(This article is part of our Best of 2025 series.)
I’m happy to report that 2025 was another great year for movies—if you knew where to look. Sure, it had its share of disappointments. And the industry itself is facing dire concerns from all angles. But despite these struggles, tons of quality films graced our screens this year, including some instant classics and hidden gems. So many, in fact, that my top five could look completely different any given day, but what you’ll find below is a good cross-section of some of my absolute favorites.
Honorable Mentions: Nickel Boys, Hamnet, One Battle After Another, Wake Up Dead Man, and Bring Her Back.
Final Destination Bloodlines
I am not a huge fan of the Final Destination franchise, so I was as shocked as anyone to come away from the sixth installment loving nearly every second. With AMC A-List burning a hole in my pocket, I caught this in theaters three times with different groups of people and had an absolute blast watching the reactions of those who didn’t know what was coming. I recently threw it on to rewatch “in the background” on streaming and got sucked right back in again.
The sequel sheds some of the early 2000s cringe factor and adds a brilliant twist on the original premise with the idea of entire bloodlines created by survivors of death’s design, bringing a new level of intimacy and scope to this chapter. The opening scene is one of the best of the year, and it barely slows down as it takes us on kill after inventive kill all the way through the finale.
Marty Supreme
I had my doubts about this movie all year long, despite the obvious excitement about the project from A24. I am glad to have been proven wrong, as this instantly became my favorite of the year when I finally got to see it on the big screen.
Timothée Chalamet is better than ever, giving the most dominant performance since Cate Blanchett in Tár. And director Josh Safdie infuses the film with his trademark chaos and anxiety, but set in a picturesque 1950s NYC, which makes that more bearable in my opinion. The surrounding cast is up to the task as well, including a surprisingly good turn from Shark Tank‘s Kevin O’Leary, a breakout performance from Odessa A’Zion, and a return to form for Gwyneth Paltrow. And that score from Daniel Lopatin, complete with ’80s needledrops, simply soars.
Eternity
The trailer for this one intrigued me, and I’m always down to check out an A24 picture, but Eternity shocked me by becoming one of my easy favorites of the year. I love an exploration of life and relationships through a sci-fi/fantasy premise, and this really scratched that itch. A bevy of great performances lifts the film beyond its smart script, with Elizabeth Olsen and Miles Teller leading the way as an elderly couple who die one week apart and must decide where to spend eternity, and who to spend it with. Callum Turner plays Olsen’s ridiculously attractive first husband, who died in the war (calm down, buddy, it was Korea).
Here to help Olsen decide which husband to settle down with for all time are Da’vine Joy Randolph and John Early as “after-life coordinators,” injecting tons of humor and fun into the proceedings. The production design is also a standout, with “The Junction” where individuals must choose an afterlife mimicking an infinite time share convention setup.
Love Me
How about another love story that lasts, if not an eternity, a really damn long time. Love Me is the story of a Smart Buoy (voiced by Kristen Stewart) who falls in love with a satellite (voiced by Stephen Yeun) while the two AIs also understand what life and love even mean. Set hundreds of thousands of years after the end of humanity, the buoy (later known as “Me”) awakens from a frozen state and eventually makes connection with a satellite (later known as “Iam”) that orbits Earth as a repository of information on human life. With their primary purposes going unfulfilled, Me leads Iam into an exploration of self-actualization inextricably tied to a romantic relationship between the two, thanks to surface-level vlogs left behind by a real long-gone human played by Stewart that Me adopts as her own personality.
It’s an experimental film—about a third of it takes place in a Sims-like world with characters that resemble Stewart and Yuen—but it had me laughing quite a bit, and it genuinely taps into big questions about what life and love are about.
Predator: Badlands
There’s a running joke about me reviewing new Predator films despite having only seen the first, mostly predator-less half, of the original ’80s action flick. But I am caught up on the modern Predator franchise under director Dan Trachtenberg, and this might just take the cake. While Prey is a more classic Predator tale, this new adventure changes the game for what the franchise can deliver by introducing us to a Yautja that is as badass as ever, yet looked down upon by his clan, and must therefore take on an extraordinary feat to prove himself.
But in his attempt to bite off more than he can chew, he must reluctantly pair up with half a Weyland Yutani synthetic named Thia (Elle Fanning), with the caveat that he only agrees because he sees her as a tool rather than another species. Thia’s bubbly energy creates an entertaining odd couple pairing for the adventure that mostly works throughout the runtime. Ultimately, the story challenges the Yautja way and leads Dek toward the potential to understand a different standard to aspire to.
What are your thoughts on the movies that made my top five? Share them down below!
