FILM FRENZY

Nouvelle Vague (Netflix); Sinners (Warner Bros.); Sorry, Baby (A24)

By Matt Brunson

Cinematically speaking, allow me to mangle Charles Dickens and state that 2025 was neither the best of times nor the worst of times.

Out in the real world, it was definitely the worst — in the U.S. alone, man’s inhumanity to man (and woman and child) was so pronounced that it felt like being trapped in a movie theater that showed nothing but torture porn 24/7. In the reel world, though, matters were a bit better. Whereas executive types were perpetually bending the knee to grovel before a dim-witted dictator, artistic types were rising up to use the film form to expose the heinousness and hypocrisy running rampant throughout the country — and the world. Documentaries were of course leading the charge, but many fictional films also found themselves joining the fray.

Other movies preferred to steer clear of political issues and offer nothing but straight-up entertainment. Many of these were quality productions as well. Still, looking over the entire film year, it felt like a continuation of 2024, when I saw plenty of pictures that I enjoyed and admired but nothing that really stood above the pack. For the third year in a row, I saw nothing that I felt warranted four stars, a far cry from the many years when two or three such films would duke it out for the #1 slot.

But enough carping. Here are my picks for the 10 best movies of 2025, followed by 10 worthy runners-up and other assorted superlatives.

THE 10 BEST

1. SINNERS (Ryan Coogler). The best film of 2025. Like Jordan Peele with his trio of Get Out, Us, and Nope, Ryan Coogler has made a soulful and soul-stirring saga that blankets the Black experience with a supernatural patina. Yet as is occasionally the case when a filmmaker is patient with the expository material rather than just rushing through it, Sinners is so strong in its initial going as simply a period drama that most viewers would have welcomed whatever direction Coogler had opted to take his picture. Set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932, this finds twin brothers Smoke and Stack Moore, aka The Smokestack Twins (both played by Michael B. Jordan), returning from Chicago with more than enough money to open their own juke joint. It’s a raucous celebration for the Black community, but evil soon comes knocking — in the form of the white man, yes, but more importantly, in the form of something truly demonic. There’s so much thematic material to unpack here, but the film’s primary strength is in its exploration of music as a healer, as a seducer, as a uniter, and as a generational bridge — the last reflected in a truly superb sequence.

2. IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (Jafar Panahi). Even as this country’s government continues its attempts to make xenophobia as American as apple pie, international filmmakers march undeterred to their own beat. This was an exceptional year for foreign flicks — three such pictures didn’t just make my 10 Best, they made my 5 Best. The first of the trio is the latest from Jafar Panahi, a world-class Iranian filmmaker who has frequently found himself the target of government interference (and occasionally jailed for his views). A co-production of France, Iran, and Luxembourg, this finds a mechanic (Vahid Mobasseri) absolutely convinced that his latest customer (Ebrahim Azizi) is the man who tortured him during his past stint in an Iranian prison. Well, he’s almost absolutely convinced — enough doubt creeps in that, after he kidnaps the guy, he rounds up some fellow political prisoners to verify his claim. A movie about a country struggling to come to terms with its own bedrock of sociopolitical strife, It Was Just an Accident offers humor that is black, drama that is deep, and an ending that is unforgettable.

3. SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Joachim Trier). There were two movies in 2025 that centered on a filmmaker who long ago had chosen his career over his two daughters. Jay Kelly, starring George Clooney as the titular actor, isn’t bad, but it’s so pleasant and accommodating that nothing really feels at stake. Not so Sentimental Value, a Norwegian production which exposes raw and frayed nerves at every turn. A superb Stellan Skarsgård plays Gustav Borg, a film director whose grown daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) have spent years resenting him. Gustav hopes Nora will star in his next picture, a drama that draws from their family history, but after she refuses, he taps a popular American actress (Elle Fanning) for the part. Sentimental Value feels like an intimate act birthed from both stage (think Ibsen and Chekhov) and screen (think Ingmar Bergman and Woody Allen) — it’s a character study two-squared, and it suggests that it’s never too late to mend bridges no matter how badly they’ve been burned.

4. SORRY, BABY (Eva Victor). Writer-director Eva Victor makes a stunning debut with this excellent work that contains what’s easily one of the two or three best scenes of 2025. The sequence features character actor John Carroll Lynch (Frances McDormand’s husband in Fargo), it involves a “good sandwich,” and it’s so beautiful in such an ordinary way that it takes your breath away. It unfolds toward the end of this emotional journey that finds literature professor Agnes Ward (Victor) still reeling from a sexual assault that occurred while she was in college. The assailant was a trusted teacher (Louis Cancelmi), and few beside her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) ever knew about it. Sorry, Baby is generally described as a comedy-drama, but the humor is often of the “she laughs so she won’t cry” variety, and the subdued ways in which the assault and the trauma that follows are handled only make Agnes’ reckoning all that more powerful. In fact, everything is on a low simmer, including an LGBTQ angle, a budding new romance, and, of course, That Scene.

5. THE SECRET AGENT (Kleber Mendonça Filho). Brazil’s right-wing military dictatorship lasted 21 years (1964-1985) and led to the torture, disappearance, and/or murders of over 20,000 dissidents. This real-life atrocity was the focus of I’m Still Here, which landed on my 10 Best list (in the #3 spot) for 2024 — history repeats itself with The Secret Agent, another Brazilian film tackling the same topic and similarly making my latest year-end list. Wagner Moura is wonderful as Armando Solimões, a former professor and wanted fugitive who hides in plain sight by assuming a fake alias and working in a government ID office. A former film critic, writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho does an exemplary job of recreating 1977 Recife (including the frenzy surrounding 1975’s Jaws finally hitting town), but he goes an extra mile by embellishing his dramatization with unexpected dashes of surrealism. And then he charges forward even further, adding modern-day sequences which remind us that we must always reclaim history from those deplorables who seek to alter or obfuscate it.

6. WEAPONS (Zach Cregger). On the same night in suburban America, all but one of the children in a class of 18 go missing, running off into the dark night with arms outstretched. Why did they leave, and where did they go? Weapons expertly dissects much of what ails modern America: the sickening realization that schools are no longer safety zones but rather bullseyes for outer forces bent on death and destruction; the tendency to settle on scapegoats during tragedies, when answers aren’t immediately available; the splintering of the family unit, reduced to the point where infiltration by strangers is relatively easy; the evils of addiction, and how it forces everyone surrounding the addict to give up so much of their own lives; and, of course, the very notion of civility, of shared communal responsibility, destroyed by the misinformation wars hurting those genuinely seeking to educate and empathize. As a horror film, Weapons delivers; as a social study — social satire, even — it delivers much more.

7. BLUE MOON (Richard Linklater). While Blue Moon is a complete original — Robert Kaplow wrote the script directly for the screen — one would be forgiven for thinking it was based on a play. The entire story takes place in one location, the famous Manhattan eatery Sardi’s, and the piece is neatly divided into three acts. Act One: Lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) arrives at the restaurant and proceeds to lambast the new musical Oklahoma!, which was co-written by his longtime partner, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott). Act Two: Hart joins the celebratory party being thrown at Sardi’s for Rodgers and Oklahoma! partner Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Act Three: Hart retreats into the venue’s coat room for a lengthy chat with a college student (Margaret Qualley) with whom he’s become infatuated. Crisply directed by Richard Linklater and showcasing a never-better Hawke, Blue Moon emulates its leading character: Like Hart, it’s wry, witty, wistful, garrulous, freewheeling, and suffused with a sense of the melancholic.

8. NOUVELLE VAGUE (Richard Linklater). Linklater again, turning from American musicals to international cinema. As the Criterion box copy states for Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 French New Wave sensation, “There was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless.” Nouvelle Vague is a love letter not only to the Godard classic (French title: À bout de souffle) that remains one of the most influential works in film history, but also to any artist who’s forever kibitzing, questioning, challenging, and creating. Filmed in black-and-white, it’s a leisurely fly-on-the-wall flick that follows Godard (Guillaume Maubeck) as he sets about shooting Breathless with actor Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubrey Dullin), on the verge of international stardom, and outspoken American actress Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch). The screenplay for Nouvelle Vague was written in English and then translated into French (both the American scripters and the French writers/translators receive screen credit) — given the rapturous results, it’s clear nothing was lost in translation.

9. BLACK BAG (Steven Soderbergh). This smooth and seductive addition to the catalog of cinematic spy games stars Michael Fassbender as George Woodhouse, a British intelligence agent who’s informed that one of his colleagues is stealing secrets. There are five suspects, one of whom turns out to be his wife (Cate Blanchett). Without informing them of his purpose, George has all five gather for dinner — he turns the meal into a psychological exercise and then continues his surveillance at all hours. Black Bag initially feels as coolly detached as Fassbender’s character, but as it continues to ping pong between its sharply written suspects, it grows more emotionally involving, particularly when it comes to the relationship between George and a spouse he might soon discover is a traitor. The plotting is dense but not necessarily so (see Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning), and this is one of those rare times when the villain really could be anyone, as opposed to those films where the least likely suspect is of course the guilty party.

10. SUPERMAN (James Gunn). The best Superman movie since the first two Christopher Reeve gems offers everything that was lacking in 2013’s dismal Man of Steel: humor, humanism, heart, and a charismatic leading man who’s up to the demands of the role. David Corenswet won’t erase memories of Reeve, but he’s quite ingratiating as Clark Kent / Superman in a film that wisely skips the origin intros and joins a story already in progress. Given the go-for-broke nature of the comedy, this could have fallen prey to the same sense of smarmy, self-congratulatory overkill that crippled James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. Instead, the nyuks work surprisingly well, particularly in the characterizations of Krypto as the most unruly dog imaginable and Guy Gardner / Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) as a narcissistic clod. But drama also has a seat at the table, due to such hot-button issues as the vilification of immigrants, the ceaseless cycle of faux news, and the dangers when a petty, bullying tyrant feels threatened by peaceful, progressive values.

The Next 10 (Honorable Mentions, In Preferential Order):
11. Orwell: 2+2=5
12. No Other Choice
13. When We Went MAD!
14. Companion
15. The Ballad of Wallis Island
16. Train Dreams
17. Bring Her Back
18. Friendship
19. Marty Supreme
20. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Best Actor:
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Lee Byung-hun, No Other Choice
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Joel Edgerton, Train Dreams

Best Actress:
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Eva Victor, Sorry, Baby
Jesse Buckley, Hamnet
Jennifer Lawrence, Die My Love

Best Supporting Actor:
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Mark Hamill, The Life of Chuck
Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Josh O’Connor, Wake Up, Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Andrew Scott, Blue Moon

Best Supporting Actress:
Wunmi Mosako, Sinners
Zoë Winters, Materialists
Zoey Deutch, Nouvelle Vague
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Naomi Ackie, Sorry, Baby

Sleepers:
Caught Stealing
Novocaine
Relay
Splitsville
Together
The Wedding Banquet

Disappointments:
Anemone
Ballerina
Eddington
A House of Dynamite
Jurassic World: Rebirth
The Naked Gun