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.
