Top 20 Best Films of 2025

2025 has been yet another mixed year for cinema. While many large-scale films struggled to make an impact, the year was once again defined by some excellent smaller projects, with the documentary genre specifically shining. Out of the 212 films viewed that were eligible for this list, the following 20 shone bright as the best of the year. As always, this is also just a subjective opinion and is not meant to be taken objectively. Disagreeing about art is part of the fun and should be encouraged rather than criticized. Without further ado, here are the Top 20 Films of 2025!

If applicable, click on a poster to see my full review of a film!

Honorable Mentions: The Eyes of Ghana, Final Destination Bloodlines, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Marty Supreme, Peacock, Sinners, & Sirāt

#20-Homebound

Looking at India's caste system against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, as two men fight to achieve their dreams, Neeraj Ghaywan's Homebound is a story of resiliency and heartbreak as systemic racism and discrimination lead to tragic results. Both lead performances in the film are fantastic, with Vishal Jethwa delivering some of the most emotionally intelligent work of the year.

#19-Happy Birthday

Sarah Goher's Happy Birthday uses the perspective of a young girl desperate to attend her employer's daughter's birthday party to shine a heartbreaking light on classism in modern Egypt. Feeling similar to some of the theology that Sean Baker has brought to the big screen, Happy Birthday is quite a complex feature that challenges the morals and systems of modern society. Doha Ramadan is captivating in the leading role here, adding to a very long list of impressive youth performances to come from 2025.

#18-CIELO

The most magical film of 2025, Alberto Sciamma's CIELO follows a young girl who travels throughout Bolivia to bring her mother's body to heaven. Filled with both childhood wonder and a deep sense of grief, CIELO is a perfectly balanced feature that evokes a unique visual language and energy. The film is tremendously watchable and entertaining, painting a vibrant world that is rewarding to explore.

#17-East of Wall

Had East of Wall been released in 2019, it would have blown up as a Sundance darling, which blends reality and narrative fiction to create a rich text that seeks to understand the human condition in relation to the concept of chosen family and the importance of direction. Echoing the early works of Chloé Zhao, Kate Beecroft knows that this story doesn't need anything extravagant or forced to display power.

#16-Rebuilding

Following a fire that takes everything from them, Rebuilding follows a father who has to wrestle with his own concept of belonging and identity as he tries to find a new life for both him and his daughter. 2025 was the year of Josh O'Connor, with Rebuilding offering his strongest work. More active than Max Walker-Silverman's previous film, 2022's A Love Song, Rebuilding asks what is left when everything material is stripped away from a human and feels like a poignant reflection of the lostness felt by many.

#15-1001 Frames

Taking place during the casting process as a famous director looks to cast the role of Scheherazade in his newest feature, 1001 Frames is an underrated gem from the year that sends the audience down a rabbit hole of uncomfortableness. In her feature directorial debut, Mehrnoush Alia shows no fear as she plays with the line between reality and fiction, finding haunting results with one of the strongest ensemble casts of the year.

#14-Sentimental Value

While Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value is not quite as much of a revelation as his previous film, 2021's The Worst Person in the World, the film is still an excellent feature that explores generational trauma in a way that still feels poignant even after the subject has been discussed so regularly in modern cinema. It is especially the performances that elevate the feature, with both Elle Fanning and Stellan Skarsgård delivering some of the strongest work of their careers.

#13-Apocalypse in the Tropics

Petra Costa's Apocalypse in the Tropics elevates the filmmaker's voice present in The Edge of Democracy, giving one of the clearest and most compelling understandings of the modern rise of theocracy. The film uses the 2022 Brazilian election to establish a framework that can be applied to events across the globe. The documentary is supremly crafted and relevant, becoming one of the best documentary features of 2025.

#12-Ocean with David Attenborough

Few nature documentaries are as direct and venomous as Ocean with David Attenborough. Incredibly clear about the issues plaguing oceans across the globe while maintaining a celebration of the life that inhabits the regions, the film is one of the strongest nature documentaries in recent memory and elevates the very formula that Attenborough helped create. At 99 years old, it is a real gift to continue to get to see Attenborough on screen and have him guide audiences through these explorations of the natural world.

#11-A Useful Ghost

A massive surprise from Cannes, A Useful Ghost is a thoughtful yet comedically absurd look at workers' rights and the nature of love. In his directorial debut, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke shows incredible promise as he crafts one of the most creative ghost stories in recent memory, knowing just how to control the narrative and direction of the feature to never get lost in either the film's comedy or pointed messaging.

#10-Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Possibly the final film in the Mission: Impossible franchise, The Final Reckoning is a masturbatory indulgence of lore and stunts that holds itself together thanks to genuine passion from those making the film and skill from director Christopher McQuarrie, who is a modern master of crafting compelling action sequences filled with tension and weight. Truly earning the status of being a blockbuster, the film somehow never jumps the shark as it takes the series into the most absurdist depths it possibly can, almost challenging future filmmakers and studios to try and outdo this as a conclusion to the franchise.

#9-2000 Meters to Andriivka

2000 Meters to Andriivka is one of the most grounded capturing of active combat and war ever seen. Giving the subject a texture and color rarely seen before, the film is brutal and anxiety-inducing as it takes the audience onto the frontlines in Ukraine's fight against Russia and holds nothing back. At the same time, rather than glorifying this subject and playing into its harshness, the film allows its images to speak for themselves and never does too much to touch up any specific message or angle.

#8-The Voice of Hind Rajab

While it helps the film's emotional impact to so directly bring the sounds and story of real-life tragedy and murder to its runtime, The Voice of Hind Rajab also serves as yet another evolution for Kaouther Ben Hania, who is the best possible filmmaker for this job. Between The Man Who Sold His Skin and Four Daughters, Hania has already experimented with the line between fiction and reality, with The Voice of Hind Rajab serving as the final jump in this pathway for the filmmaker. Few features will carry the weight and importance of this; truly feeling like required viewing for the year.

#7-Is This Thing On?

Bradley Cooper has built quite a resume for himself as a filmmaker over his first 3 films, showing his range and skill to bring complex and troubled figures to life with empathy and meaning. While Is This Thing On? is clearly a more mainstream outing than Maestro, the film's emotions still shine bright as the film creates a worthy relationship that faces great struggle and eventual divorce. The film both shows how community can help the lost become found, and gives a crowd-pleasing narrative that is impossible not to get caught up in.

#6-Sorry, Baby

2025 was a fantastic year for directorial debuts with Eva Victor's Sundance hit, Sorry, Baby, standing as one of the best. Looking at how abuse and trauma can leave a lasting impact, the film finds tremendous power in its quiet moments of both isolation and connection, showing the trade of power one can have with trauma. Victor impresses on both sides of the camera, immediately carving a place for themselves on the list of the most exciting rising filmmakers.

#5-What Does That Nature Say to You

Hong Sang-soo continues to be one of the most prolific filmmakers working, continuing to explore the human condition through smaller slices of realistic drama. While the situations that the filmmaker projects are small, the emotions within are endlessly large, with What Does That Nature Say to You potentially standing as the filmmaker's masterpiece. Showing a young man as he meets his girlfriend's parents for the first time, the film is both humorous and thoughtful as it explores the concepts of self-worth and relationships in a way that transforms the image it is presenting multiple times over.

#4-Plainclothes

A defining modern queer text, Plainclothes captures an authentic slide of the anxiety and isolation that can come with the modern queer experience as society works to criminalize and target LGBTQ+ individuals. While the film is a hauntingly emotional period piece, its topics are still beyond relevant, and the film constantly displays one of the most effective visual languages of the year as it gets lost in its own dreams and memories.

#3-After the Hunt

Continuing to add to his legendary filmography of the last decade, Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt is a challenging feature that purposefully creates an abrasive texture between the feature and the audience, not only pushing them into uncomfortable narrative directions but also using filmmaking that is crowded and antagonistic. Guadagnino pushes the audience as an active participant to consider their own thoughts and place within the modern call for accountability and social justice, raising worthy questions without ever threatening to invalidate or negate the wickedness of its villains. Out of all of the filmmaker's latest works, this feels the most daring and is one that requires the most thought and unwinding, but the reward is absolutely worth the effort.

#2-All That's Left of You

Rather than focusing on the horrifying tragedy of the modern moment, Cherien Dabis' All That's Left of You zooms out to give the audience a generational view of Palestinian suffering, challenging the audience to recognize that they are truly unable to comprehend today if they do not understand the suffering of yesterday. The film is deeply emotional and supremely crafted, giving both an educational and deeply empathetic understanding of the unthinkable tragedy and violence that has defined families for decades. The film is sharp, leaving no room for mistakes or misunderstandings as it lands each punch with thought and meaning.

#1-The Chronology of Water

Even the most experienced and celebrated of filmmakers often struggle to bring the artistic confidence and quality that Kristen Stewart brings to The Chronology of Water, her feature directorial debut. Adapting Lidia Yuknavitch's memoir of the same name, Stewart crafts a poetic capturing of trauma and how abuse can linger in the body, taking toxic forms such as addiction. Stewart's film is ambitious and big, playing with the audience's senses to bring to life a kaleidoscope quilt of memories and emotions, which is always incredibly controlled and focused. While a massive trigger warning is needed for any audience member who wishes to engage with the text, the portrait that Stewart paints remains one of the most haunting and moving pictures of the topic and stands as a cinematic revelation for the year.