Horror movies were the MVPs in 2025, and as a lifelong ride-or-die fan of the genre I say, “Thank you!” I mean, a year that brings us Sinners, Weapons, 28 Years Later, Bring Her Back, The Monkey, Presence, Good Boy, Final Destination: Bloodlines (nope, didn’t have that one on my Killer Bingo card), Companion, Dangerous Animals and Together is a memorable one! And I still haven’t yet seen The Ugly Stepsister, It Ends, Best Wishes to All, Heart Eyes, 40 Acres, and The Long Walk.

Not all horror movies worked for me, though. I was really bummed that Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein just never came to life. Del Toro is a director whose work I’ve adored in the past, and the story of Frankenstein is one I’ve loved since before I even hit double digits in age. But this version just laid there … dead. It was the biggest movie disappointment for me in 2025. As far as I’m concerned, Boris Karloff remains THE Frankenstein Monster of record, 95 years and countless adaptations later.

A ubig srprise, however, was director Bryan Fuller’s feature debut Dust Bunny, an action-horror-comedy-fairy-tale of a family movie that’s been unfairly slapped with an R-rating. Let your kids see the damn thing, they’ll be better for it. The whimsicality and heightened visuals are just what you’d expect from the mind behind television’s Pushing Daisies and Hannibal, and Sigourney Weaver facing off in stiletto heel gun shoes against hitmen, FBI agents and one really hungry monster is one of my favorite movie moments this year.

I did, sadly, feel let down by comedy movies this year. I mean, if ever there was a time we could’ve all used a hearty laugh it was 2025 (just hold your fucking beer a moment, 2026). The awkward straight male bonding movie Friendship bored the crap out of me, and I laughed just twice watching remake/reboot/sequel The Naked Gun. (And yes, I know you all loved it, so I’ll take the rap. But … really?!) Splitsville was pretty good, some really funny scenes, but the movie does labor its run time.

I saw a lot of documentaries, and some of them make my Honorable Mention list:

Devo is as entertaining, weird and visually engaging as the Akron, Ohio new wave band it highlights.

The Perfect Neighbor, told mainly through police bodycam and doorbell camera footage, recounts a distressingly tragic tale of a neighborhood bully, race, class, violence, the inequity of Florida “stand your ground” laws, and the inability of our 911 systems to provide conflict and dispute resolution.

In 2003 eight artists created a secret apartment in a new Providence, R.I. shopping mall, living and working in the space for four years before being caught. Through real-time video footage, the documentary Secret Mall Apartment explores the conception and construction of the living space and the birth of an artistic community which still flourishes 20 years later.

I Know Catherine, the Log Lady is not a trailblazing documentary, but it is an honest, emotional and very intimate look at the life and career of actress Catherine Coulson, particularly her last weeks in 2015 as she faces death and prepares to film her scenes for director David Lynch’s long-awaited third season of Twin Peaks. I bawled.

Predators is an insightful look into the television and podcast phenom To Catch a Predator and the vigilante movement that has followed in its wake.

My Honorable Mention list also includes:

28 Years Later, a second sequel to a 23-year-old dystopian horror movie (28 Days Later) that is more an epic coming-of-age tale than it is a zombie flick, a surprisingly emotional (and not-so-surprisingly brutal) journey that avoids franchise brain rot;

Superman, a welcome return to the Man of Steel’s roots. Less Zack Snyder moping and angst, more DC Comics kindness, compassion and hope — three values that have been mocked and targeted these days;

We were blessed with two movies from Dazed and Confused and Before Sunrise director Richard Linklater this year. I’m a sucker for movies about movies, and Nouvelle Vague beautifully reenacts the making of the revolutionary 1960 French movie Breathless. The result is a movie that looks as if it indeed was also made in 1960.

Linklater also directed Blue Moon, one night in the life of Lorenz Hart, half of the legendary Rodgers and Hart songwriting team. On this pivotal night in 1943, the musical Oklahoma! premieres on a Broadway stage and Hart realizes he has been replaced by Oscar Hammerstein. I expect Ethan Hawke will get an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Hart.

Predator: Badlands. Who knew the Predator series still had some zing … and that it could be so much fun … and with a PG rating! One of two delightful performances by actress Elle Fanning this year.

The worst movie I saw? Easy: The Lost Bus, with Matthew McConaughey. Another true-life story given the Lifetime Network treatment: drained of anything that seems either true or real, armed with a sledgehammer to drive all of its points home, with wooden dialogue that threatens to feed the flames surrounding the titular bus and its clichés-with-legs passengers. A chore to sit through. Directed by Peter Greengrass, who has done much, much, much better work, like United 93 and Captain Phillips.

And now, in ascending order, my favorite movies of 2025:

10. SENTIMENTAL VALUE

This family drama spoke to me, moved me, touched me in a very personal way. Grace, understanding, and forgiveness are often hardest to extend to one’s own family. Sentimental Value introduces us to characters with messy, full-blooded histories and emotions, traumas that have been looked past, resentments which have festered, regrets that have calcified. The acting is terrific: Stellan Skarsgård as a legendary film director, charming, narcissistic, burying his own childhood trauma; Renate Reinsve as his daughter Nora, a stage actress struggling with depression and intimacy issues; and Elle Fanning (again!) as a Hollywood movie star who comes between father and daughter professionally and personally. Can these characters relate to each other, either in real life or through their art? A relatable journey for anyone with complex family issues.

9. SORRY, BABY

Continuing the theme of trauma recovery, Sorry, Baby writer-director Eva Victor portrays Agnes, a New England college professor who has been grappling with depression in the aftermath of a sexual assault, her personal and professional lives seemingly grounded in apathy. This may sound like grim fare, but the movie, often surprisingly funny, refuses to lock Agnes in victimhood. She copes with a dark sense of humor as she watches the world — her friends, her co-workers — move on around her. Sorry, Baby is a character study, tracing the progression of Agnes’ recovery over a period of five years. Her actions might sometimes confound you as they do her acquaintances, but that’s the thing about trauma. She often surprises (and frustrates) herself. The symptoms of the trauma can be upsetting: fury, despair, humiliation, and confusion arise without warning, but there is genuine joy in Agnes’ recovery strides, both small and large. One scene in Sorry, Baby is among my favorite movie moments of 2025: Agnes pulls her car into a parking lot as a panic attack completely overwhelms her. She meets a concerned stranger there who offers her a sandwich and an ear and more compassion, more kindness, more hope than anyone else has in five years. It’s an extraordinary scene in its simplicity (hat tip to the always dependable John Carroll Lynch).

8. BLACK BAG

Like Richard Linklater, director Steven Soderbergh has been a busy guy, with two movies in 2025. The haunted house drama Presence hit cinemas in January, and Black Bag in March. Presence is good entertainment, but Black Bag is the perfect spy movie as far as I’m concerned. Tight at just 90 minutes, sexy, polished, droll, intelligent, suspenseful, playful. The supporting cast is delightful but make no mistake: this movie is hot thanks to the seductive pairing of Cate Blanchette and Michael Fassbender. These two long-married spies are accused of “flagrant monogamy,” yet could possibly be fucking each other over professionally. The fun is in the hunt. A spy vs. spy gem.

7. WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

I’m a sucker for whodunnit mysteries, have been since my youth in the 1970s, movies like The Last of Sheila, Sleuth, Murder on the Orient Express, Murder by Death and Death on the Nile. And 50 years later I still seek them out. I liked the first two Knives Out movies well enough. They weren’t great movies but entertaining enough, so I wasn’t expecting much of the third in the series, Wake Up Dead Man. Surprise! I head-over-heels loved the movie. It is by far the best of the three, funnier and twistier, and sincerely makes me hope director Rian Johnson is planning a fourth. Daniel Craig returns, Foghorn Leghorn accent intact, as “the world’s greatest detective” (his words) to investigate another “impossible murder.” But in a successful switcheroo, Blanc plays second fiddle this time around, only showing up almost 40 minutes into the movie. The MVP this time? British actor Josh O’Connor (younger Prince Charles in The Crown) as newly arrived priest Father Jud Duplenticy. Within weeks of his arrival he is investigating a murder in which he is the prime suspect, a possible witness, and a potential victim. Wake Up Dead Man makes great use of the Catholic Church background, finding the humor and danger in the disconnect between the younger priest’s idealistic faith and his pastor’s inflexible traditionalism. And while the detective values reason over religion, the movie itself never mocks faith and theology. In one memorable scene, Father Jud counsels a woman over the phone for hours while the detective impatiently sighs in another room. The scene adds nothing to the investigation of the murder but is essential in revealing who this priest is and how his relationship with the detective evolves. It’s a beautiful thing. And I must give kudos where they are due. I’ve been very critical of Glenn Close for several years (harshly, perhaps, but justifiably), but she is terrific in Wake Up Dead Man as the rectory housekeeper who, like every other character in the movie, knows more than she’s saying. The biggest laughs here — and I laughed out loud several times — are courtesy of Close. She and Craig and O’Connor and the movie are sublime. And I never would’ve believed I’d shed a tear or two during a Knives Out movie. Rian Johnson has outdone himself. Don’t listen to the haters.

6. IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT

An Iranian car mechanic abducts a man he suspects is the regime goon who tortured him years ago. He spends a long, crazy 24 hours in a van with his hostage and a group of fellow torture victims, intent on extracting an admittance of guilt and meting out some sort of retribution. But a confession and a concession on what punishment or vengeance looks like are near impossible to attain. The events of the day get stranger and the passengers waver in their certainty the captive is actually the man they all feared. It Was Just an Accident has the classic structure of a comedy, and it is often funny. But there is an increasing sense of dread as the characters tussle with each other and their own consciences over what to do with their hostage, and after a day of absurdities the final 20 minutes of this moral dilemma are so riveting, so emotionally ravaging, I’ve not been able to let it go for two weeks. The very final scene is another of my favorite movie moments of 2025, an overwhelming reminder that for these survivors there is never really “closure,” only a sound, a smell, a memory that will return without warning at any time to haunt them forever.

An important note on the production of this movie: Jafar Panahi, the director of It Was Just an Accident, has been arrested several times by Iranian forces and sentenced to serve six years in prison, his movies censored and banned as “anti-Islamic Republic propaganda.” He is banned from making films in Iran for 20 years. Despite this ban, Panahi surreptitiously filmed It Was Just an Accident on the streets of Tehran and in the desert outside the city. Some of the women characters aren’t wearing hijabs, which is required by law in Iran.

5. PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF

My favorite documentary this year is Pee-Wee as Himself, a story of two clashes. Director Matt Wolf and his subject, actor Paul Reubens, fought for creative control. Wolf didn’t want to lose control of his movie, and Reubens didn’t want to lose control of his own story. And Reubens’ fame as his global phenomenon alter ego Pee-wee Herman clashed with his determination to remain anonymous, to conceal his homosexuality from the world. Even now, decades after Pee-Wee’s heyday, Reubens found it difficult to have honest on-camera interviews with Wolf, often guarded, sometimes evasive, responding with sarcasm or diversion. Saying the words “I am gay” on camera is clearly difficult for him. Paul Reubens died from cancer before production was completed. Amazingly, the resulting documentary is a wondrous thing, a meaningful, joyful warts-and-all appreciation of a truly original American artist and his subversive and obviously inclusive (sorry not sorry, MAGA) creation, Pee-Wee Herman. A keeper.

4. THE SECRET AGENT

My favorite movie in 2024, the #1 on that list, was I’m Still Here, the true story of a family who, for 45 years, searched for answers in the disappearance and murder of their husband and father by the Brazilian military regime. A year later, I’ve just watched The Secret Agent, set also in the 1970s Brazil, during the 21-year military dictatorship. This is not a spy thriller. The title subverts the fanciful fiction of secret agents and asks what the secrets are, who the agents are. Wagner Moura (Pablo Escobar in Narcos) is a Brazilian university professor who ends up in hiding after resisting political and corporate corruption. He hides “in plain sight” at a safe house for fugitives in the city of Recife, where he also works under an assumed name at the city administration building. As he prepares to flee Brazil with his young son, hired killers arrive to kill him. Meanwhile, a dead man rots for days in a gas station parking lot for days under the hot sun, ignored by all but hungry dogs. And a shark lies on a slab with a human leg protruding from its belly. And a crooked police chief wants that leg now. And the movies Jaws (of course) and The Omen are all the rage at the local cinema. And in that same theater, someone brazenly pulls an Alanis Morrisette — but no biggie, happens every day. There’s also a scarred Holocaust survivor, but local gossip insists he’s a fugitive Nazi officer (RIP, Udo Kier!) And a sloppy gunman bungles his job in a most spectacular way. All of these ideas would come across much differently if The Secret Agent were indeed a secret agent movie. But here, the absurdities pale in comparison to the absurdities of life under a dictatorship. And in a stunning parallel to life in the US today, government-led conspiracy theories and lies keep the public occupied and entertained while malfeasance and “mischief” goes unchecked around them. In fact, I’m fairly sure director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who was born and raised under that military dictatorship, is reminding us that the traumas of years past never really completely heal, and we must continue to resist the threat of repression and authoritarianism.

3. SINNERS

I think by now we’ve all seen Sinners (and if you haven’t, well, your loss, schmuck), and what a glorious treat it is! The movie is classified a horror movie, and yes, there’s a lot of that. It’s also an exploration of Black history and culture and a celebration of Black music. The movie also confronts racism, bigotry, and the Jim Crow South. But most important, this movie is ALIVE. It’s alive with the Delta blues. It’s alive with the spirit of 1970s blaxploitation movies. It’s alive with stellar supporting role performances by actors who should be better known — Miles Caton, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller. It’s alive in my #1 favorite movie moment of the year: Sammie the Preacher Boy and his guitar in front of a crowd for the first time, a blues song which gradually intensifies and transforms the juke joint dance floor into an electrifying decades-spanning rave-up of Black music past, present and future. Tribal drums, gospel, blues, jazz, hip hop, rock and roll. This 5-minute scene is a cinematic orgasm in IMAX, and I’m forever thankful that’s the format I saw the movie in. I knew immediately I had just seen the best movie sequence of the year, if not the past five. Director Ryan Coogler had a vision … it is enthralling to live in that vision for two-and-a-half hours!

Note: I’ve struggled with placing Nos. 1 and 2. I go back and forth between the next two movies. This is my tenuous decision today. Tomorrow it’ll likely be different. I’ll reconsider in a year or two.

2. WEAPONS

Without doubt, the most fun I had at the cinema in 2025 was Weapons, and it is also the funniest movie I saw in 2025. Kudos to the movie’s marketing team for creating a restrained promotional campaign that inspired dread and a sense of mystery. The trailers intrigued and excited me without telling me much. Unlike most other movies today, on first viewing Weapons is full of surprises. There is nothing predictable here. If you haven’t seen it yet, you probably don’t like horror movies, and there’s not much I can tell you to convince you to see it. There are surely scary moments, and some bloody moments, definitely a few WTF moments!, and the movie is powered by a strong sense of dread. But Weapons is also very funny. The biggest laughs I’ve had in a theater in 2025 were in this movie’s last half hour. I mean big, hearty belly laughs, and to share that with an audience responding the same way — movie heaven. I will say I saw the movie with friends who are not horror movie fans, and they loved the movie. I won’t discuss what it’s about here. That’s for viewers to discover themselves. Take a chance, check it out. Weapons is one for the ages. We’ll be talking about it for years and years.

1. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

In my book, a new movie from director Paul Thomas Anderson is AN EVENT. I mean, this is the guy who gave us Boogie Nights … Magnolia … Punch-Drunk Love … There Will Be Blood … The Master … Phantom Thread … Licorice Pizza. And true to form, One Battle After Another is an experience, a zany comedy about serious business. Zany comedy, you ask? Yes! I think of it as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Revolution. For more than half the movie’s 3-hour run time, a very befuddled (read: stoned) Leonardo DiCaprio runs around in a bathrobe. Benicio Del Toro is a karate teacher with “a little Latino Harriet Tubman situation going on at my place. All legit.” Sean Penn is a far-Right racist with a hard-on for Black chicks, an Army colonel who demands respect and authority and attains neither. And everyone crosses paths with a White supremacist group of wealthy politicians and billionaires called the Christmas Adventurers Club who proclaim, “Hail Saint Nick!” This is a PT Anderson flick, so you can expect incredible cinematography (visually breathtaking in IMAX) and some memorable set pieces, including a few car chases that have already become legendary. At the heart of the madcap madness is a strained but loving relationship between a father and daughter. An early scene between DiCaprio’s ex-revolutionary stoner dad and his daughter’s high school teacher bolsters this: what starts for laughs as an awkwardly unbalanced conversation about American history education becomes suddenly poignant when DiCaprio breaks down in tears over his daughter’s accomplishments. I didn’t realize until my second watch that this is a profound scene and the key to what the movie is actually about. Right wing media made a fuss about One Battle After Another back in September, wringing their hands over “fears” the movie would incite Leftist violence and woke-woke-something-something. Don’t listen to them. They don’t like Sesame Street either and they are not serious people. One Battle After Another is an energetic, exhilarating, entertaining satire of America today. I love it.