At least it wasn’t 2024.
I know it’s all personal and subjective, and I’m sure I’m in the minority when I say this, but I thought last year was a drag for movies. I couldn’t even squeak out a Top Ten of 2024.
This year? Much improved! In fact, I think we uncovered a few groundbreakers: movies that push beyond anticipation and even create worlds within our world. Whether they are relatable through empathy or completely fantastical, 2025’s cinematic quality goes to 11. And, unlike most acclaimed or at-home film critics, I like to include the disrespected horror genre in my list. Horror spilled on to 2025, and it wasn’t Dracula or Frankenstein‘s blood.
10. The Life of Chuck, Directed by Mike Flanagan
Not the painfully sweet fluff of August Rush (2007) but closer to the spiritual ambition Spielberg needed in The Fabelmans (2022), this is existential storytelling at its finest. The Life of Chuck unfolds with quiet grace, even when your first instinct is cynicism. It reminds us to be present, yes, but also to linger in the ordinary—the small, banal moments that, surprisingly, leave the deepest mark. As Stephen King’s only official screenplay, it resonates long after the credits roll.
9. Presence, Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Ingenuous in its minimalism, unassuming in its observations—the narrative coasts like the very ghost we embody through the rooms.
And that is what this low-fi thriller is all about—rooms. Rooms with closets, time, and secrets.
In an era when style, shock, and manipulation trump anything substance and subtlety, this Soderbergh gem gives us reason to pause again.
The art film to horror extension isn’t easy to pull off, but Soderbergh does it, especially when dialogue ceases and eyeful awareness takes over. Yes, the music and melodramatics push corny, but we are dealing with family dysfunction (and a possible poltergeist).
It is perspective-playful, refreshing, and underrated.
8. John Candy: I Like Me, Directed by Colin Hanks
A lovable documentary about a lovable actor, husband, and father. If you were a child of the 80s and 90s, John Candy was in most of your comedy favorites. Behind his ability to make people laugh were struggles of paternal loss, body shaming, addiction, and chronic anxiety. Director Colin Hanks respectfully captures both the light and the dark of this comedic icon with heartfelt interviews, never-seen-before footage, and a beautiful celebration of a family-first Hollywood star.
7. Katrina: Come Hell and High Water, Directed by Geeta Gandbhir, Samantha M. Knowles, and Spike Lee
Match cuts of pre and post Katrina devastation accentuate the understandable yet unforgivable naivety behind disparate preparation. The haunting footage places you right in the doom of the New Orleans Lower Ninth Ward and the catastrophic progression of the levee breach. An eye opening and infuriating look at systemic neglect and inequity. What starts as an objective, chronological recollection gets real when Spike Lee takes over.
“It takes an ocean not to break.”
6. The Naked Gun, Directed by Akiva Schaffer
“Reboot” may be this relentless comedy’s only weakness, but where Leslie Nielsen is missed, Liam Neeson shamelessly and successfully upholds the legacy. I won’t spoil the gags, but the film thrives on gloriously lowbrow stupidity—cheap coffee cups, absurd visual bits, and throwaway lines that land harder than they should. Neeson’s gravelly seriousness is a perfect fit, Pamela Anderson is genuinely lovable as the new femme fatale, and the quick cameos and affectionate nods to the original are deeply satisfying. My dad and I roared with laughter alongside a packed theater, and yes—there was a snowman.
5. Together, Directed by Michael Shanks
Funny. Frightening. Funereal. Together (2025) adds a body-horror twist to a relationship premise, turning toxic codependency into a treacherously entertaining ordeal. Starring real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie, the film traps two emotionally dependent people in literal and psychological cabin fever, where selfish need curdles into something ominous. Franco and Brie are deeply likable, the progressive horrors are genuinely unsettling, and while audiences will fixate on the infamous bathroom scene, the Diazepam fiasco hit me hardest.
4. Marty Supreme, Directed by Josh Safdie
Josh Safdie’s frenetic lens, Daniel Lopatin’s retro electronica score, and the unaffected performances of non-actors pump adrenaline into a tale about a ping pong player. Yes, Marty Reisman was a real, eccentric table tennis champ who earned 22 major titles from 1946 to 2002, but his story couldn’t go beyond a Timothée Chalamet performance and a highly dynamized direction. The over-the-top, tight spots Chalamet gets into aren’t as stomach-churning as Adam Sandler’s in Uncut Gems (2019), but the dabs of humor are crucial in making this rascal tolerable. This is one of those marvels where style must supersede substance to make an unbelievable story even more unbelievable.
3. Train Dreams, Directed by Clint Bentley
With its straightforward narration and observational gaze, Train Dreams feels like a quiet meeting point between Terrence Malick’s spiritual rumination and Kelly Reichardt’s grounded patience. The film drifts through a cradle-to-grave story of love, labor, and survival, letting family—together and apart—exist as a constant presence within the rhythms of the logging life. William H. Macy disappears into his role, Joel Edgerton radiates gentle resolve, and Felicity Jones is nearly unrecognizable beneath the dirt and time. Most striking is how this Western rejects swagger in favor of fatherhood, finding aching beauty in a life defined by loss and endurance.
2. Weapons, Directed By Zach Cregger
Watching Weapons in a packed theater felt like a roller coaster of gulps, laughs, and screams—a reminder that horror has broken wide open this year even as many viewers settle for safer rides. Built on the chilling premise of an entire elementary class vanishing at 2:17 a.m., the film sustains its dread through eerie suburban unease and a relentless drive to explain the impossible. Zach Cregger proves adept at getting under the skin, using a shadowy, mid-century neighborhood to conjure a uniquely American darkness. Beneath the jump scares, the film operates as a metaphor for school-shooting paranoia, exploring trauma, moral disengagement, and manipulation through interwoven perspectives and a cleverly shifting timeline. Folklore may haunt the woods, but Weapons argues that the American suburbs—where fear hides behind lawns and quiet nights—are far more terrifying.
1. One Battle After Another, Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
One Battle After Another is a daring, unmarketable-by-design genre-bender that demands a theatrical viewing, with Paul Thomas Anderson once again operating on a frequency Hollywood can’t replicate. The film erupts with raw emotion, flooring the viewer, lifting them up, and launching them into the ether with a confidence that feels both reckless and precise. On the political surface, there are no winners here. This is far less a statement film than a study in character development and personality evaluation, where ideology matters less than impulse, loyalty, and personal reckoning.
Tonally elastic music—ranging from dissonant piano to anxious jazz—drives the film forward and fuels two edge-of-your-seat chase sequences that feel both classical and unhinged. Nodding to Bonnie and Clyde and the fugitive melancholy of Running on Empty before dismantling both into something entirely its own, One Battle After Another stands as unmistakably PTA: wild, unclassifiable, and beating with a heart too big for any genre to contain.
A movie to feel. A movie to ride. A movie for the movies.
Thank you for reading and be sure to share YOUR favorites of 2025!
Happy New Year to you and your fams,
Reely Bernie
Reely Bernie 
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