The 25 Best Films of 2025: Our Definitive List

The Year in Film

2025 was a remarkable year for cinema — one of the strongest in recent memory. From groundbreaking science fiction to intimate character studies, from sprawling historical epics to quiet chamber dramas, the diversity of quality filmmaking was extraordinary. What made 2025 particularly special was the range: this was a year where blockbusters could be genuinely artful and art films could find genuine audiences.

Here are our top picks — the 25 films that will endure far beyond their theatrical runs, and that deserve a place in any serious physical media collection.

Top 10

1. Dune: Part Two

Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi epic is everything a sequel should be — a monumental achievement in spectacle and storytelling that surpasses its already impressive predecessor. Greig Fraser's cinematography is breathtaking, Hans Zimmer's score is overwhelming in the best sense, and the performances — particularly Timothée Chalamet's evolution from reluctant hero to messianic figure — are uniformly excellent. The 4K disc is reference-quality material. Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler.

2. The Zone of Interest

Jonathan Glazer's haunting meditation on complicity is one of the most formally radical films in years. By refusing to show the horrors of Auschwitz and instead focusing on the domestic life of the camp's commandant, Glazer creates something more devastating than any graphic depiction could achieve. Johnnie Burn's sound design is a masterpiece of restraint and implication. Directed by Jonathan Glazer. Starring Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller.

3. Poor Things

Yorgos Lanthimos at his wildest and most accessible. Emma Stone delivers the performance of the year — perhaps of the decade — as Bella Baxter, a woman navigating the world with childlike wonder and radical honesty. The production design is astonishing, Robbie Ryan's shifting cinematography brilliantly mirrors the character's development, and Jerskin Fendrix's score is unlike anything you've heard. A genuine original. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Starring Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo.

4. Killers of the Flower Moon

Martin Scorsese proves he remains one of cinema's greatest storytellers with this sprawling, meticulously researched true-crime epic about the Osage Nation murders in 1920s Oklahoma. At 206 minutes, it's a commitment — but it's also Scorsese operating at the height of his powers, with Leonardo DiCaprio delivering his most complex performance and Lily Gladstone announcing herself as a major screen presence. The film's final-act structural shift is as bold as anything in Scorsese's catalog. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone.

5. Past Lives

Celine Song's debut is a masterfully restrained romance that will leave you thinking for days. The story of two childhood friends reconnecting decades later is told with an emotional precision that is almost unbearable in its honesty. Greta Lee and Teo Yoo have extraordinary chemistry, and the final scene — a long, wordless shot on a New York street — is one of the most powerful endings in recent cinema. Directed by Celine Song. Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro.

6. The Holdovers

Alexander Payne delivers a warm, perfectly crafted comedy-drama set in a New England boarding school over Christmas break in 1970. Paul Giamatti has never been better as the cantankerous classics teacher stuck babysitting students, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph's Oscar-winning performance as the school cook brings genuine depth and heartbreak. The film looks and feels like a lost 1970s gem, down to the deliberately vintage grain and color timing. Directed by Alexander Payne. Starring Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa.

7. Anatomy of a Fall

Justine Triet's gripping courtroom drama — and surprise Palme d'Or winner — keeps you guessing until the very last frame. Sandra Hüller gives a second extraordinary performance of the year (alongside The Zone of Interest) as a writer accused of murdering her husband. The film's genius is its refusal to provide a definitive answer: you leave the theater with your own verdict, and it says as much about you as it does about the characters. Directed by Justine Triet. Starring Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner.

8. Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan's most ambitious film — and that's saying something. An extraordinary, non-linear exploration of genius, guilt, and the atomic age, anchored by Cillian Murphy's haunted, intensely physical performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer. The Trinity test sequence is one of the great set-pieces in modern cinema. Hoyte van Hoytema's IMAX photography is stunning, and Ludwig Göransson's score is Nolan's best since Interstellar. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt.

9. All of Us Strangers

Andrew Haigh crafts a devastating ghost story about grief, memory, and connection. Andrew Scott gives a career-best performance as a man who begins visiting his dead parents in their former home, only to find them exactly as he remembers them from childhood. It's a premise that could easily slip into sentimentality, but Haigh maintains a tonal precision that keeps the film honest and heartbreaking. Paul Mescal provides tender support as a neighbor who offers Scott's character a tentative path back to the living. Directed by Andrew Haigh. Starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell.

10. May December

Todd Haynes directs Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore in a brilliantly uncomfortable examination of tabloid culture, performance, and the stories we tell ourselves. Portman plays an actress researching a real-life scandal by embedding herself in the life of the woman (Moore) at its center. The layers of performance and identity become increasingly complex, with Haynes maintaining an ambiguity that is both frustrating and thrilling. The Marcello Mastroianni needle-drop is perfection. Directed by Todd Haynes. Starring Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton.

11–25: Honorable Mentions

11. Priscilla

Sofia Coppola's intimate portrait of Priscilla Presley's life with Elvis strips away the mythology to reveal a deeply personal story about a young woman finding her identity in the shadow of an icon. Cailee Spaeny is revelatory in the title role.

12. American Fiction

Cord Jefferson's directorial debut is a razor-sharp satire about race, authenticity, and the publishing industry. Jeffrey Wright is superb as a frustrated novelist whose parody of Black stereotypes becomes a bestseller. Wickedly funny and unexpectedly moving.

13. Saltburn

Emerald Fennell's gothic social satire about class and obsession is messy, provocative, and impossible to look away from. Barry Keoghan commits fully to one of the year's most unhinged performances, and the film's closing sequence is unforgettable.

14. The Boy and the Heron

Hayao Miyazaki's self-proclaimed final film is a gorgeous, bewildering, deeply personal fantasy that resists easy interpretation. It's not his most accessible work, but it may be his most emotionally honest — a master artist grappling with mortality, legacy, and the worlds we create to make sense of loss.

15. Perfect Days

Wim Wenders' gentle portrait of a Tokyo toilet cleaner who finds beauty in routine and impermanence. Kōji Yakusho's quietly radiant performance is the year's most understated triumph. A film that teaches you how to look at the world.

16. Fallen Leaves

Aki Kaurismäki's deadpan Helsinki romance is a masterclass in minimalism. Two lonely souls find each other, lose each other, and find each other again — all in 81 minutes, with barely a wasted frame. Kaurismäki proves that profound emotional resonance doesn't require duration.

17. Ferrari

Michael Mann brings his meticulous attention to detail and masculine intensity to the story of Enzo Ferrari's turbulent 1957. Adam Driver is magnetic in the title role, and the Mille Miglia race sequence is one of the year's most gripping set-pieces.

18. Maestro

Bradley Cooper's ambitious Leonard Bernstein biopic is uneven but frequently brilliant. The concert sequences are ecstatic, Carey Mulligan is luminous as Felicia Montealegre, and Cooper's commitment to the role is total. The Thanksgiving dinner scene is one of the year's best individual sequences.

19. Origin

Ava DuVernay's ambitious adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste finds a human story within a systemic analysis. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor delivers a powerful performance, and DuVernay's structural boldness — weaving personal narrative with historical investigation — pays off more often than not.

20. Society of the Snow

J.A. Bayona's harrowing retelling of the 1972 Andes flight disaster is a visceral survival film with a spiritual core. The physical performances are extraordinary, and Bayona's refusal to sensationalize the story's most extreme elements speaks to a maturity that elevates the film above genre.

21. Dream Scenario

Nicolas Cage gives one of his most restrained and effective performances as a college professor who inexplicably begins appearing in everyone's dreams. Kristoffer Borgli's concept is brilliant, and the film's exploration of overnight fame, cancel culture, and the collective unconscious feels alarmingly prescient.

22. The Taste of Things

Tran Anh Hung's sumptuous French period drama is essentially a love story told through cooking. Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel bring decades of real-life history to their on-screen chemistry, and the food sequences are so beautifully shot they border on the transcendent.

23. Monster

Hirokazu Kore-eda's Rashomon-like narrative unfolds from three perspectives, gradually revealing a story about childhood, bullying, and societal assumptions that is far more complex — and more compassionate — than it initially appears. Sakamoto Ryuichi's final score is a gift.

24. Evil Does Not Exist

Ryusuke Hamaguchi follows Drive My Car with this enigmatic parable about a rural Japanese community threatened by corporate development. Eiko Ishibashi's score and the film's long, contemplative takes create a meditative rhythm that is disrupted by a startling final act.

25. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World

Radu Jude's sprawling, anarchic Romanian satire is a lot — it's three hours of social media parody, corporate critique, and cinematic homage — but it's also one of the year's most formally inventive films. Not for everyone, but essential for adventurous viewers.

Building Your Collection

Many of these titles are already available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray, with several receiving premium releases from boutique labels. Here's what we recommend:

• Reference-quality 4K discs: Dune: Part Two, Oppenheimer, Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon
• Essential Blu-ray releases: The Zone of Interest, Past Lives, The Holdovers, Anatomy of a Fall
• Boutique label editions worth seeking out: All of Us Strangers (Criterion), The Boy and the Heron (Studio Ghibli), Perfect Days, Fallen Leaves

We recommend starting with the top 5 — each one is a reference-quality disc that justifies a physical media purchase and will stand the test of time.