2025 has come and gone. There were movies and then some more movies. Some were good. Others were better. A few were bad. And of course, there’s the ugly.
We’re here to celebrate all the weird beauty of 2025 in cinema and hand out the most deserving superlatives to the year’s highest highs, the lowest lows, and everything in between.
Most Outstanding Performance by a Road – One Battle After Another
Out of all of the great performances by the ensemble cast of Paul Thomas Anderson’s modern masterpiece, none were more significant or impressive than the road where the film’s climax takes place. It’s bizarre but oddly fitting that the most electric movie moment of the year was a long shot of a highway.
Worst Cameo – Everything in Happy Gilmore 2
You’re better than this Sandman! I get the appeal of hanging out with your friends and family and mailing it in while collecting millions, but we like seeing you in movies because we know you can be awesome. Be awesome and stop inviting Dan Patrick , Rob Schneider, and the like onto every set (Bad Bunny was cool though).
Best Dual Role Performance – Robert De Niro in Alto Knights
There was an odd trend of actors playing multiple characters in the same movie in 2025. Michael B. Jordan played twins in Sinners. Robert Pattinson played clones in Mickey 17. Elle Fanning doubled up as Weyland Corp androids in Predator: Badlands. Woody Harrelson played magician brothers in Now You See Me Now You Don’t.
Maybe we ease up on having actors pull double duty in 2026.
Best East Village Baseball Movie – Caught Stealing
Admittedly light competition in this category this year, but Caught Stealing takes the cake either way. Also the winner of the “Best East Village and Brooklyn Based Multicultural Crime Syndicate Movie” award.
Best Wig – The Rock’s Smashing Machine Wig
That wig will not fool us, Dwayne. You are still not a serious actor. You will always be the guy from Central Intelligence and Skyscraper.
*although you did take some cool early career swings like Southland Tales and Pain & Gain. Do more stuff like that.
Best Mustache – Homeboy from Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Tramell Tillman also wins the “Best Line Delivery” Award for his smooth as hell uttering of “and you must be out of your damn mind”
Runner up: Timotheé Chalamet’s pencil thin ‘stache in Marty Supreme
Best Cinematic Ode to Tom Cruise – The Opening of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Tom Cruise is the prince of movies. We all know that. But nobody appreciates what Tom Cruise has done for movies and the Mission: Impossible series more than Tom Cruise. Thank you, Tom Cruise.
Horniest Moment – Bisexual Submarine in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
The sexual tension on that submarine was through the roof. Do submarines have roofs? If something goes through the roof on a submarine, does that sink the ship? Can you refer to a submarine as a ship? Does any of this matter for horny everyone was there?
Sexiest Dinner Table Scene – Black Bag
Steven Soderbergh understands that sometimes people just want to watch a bunch of cool and sexy British people do espionage around a dinner table.
Best Performance by a Rapper – Ice Spice in The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants
An impressive win for Ice Spice, beating out the following nominees in our most stacked category of the year:
- Teyana Taylor in One Battle After Another
- Tyler, The Creator in Marty Supreme
- Action Bronson in Caught Stealing
- A$AP Rocky in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
- A$AP Rocky in Highest 2 Lowest
- Ice Spice in Highest 2 Lowest
Best Priest – Father Jud in Wake Up Dead Man
Josh O’Connor also the winner of the “Cutie Patootie of the Year” award.
Worst Priest – Monsignor Wicks in Wake Up Dead Man
Am I think only person who has on multiple occasions referred to Josh Brolin in this movie as Jeff Bridges? I think it’s the hair. It must be the hair.
Best Performance by a Cigarette – All the cigs in Nouvelle Vague
Runner Up: Gwyneth Paltrow’s cigarettes in Marty Supreme
Best Cunnilingus – Sinners
Ummm. Not sure how this got included. But that was like a big part of the movie, right?
Best Daddy Issues – Avatar: Fire and Ash
I haven’t actually seen it but my good friend Jacob Holmes tells me its a thing. We can trust that guy. He saw about a million movies this year.
Runner up: Frankenstein
Best Mommy Issues – Bugonia
Sometimes we need to kidnap the CEO of multibillion dollar corporations to see if they’re secretly aliens because of our unresolved mommy issues.
Runner up: Frankenstein again
Pedro Pascal Award for Most Random Appearances – Surprisingly, Pedro Pascal
This guy wouldn’t stop popping up in stuff! Sometimes he’s the star. Sometimes a supporting character. He’s in movies, and TV shows, and they even had a lookalike contest for him in New York City over the summer. This guy really was everywhere.
Congrats to all of the winners! And congrats to many of the losers as well!
What superlatives would you hand out for 2025 in film?
