It turns out if you put good movies in theaters, I’ll go see them. In total I saw 6 new movies in theater which is definitely my post-pandemic record. I even went so far as to claim earlier in the year that 2025 might be “Year of the Movie.” Bold, I know, but I bring the hot takes.

So, in no particular order are the top movies from 2025. Oh and there might be spoilers ahead so be warned.

Eddington

Easily the funniest movie I saw this year but only because the humor was beset by horror, shame, pity and shock. The wild undulation of emotional turmoil made moments of comedy feel elative by comparison. Truly a masterwork for a movie to navigate all those feelings about relatively recent traumatic events.

Yet this movie is less about COVID and more about the final death throws of the mono-culture. The characters are all experiencing an entirely different reality. Separate realities that require no evidence just pure self-centered, self-seeking ego. Insulated realities built by a million self-selecting facebook posts, tweets and kick streamers all enforcing an engagement driven world view.

One Battle After Another

Despite this being the most personal film PTA has ever made it’s themes and characters are universal. We all struggle to be here, we all love our family (chosen and otherwise) and we are all powerless to change the past.

Funny, hopeful and absurd. This might turn into a yearly watch for me.

Sinners

The American dream is a dream that coops and corrupts all in its way.

Is this movie perfect? Absolutely not. Voice over, flash-backs to previous scenes, scares and action ruined by clunky editing to name a few of it’s flaws. But here’s the thing; I don’t care. It’s a story I had not seen before from a perspective rarely ever explored in cinema. And it is cinema. Exciting and fresh and not to mention twins played by one actor.

Weapons

This movie is about a lot of things. Most obviously alcoholism and being raised by alcoholics. It works and it’s good when viewed from that perspective.

However, the boomers are sucking us dry and killing everything they touch. Their selfishness knows no bounds, knowingly killing their grandchildren by hogging all available resources. That’s what Gladys is to me.

Now onto movies I saw this year that didn’t come out this year.

Farewell My Concubine

In capitalism, your body is not yours. Value must be squeezed from every drop of precious excrement. Queer bodies doubly so.

I was not familiar with Leslie Cheung before but I went down a rabbit hole after watching this film. He gives an amazingly tortured performance that was unfortunately all too real.

Life is Cheap… But Toilet Paper is Expensive.

This year I watched Joy Luck Club for the first time and loved it despite its saccharine and syrupy emotional manipulation. A week later, by pure happenstance I watched Life is Cheap without knowing Wayne Wang directed both. They are radically different movies.

I think this is best described by this anecdotal Letterboxed review.

Disgusting, frantic, appalling and all too human. Do not watch if on heart medication, under the age of 25, are pregnant or think you might be pregnant.

To Live and Die in L.A.

If this movie proves anything to me, its that William Friedkin rules.

I really like my original review of this film so I won’t belabor the subject more than to say go see this film

Alice, Sweet Alice

I’ll be completely honest, I was not expecting to like Alice, Sweet Alice. But throughout the runtime of my first watch I was either smiling ear-to-ear or mouth agape in shock. A combination of “The Slasher” being in it’s infancy as a genre and a brand new director (read: naïve) causes this movie to have the most jarring but effective visual language.

In my original write-up, I broke-down a dumbwaiter shot that conveys exposition, establishes place and adds dread all without dialog. This time want to talk about this scene.

The placement of the mirror to see the body falling, the body then crashing into the shot, then we see the killer peek over the ledge in the mirror….just perfect. If I stop and think about it my brain knows this shot is impossible in real life. But it doesn’t matter, my brain likes it because it is a cool shot. That’s this movie. The director was only thinking about how to pack as much as possible into every shot.

I haven’t bought a movie in years but I love this movie so much I actually own a copy now.

The Toxic Avenger

I mainly have this movie on here because I am still in shock at just how charming it is in all it’s trashy, juvenile glory. After watching it’s understandable how this movie has 8 sequels and a recent remake with Peter Dinklage. There’s something very precious about this first film.

I could attempt to qualify it’s unique mixture of impish and downright offensive humor but I’ll just leave you with a montage that captures the spirit perfectly.

Other Notables

** "It’s going to be very difficult to discover the presence of God in AI."

** This is so fucked, we are so fucked.

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