My Favorite Films of 2025

The darkened theater is still my happy place. Some fantastic films came out last year — these are the ones that hit me the hardest.

Not included on the actual list, but number one in my heart: Sacramento (2025 theatrical release) and Sylvania (2025 festival premiere), two features I edited and unabashedly love. Do check them out if you haven’t.

(Letterboxd version of this list here).

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, Paul Thomas Anderson

Seeing this opening weekend on the big screen (and going in relatively blind) felt to me like what it must have been like to see Jaws when it came out. I laughed, I cried, I was on the edge of my seat, I never knew what would happen next, I kept going back to the theater to see it. Not just the cinematic experience of the year, but an all-timer from one of the greatest filmmakers we have. My only note is I would have easily sat through another 45 minutes and that’s not really a note.

Here’s the rest of my top 25, in a super loose ranking that has changed every time I look at it:

SIRĀT, Oliver Laxe

SENTIMENTAL VALUE, Joachim Trier

EDDINGTON, Ari Aster

NOUVELLE VAGUE, Richard Linklater

PREDATORS, David Osit

PILLION, Harry Lighton

THE SECRET AGENT, Kleber Mendonça Filho

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Alex Braverman

FRIENDSHIP, Andrew DeYoung

MR. SCORSESE, Rebecca Miller

WEAPONS, Zach Cregger

PETER HUJAR'‘S DAY, Ira Sachs

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, Jafar Panahi

WAKE UP DEAD MAN, Rian Johnson

JETTY, Sam Fleischner

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND, James Griffiths

BLACK BAG, Steven Soderbergh

FAMILIAR TOUCH, Sarah Friedland

THE MASTERMIND, Kelly Reichardt

JAY KELLY, Noah Baumbach

THE UGLY STEPSISTER, Emilie Blichfeldt

28 YEARS LATER, Danny Boyle

THE SHROUDS, David Cronenberg

PAVEMENTS, Alex Ross Perry

I also enjoyed:

Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Baltimoreans, Blue Moon, Bring Her Back, Begonia, Dead Man’s Wire, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, Eephus, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Is This Thing On?. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, Kpop Demon Hunters, Lake George, Late Shift, The Long Walk, Marty Supreme, Matt and Mara, Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning, The Naked Gun, No Other Choice, Paddington in Peru, The Phoenician Scheme, The Plague, Presence, Roofman, Sinners, Sorry, Baby, Train Dreams, Zootopia 2

And these docs:

aka Charlie Sheen, John Candy: I Like Me, Megadoc, Pee-Wee as Himself, The Perfect Neighbor, Selena y Los Dinos

And I’m eager to eventually see plenty of other 2025 releases that have passed me by.

My Favorite Films of 2024

Another year of motion pictures, another year of light flickering in the darkness and keeping us warm. Some great cinematic voices emerged (to me at least) in 2024. Here are 25 films that rocked me the most.

(Letterboxd version of this list here).

GOOD ONE, India Donaldson

This is my favorite film of 2024. The writing, performances, photography, music, all the elements meld in such an effortless and nuanced fashion (and it's extremely funny). Bowled me over.

Here’s the rest of my top 25, in a very loose order that changes every time I look at it:

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, Matthew Rankin

ANORA, Sean Baker

HARD TRUTHS, Mike Leigh

RED ROOMS, Pascal Plante

THE BRUTALIST, Brady Corbet

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA, George Miller

KNEECAP, Rich Peppiatt

THE APPRENTICE, Ali Abbasi

A DIFFERENT MAN, Aaron Schimberg

THE SUBSTANCE, Coralie Fargeat

DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH FROM THE END OF THE WORLD, Radu Jude

LAST SUMMER, Catherine Breillat

CHALLENGERS, Luca Guadagnino

CONCLAVE, Edward Berger

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, James Mangold

THELMA, Josh Margolin

I’M STILL HERE, Walter Salles

THE HYPNOSIS, Ernst de Geer

LOVE LIES BLEEDING, Rose Glass

JANET PLANET, Annie Baker

LA CHIMERA, Alice Rohrwacher

BIRD, Andrea Arnold

THE BEAST, Bertrand Bonello

LOOK INTO MY EYES, Lana Wilson

I also enjoyed:

Abigail, Alien: Romulus, Armand, Babygirl, Between the Temples, The Bikeriders, Chime, Coreys, Cuckoo, Dìdi (弟弟), Dogleg, Drive-Away Dolls, Emilia Perez, Evil Does Not Exist, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, Femme, The First Omen, Flipside, Flow, Gasoline Rainbow, Ghostlight, The Girl with the Needle, Hit Man, It's Not Me, Kinds of Kindness, The Last Year of Darkness, Late Night with the Devil, The Line, Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger, Maria, MaXXXine, Megalopolis, My First Film, Nightbitch, Oddity, The Order, The People's Joker, Problemista, Queer, Rap World, A Real Pain, Rebel Ridge, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Sing Sing, Speak No Evil, Strange Darling, Sugarcane, The Taste of Mango, Trap, Will & Harper, Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos

And I’m eager to eventually see:

Aggro Drift, All We Imagine as Light, Better Man, Blitz, The Breaking Ice, Caught by the Tides, Close Your Eyes, Cloud, Dune: Part Two, The End, Eno, Free Time, Green Border, His Three Daughters, The Last Showgirl, Matt and Mara, Memoir of a Snail, Nickel Boys, No Other Land, The Outrun, Riddle of Fire, Santosh, Saturn Return, Seeking Mavis Beacon, September 5, Skincare, Soundtrack to a Coup d'État, Twisters, Union, Vermiglio

My Favorite Films of 2023

2023 was a busy year for me. I cut a feature film that I’m very excited about, was fortunate to have editing work throughout the WGA and SAG strikes, and watched our infant turn into a toddler. Of course that all means that the moviegoing was even less intense (“This is healthy?” I tell my therapist, uncertain). So there are a lot of 2023 releases that feel like they might distinctly be my jam, but I haven’t had the opportunity to see. Plenty of catching up to do, as per! With that said…

(Letterboxd version of this list here which, by the way, is the most delightful social network on the internet).

My favorite film of 2023:

BEAU IS AFRAID, Ari Aster

Aster’s first two features were horror films that everyone seemed to love and I, just… liked! But this divisive, dense, genre-hopping work of epic proportions rocked me to my core. It is a visceral, subconscious-probing, visually arresting three-hours, seemingly unconcerned with appealing to all audiences (which i find refreshing). My kind of picture: singular.

Here’s the rest of my top 25 of the year, in a very loose order that changes every time I look at it:

OPPENHEIMER, Christopher Nolan

PASSAGES, Ira Sachs

SICK OF MYSELF, Kristoffer Borgli

THE ZONE OF INTEREST, Jonathan Glazer

THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS, Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch

THE HOLDOVERS, Alexander Payne

PAST LIVES, Celine Song

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, Martin Scorsese

POOR THINGS, Yorgos Lanthimos

PERFECT DAYS, Wim Wenders

MAY DECEMBER, Todd Haynes

DREAM SCENARIO, Kristoffer Borgli

A STILL SMALL VOICE, Luke Lorentzen

AFIRE, Christian Petzold

BARBIE, Greta Gerwig

ANATOMY OF A FALL, Justine Triet

BAD PRESS, Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler

PRISCILLA, Sofia Coppola

FALLEN LEAVES, Aki Kaurismäki

FERRARI, Michael Mann

INFINITY POOL, Brandon Cronenberg

THE KILLER, David Fincher

MONSTER, Kore-eda Hirokazu

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – DEAD RECKONING PART ONE, Christopher McQuarrie

I also enjoyed:

aka Mr. Chow, Asteroid City, The Delinquents, Divinity, Dreamin’ Wild, Eileen, Full Time, Godzilla Minus One, How to Blow Up A Pipeline, The Iron Claw, Memory, Mister Organ, No Hard Feelings, Pamela: A Love Story, The Pigeon Tunnel, Poison, The Ratcatcher, Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed, Scrapper, She Came to Me, Showing Up, Society of the Snow, The Swan, Talk to Me, The Taste of Things, Tori and Lokita, Wham!, When You Finish Saving the World, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

And I’m eager to eventually see:

32 Sounds, About Dry Grasses, The Boy and the Heron, Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of the World, Earth Mama, El Conde, Godland, In Water, Joyland, La Chimera, Monica, Occupied City, One Fine Morning, Pacifiction, Pictures of Ghosts, The Promised Land, Reality, R.M.N., RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop, Rye Lane, The Settlers, The Teacher’s Lounge, A Thousand and One, Trenque Lauquen, Walk Up, When Evil Lurks

My Favorite Films and Performances of 2022

2022 was a year of big beautiful change in my word, namely in the form of the arrival of my daughter Minnie. Needless to say, the year brought more baby watching and less movie watching. So there is a lot that I missed and hope to catch soon. Of what I did check out: I liked a lot of the movies I saw, but didn’t find my world thoroughly rocked by all that many of them. In a year of filmmakers taking big swings, here’s what connected for me.

(Letterboxd version of this list here)

My favorite film of 2022:

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, Ruben Östlund

Here’s the rest of the Top 25, in alphabetical order:

ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED, Laura Poitras

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER, James Cameron

THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN, Martin McDonagh

THE BATMAN, Matt Reeves

BLONDE, Andrew Dominik

BONES AND ALL, Luca Guadagnino

CONFESS, FLETCH, Greg Mottola

DINNER IN AMERICA, Adam Rehmeier

EMILY THE CRIMINAL, John Patton Ford

THE FABELMANS, Steven Spielberg

FIRE OF LOVE, Sara Dosa

HOLY SPIDER, Ali Abbasi

JACKASS FOREVER, Jeff Tremaine

MAD GOD, Phil Tippett

MEMORIA, Apichatpong Weerasethakul

MURINA, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović

THE NORTHMAN, Robert Eggers

RESURRECTION, Andrew Semans

RETURN TO SEOUL, Davy Chou

SHE SAID, Maria Schrader

SPEAK NO EVIL, Christian Tafdrup

TÁR, Todd Field

THIRTEEN LIVES, Ron Howard

THE VIEWING, Panos Cosmatos


I also enjoyed:

After Yang, Aftersun, Amsterdam, Athena, Corsage, Crimes of the Future, Decision to Leave, EO, Elvis, The Eternal Daughter, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Fire Island, Flux Gourmet, Fresh, Funny Pages, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Girl Picture, Kimi, A Love Song, The Menu, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Nope, Petite Maman, Sundown, Three Thousand Years of Longing, To Leslie, Top Gun: Maverick, Vortex, Watcher, You Won’t Be Alone


And these documentaries:

The Janes, Moonage Daydream, Navalny, The Princess, Sr., This Much I Know to be True, Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror


Memorable performances worth noting:

MVP: Colin Farrell (After Yang, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Batman, Thirteen Lives)

Duo: Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth as Margaret and David in Resurrection

Ensembles: The Northman, She Said, Speak No Evil, Thirteen Lives


Individual performances:

  • Zlatko Burić as Dimitry in Triangle of Sadness

  • Hong Chau as Elsa in The Menu

  • Don Cheadle as Murray in White Noise

  • Gwendoline Christie as Jan Stevens in Flux Gourmet

  • Frankie Corio as Sophie in Aftersun

  • Paul Dano as Edward Nashton/The Riddler in The Batman

  • Ana de Armas as Norma Jeane in Blonde

  • Dolly de Leon as Abigail in Triangle of Sadness

  • Zar Amir Ebrahimi as Rahimi in Holy Spider

  • Marcia Gay Harden as Countess Sylvia de Grassi in Confess, Fletch

  • Judd Hirsch as Uncle Boris in The Fabelmans

  • Stephanie Hsu as Joy Wang/Jobu Topeka in Everything Everywhere All at Once

  • Barry Keoghan as Dominic Kearney in The Banshees of Inisherin

  • Vicky Krieps as Empress Elisabeth in Corsage

  • François’s Lebrun as Elle in Vortex

  • David Lynch as John Ford in The Fabelmans

  • Matthew Maher as Wallace in Funny Pages

  • Terry Notary as Gordy in Nope

  • Park Ji-Min as Freddie in Return to Seoul

  • Andrea Riseborough as Leslie in To Leslie

  • Matt Rogers as Luke in Fire Island

  • Theo Rossi as Youcef in Emily the Criminal

  • Taylor Russell as Maren Yearly in Bones and All

  • Mark Rylance as Sully in Bones and All

  • Tilda Swinton as Julie Hart and Rosalind Hart in The Eternal Daughter

  • Peter Weller as Lionel Lassiter in The Viewing

That’s all folks!