2025 was an exceptionally stellar year for cinema, its greatness profoundly, inversely proportionate to 2025 as a year for basically anything else. The cinematic richness and the sociopolitical direness (especially in the United States) were often hard to separate. Films such as Eddington, One Battle After Another, and Bugonia furiously and creatively captured the head-spinning derangements of the country's current dystopia, reviving a spirit of acerbic political critique that perhaps hasn't been truly seen on the big screen since the New Hollywood of the 1970s. Such invigorated social consciousness resonated in national cinemas around the world, taking shape in stories about political prisoners, military dictatorships, washed-up poets, imperialist conquests, and possessed household appliances. It was exciting to see, and proof that art remains among our most vital and versatile tools for processing the mess of the world.
My top ten films of 2025 are after the jump...
