The Best Movies of 2025, Ranked
- Samuel Stephenson
- 14 hours ago
- 8 min read
Samuel Stephenson
Looking back over the year, I’m really grateful that I’ve been able to go to the cinema so many times, seeing such a broad range of different films, and most importantly, getting lost in good stories. There’s nothing quite like it. 2025, for me at least, has definitely felt like the best year for films in a while. I wanted to make a list of my top 10 movies of the year to show just how good cinema has been lately.
Disclaimer: While some of these movies had released last year in the US and in other countries, I will be going off UK release dates for consistency.
Honourable Mentions
15. The Code, dir. Eugene Kotlyarenko – inventive portrait of relationships in the age of digital paranoia
14. Here, dir. Robert Zemeckis – an incredibly sentimental Forrest Gump reunion shot from the exact location across many centuries
13. A Real Pain, dir. Jesse Eisenberg – maybe the tightest script of the year. Fits so much into 90 minutes - has a lot to say about family relationships and how we process history and trauma
12. Materialists, dir. Celine Song – beautifully optimistic look at love and dating in the modern age
11. Big Shark, dir. Tommy Wiseau – director of the cult classic The Room is back – with something just as badly written, but so much fun with a packed audience.
10. Bugonia, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
In Bugonia, 2 conspiracy theorists kidnap a CEO, with the belief that she is an alien intent on destroying the planet. It’s the latest feature from Yorgos Lanthimos, reuniting once again with the brilliant Emma Stone, who is excellent here, as she always is. He also reunites with cinematographer Robbie Ryan using beautiful VistaVision (the third time it has been used recently, after The Brutalist and One Battle After Another) and composer Jerskin Fendrix, who creates an electric, insanely bombastic score. The ensemble is great, Stone is brilliant, but it is Jesse Plemons who steals the show here. The whole thing is utterly captivating, and like many other Lanthimos films, manages to balance comedy with dark and sad undertones. Definitely the most accessible Lanthimos movie to date, but one of the best. The last 20 minutes has to be the funniest cinema I’ve seen all year.
9. Boys Go to Jupiter, dir. Julian Glander
Probably the least-watched film on this list. I was super curious to see this after it had screened in multiple festivals last year, so it was a real treat getting to see this at Glasgow Film Festival. The film was made on Blender, a piece of software that you can literally download for free on your laptop. It has such a fun, unique visual style and has a lot to say about the disconnect we all feel in the modern age. The soundtrack is so bizarre, with some wonderfully strange songs, and the film has a ton of silly humour paired with a healthy dose of nihilism. It was a strangely delightful experience. My favourite animated movie of the year.
8. The Ballad of Wallis Island, dir. James Griffiths
Tim Key plays a lottery winner who lives alone on an island, and he manages to get his favourite artists to perform on the island for him. This one screened at the Sands International Film Festival here in St Andrews and was probably the best crowd-pleaser I’ve seen in a good while. The audience erupted into laughter so many times. Pure British comfort food. The best comedy of the year.
7. Bring Her Back, dir. Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
One of the biggest surprises of the year for me. YouTubers turned directors the Philippou brothers released their debut feature Talk to Me in 2023, which was well-crafted, but did fall a bit flat for me - as horror is the genre I connect to the least. This one is phenomenal though. Very strong themes about family and grief, the ending really shook me. Sally Hawkins is an absolute knockout. One of the best lead performances of the year, it’s a shame that she isn’t getting any awards recognition.
6. 28 Years Later, dir. Danny Boyle
One of the most ambitious movies of the year. The iPhone cinematography added such a naturalistic feel to the film, and the score from Young Fathers is emotionally stunning and adds a whole other meaning to some scenes. The film uses archival footage in an intriguing, but effective way to show the regression of society, and acts as a warning to the audience. The scariest stuff here is not with the zombies. I’m still grappling with the ending, I couldn’t quite believe what I was watching. Super excited to see how they resolve that plot threat in the sequel.
5. Sinners, dir. Ryan Coogler
What more can I say about this one that hasn’t already been said? To get a fully original story being told at this creative and technical level today is rare. Seeing it on IMAX was truly breathtaking. The way it uses aspect ratio changes, especially in the juke joint sequence, was masterful, and created some of the most immersive, jaw-dropping moments of the year. If there’s one film Hollywood needs to look at right now for inspiration, it’s this one. More original stories please.
4. Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning, dir. Christopher McQuarrie
This one has ended up being my hottest take of the year. Nearly everything about this worked for me. It’s incredibly cheesy, and utterly sincere, wearing its heart on its sleeve with a near gross amount of flashback footage (which some would describe as over-indulgent), making this one the most sentimental entry in the franchise. The AI villain is truly terrifying, partially because it’s a threat we are facing in real time. There are also these strange meta-elements in the narrative, like where Tom Cruise’s character is treated like the messiah, as the only one that can save the world. It feels like a metaphor to how Cruise is trying to save the movie industry. It’s a little smug but also quite self-aware of what it believes. His stunts in this movie, as visualised from the image above, are truly breathtaking. Nobody is doing it like him. The whole thing is balls to the walls, but it is just so genuine and authentic. We need more of that.
3. I Swear, dir. Kirk Jones
This film tells the true story of John Davidson, a Tourette syndrome campaigner who grew up with the condition when it was barely known by the public. The film does such a good job at portraying John’s childhood – showing all the troubles he is forced to endure. However, there’s a turning point in the film, where things get better, and you can see that people just want to help. There’s a lovely message in here about looking out for one another. You see the power that stems from friendship, community, and educating the public. It really struck me with how empowering it was, exploring the possibility of societal change. I walked out of the theatre having more faith in humanity. Really, really powerful.
2. The Brutalist, dir. Brady Corbet
Up until very recently, The Brutalist was, without a doubt, my favourite film of the year. It seems like a given that the 215-minute epic with an intermission would make it to the top of the list, but it did truly stick with me, it was the one movie this year I couldn’t stop thinking about.
It was the first film in decades to be shot in VistaVision, an old film format which is finally seeing the resurgence it deserves. The cinematography manages to capture an unimaginably elevated level of scope that really cements this film as a true American epic. Every frame is stunning, and pair that with Daniel Blumberg’s stellar score, which feels both loud and epic yet delicate at the same time, there is a feeling of a hope and ambition created, which feels like it could all come crashing down. Adrien Brody is doing something special here, with a performance that works on every level, from the understated to the most dramatic. Guy Pierce is also phenomenal and was snubbed of a supporting actor Oscar win. The film featured many of my favourite scenes of the year, a few which have stuck with me and are personal favourites. The opening, on the ship, for example, is breathtaking as it makes László’s (played by Adrien Brody) arrival to America feel like one filled with as much dread and uncertainty as there is hope. The track Overture (Ship), playing during this sequence, is an all-timer.
Then, probably my favourite sequence of the year, is the one that plays right before the intermission (*mild spoilers*). There is a letter read out, by Erzsébet (László’s wife), with a family photo enclosed, which will allow her to join him after years apart. There is old radio footage about the utility of Pennsylvanian steel matched with Blumberg’s score, all while László’s ambitious community centre is finally coming together. All of this comes together to create a complete catharsis, with equally high levels of hope and anticipation undercut with a subtle feeling of dread, one which lingers over the whole narrative. When I was watching the film for the first time, as Erzsébet asks “László, does this mean we might meet again soon?”, after which the lights came on in the cinema for the intermission, I couldn’t quite place how to describe what I was feeling. That moment has stuck with me since. It felt utterly magical, and that is what cinema is all about.
1. Train Dreams, dir. Clint Bentley
Back at the start the year, I would have hoped that I wouldn’t have watched my favourite movie of the year on my laptop, on Netflix, but here we are.
Train Dreams tells the life story of Robert Rainer, a logger, who lives a pretty unextraordinary life during the early 20th century. The film captivated me from the opening frame, and I was heavily invested in this stunning story from start to finish. A whole life is explored here, with love, loss, grief, and much more, on full display. But everything is handled with such care. The narration gives the film an incredibly cosy, calming vibe, along with Bryce Dessner’s beautifully melancholic and wonderfully curious score. The cinematography also features some of the most awe-inspiring shots (and landscapes) I’ve seen all year.
As Robert goes about his life, he is constantly questioning who he is, or what his fate should be. He meets people, young and old, all bringing in different stories and perspectives as the world changes around him. The camera follows him around using a handheld style which feels at times much more like a video game than a film. I’ve been thinking a lot about this style and how it strangely comforted me, reminding me of times playing open-world video games, calmly wandering the worlds that game developers had crafted. Theres an insignificance the characters feel, as tiny beings in the wilderness. You can feel this too. In another film, it may make you feel powerless, but it is wonderfully soothing here. What I feel like is most important about cinema is its ability to create a world which feels as lively and as unique as our own, one which you want to get lost in. I felt like I could’ve just stayed in this world, exploring the cabin and the woods endlessly.
The full ranked list of 2025 films I’ve seen this year can be found here - https://boxd.it/B49GC.
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