/Film's 10 Best Movies Of 2025, Ranked

Every year is a great year for movies.

Seriously. If you haven't seen anything good lately, look elsewhere. Look deeper. Incredible artists working on all budgets are creating films worthy of your time and attention. 2025 was a unique beast because the best movies truly came from everywhere. When the /Film team sat down to assemble their annual ranked list of the best movies of the year, the batch of 100-plus initial contenders was astounding. Major Hollywood blockbusters and tiny indies, prestige dramas and gory horror movies, superhero movies and provocative documentaries. We eventually whittled it down to 22 titles, and from there, a final top 10. (If you want to know how the sausage was made, an upcoming episode of the /Film Weekly podcast features the conversation/debate to determine the final list.)

We stand by this list, and feel it represents not only many of the best movies of 2025 but also the varied tastes of the entire team of writers and editors that make this site operate each and every day. If it's on this list, it's worth watching.

Here are the honorable mentions that were in final consideration for the top 10, but barely missed the cut. They're all tied for 11: "28 Years Later," "Avatar: Fire and Ash," "Black Bag," "Bugonia," "Eddington," "Hamnet," "Mickey 17," "Predator: Badlands," "Superman," "Thunderbolts*," "Train Dreams," and "Wake Up Dead Man."

And now, here are /Film's Top 10 Movies of 2025!

David Osit's "Predators" is ostensibly about the TV series "To Catch a Predator," which was a cultural phenomenon in its day. But Osit isn't interested in making a surface-level, "Hey, remember this?"-style film. Instead, his documentary interrogates the ethics of "To Catch a Predator" and asks uncomfortable questions of the people who made the show — and, by extension, its audience. It argues that the instant catharsis viewers might have experienced when the criminals were "caught" by host Chris Hansen (who was not a police officer) may have been misplaced. What does justice look like? Do we want these men to get help? Or should they merely be banished from polite society?

"Predators" looks beyond that series' sensationalism to what happens after the episodes ended, showing us raw footage audiences didn't see that re-contextualizes the experience of watching it. The documentary grapples with the show's legacy and how it wrought a generation of YouTube copycats that are in way over their heads. There are no easy answers here, and Hansen, who made the talk show rounds and became a zeitgeist-y figure when it was on the air, doesn't come out of this looking nearly as good as you might remember. Even that, though, implies that there's a "gotcha" angle to this that isn't actually the point; instead, the movie is interested in humanizing the vilified, even if the temptation is to draw a quick conclusion and never think about them again. (Ben Pearson)

Mona Fastvold's "The Testament of Ann Lee" is almost impossible to describe. On paper, the film is a musical biopic of Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, who thought of her as the second coming of Christ. The Shakers used dance and song as a way of worship, and Fastvold, working with composer Daniel Blumberg, who adapted traditional Shaker hymns, and choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall, who had to draw on inspiration from illustrations to create the ecstatic dance movements, uses this to create a stunning musical that's really unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Amanda Seyfried gives arguably the best performance of the year as Ann Lee, who turns to abstinence after the deaths of all her children and brings her devout followers to America to start a new world. Fastvold and co-writer Brady Corbet (the same team wrote last year's brilliant "The Brutalist") take a fable-like approach to this story, never tipping their hand one way or another as to just how divine Anne Lee is (or isn't). The film isn't interested in "truth," exactly, but instead focused on the transcendent, hallucinatory feeling that overcomes true believers in the heights of religious passion. This is about as un-commercial as a movie can be, and yet it's so captivating and entertaining that I've already watched it twice and am ready to watch it again. (Chris Evangelista)

It's kind of a miracle when a major studio comedy gets made these days, but "The Naked Gun" is even more impressive when you consider the fact that it had the burden of rebooting a beloved franchise, which also happens to be reigniting the flame of a largely dead comedic genre: the spoof. That's why "The Naked Gun" is one of the best movies of 2025, beyond the fact that it's raucously hilarious. The film delivers an endless, fast-paced array of jokes ranging from pratfalls to puns to genre-based jokes, including a jealous, killer snowman. There's even an amazing joke that director Akiva Shaffer kept in the movie when so many advised him against it.

Liam Neeson does an amazing deadpan job of playing Frank Drebin Jr., son of the late Leslie Nielsen's Frank Drebin of the original "Naked Gun" franchise. When a mysterious murder leads him to an even larger conspiracy within a prominent tech company, Drebin Jr. finds himself professionally and romantically tangled up with Beth Davenport, a sultry femme fatale played exquisitely by Pamela Anderson. As Frank tries to stop a fiendish scheme from being carried out, you'll find yourself unable to stop laughing over and over again at one of the funniest movies of the 21st century. (Ethan Anderton)

Guillermo del Toro has wanted to make "Frankenstein" since he was 11 years old. Sometimes, a director stewing on the same idea for decades can result in the filmmaker getting lost inside it, unable to actually translate it in an effective way. Thankfully, that's not the case here. It's a cliché, but del Toro himself has admitted that his entire career has been building up to him making this movie, a deeply personal adaptation of Mary Shelley's seminal horror story. As is frequently the case with del Toro's films, this is a bravura display of pure cinematic craft, with the jaw-dropping production design, dazzling costumes, and stunning cinematography complementing each other like instruments in a concerto.

Oscar Isaac's Victor Frankenstein, full of bluster and arrogance, dominates the first half of the film, but the back half belongs to the creature, played with aching humanity by Jacob Elordi. Viewers expecting the creature to be a thoughtless monster hellbent on destruction should look elsewhere to find that interpretation. Here, Elordi plays him as the misunderstood protagonist, abandoned by his creator and searching for answers. And del Toro, who has been living with this story for so long, makes the fascinating decision to end the movie on a hopeful note. It's possible he exorcised his obsession with monsters while making this film, but if the result is something so tactile, sensual, and heartbreaking, it will have been worth it. (Ben Pearson)

With "Sorry, Baby," Eva Victor takes a confident first step into feature filmmaking. Wearing multiple hats as writer, director, and lead performer, Victor tells the story of Anges, a young woman who has endured the unthinkable. Presented through an unmistakably personal perspective, Victor's knack for dark humor allows moments of levity to coexist with profound heartbreak, and the film's frank candor leaves room for the specificity of Agnes' experience to become something deeply relatable even to those who have never been sexually assaulted. But at its core, "Sorry, Baby" is a musing on grief, friendship, and the uneasy persistence of everyday life after personal tragedy, using a fragmented structure that mirrors how trauma fractures our sense of time.

Eschewing overt melodrama, the stillness and emotional ambiguity of Victor's story are often mesmerizing, and it's impossible not to completely fall in love with the characters they've crafted. "Sorry, Baby" tenderly explores the bond between Agnes (Victor) and Lydie (Naomi Ackie), PhD students whose friendship persists despite overwhelming adversity, a reminder that sometimes the best relationships in our lives are the friendships we hold dear to us. Emerging as one of A24's most notable recent releases, "Sorry, Baby" announces Victor as a filmmaker with a remarkably confident voice, and one that belies the fact that this is their first feature. We should all be excited for whatever Victor does next. (BJ Colangelo)

Audiences have always been fascinated by dystopian tales of youth fighting against each other to survive. It's a tale as old as the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in the labyrinth, but contemporary films like "Battle Royale" and "The Hunger Games" all owe their existence to Stephen King's "The Long Walk." Yet what distinguishes his story from the genre it helped inspire is its brutal simplicity: victory doesn't demand violence, it demands persistence. The titular walk is one with one winner and no finish line, found by the relentless requirement to keep putting one foot in front of the other while the road consumes those who can't.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, adapted by J.T. Mollner, and armed with the best ensemble cast of the year, "The Long Walk" transforms a Vietnam War allegory into a painfully relevant meditation on how youth continue to suffer for the decisions of those in power. Yet for all its fatalism, "The Long Walk" refuses to collapse into despair and gives the audience characters to fall in love with and carry with them long after the credits have rolled. As exhaustion claims its victims, cruelty never becomes the survivors' default response. Instead, solidarity deepens. The boys support one another physically and emotionally, forging foxhole-esque bonds in defiance of a system designed to eliminate them. In a world engineered to extinguish hope, believing in one another becomes the most radical act of survival. (BJ Colangelo)

2025 was an incredible (and jam-packed) year for horror cinema, but "Weapons" sits at the top of pile. Writer/director Zach Cregger's malicious, hilarious, and profoundly wicked examination of a small town reeling from the sudden disappearance of (nearly) an entire classroom of children delivered more surprises than any movie released in the past 12 months, and delivered them without mercy. Adroitly floating between pitch-black humor, suffocating dread, and crowd-pleasing splatter, Cregger proved that his debut feature, "Barbarian," was no mere fluke. This is a vital new voice in horror cinema, and one that wants to leave even the most seasoned genre aficionado thoroughly rattled.

But what allows "Weapons" to linger, and why it sits so high on a top 10 list of the best movies of 2025, is its peculiar patience and its willingness to jettison comforting details. We may learn the "who" and the "what" of the mystery, but the "why" remains deliberately opaque, forcing us to reckon with the wreckage of these characters as they sort through their dreams and nightmares to determine what applies to the plot and what applies to their own personal damage. Horror movies this rich are a gift. (Jacob Hall)

As one half of the Safdie brothers directing duo, Josh Safdie is no stranger to chaos, having helmed "Good Times" with Robert Pattinson and "Uncut Gems" with Adam Sandler. But even without his brother Benny at his side, Josh still knows how to deliver a relentlessly stressful and frenzied story in "Marty Supreme."

Timothée Chalamet proves that his star power isn't just some manifestation of breathless fans hyping up the curly-haired thespian. In "Marty Supreme," Chalamet proves he has the goods as Marty Mauser, an extremely cocky table tennis player who has his sights set on being a world champion. With a chip on his shoulder that could sink the Titanic, Marty jumps from one hustle to the next, trying to scrounge up the money to fund his overseas trips to table tennis tournaments, shirking responsibility at every turn, and doing anything to achieve his dreams, even if it means shoving someone else's needs to the side.

What makes Chalamet's performance so fascinating is that Mauser is an incredibly unlikeable guy. If you knew him, you'd hate him. But Chalamet has an inherent charm that makes it impossible to root against him, no matter how much of a jerk Mauser really is. An incredible ensemble cast, — especially Gwyneth Paltrow and Odessa A'zion — takes the movie to an even greater level, along with a contemporary soundtrack and synth-fueled score to keep the energy high. This is magnetic filmmaking that will keep your eyes glued to the screen, and it's undeniably one of the most spectacular movies of the year. (Ethan Anderton)

Paul Thomas Anderson's funny, heartbreaking, unapologetically political chase-pic "One Battle After Another" draws on the work of Thomas Pynchon and our own current political hellscape to craft one of the most exciting films of the last decade. Endlessly quotable, and boasting a cavalcade of brilliant performances, "One Battle After Another" finds washed-up revolutionary Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) drawn out of hiding to protect his beloved daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti, giving a star-making turn) from white supremacist military goon Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn).

Anderson's film clocks in at a hefty 162 minutes, and yet the film never drags, never lets up. It moves with a rhythm and style that keeps you engaged from the opening frame to the emotional closing moments. Anderson is responsible for a string of bonafide classics, but "One Battle After Another" might just be his masterpiece. (Chris Evangelista)

Some movies are just more movie than most other movies. "Sinners" is one such example. Director Ryan Coogler took his blank check and ran wild, delivering a genre-defying journey that is equal parts exhilarating and contemplative, a horror/action movie chock-full of terror, humor, music, emotional depth, and stinging social commentary that lingers like a vampire bite.

It would be one thing if this was just a tremendous horror film, a vampire tale unlike any we've seen before that uses that affliction to explore racism and cultural appropriation. But it's also a killer action movie (replete with gore gags nasty enough to leave you gasping) and an inspired musical that's unafraid to pause for performances designed to bring the house down (and in the movie's best scene, remove the barriers that separate time and space). And that's before you even get to Michael B. Jordan's astounding dual lead role as twin brothers whose latest venture in 1930s Mississippi attracts the wrong kind of human and supernatural attention.

If every movie was as inspired and rich and driven as "Sinners," we'd live in a perfect world. But as the movie itself indicates, early and often, we live in a world in need of correction. Sometimes with great force. Movies simply don't get better than this. (Jacob Hall)