70MM and once at home with the folks over Christmas.

Benicio Del Toro is my spirit animal. Ocean Waves and "You know what freedom is ... no fear just like Tom F*ing Cruise" are mantras to live by.

PTA once again shows us why he is a master, driving meaning without any words.

Midway through the movie all hell breaks loose in Baktan Cross. Leo desperately looks for an outlet to plug in a 1G phone to get the rendezvous point for his daughter without being overheard by the government. And all the while, Del Toro mobilizes his resources effortlessly over an iPhone, snapping selfies along the way. The message is clear -- if the bad guys want to get you, there's nothing you can do to avoid the confrontation. It's only what you do in that moment of crisis that matters.

I'm a broken record at this point, but my god the needledrops (Perfidia, Soldier Boy, Ready or Not, to name a few). In my opinion, the nervy score by Jonny Greenwood is second only to his work on Phantom Thread.

It's hard to put into so few words, why I loved this movie so much. It just created a vibe and a world that I did not want to leave.

Kleber Mendonça Filho is successful in virtually every choice he makes -- from the stunning sun-dappled depiction of 1970s Brazil, to the "hang out" storytelling, and the accidental hell that Moura's character creates for himself by challenging the oligarchs of his time.

Wagner Moura is phenomenal in this movie, essentially playing 3 different versions of himself (and others).

If you haven't checked this one out, I could not recommend this more.

No Other Choice, Sirat, The Testament of Ann Lee, and Is This Thing On? weren't playing in SF before I left for the holidays. I'm very stoked to catch these on the big screen in the new year.

To be honest, I've actively avoided Frankenstein and Hamnet even though I know they'll be nominated for Oscars this year and are likely quite good. I'm mildly allergic to monster movies and am tired of the premise after Poor Things. When it comes to Hamnet, it was in theaters for such a short period of time. I had a shot to check it out over Thanksgiving, but I ended up seeing Sentimental Value instead.

Avatar Fire and Ash I'll have to see in theaters, but after Dhurandar I wasn't up for another 3+ hour movie.

Zootopia 2 I skipped since I hadn't seen the original Zootopia until last week on Disney Plus.

And then there's just a bunch of stuff I missed (primarily stuff at the Roxy): My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, Die My Love, Resurrection, Caught By The Tides, Cloud, The Shrouds, The Voice of Hind Rajab, and Homebound.14