2025 may have officially come to a close two and a half months ago, but for cinema it really doesn’t end until tonight’s Oscars ceremony. For better or worse, the Academy Awards are always the final button on the previous year’s cinematic offerings. Don’t get me wrong, I like watching the Oscars. I don’t put much stock in them as a judgement of film, however. I might nod in agreement with many of the nominations, but they don’t really matter to me. Still, since I haven’t gotten off my ass to put together a faves o’ 2025 list yet, there’s no better time for me to finally do it than now.
The Ones That Got Away
I can’t see everything in a timely manner. No one can. Not even most full-time critics can swing that. And that’s fine! While I did get to sit down with most of the movies I really wanted to see from 2025, there are a few I missed out on and will have to catch up with at a later date. Here are my noteworthy-to-me missed 2025 titles…
Beast of War (dir. Kiah Roche-Turner)
Bugonia (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
Die My Love (dir. Lynne Ramsay)
The Housemaid (dir. Paul Feig)
The Ice Tower (dir. Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
Man Finds Tape (dir. Paul Gandersman & Peter S. Hall)
Marty Supreme (dir. Josh Safdie)
No Other Choice (dir. Park Chan-wook)
On Swift Horses (dir. Daniel Minahan)
Pee-wee As Himself (dir. Matt Wolf)
Queens of the Dead (dir. Tina Romero)
Revelations (dir. Yeon Sang-ho)
Roofman (dir. Derek Cianfrance)
Shari & Lamb Chop (dir. Lisa D’Apolito)
The Siege at Thorn High (dir. Joko Anwar)
Sisu: Road to Revenge (dir. Jalmari Helander)
The Testament of Ann Lee (dir. Mona Fastvold)
Together (dir. Michael Shanks)
The Ugly Stepsister (dir. Emilie Blichfeldt)
Warfare (dir. Alex Garland & Ray Mendoza)
Zootopia 2 (dir. Jared Bush & Byron Howard)
There are some other notable flicks I missed as well, but most of them didn’t actually see a sizable 2025 release – as in outside of festivals or NYC/LA – and won’t until sometime this year. In my book, that makes those 2026 releases, so I’ll address them (if I like them) in my eventual 2026 list.
Honorable Mentions
2025 was a good year for movies, at least in my eyes. I saw a bunch of films that I loved and plenty of others that I really enjoyed and admired. What follows is a lineup of the latter. None of these films are ones that I would consider to be all-timers, but they’re all still pretty good slices o’ cinema in their own right. Ones worth seeing at least once, so check ’em out if you feel so inclined…
Descendent (dir. Peter Cilella)
Eenie Meanie (dir. Shawn Simmons)
Fight or Flight (dir. James Madigan)
Guns Up (dir. Edward Drake)
Highest 2 Lowest (dir. Spike Lee)
Invader (dir. Mickey Keating)
M3GAN 2.0 (dir. Gerard Johnstone)
Neighborhood Watch (dir. Duncan Skiles)
Novocaine (dir. Dan Berk & Robert Olsen)
Play Dirty (dir. Shane Black)
Prisoner of War (dir. Louis Mandylor)
The Rule of Jenny Pen (dir. James Ashcroft)
Sangre Del Toro (dir. Yves Montmayeur)
Silent Night, Deadly Night (dir. Mike P. Nelson)
Strange Harvest (dir. Stuart Ortiz)
The Surfer (dir. Lorcan Finnegan)
Train Dreams (dir. Clint Bentley)
War 2 (dir. Ayan Mukerji)
Wick Is Pain (dir. Jeffrey Doe)
My 40 Favorite Films of 2025
Why 40? I guess my initial response to that question is simply: why not 40? The longer answer is still fairly simple. First, I enjoy the alliteration of it. Beyond that, however, it really just boils down to this: I think Top 10s, 15s, 20s, and even 25s can get a bit boring. The shorter the list, the likelier it is that the exact same movies are on everyone’s rosters. Even beyond the fact that I can sometimes have offbeat choices on my list of favorites, expanding the lineup means that I get to recommend more movies than usual.
After all, typing all of this out is not for my own personal gratification. I already watched these movies, which means that I already know how much I enjoyed them. I’m doing this for the movies themselves and for the few weirdos out there who actually care what my 40 favorite movies of last year were. Hopefully you’ll have as great a time with some of these as I did. Before we get to it, however, there’s one last thing to address.
Reader: “Where is [Insert Film Here]?!?“
If a movie you dug isn’t on any of the lists in this piece, the answer is easy: either I didn’t see the film in question or I did, but I didn’t like it. While there’s a chance that it’s a movie I am simply not aware of at all, odds are high that I’ve heard of it. So if it isn’t mentioned anywhere in here, it’s not because I forgot about its existence. Its total absence is due to me not liking it or me being indifferent to it enough that I’ll likely never see it. If that upsets you or pisses you off…well, I don’t know what to tell you. My tastes are my tastes, however questionable they may be.
One last statement before we get to it. If you were hoping for me to type out a blurb for all 40 films, I have not. This decision wasn’t made out of laziness, but simply because of how late I’ve whipped this rambling post together. So less laziness and more just plain old procrastination. Next year, I hope to go deeper into my thoughts about whatever movies make the cut. For this roster, however, it’ll simply just be the list iteself. If you want to pick my brain on individual titles, feel free to do so when I post it on Facebook, BlueSky, and wherever else. I’ll be happy to oblige you when I have the time. Until then, here it is…
1. SINNERS (dir. Ryan Coogler)
2. BLACK BAG (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
3. WEAPONS (dir. Zach Cregger)
4. REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND (dir. Helene Cattet & Bruno Forzani)
5. AVATAR: FIRE & ASH (dir. James Cameron)
6. THE MONKEY (dir. Osgood Perkins)
7. PREDATOR: BADLANDS (dir. Dan Trachtenberg)
8. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
9. WAKE UP DEAD MAN (dir. Rian Johnson)
10. CHAIN REACTIONS (dir. Alexandre O. Philippe)
11. DANGEROUS ANIMALS (dir. Sean Byrne)
12. EDDINGTON (dir. Ari Aster)
13. DUST BUNNY (dir. Bryan Fuller)
14. KEEPER (dir. Osgood Perkins)
15. THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (dir. Wes Anderson)
16. 28 YEARS LATER (dir. Danny Boyle)
17. KPOP DEMON HUNTERS (dir. Chris Appelhans & Maggie Kang)
18. THUNDERBOLTS (dir. Jack Schreier)
19. COMPANION (dir. Drew Hancock)
20. BLACK PHONE 2 (dir. Scott Derrickson)
21. 40 ACRES (dir. R.T. Thorne)
22. SHE RIDES SHOTGUN (dir. Nick Rowland)
23. DEN OF THIEVES 2: PANTERA (dir. Christian Gudegast)
24. DIABLO (dir. Ernesto Diaz Espinoza)
25. PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS (dir. Dan Trachtenberg & Joshua Wassung)
26. DEATHSTALKER (dir. Steven Kostanski)
27. MATCH (dir. Danishka Esterhazy)
28. THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE (dir. Peter Browngart)
29. FREAKY TALES (dir. Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck)
30. THE GORGE (dir. Scott Derrickson)
31. PRESENCE (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
32. THE LONG WALK (dir. Francis Lawrence)
33. FRANKENSTEIN (dir. Guillermo Del Toro)
34. SUPERMAN (dir. James Gunn)
35. THE ACCOUNTANT 2 (dir. Gavin O’Connor)
36. HEART EYES (dir. Josh Ruben)
37. JIMMY AND STIGGS (dir. Joe Begos)
38. CAUGHT STEALING (dir. Darren Aronofsky)
39. PRIMATIVE WAR (dir. Luke Sparke)
40. THE SHROUDS (dir. David Cronenberg)
There you have it! Again, if you want specific reasons for my choices or have any questions, just hit me up. I’ll respond to the best of my ability! Mostly though, I just hope you find some titles in here that you haven’t seen and end up enjoying them when you finally do. And with that, I’m out! I’ll do my best to fill this site with more new work as the year goes on, but no promises. The world is burning around us, after all.
The Schlocketeer 