As tradition requires in late December, it’s time for critics and pundits to compile and reveal their annual best-of-the-year lists. For this movie reviewer, the standard Top 10 never seems to be enough, so additional quality titles follow the Top 10. The extras shouldn’t be thought of as also-rans because every one of them is exceptionally watch-worthy, regardless of the language or country of origin. It also should be noted that the choices here are dictated as much by personal preferences as by general standards of quality and are listed in alphabetical order.
‘Black Bag’
With its retro design and a vibe that echoes literate U.K. espionage movies from the 1960s, director Steven Soderbergh’s witty and stylish Black Bag is a knife-sharp, latter-day take on betrayal — personal and professional — that follows an investigation into British Secret Service operatives to uncover a traitor. The fact that the wife of the man heading up the inquiry is possibly the mole at MI6 makes the whole affair juicier. Hollywood vet David Koepp wrote the script, which is one of his best, and the casting is impeccable, especially when it comes to the married agents who are played by a horn-rimmed Michael Fassbender, looking very Michael Caine circa the 1965 spy thriller The Ipcress File, and Cate Blanchett, looking very aristocratic in that timeless, upper-crust English manner. As a bonus, Soderbergh tapped Pierce Brosnan — one of the James Bonds! — to portray an agency supervisor. Building up to a climactic dinner party that wouldn’t be out of place in an Agatha Christie mystery, this is a Bag of goodies indeed.
‘Frankenstein’
This lushly detailed adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus must have been a dream project for director and screenwriter Guillermo Del Toro. He already attempted a Gothic drama with the visually arresting Crimson Peak to middling results. Although his Frankenstein may be a similarly dark tale, it’s a sprawling epic that scintillates from start to finish. The story is a familiar one, detailing how a patchwork creature is cobbled together from corpses and brought to life by a daring scientist in the windswept wilds of 18th-century Eastern Europe. But del Toro and his exceptional twin leads — Oscar Isaac as the arrogant Baron Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his tragic creation — expand upon it and find the genuine tragedy and horror in a heedless man’s attempt to play god. The superb cast also features Mia Goth as Lady Elizabeth Harlander, who is engaged to Victor’s brother but coveted by Victor, and Christoph Waltz as Elizabeth’s uncle, who happens to finance Victor’s experiments.
‘It Was Just an Accident’
Written and directed by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and courageously shot in Iran without official permission, It Was Just an Accident is a brainy and daring thriller with a sociopolitical bent that won the coveted Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It starts with a man named Eghbal driving his wife and his daughter home one night. When Eghbal hits and kills a dog while in transit, the car sustains damage, forcing a trip to the nearest garage. Vahid, a former political prisoner working as an auto mechanic at the garage, becomes convinced that Eghbal is a government interrogator who tortured Vahid. Stalking and kidnapping Eghbal with the intent to kill him, Vahid begins to doubt that he has the right man and decides to ask another former prisoner for his opinion. Soon, more victims of the regime become embroiled in Vahid’s quest for revenge. The result is an audacious, ruefully funny, and disturbing view of the chaos and consequences that ordinary people face under totalitarianism.
‘Nouvelle Vague’
One of two cinematic triumphs to be released this year by eclectic Texas-born filmmaker Richard Linklater (the other being the exceptional Blue Moon, a vignette about a crucial evening in the life of famed songwriter Lorenz Hart), Nouvelle Vague is a joyous peek at movie history in the making: the birth of the French New Wave movement. Linklater achieves his vision in Nouvelle Vague by delving into the conception, casting, and filming of director Jean-Luc Godard’s low-budget 1960 wedding of crime, doomed romance, and beatnik chic Breathless, which teamed the rising, tough-guy actor Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) with the fresh-faced American screen ingénue Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch). To that end, Linklater and his crew do such a phenomenal job of reproducing the settings, clothing, black-and-white film grain, and aspect ratio of the era that Nouvelle Vague appears to have actually been shot in 1960, with actors who bear an uncanny resemblance to those they portray.
‘One Battle After Another’
Masterfully written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another is a roaring saga of rebellion, honor, devotion, idealism, poisonous politics, and the perils of extremism. Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), a perpetually stoned ex-revolutionary, has retired from raging against the machine and is hiding out with teenage daughter, Willa, whose mother, an unstable troublemaker named Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), has been missing and presumed dead for years. Meanwhile, Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) is in dogged pursuit of Bob and Perfidia for their participation in a violent act of refugee liberation years ago. Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland is cited as an inspiration for One Battle After Another, and a case could be made that Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables was also an influence — with Bob as a weed-smoking Jean Valjean and Lockjaw as an unhinged Inspector Javert. The action in One Battle After Another hits like a sucker punch with bursts of satire pointed at the evil done by the powerful and power-mad. It seethes.
‘Rental Family’
Perhaps the most moving and thoroughly humane movie of the year, Rental Family is a lovely mix of human comedy and poignant drama, anchored by Brendan Fraser’s finely tuned, big-hearted performance. Fraser is ideal in the role of Phillip, a struggling, somewhat depressed American actor who has decided to make a life for himself in Tokyo. Living on his own in the massive Japanese city, he’s scrambling for any gig possible. Thus, he agrees to sign with a “rental family” talent agency that provides clients with actors who serve as stand-ins for real people in their lives or the lives of their loved ones. The conundrum is that Phillip starts to become attached to the people he’s performing for, creating issues for himself and the agency and forcing him to reevaluate his place in the world and the path he will follow. In addition to its emotional weight, Rental Family, cowritten and directed by the single-monikered Hikari, has moments of whimsy that soften some sad situations. Be ready to smile through your tears.
‘Sinners’
Sinners nearly explodes off the screen. It’s the latest from Oakland’s Ryan Coogler, whose career took off when he wrote and directed the indie drama Fruitvale Station. He subsequently leveled up to blockbusters with the Rocky sequel Creed and Marvel’s Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. Now, he’s got his own potential franchise with Sinners — a vampire movie set in the Depression-era South, complete with memorable characters, country blues, and serious heat. In Mississippi, twin brothers Smoke and Stack (skillfully individuated by Michael B. Jordan) return from a troubled stint in the north to open a juke joint on the outskirts of their hometown. Unknown to the twins, an ancient evil is poised to possess a local with musical skill so magical it can cut through time and space. Complicating matters, the local chapter of the KKK isn’t happy about any black-owned business. And the brothers’ exes (Hailee Steinfeld and Wunmi Mosaku) are caught in the middle. Supernatural horror was never so spectacular and deeply soulful.
‘Souleymane’s Story’
Unflinching, compelling, insightful, and relevant, as it examines the motivations and burdens of an African immigrant in Paris, Souleymane’s Story is an award-winning drama that could very well be a documentary and probably draws much of its story from real life. The character of Souleymane, forcefully and believably played by Abou Sangaré, is up against a two-day deadline, and time is running out. Having made a perilous journey from his native Guinea to France, he’s sleeping in Parisian shelters and working illegally as a food-delivery guy on a bike. Short on cash and under unrelenting pressure, he needs to prepare for an impending asylum interview, get ID papers (which will cost him), and memorize his story to convince a government interviewer that he deserves to be officially allowed in the country. Directed and written by Boris Lojkine, Souleymane’s Story is a haunting depiction of the refugee experience that may leave you shattered, but needs to be seen.
‘Splitsville’
A frankly hilarious evisceration of modern relationships, Splitsville comes from the team of Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin who previously made the darkly humorous comedy The Climb. Splitsville is genuinely funnier and more twisted than The Climb as it introduces and elaborates on the competitive-to-toxic longtime friendship between two men. As was the case with The Climb, Covino directs a script he cowrote with Marvin, and they costar as the male leads. But they’ve taken a step up on the casting front, paired with a couple actresses of renown as their wives: Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona who prove pretty adept on the comedic front. As Splitsville gets rolling, one couple is heading for divorce; the other is finding out that their open marriage isn’t as freeing as they hoped. An increasingly tangled web is woven, undermining the rapport the foursome initially shared. Splitsville is a prickly place where we learn that Covino and Marvin are equally good at scathing banter and knockdown slapstick — and laughs are plentiful.
‘Train Dreams’
In Train Dreams, Joel Edgerton is letter-perfect as Robert Grainier, a simple, decent man in the rustic Pacific Northwest of the early 20th century. Grainier is neither flashy nor significant in the grand scheme of things. He works as a lumberjack while his wife and baby daughter wait in the cozy family cabin for his return at the end of every job he takes. Taking on the lion’s share of screen time, Edgerton delivers a richly felt, still-waters-run-deep performance that gives heft to an intimate portrait of one unpretentious person’s life and times. Felicity Jones plays his steadfast wife, Gladys, with quiet strength. William H. Macy is as comfortable as a well-worn pair of boots in the part of a wise, elder lumberjack. Kerry Condon makes an appearance as an able, philosophical ex-nurse-turned-forest-ranger. Based on the novella by Denis Johnson, Train Dreams was co-written and directed by Clint Bradley. It has an austere poetry to it, enhanced by gorgeous cinematography that lends a truly dream-like quality to Grainier’s surroundings.
Fifteen more fine films of 2025
Blue Moon
Brother Versus Brother
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Lurker
Marty Supreme
No Other Choice
Peter Hujar’s Day
Sirāt
Sentimental Value
Sorry, Baby
The Secret Agent
Twinless
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Warfare
Weapons