The 50 best movies of 2025

Eddington (Ari Aster)

Release Date: July 18th | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal

Eddington was a film that was made to stoke up repressed feelings and prey upon all-too recent wounds, and judging by the mixed reviews, Ari Aster more than fulfilled his goal.

Rather than attempting to rationalise the erratic behaviour from all players involved or attempt to suggest equal blame, Eddington takes a sharp look at the chaotic circumstances that caused society to turn on itself during the Covid-19 crisis of 2020, and it’s during a period of vulnerability that people resort to their worst instincts, weaponising their rehearsed rhetoric, and showing a shameless inability to communicate.

As grim as Eddington is, it’s frequently hilarious, albeit in a very cruel way, and given the many complex anti-heroes and tragic characters that Joaquin Phoenix has played over the course of his long and illustrious career, it’s particularly amusing that Aster cast him as a befuddled, incompetent law enforcement officer who mistakenly believes in his own authority.

Nobody (Yu Shui)

Release Date: August 2nd | Genre: Animation | Starring: Ziping Chen, Wenliang Dong

In a landscape simply dominated by American, European and Japanese creators, Chinese animation has managed to leave a significant mark this year with Nobody. Not only did it manage to draw massive box office numbers and hopefully encourage producers to invest more money in the Chinese animation market (the part of it that truly deserves more funding), but it’s also simply fantastic.

Through Nobody, the tradition of 2D animation lives on, presenting a deceptively simple story of a group of cute cartoon animals going on a journey. In the process, they find out who they are and are forced to examine their personal philosophies. You know, just the normal epic shit that differentiates the mediocre animated flicks from the ones that you’ll spend days thinking about.

Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper)

Release Date: December 19th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Will Arnett, Laura Dern

After directing two ambitious films about the struggles faced by tormented, genius musicians, Bradley Cooper showed a different side to his directorial abilities with a deep dive into the world of standup comedy.

Cooper had the hindsight to cast his long-time friend, Will Arnett, as a middle-aged man who unexpectedly picks up a mic amidst an amicable yet taxing divorce from his wife (Laura Dern). While stand-up comedy is too often seen as a medium in which radicals can say the most offensive thing possible under the guise of being funny, Is This Thing On? shows how the electricity of a live performance can allow for a deeper form of connectivity through storytelling.

It’s impressive that a film so dedicated to showing what goes into writing a standup set can manage to be so dramatically fulfilling, while never taking itself too seriously. Arnett shows a surprising range for an actor often typecast in comedic roles, and Cooper thankfully leaves a scene-stealing supporting role for himself.

Resurrection (Bi Gan)

Release Date: November 22nd | Genre: Sci-Fi | Starring: Jackson Yee, Shu Qi

Describing the latest surrealist odyssey from director Bi Gan is nearly impossible, given that the film itself is about how cinema is used to embody feelings that can’t be conveyed in any other medium. While it could be loosely classified as a science fiction epic, Resurrection is a story of how dreams are drawn from memories to create imagination, and how the trappings of genre can crystallise existential ideas.

Resurrection isn’t meant to be understood on a single viewing, and there’s no simple solution to the broad themes that Gan is hinting at. While it’s sure to excite the arthouse cinephiles who’ve pondered the meaning of The Tree of Life and Twin Peaks: The Return, Resurrection also has a message about the singular power of the theatrical experience that feels more powerful than ever when the industry could potentially see one of its biggest studios bought out by a streaming services not interred in showing movies the way that they were meant to be seen.

The Ballad of Wallis Island (James Griffiths)

Release Date: May 30th | Genre: Dramedy | Starring: Tim Key, Carey Mulligan

2025 was a tough year across the board, and The Ballad of Wallis Island felt like a balm for the soul, featuring a story written by Tim Key and Tom Basden about a two-time lottery winner (Key) who lives on a remote island off the coast of Wales and pays an inordinate sum of money to reunite his favourite folk music duo for a private performance, with Basden playing one half of the duo, a struggling solo artist selling his soul for not much in return and Cary Mulligan doing her thing as his former lover and bandmate who is now married and in need of the cash.

There are times when you can feel the movie working its Richard-Curtis-level emotional marionette strings on you, but it doesn’t matter. It does so with such dexterity and warmth that you can’t fault it for succeeding. It is spiky, weird, and defies the usual rom-com conventions. No matter how high your defences are going in, you will come out of it feeling a little softer and more at peace with the world.

Little Trouble Girls (Urška Djukić)

Release Date: February 14th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Jara Sofija Ostan, Mina Švajger

Coming-of-age stories, especially those involving sexual awakenings and Catholic schools, are nothing new, so it says a lot about this Slovenian gem of a film that it feels entirely fresh, with director Urška Djukić’s debut feature having the quiet assurance of a veteran filmmaker at their peak. 

It follows a shy 16-year-old drawn to an outgoing pupil at her all-girls’ school, with their chemistry shown in minute, electric details, from eye contact to the slightest brush of skin, and since it is centred around their choir practices, the film is punctuated by the vocal catharsis and nakedness of singing, constrained by the severity and cruelty of the choir teacher. The cinematography lingers on the outdoors, too, with the soft rays of light and shimmering water bathing the world in newness and possibility. It’s a sensuous film, warm, treacherous, and surprising.

Rebuilding (Max Walker-Silverman)

Release Date: November 14th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Josh O’Connor, Meghann Fahy

Josh O’Connor appeared in four great films in 2025, but his profound work in the contemporary western drama Rebuilding is proof that he’s a unique type of leading man who is brave in taking on difficult material, like this powerful family drama that has proven to be particularly relevant given the events of earlier this year, featuring O’Connor as a cowboy who contemplates what to do with his family’s property after a devastating wildfire destroys nearby homes.

Rebuilding is a story about the personal and communal process of moving forward, as it deals with both family tragedy and how a group of people recover from the loss of material possessions, and there’s a naturalistic beauty to the ways in which writer/director Max Walker-Silverman emphasises the splendour of the American heartland, as Rebuilding finds a subtle hint of serenity that works because of how understated it is.

Under the Flags, the Sun (Juanjo Pereira)

Release Date: September 18th | Genre: Documentary | Starring: Alfredo Stroessner

For fans of archival filmmaking, it doesn’t really get much better than Under the Flags, the Sun, a documentary by Juanjo Pereira that combs through 35 years’ worth of footage about Alfredo Stroessner’s regime in Paraguay, one of the most extensive dictatorial stints in modern history. But the film doesn’t limit itself to one aspect while examining the visual archives.

Images of authoritarian violence, both direct and indirect, as well as the explorations of how the political sphere shaped an entire country’s sociocultural identity, define Pereira’s academic investigations in Under the Flags, the Sun. We are invited to a cinematic experience that can only be described as moving through a nation’s collective memory, and it’s chilling, to say the least. 

The Love That Remains (Hlynur Pálmason)

Release Date: May 18th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Saga Garðarsdóttir, Sverrir Gudnason

The Love That Remains is an unexpected swerve from director Hlynur Pálmason, who replaces the unrelenting bleakness of his previous film Godland with an idiosyncratic slice-of-life story about a separated couple raising their children over the course of a year. The examination of how quickly time passes is certainly there, but The Love That Remains isn’t as wistful about lost memories as it is interested in the ways in which relationships change when people are given space.

At the centre of The Love That Remains are two excellent performances by Saga Garðarsdóttir and Sverrir Gudnason, who play formerly married partners that still have affection for one another, even though they know staying together long-term would become toxic. Rather than playing into the scandal of the situation, The Love That Remains finds innumerable humorous scenarios within the story of two wilfully independent people who are stuck together, for better or worse.

Weapons (Zach Cregger)

Release Date: August 8th | Genre: Horror | Starring: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner

How can you possibly follow up a bonkers, gore-tastic horror flick like 2022’s Barbarian? Zach Cregger gave us the answer with Weapons, a comedy-inflected follow-up with enough jumpscares and blood to satisfy any horror nerd.

Amy Madigan gives a campy tour-de-force performance as the year’s pre-eminent villain, a Bette Davis in the ’70s-level grande dame with the eye-shadow to prove it. There is one scene when she asks for a bowl of water rather than a glass, and her delivery of the line “It’s a peculiarity of mine, I don’t really try to rationalise it anymore” is both hysterical and blood-curdling. 

The plot centres on a mystery – at 2:17am, 17 third-graders got out of their beds, ran into the night, and were never seen again, and what follows is a story told from multiple perspectives that lays bare the rage splitting suburban America apart, providing the scope for endless theories and social commentary, but it’s never not fun and it never for a second lets you relax.

Sovereign (Christian Swegal)

Release Date: July 11th | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Nick Offerman, Jacob Tremblay

Every year, there are a handful of films that wouldn’t be the subject of much discourse if it weren’t for the central performances elevating them to a completely different level, and a solid case can be made for Sovereign belonging to that exact category. And not just that, but also for the movie belonging to none other than Nick Offerman, who absolutely dominates with his screen presence.

Sovereign attempts to slice into the tachycardic black heart of contemporary American politics through Offerman’s portrayal of a conspiracy theorist who tries his best to gaslight his own into buying the libertarian bullshit often sold on social media meme pages. Almost like the logical conclusion of Offerman’s most famous role in Parks and Recreation, Sovereign comes across as an essential representation of the absurdity we now know as the modern political spectrum.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han)

Release Date: June 25th | Genre: Animation | Starring: Loïse Charpentier, Victoria Grosbois

It’s tragic that whenever these end-of-year rundowns take place, one genre that almost always takes the backseat is animation, even though some of the most innovative cinematic expressions are put forward each year by animators. Little Amélie is one of them, revolving around the unique experiences of a little girl born to a Belgian family growing up in Japan.

Exquisitely animated and presenting the world as one full of mysteries for Amélie to unravel, the adaptation (of the eponymous novel) tries to explore many complex themes and is actually able to get its singular vision of the universe we inhabit across in a way that lingers long after the runtime is over.

Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh)

Release Date: March 14th | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender

Steven Soderbergh is doing the Lord’s work by bringing back the sexy espionage thriller, with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender starring as a power couple in British intelligence. Black Bag is so stylish that you can practically smell the luxury perfume wafting from the actors’ designer clothing.

Fassbender is trying to uncover the identity of a mole in the agency who may or may not be his wife, and Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Regé-Jean Page round out the cast of colleagues/suspects, with their interactions as tightly choreographed as a ballet with dialogue that slices through the tension like a knife.

This is, ultimately, a movie about a marriage between two very hot people. Is Blanchett hiding a tawdry national secret under her glossy wig? Is Fassbender a genuine wife-guy the way he seems? Are they as bound to each other as we want to believe? One of the best things about the film is that it answers all these questions. There is no arty open-endedness about it. It’s an old-fashioned spy thriller impeccably executed, and that’s a rare and beautiful thing.

Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater)

Release Date: October 31st | Genre: Biopic | Starring: Zoey Deutch, Guillaume Marbeck

With Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater told the story of how a young Jean-Luc Godard came to write and direct Breathless in a style similar to that of any of the French New Wave classics. Rather than serving up a bland biographical drama that did nothing but hit the bullet points, Linklater pulled off a tribute to Godard that feels just as fun and accessible as any of his classic “hangout movies.”

It’s easy to forget that many of the maverick directors of the French New Wave were film fans before they were filmmakers, and Nouvelle Vague explores how exciting it can be for a young artist to make something meaningful with their friends. Nouvelle Vague is a miracle in casting, given how expertly all the iconic French New Wave figures are portrayed, and Guillaume Marbeck’s role as Godard himself is almost certainly one of the greatest discoveries of the year.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (Sepideh Farsi)

Release Date: September 24th | Genre: Documentary | Starring: Sepideh Farsi, Fatima Hassouna

Whenever we look back on a year of cinema and ask ourselves, “What will we still watch 50 years from now?”, we inevitably find ourselves navigating our own biases of what we think will be outdated, and political filmmaking is often the first to fall victim to such analyses. However, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk might just be immune to all of that simply because it’s reportage that will probably be considered important archival footage for future historians.

And it’s in the most tragic of contexts that Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk will be remembered. The documentary is structured through a series of video calls with a photojournalist named Fatima, who was trapped in Gaza when the violence in the region escalated, ultimately losing her life as well as her family to missiles launched by the Israeli forces. As attacks continue to claim Palestinian lives, it’s films like Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk that need to be screened across the world immediately.

Familiar Touch (Sarah Friedland)

Release Date: June 20th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle Smith

It’s difficult to make a film about dementia without crossing the line into weepy melodrama. It’s even more difficult to make the dementia patient seem like a fully realised person with a history. Sarah Friedland’s Familiar Touch not only manages to avoid both pitfalls, but also offers a perspective that feels like a genuine revelation, and what more could you hope for from a cinematic experience?

It follows Ruth (the superb Kathleen Chalfant) as she navigates her move to a care home and her increasingly blurring memory. It shows her past through her fractured present. In one scene, she bursts into the care home kitchen and takes charge, expertly getting down to work and barking orders to the staff. She is no-nonsense and in command, and although the moment highlights the extent to which she has slipped below the surface of her dementia, it also shows us her history.

With her present-day actions rather than heavy-handed exposition, we are led to understand that she was once a highly skilled professional chef. It’s just one of the moments in which Friedland and Chalfant simultaneously deepen our understanding of Ruth’s past and present selves without a hint of condescension or pity.

The Plague (Charlie Polinger)

Release Date: December 24th | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Everett Blunck, Joel Edgerton

The Plague may be one of the greatest films ever made about bullying because it understands that it is a culture, and not an individual. The nauseating tale of a sensitive young boy (Everett Blunck) who attends an immersive water polo summer camp shows just how quickly the tables can turn when a group of adolescents gets together and singles out someone as the outsider.

There’s no reasoning with kids that can only act on instinct, and The Plague is bracingly real in how it examines the complexity of the situation; to show any sign of vulnerability could be considered a weakness, but there’s also no expectation that staying silent will be any safer.

The Plague is overtly stylised in showing the larger-than-life, sensory-overwhelming experiences of being young and full of energy, only for just one embarrassing moment to derail it all. Although The Plague feels like a warning sign about what kids are capable of, it does not offer any easy solutions to complex issues.

<br>Twinless (James Sweeney)

Release Date: September 5th | Genre: Comedy | Starring: Dylan O’Brien, James Sweeney

Since the current cinematic landscape is so foolishly divided into the almost meaningless territories of the “commercial” and the “arthouse”, it’s films like Twinless that will struggle to reach their target audiences, which is a damn shame. James Sweeney, who has directed, produced, written and starred in this (and has given it his all), is perfectly representative of the artistic force that’s required to shake up the indie landscape again.

Sweeney is simply perfect as Dennis, a gay man who tries to befriend the grieving twin brother of his former lover (debatable, but that’s how Dennis would put it), all the while pretending to have a twin that he lost himself and that he was responsible for the death of his new friend’s twin brother. If that’s already too convoluted for you, I promise the film will ease you into its absurdity, and once you’re in, it’ll sweep you away with its overflowing charm, black humour and empathy.

My Father’s Shadow (Akinola Davies Jr)

Release Date: September 19th | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, Godwin Chiemerie Egbo

My Father’s Shadow was the first Nigerian film to ever screen at the Cannes Film Festival, and has already received numerous accolades for breakthrough filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr, who co-wrote the film with his brother Wale.

Fittingly, My Father’s Shadow is an absorbing tale of fraternal love between two young boys who spend a day with their absent father (Sope Dirisu) during the highly consequential 1993 Nigerian Presidential election, which became the subject of controversy when the administration in power refused to leave office.

My Father’s Shadow is able to examine larger-than-life issues and political disenfranchisement through the eyes of children, who can only interpret what they see through the guidance given to them by their father. The dramatic weight of the film falls on Dirisu’s shoulders to give a warm, stern, and complex performance as a father who comes to recognise the responsibility he has to be a role model; he overdelivers with a performance that is easily among the year’s best.

Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos) 

Release Date: October 24th | Genre: Comedy | Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons

Yorgos Lanthimos has been on a roll over the past few years, churning out boundary-pushing movies that have been as loved as they’ve been hated. While Poor Things earned Emma Stone her second Oscar, Kinds of Kindness was a lot more divisive, and you’d think that maybe the filmmaker would take a step back after that to catch a breath. Instead, he delved straight into another Stone vehicle, Bugonia, which sees the actor don a shaved head, as her character is suspected of being an alien.

While English-language remakes often fall flat, Lanthimos’ interpretation of Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet! works exceptionally well. The result is a surreal, deliciously dark comedy that features everything that the filmmaker does best. It’s off-kilter and unashamedly strange, yet Lanthimos never loses sight of the film’s core themes of capitalist alienation and the absurdism of living in a world where nothing is clear. Conspiracies destroy the sanity of these characters, who are selfishly programmed to survive.

Lanthimos seems to be at his best these days when he’s got Stone in tow, and here she delivers a performance that is, yet again, astounding. Morphing into a role that’s unlike anything she has ever done before, Stone is arguably at her most daring here, which is really saying something.

Late Shift (Petra Volpe)

Release Date: February 27th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Leonie Benesch, Sonja Riesen

Petra Volpe’s film about a nurse doing her rounds in an understaffed hospital will inevitably draw comparisons to the HBO series The Pitt, but where the latter focuses on the constant onslaught of an emergency room and the dynamics between colleagues, Late Shift focuses on the steady build of tension in a single ward from the point of view of one nurse.

It is exquisitely constructed, beginning with Flora (Leonie Benesch) arriving at the hospital in civilian clothes and changing into her uniform, wordlessly transforming from an individual to one cog in the machinery of the hospital. Her first task is to change the nappy of an elderly dementia patient, with all the bodily fluids associated with it. As she does her rounds, we are introduced to patients who are waiting for death and ones who are waiting to find out that they are dying.

The hospital is short-staffed, and as Flora falls behind schedule, the tension steadily ramps up until her quiet compassion and competence become almost saint-like. It’s a thriller that depicts all of its characters with grace, from the angry patients to the exhausted doctor who leaves her colleagues in the lurch. It also has the most poignant final image of the year.

Blue Heron (Sophy Romvari)

Release Date: August 8th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Eylul Guven, Iringó Réti

Partially built upon the autobiographical experiences of filmmaker Sophy Romvari, Blue Heron uses the perspective of an eight-year-old girl named Sasha to explore the complex drama and simmering tensions of a family of Hungarian immigrants who find themselves on Vancouver Island in the 1990s, with each member having to come to terms with a new way of life.

From the very beginning of Blue Heron, it’s extremely easy to tell that the stories as well as the visual language mean a lot to Romvari, because its vulnerability almost creates the illusion of accessing deeply personal memories. While there’s a thin line between heartfelt sincerity and needless onanism in autobiographical cinema, it’s safe to say that Blue Heron lands on the right side of that debate with every single shot.

Dead Man’s Wire (Gus Van Sant)

Release Date: September 2nd | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery

After years of mediocrity that suggested he was past his prime, Gus Van Sant returned to prominence with a film that reminds everyone he’s still the same director who made Elephant and Drugstore Cowboy. Based on an alarming true story, Dead Man’s Wire follows an intense week in Indianapolis after the kidnapper Tony Kiristis (Bill Skarsgård) took the mortgage broker Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery) hostage, becoming a media sensation in the process.

Van Sant is able to draw parallels to today’s climate by showing how someone speaking to his own pain under financial duress could inspire an audience, even if everything else he’s doing is deranged. Skarsgård has had a habit of playing sinister villains, but there’s something almost charismatic about the strange code of ethics that Kiristis seems to abide by. There are more than a few stylistic homages to Dog Day Afternoon, including a memorable appearance by Al Pacino himself as Hall’s father.

Left-Handed Girl (Shih-Ching Tsou)

Release Date: November 14th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Janel Tsai, Shih-Yuan Ma

Left-Handed Girl is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the 2025 calendar, which has been a strange one in many ways. Some of the most anticipated films have fallen flat on their face, while relatively lesser-watched gems like Shih-Ching Tsou’s Academy Award entry for Taiwan won almost everyone’s heart, at least those who went into the theatre willing to be drawn into the personal narrative.

The movie revolves around a single mother who moves to Taipei along with her daughters with the idea of opening a noodle stall at a night market, setting up a coming-of-age story defined by financial struggles and looking for meaning in a life that steadily wears you down. Something about Shih-Ching Tsou’s directorial approach feels so fundamentally human, it’s almost impossible to walk away without being emotionally stirred to your core.

Lurker (Alex Russell)

Release Date: August 22nd | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Théodore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe

Another directorial debut that simply blew us away this year is Alex Russell’s Lurker, which is partly crazy because almost everyone is already too damn fatigued by “social media flicks”. However, Lurker is so much more than that, even though it’ll be neatly filed away under that category by many who have stumbled across it while scrolling Letterboxd without actually taking the time to see what it has to say.

Théodore Pellerin delivers a downright chilling performance as a mentally unstable music fan who manipulates his favourite artist in order to infiltrate his inner circle, sending everything spiralling into chaos in the process. But it’s not just the acting credits, Lurker also plays around with visual conventions while launching a pretty scary exploration of the consequences of fame in the age of social media, carrying that momentum through to its incredible denouement.

Blue Moon (Richard Linklater)

Release Date: October 17th | Genre: Biopic | Starring: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley

Richard Linklater has released two movies this year – the Breathless homage Nouvelle Vague (which at least deserves some kind of award for its casting) and Blue Moon, which has seen him reunite once again with Ethan Hawke. It seems like Linklater is on a biographical kick this year, although Blue Moon, in which Hawke plays Broadway songwriter Lorenz Hart, is the superior effort – and perhaps the boldest thing he’s ever made.

Blue Moon is an affecting look at the way friendships can have such a drastic impact on your sense of self, with Hart reflecting on his career following the dissolution of his partnership with Richard Rodgers, who has now found acclaim without Hart following the release of Oklahoma!.

Linklater, who first directed Hawke in 1995’s Before Sunrise, has been waiting years for the actor to become old enough to play the part of Hart, and you can really tell just how much this project means to the pair of them. It’s an unconventional take on the break-up film, filled with a wittiness from Hawke that is undercut with a distinctive melancholy. He really plays with each side of the emotional spectrum, sliding between the two with impressive ease. Nouvelle Vague might have been fun, but Blue Moon is Linklater’s true accomplishment of the year.

The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania)

Release Date: September 10th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees

At a time when political filmmaking is either too crass to be considered serious (looking at you, shitty Netflix action thrillers) or too inadequate to capture the weight of reality, The Voice of Hind Rajab is one of those that feel too real, and there’s a good reason for that. Director Kaouther Ben Hania chose to incorporate actual elements from the horrific killing of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl who was slaughtered by the Israeli forces during the invasion of Gaza.

Dramatisation and reality violently collide in The Voice of Hind Rajab to chilling effect, as the film revolves around the dispatchers who get alerted to a call that carries the pleas of a child trapped under a burning car. Although the filmmaker’s decision to partially dramatise the event and also use real-life elements has raised ethical concerns, the movie has done exactly what it set out to do: start conversations that begin with complete silence, stunned by the genocide unfolding in front of our own eyes.

In the years that follow, it’ll be interesting to see how time treats the legacy of The Voice of Hind Rajab, but for now, it’s almost impossible to deny that this is exactly the urgency with which we need to infuse modern political cinema.

The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)

Release Date: October 24th | Genre: Heist | Starring: Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim

Slow cinema icon Kelly Reichardt, known for the likes of Certain Women and, more recently, Showing Up, often takes audiences back in time, and for her latest film, The Mastermind, we’re swept up in the chaos of an America affected by the ongoing Vietnam War. Set in ‘70s Massachusetts, to be specific, we meet James Blaine ‘JB’ Mooney, played by British star Josh O’Connor, who plans out an art heist. 

This isn’t a new concept for a film, of course, but with Reichardt’s innovative approach to storytelling, it turns into something unforgettable – the filmmaker crafting a witty exposé of privilege as JB selfishly steals before relying on the women in his life for support.

Paired with a great jazz-infused score by Rob Mazurek, the film simmers along with O’Connor’s bumbling thief somehow messing up his heist despite targeting a rather small-town gallery. It’s not the fastest-paced film released this year, but that’s not what you should expect from Reichardt. Rather, The Mastermind, which also features Alana Haim, Bill Camp, and Gaby Hoffmann, requires patience – the kind that O’Connor’s character clearly doesn’t have.

A Poet (Simón Mesa Soto)

Release Date: August 28th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Ubeimar Rios, Rebeca Andrade

Cinema about failed artists and the torment of the artistic process can often easily slip into unpleasantly navel-gazing territory, which is why it’s a miracle that Simón Mesa Soto’s A Poet manages to come across as fresh and insightful. Ubeimar Rios puts in a strong shift as Oscar, a middle-aged man who has just about withdrawn himself from everything life has to offer, living with his parents and stumbling around drunk through his city.

We all probably know an “artist” like him, constantly lamenting the contemporary state of art while doing fuck all to contribute or transform anything. Through humour and moments of genuine humanity, Soto weaves a really compelling story about the definitions of “success” we have subscribed to in our late-stage capitalist society.

A Little Prayer (Angus Maclachlan)

Release Date: August 29th | Genre: Drama | Starring: David Straithairn, Jane Levy

Although it sat on a shelf for over two years after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, one of the year’s best independent movies finally got the release that it deserved.

David Straithairn gives his best performance since his Oscar-nominated role in Good Night and Good Luck as an earnest family man who forms a special connection with his daughter-in-law (Jane Levy) upon realising the silent struggles she’s been experiencing within an incredibly challenging marriage.

Tender, heartfelt, and unflinchingly honest about the burdens that parents face, A Little Prayer is a film that is both incredibly patient and unexpectedly moving. By finding the extraordinary moments of empathy within a seemingly “normal” life, writer/director Angus MacLachlan celebrates the dignity of retaining one’s good nature and humility amidst strenuous times. It’s not often that a film can feel so authentic and dramatically rewarding at the same time.

Urchin (Harris Dickinson)

Release Date: October 3rd | Genre: Drama | Starring: Frank Dillane, Megan Northam

You don’t expect such an incredible debut feature from an actor still in his 20s, but Harris Dickinson – who has only hit the mainstream over the past few years with roles in the likes of The Iron Claw, Triangle of Sadness, and Babygirl – has proved himself to be a stellar filmmaker, too. Urchin, which stars Frank Dillane in a bold leading role as a homeless, drug-addicted young man named Mike, is one of the most stunning first features of the year, paying homage to the likes of British social realists like Mike Leigh and Andrea Arnold.

British cinema has always thrived on telling stories about working-class communities, highlighting the need for change while finding humanity in places where the government refuses to look. Urchin joins this lineage, using the cinematic medium to advocate for those who aren’t given the help they need, propelled by a beautifully studied performance by Dillane.

Peter Hujar’s Day (Ira Sachs) 

Release Date: November 7th | Genre: Biopic | Starring: Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall

Sometimes, cinema can be a work of excavation, preservation, and history-making. Ira Sachs, known for his independent and free-flowing approach to cinema, delivers a discarded artefact from ‘70s New York in the form of Peter Hujar’s Day, a 70-minute conversation between Ben Whishaw’s titular character, the photographer who worked with a milieu of iconic artists, and his friend, journalist Linda Rosenkrantz, played by Rebecca Hall. 

This is a loose and easy journey through memory, telling rather than showing as the pair discuss in extreme detail every event of his previous day. He recalls going to meet Allen Ginsberg, who suggests he should blow William S Burroughs, as well as recounting the amount of time he spent on the telephone, which is an awful lot.

Sachs takes a rather informal approach, with several scenes breaking the fourth wall. It’s a film that is incredibly aware of itself, simply letting the conversation drift from one topic to another. It’s a quiet film, and every so often Whishaw will drop a line, like “I often have a feeling that in my day nothing much happens that I’ve wasted it. Well, now you know I’ve wasted another day,” and it’ll stop you right in your tracks.

Sirāt (Oliver Laxe)

Release Date: November 14th | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Sergi López, Bruno Núñez Arjona

There’s no other film in 2025 that’s more worthy of going into blind than Sirat, a thriller that cobbles together elements from various classics into a pulsating, simmering shot of adrenaline. Although the premise is as simple as a father (Sergi Lopez) trying to find his daughter in the midst of the Moroccan desert, Sirat becomes a confluence of anxiety as it draws from the apocalyptic danger of Mad Max, the epic journey of Apocalypse Now, the massive scale of Lawrence of Arabia, and the nightmarish vehicular travel of William Friedkin’s Sorcerer.

Sirat is such a visceral experience that it can be easy to overlook how well acted it is; Lopez is best known for his more sinister work as ‘The Captain’ in the Guillermo del Toro masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth, but Sirat allows him to play an emphatic father figure who finds himself in a situation beyond his control. The film’s incredible score by Mauro Herce also adds the type of electronic themes that are rare within contemporary thrillers.

Pillion (Harry Lighton)

Release Date: November 28th | Genre: Romance | Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Harry Melling

While biker films were an important part of cinematic counterculture during the 1960s, it’s not a genre that is particularly thriving these days. Harry Lighton seems to want this to change, though, because his debut feature, Pillion, centres around a mysterious biker, Ray, played by Alexander Skarsgaard, a leather-clad giant who finds himself attracted to the meek barbershop pub singer, Colin, played with tenderness by Harry Melling. Soon, the pair embark on an unconventional BDSM relationship, carrying on the long tradition of gay biker culture on screen.

Themes of identity, grief, and loneliness intersect as Lighton cuts through intense sub/dom interactions and pushback from Colin’s parents with humour. The tone never feels off despite Pillion’s movement between darkness and light, and Lighton’s control over the narrative, which is as moving as it is funny, is truly masterful.

The performances given by Skarsgaard, enigmatic and frustrating, and Melling, vulnerable and brave, are incredible, and while it seems like the film might be a little too subversive and low-budget to receive the acclaim it deserves from the Oscars, Pillion has Bafta winner written all over it. This is easily one of the best British films in years.

With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari)

Release Date: August 7th | Genre: Documentary | Starring: Hasan Elboubou

An unconventional documentary that consists of discovered footage and director Kamal Aljafari’s search for a prisoner in Gaza in 1989, With Hasan in Gaza is another crucial entry to the considerable list of important Palestinian documentaries that are surfacing more frequently. And each of them is more difficult to watch in the current political landscape, all while the atrocities perpetrated by the IDF are being streamed live online.

The titular Hasan helped Aljafari in his efforts to find the man he was looking for, now commemorated by a crucial piece of filmmaking that is neither interested in the artifice of cinema nor in parading artistic statements. Instead, it only insists upon its ontological condition of being a reminder of people, stories, histories and cultures being subjected to brutal and absolute erasure.

No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)

Release Date: September 24th | Genre: Comedy | Starring: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin

Park Chan-wook’s adaptation of the beloved Donald Westlake novel is just as dark and painstakingly uncomfortable as anything that he’s ever done, but it’s also funnier than many of the year’s more mainstream comedies. The sordid tale of a hapless upper-class family man (Lee Byung-hun) desperately trying to find a new job explores the brutal mindset behind capitalism in increasingly ridiculous ways as the body count keeps rising.

No Other Choice is the rare case in which an anti-hero story is both relatable and frightening at the same time; while the character of Man-su does represent the worst of society, it’s hard not to empathise with his state of confusion as his entire industry is turned over to artificial intelligence. Although there are more than a few gruesome moments in No Other Choice that rival the audacity of Oldboy, it’s the deafening final images that remain the film’s most disturbing moments.

The President’s Cake (Hasan Hadi)

Release Date: December 12th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem

If you thought it’s probably too much of a stretch to make a moving film about a birthday cake for Saddam Hussein, think again. Hasan Hadi’s brilliant directorial debut takes a fascinating approach to portraying 1990s Iraq, following the trials and tribulations of a nine-year-old girl running around to gather ingredients for a cake meant to celebrate the dictator, almost structured like a faux-thriller à la Where Is The Friend’s House?, with the innocent fear of school punishment acting as a driving force for the beautifully shot film.

The President’s Cake isn’t a historical exercise like many might expect when they first read a blurb about it. Instead, it’s an intimately crafted experience projected through the eyes of a little girl focused on a whimsically bizarre objective while being surrounded by the crushing realities of economic depression and life under tyranny.

Silent Friend (ldikó Enyedi)

Release Date: September 5th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Tony Leung, Léa Seydoux

A Tony Leung-Léa Seydoux collaboration that might just have flown under the radars of some of the most enthusiastic film fans, Silent Friend might not make it to the top of many year-end lists. However, at Far Out, it has the special distinction of winning the coveted prize of ‘Best Botanical Film’ of 2025, and we’re sorry to say, but it wasn’t even close.

Placing a ginkgo tree at the centre of its narratives that span generations, Silent Friend is a mesmerising examination of the Anthropocene and the intricacies of nature that are ready to reveal themselves, one only has to look a little closer. ldikó Enyedi’s latest is a beautiful ecocritical gem that deserves proper and better distribution, because this is the kind of cinema the world needs right now.

Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

Release Date: April 18th | Genre: Horror | Starring: Michael B Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld

Ryan Coogler took a gamble with Sinners that paid off so successfully that it’s easy to forget just how unlikely it was. A period vampire movie set in the American South and steeped in music is the kind of word salad that you’d expect to be a hot mess, but the results were the cinematic event of the year, a symphonic passion project that became a must-watch at the cinema and which no amount of hype could oversell.

The layers of history, folklore, and genre make Sinners an instant entry into any film school syllabus, but it is also a pure, unadulterated piece of filmmaking spectacle. There is a scene in which Coogler and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw show the musical thread connecting the past, present, and future.

As Sammie (Miles Caton) plays the blues with such skill and feeling that he transcends the packed room, we are guided through dancing bodies – a ballerina, a DJ, a rapper, an electric guitar player, a geisha, and twerking club-goers. It is cinema at its most exhilarating and potent, and it’s no wonder that it flipped the script on box office doom.

Happyend (Neo Sora)

Release Date: September 12th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Hayato Kurihara, Yukito Hidaka

Undoubtedly one of the more interesting films that caught the attention of many cinephiles this year, Happyend might just be the latest “great” addition to two completely separate genres: Japanese high school flicks and climate crisis cinema. And it does so in remarkable style, completely blowing most of its contemporaries out of the water.

Neo Sora’s “coming-of-age” drama envisions a future Japan which isn’t that far away at all, following a group of friends from very different backgrounds slowly drifting apart, all the while confronting the harsh realities of a fascist government that’s doubling down on its increasingly authoritarian policies under the pretext of a looming, potentially devastating earthquake that’s allegedly going to result in “rise in crime”.

Happyend completely deviates from the typical conventions of Japanese high school films simply through its willingness to engage with topics that many other filmmakers would consider taboo, such as systemic racism in Japan, class conflicts, fears of a surveillance state, climate anxiety and xenophobia, all processed through the microcosm of a high school. Given the political climate that Japan (and the rest of the world) finds itself in the moment, Happyend might just be the most important film of the year.

Train Dreams (Clint Bentley)

Release Date: November 7th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones

Clint Bentley’s depiction of eight decades in the life of a railroad construction worker in early 20th-century America is too quiet to hold its own against such explosive 2025 releases as One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Marty Supreme, but don’t let that stop you from watching it. Joel Edgerton’s performance as Robert Grainier is his best yet, devastating and monosyllabic, with traces of memories increasingly etched into his features and body language as the film unfolds. 

What could have been a meandering, three-hour epic is condensed into a tight hour and 42 minutes, which makes it all the more miraculous that Bentley and Edgerton could convey so much time and life lived with such circumspection. It tells the story of a country undergoing seismic shifts, fraught with racism, exploitation, technological advancements, and the whims of nature. For all its scope, it never strays from its central character, and its meditative quality sinks its teeth into you.

Cover-Up (Laura Poitras)

Release Date: December 19th | Genre: Documentary | Starring: Seymour Hersh

Laura Poitras is back with another documentary about the poisonous secrets propping up the United States government, this time with co-director Mark Obenhaus. Cover-Up focuses on the investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who has broken stories about US atrocities for decades, including the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War.

Celebrating investigative journalism that holds dangerous governments to account has never been more vital or more sobering, but this isn’t a mere puff piece. You get a sense for the man behind these explosive stories, too, and his combative, ironically evasive attitude makes the film enthralling as a character study as well. At a time when news organisations are crumbling, and the US government is committing atrocities with impunity and in the open, Cover-Up feels more ominous than anything you’ll see this year. 

Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie)

Release Date: December 25th | Genre: Sports | Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow

Josh Safdie’s first feature after his professional split from his brother Benny tells the story of a relentless hustler, a scrappy, combative showman in 1950s New York who pursues table tennis glory with stomach-churning single-mindedness. It may be the role that wins Timothée Chalamet his long-awaited Oscar.

As Marty, he is wily, charming, and as blatantly effortful as he’s ever been. The genius of casting Chalamet in the role, of course, is that the actor is just as famous for wanting awards and recognition as he is for his performances. He has said, on stage, that he wants to be one of the greats, and here is a role where he can channel all of that into a character who wants the same.

Safdie brings the tension and nail-biting pace to the film that he and his brother brought to films like Good Time and Uncut Gems, but Marty Supreme is an explosive new step for the director, and it doesn’t dawdle with preamble or flashbacks, with the ghosts of the Holocaust and the war haunting every inch of it. There is a depth and breadth that goes beyond Chalamet’s volcanic performance, and it has the feel of a future classic.

Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)

Release Date: June 27th | Genre: Dramedy | Starring: Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie

Hollywood is guilty of depicting sexual assault in a trauma-inducing way that focuses way too much on the actual act rather than the aftermath, but in Eva Victor’s debut, Sorry, Baby, in which they also play main character Agnes, the strange, often surreal nature of trying to navigate life after such an event is presented beautifully.

In all of its messiness and confusion, Agnes tries to rebuild her life, and Victor doesn’t shy away from injecting humour into their script, bringing a naturalistic and honest sensibility to the film. Joined by Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges, the film hinges on its relatable performances, which bring Victor’s witty screenplay to life.

This is an impressive debut – it helps that Victor shadowed Jane Schoenbrun during the creation of one of 2024’s best films, I Saw The TV Glow, revealing a careful and considered eye for battling the kinds of taboo topics many filmmakers often awkwardly skirt around. Sorry, Baby doesn’t sugar-coat things, but it reminds us that it’s possible to get through the hardest of times in some way or another – and that’s not necessarily by being alone.

The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho)

Release Date: November 6th | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Wagner Moura, Carlos Francisco

While it’s announced in its opening title cards to be a story of “mischief” and adventure, The Secret Agent doesn’t feature the type of globetrotting thrills that one might find in a Mission: Impossible film.

Rather, writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho crafted a highly personal story about a political refugee caught up in the domineering rule of Brazil’s dictatorship in the 1970s. The Secret Agent makes a broader point about the power that culture has to resist the forces of militarism and fascism that seek to destroy it; it’s also a delightful series of vignette-style mini-adventures that form a unique love letter to the nation.

Wagner Moura may have made for a terrifying version of Pablo Escobar on Narcos, but The Secret Agent allows him to be a smouldering, charismatic rebel who is forced into multiple dangerous situations. Although the entire supporting cast is great, Udo Kier is a scene-stealer in one of his final film roles.

It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi)

Release Date: October 1st | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari

The story of how It Was Just An Accident came to pick up the coveted Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival is almost as exhilarating as the film itself, as writer/director Jafar Panahi had to shoot his latest project in secret whilst under house arrest in his home country of Iran for criticising the government. Filmmaking can be an act of political defiance as much as it is an art form, but the most shocking aspect of Panahi’s charged thriller is that it is a deeply entertaining morality play that has been hailed by many of his peers.

There’s instances of broad comedy that show how challenging it might be to become an instrument of justice, but It Was Just An Accident asks deeper questions about the cycle of violence, and how it may be destined to repeat itself. It Was Just An Accident has what might be the year’s best ending, as it’s one that is bound to provoke discussions long after the credits have finished rolling.

Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)

Release Date: March 14th | Genre: Comedy | Starring: Félix Kysyl, Catherine Frot

Anyone who’s already seen Stranger by the Lake will not be surprised to see that Alain Guiraudie is up to his shenanigans again, and it’s more glorious than ever. Misericordia is a Freudian nightmare that starts off uncomfortable, and it only gets worse from there, pulling you into a world that refuses to succumb to our conventional frameworks of understanding… well, everything.

Félix Kysyl is simply brilliant as Jérémie, a man who comes back to his hometown for a funeral only to find himself unable to leave, sinking into its strange happenings as he glides on a slipstream of glorious homoerotic energy that devolves into crime, suspense, and a philosophical foundation that’s just too dark to intellectualise. Just how Guiraudie likes it.

Misericordia shows you mushroom hunts, the cinematic dramatisation of Oedipal forces, some of the most awkward sexual encounters you’ll ever have the privilege of witnessing on film, and a priest’s dick, who becomes a murder accomplice. What more do you want? Are you not entertained?

Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier)

Release Date: August 20th | Genre: Dramedy | Starring: Stellan Skarsgård, Renate Reinsve

Everyone talked about The Worst Person in the World when it was released in 2021, praising Joachim Trier’s blend of humour and pathos as he explored a young woman’s journey through relationships and trying to find her place in the world, and now he has followed it up with another great turn from Renate Reinsve, who this time plays the daughter of Stellan Skarsgård’s director father, whom she has a tumultuous relationship with.

She is much less forgiving of her father for moving to another country when she was a child, compared to her sister, played by Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. Still, neither of the daughters are keen on their father reentering their lives following the death of their mother, which proves challenging when he reveals his plans to make an autobiographical film. 

Like his previous film, Sentimental Value is the perfect blend of drama and humour, highlighting the comedy to be found in some of life’s bleakest moments, never letting this ruin the tension he creates. Beautifully shot and led by some great performances, especially from Skarsgård and Reinsve, Trier has done it again.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Mary Bronstein)

Release Date: October 10th | Genre: Drama | Starring: Rose Byrne, Conan O’Brien

When you look at the cast of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, you might find yourself in for a bit of a surprise. Conan O’Brien acting alongside A$AP Rocky, Ivy Wolk and Christian Slater? Led by Rose Byrne, Mary Bronstein’s film is one of the finest releases to emerge this year, a strange blend of comedy and psychological drama that lands perfectly. We follow Byrne’s Linda as she struggles with a busy life as a mother and a therapist, grappling with the inability to balance everything while also just having time for herself.

With a useless husband and a child with a mysterious illness, Linda finds herself spiralling into a hole of anxiety, her life crumbling like the hole in the wall that forces her to temporarily move into an awful motel. 

The film comes 17 years after Bronstein’s first feature, the mumblecore cut Yeast, but this time she’d made a piece of work even more impressive, rich with nuance, as Linda never becomes a stereotype or a one-dimensional conduit for the film’s wider themes. Instead, this is a beautiful, albeit anxiety-inducing film featuring a powerhouse performance from Byrne, who certainly has further promising projects ahead of her. 

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)

Release Date: September 26th | Genre: Thriller | Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn

When Paul Thomas Anderson followed his sublime drama Phantom Thread with Licorice Pizza, an age-gap comedy set in ‘70s Los Angeles, many people couldn’t help but find themselves disappointed. It was nowhere near as good – had Anderson lost it? Of course he hadn’t, and One Battle After Another, an action thriller laced with comedy, is proof. With Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role as an ex-revolutionary, his character a spiritual successor to The Big Lebowski’s ‘The Dude’, the almost three-hour-long film hardly drags.

You know you’re in for a treat when Anderson’s got his hands on a Thomas Pynchon novel, in this case Vineland, and here he delivers a powerful interpretation scored by Jonny Greenwood’s tense and genius soundtrack and shot in stunning VistaVision.

This is a film of conflict, between generations, between past and present, between decisions, between the left and the right. The shadow of paranoia clouds the film, as the need for resistance in the face of oppressive governmental rule is spurred by family matters. One Battle After Another comes at a time of immense political turmoil, and it feels like a frighteningly real portrait of America, told at a frenetic and addictive pace that makes for a relentlessly enjoyable and unforgettable viewing experience. Anderson is perhaps one of the most vital cinematic voices of his generation.