20 ꜰɪʟᴍs ᴇᴠᴇʀʏ ᴍᴏᴠɪᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇʀ sʜᴏᴜʟᴅ sᴇᴇ ɪɴ 2025
Okay, let's be real: 2025 was wild for movies. Seriously, the sheer number of films that actually blew my mind this year was insane! It wasn't just about the loud blockbusters; it was the quiet indie flicks and the surprise hits that came out of nowhere, forcing all of us to stop scrolling and just watch. Directors basically said, 'Forget the rulebook,' and delivered stuff that felt genuinely new and exciting. We got films that made us cry in public, movies that we couldn't stop arguing about for weeks, and a couple of truly perfect theater experiences. If you missed a few of these gems and trust me, there were so many.
So here are 20 movies every movie lover needs to see before 2025 runs out.
20. Weapons
Zach Cregger follows up his breakout horror hit Barbarian with something far more ambitious and unsettling. Weapons plays like a psychological maze, weaving several storylines and viewpoints around the mysterious disappearance of seventeen children. Even after the core twist becomes clear, the film keeps tightening, revealing the way each character’s experience feeds the larger whole.
Amy Madigan delivers one of the most quietly powerful performances of the year, and Julia Garner anchors the story with a teacher’s unsteady compassion. Cregger’s ability to jump between tones and perspectives while keeping the mystery intact shows a filmmaker growing sharper with every project.
19. Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro finally realized a project fans have been anticipating for years, and the result is exactly the sort of rich, emotional, slightly twisted experience you’d hope for. His Frankenstein blends classic gothic horror with a deeply personal meditation on isolation, longing, and what it means to be shaped by the people who raise us.
Oscar Isaac infuses Victor Frankenstein with swagger, self-delusion, and bursts of brilliance, while Jacob Elordi’s creature brings unexpected tenderness and fury. The film honors Mary Shelley while carving out a voice entirely its own, and it stands among del Toro’s strongest work in over a decade.
18. Caught by the Tides
Jia Zhangke turns old footage and discarded cuts into a stunning, time-bending mosaic of China’s shifting landscapes. What begins like a drifting travelogue eventually tightens into something heartbreaking and purposeful.
Tao Zhao and Zhubin Li become anchors in a collage that moves between memory, documentary, and fiction. By the final act, the emotional punch lands with precision, revealing the careful structure hiding beneath the film’s dreamlike surface.
17. The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson stepped away from familiar territory just enough to surprise even long-time fans. Yes, the visual symmetry, retro textures, and ensemble cast are all here, but The Phoenician Scheme has an emotional core that anchors its grand corporate-espionage storyline.
Benicio Del Toro is terrific as a global tycoon trying to save both his life’s work and his relationship with his daughter, played with dry brilliance by Mia Threapleton. Their dynamic gives the film a warmth Anderson’s recent projects sometimes avoided, and the result is one of his most complete works in years.
16. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Rungano Nyoni delivers a fearless dramatic dark comedy that doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable truths. When Shula finds the body of a man known for abusing young women, the discovery triggers a chain of conversations that expose how communities protect predators and silence victims.
Nyoni layers humor, rage, cultural critique, and surreal touches, building a film that’s both entertaining and unflinchingly honest. It’s bold filmmaking with something real to say.
15. Orwell: 2+2=5
Raoul Peck continues his streak of urgent, intellectual documentaries by examining George Orwell’s political evolution and its relevance to modern society. Peck connects Orwell’s writings to current global tensions, rising authoritarianism, and the ways truth can be manipulated in the digital age.
The film isn’t subtle, but it isn’t meant to be. It’s a wake-up call disguised as a historical study, dense with information yet gripping from start to finish.
14. Best Wishes to All
Yûta Shimotsu’s debut is the year’s most chilling surprise. What begins as a simple family visit slowly mutates into an eerie and deeply unsettling experience. Strange sounds, odd behavior, and a growing sense of dread build toward a reveal that’s less about jumps and more about psychological unease.
Kotone Furukawa leads with a convincing mix of vulnerability and suspicion, and the film’s surreal, nightmarish imagery marks it as a new landmark in modern horror.
13. Universal Language
Matthew Rankin’s odd, charming experiment blends styles and tones in ways that shouldn’t work but do. Combining Iranian-style children’s cinema with Winnipeg suburbia might sound chaotic, yet Rankin transforms the idea into a heartfelt love letter to global film culture.
The humor is dry, the references layered, and the message clear: cinema connects people across borders far more than we sometimes realize.
12. Eddington
Ari Aster returns with a polarizing vision that doubles as a metaphor for cultural division. Set during the early pandemic years in a fictional New Mexico town, the story pits Joaquin Phoenix’s sheriff against Pedro Pascal’s increasingly political mayor.
What begins as satire shifts into a paranoid thriller about identity, manipulation, and the way communities fracture under strain. Aster challenges viewers rather than comforting them, delivering a film that’s messy, provocative, and impossible to ignore.
11. Peter Hujar’s Day
Ira Sachs brings a fascinating slice of 1970s New York back to life through a single long conversation. Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall disappear into their roles as photographer Peter Hujar and writer Linda Rosenkrantz, capturing a creative era filled with big personalities, shifting culture, and the early waves of LGBTQ expression.
It’s simple in form but rich in detail, turning one afternoon into a time capsule worth revisiting.
10. Sentimental Value
Joachim Trier once again proves he’s one of the most emotionally perceptive directors working today. Sentimental Value explores the complications of family, ego, and creativity through a filmmaker trying to revive his career by turning his daughter’s story into a movie.
Renate Reinsve and Stellan Skarsgård bring sharp, wounded performances, with Elle Fanning stepping in as the wildcard who disrupts their fragile equilibrium. The film is gentle, funny, and full of honesty about artistic ambition.
9. Marty Supreme
Josh Safdie swaps his chaotic New York intensity for the world of competitive table tennis in the 1950s, crafting a sports drama that refuses every cliché. Timothée Chalamet gives one of his most unguarded performances as Marty Mauser, a champion whose worst enemy is always himself.
Packed with a surprising cast and shot with Safdie’s signature edge, the film is a wild, compulsive ride from start to finish.
8. Sorry, Baby
Eva Victor’s debut is sharp, witty, and unexpectedly emotional. Playing a professor grappling with trauma she’s tried to outrun for years, Victor balances humor and vulnerability with remarkable control.
Scenes shift from awkward comedy to raw confession without losing rhythm. Supported by Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges, Victor establishes herself as a new voice worth watching.
7. No Other Choice
Park Chan-wook turns a dark novel about unemployment and desperation into a ruthless, stylish black comedy. Lee Byung-hun delivers a standout performance as a man pushed so far into survival mode that violence becomes his twisted solution.
Equal parts hilarious and harrowing, the film skewers capitalism, office politics, and the lengths people go to feel in control of their lives.
6. It Was Just an Accident
Jafar Panahi offers a sharp, unsettling exploration of justice, memory, and revenge. The premise is deceptively simple: a traveler’s car breaks down, and a mechanic insisting he’s his former torturer takes matters into his own hands.
The film shifts between thriller, drama, and dark farce, building toward a final scene that lands with breathtaking force.
5. Nouvelle Vague
Richard Linklater revisits the birth of the French New Wave with an affectionate and stylish behind-the-scenes tribute. Instead of dry reenactments, he gives us a lively, personality-driven film about young artists reshaping cinema.
Guillaume Marbeck’s playful Godard, Zoey Deutch’s vulnerable Jean Seberg, and Aubry Dullin’s charming Belmondo turn what could’ve been a niche history lesson into one of the year’s most vibrant ensemble pieces.
4. Train Dreams
Clint Bentley adapts Denis Johnson’s novella into a sweeping portrait of early 20th-century America. Joel Edgerton delivers one of his finest performances as Robert Granier, a logger caught between progress, heartbreak, and the vast silence of the American frontier.
The cinematography is stunning, the pacing meditative, and the storytelling rich with the melancholy beauty of Johnson’s prose.
3. Black Bag
Steven Soderbergh blends espionage noir with marital drama in this sharp, stylish thriller. Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett play married spies whose loyalty to each other is tested when a leak implicates one of them.
You get the tension of a spy hunt mixed with the emotional edge of a relationship falling apart. With a killer supporting cast and Soderbergh’s signature pacing, the film hits on every level.
2. Hamnet
Chloé Zhao brings Maggie O’Farrell’s novel to life with tenderness, restraint, and a deep sense of humanity. The story of William and Anne Shakespeare’s young son becomes a meditation on grief, creativity, and how art helps people endure the unbearable.
Jessie Buckley delivers a career-best performance, while Paul Mescal adds weight and warmth as a conflicted Shakespeare. It’s visually poetic, emotionally grounded, and one of the most affecting films of the year.
1. One Battle After Another
Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling epic is everything at once: a political fable, a father-daughter drama, a conspiracy tale, and a darkly funny portrait of communities trying to hold themselves together. Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, and newcomer Chase Infiniti all shine in a story that manages to feel both deeply current and timeless.
What elevates the film is its heart. Beneath the odd detours and explosive set pieces lies a simple idea: when the world feels broken, people protect the future by choosing each other. It’s Anderson at his most ambitious and his most human.
🎬 My Final Take - Your Turn! 🗣️
So, that's my list of 20 movies that kept me up thinking, debating, and generally gushing about 2025 cinema. These are the ones I know we'll still be talking about years from now.
Now, here’s where you come in. My list is final, but lists are meant to be debated! I want to know: Which one of these films left the biggest mark on you? More importantly, did I completely mess up the rankings, or, even worse, overlook that one quiet, insane masterpiece that should have been crowned Best of 2025? Tell me your must-sees and your biggest snubs below!
Seriously, hit the comments below! Bring the heat. Bring your disagreements. Let’s argue, compare notes, and keep this 2025 movie love fest going!
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