Best movie of 2025... and the one you enjoyed most!

Morrus said:

• The best movie I saw in 2025 was probably Sinners. I haven't always liked Ryan Coogler's stuff, but this was pretty damn good.
• The one I enjoyed most was Superman.
• The worst was that new War of the Worlds thing where he sits at a computer screen for 2 hours. That's two hours I'll never get back.

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Because I've failed to go to the cinema enough (bunch of films I still have to see which I think might have beaten Sinners for me, Bugonia and One Battle After Another among them), Sinners is also the best new movie I saw in 2025.

Most enjoyable new movie I saw? That's actually also Sinners for me - I liked Superman a lot, but I didn't enjoy it as intensely as Sinners.

Worst new movie I saw in 2025? Captain America: Brave New World

I will also add a category for me - most underrated/likely-to-be-a-cult-movie: The Running Man.

I genuinely don't get why critics (and to some extent audiences) sneered at this. Usually I at least understand the criticisms, but most of the reviews I read after seeing were vague and incoherent about what was supposed to be wrong with it, apart from "it's too on the nose", which is not a viable criticism in 2025, sorry, the time for that criticism is profoundly over and may never return.

jian said:

I think Sam is growing well into his role as Cap and Mackie is doing a fine job with that. His basic themes (continued from FatWS) are still strong and developed well in BNW. The aerial battle scenes are great; the only quibble I’d have is that they should really be against the Chinese navy, not the Japanese.

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With genuine respect, I feel like this is wishful thinking/projection based on the fact that Mackie is a fine actor (probably a better actor than Evans, to be honest).

The character though, is "What is Captain America had less moral fiber, was more of a boring and slightly gross centrist/"""realist""" (there cannot be enough quotation marks for this), more of a rules-follower, more of a soldier, and less of man-out-of-time absolutely committed to a perhaps """outdated""" moral and ethical framework?"

He even acts in kind of a gross way at the end of BNW, he just doesn't have the moral purity that Superman or WW2-origin Cap have. He's got just a little too much humanity, self-interest, and willingness to do only kinda the right thing. That makes him more realistic, maybe, but... Captain America is not a character about realism in that way.

There were a couple of moments in BNW where it seemed like it might become a good movie, and sure, the aerial battles were stand-outs (in part because all the hand-to-hand battles were embarrassingly bad, like the very first one is just sad, really hope that was some "not quite over the pandemic" thing but oof - and to be clear that's on the director and fight choreographer, not Mackie), but that was a truly bad movie for my money.

I'm sure it wasn't actually remotely near the worst because these ones Variety lists seem much worse (Mike Flanagan whyyyyyyy) but still.

I think with Cap, they need to keep Mackie, but do a Spider-Man: No Way Home, where they like strip down and rebuild the character morally, so he discards the whole bunch of bollocks of officially working for the US military (which is hard-incompatible with being fully morally upstanding, it requires moral compromise), reporting to the president, where he outright rejects the between-wars military-industrial complex (WW2-origin Cap never relies on it or works with it), and so on, and focuses on being a bastion of decency and of a specific values which society (not just in the US) has seemingly abandoned in favour of billionaire-worship and faux-"realpolitik". They managed it really well with Spider-Man, I was shocked - the entire structure of the movie laser-targeted the one major issue (for me) with Tom Holland Spidey - that being that he was essentially "Iron Man Jr." not Spider-Man, because he lacked the deep ingrained, challenge-formed morality of Spider-Man and had access to way way too many resources. No Way Home stripped all that away. I am still surprised that the writer(s) understood this and wanted to fix this, I had assumed they just didn't get it.

I watched two movies in the theater in 2025, making it three times I have been to the theaters in the 20s total: Minecraft and Anemone.

Minecraft was a better movie, and I enjoyed it more. Anemone had some good acting, but ultimately fell flat for me.

However, Kpop Demon Hunters was handily the most enjoyable film that I watched tnayt came out in 2025, and honestly probably the best objectively.

Weapons was easily the best and most entertaining film I saw in 2025. I saw many more than I disliked than liked, so it's hard to pick. For the enormous budget, Jurassic World Rebirth was horrible.

Best was One Battle After Another. Ive long been a Paul Thomas Anderson fan and this film didnt disappoint. PAced well, funny, great soundtrack.

Most enjoyed im going to cheat a little. Heretic was theatrically released in November 2024, but didnt stream until 2025 which is when I first heard of it. Its been awhile since I was so intrigued by movie and Hugh Grant was terrific.

Worst, was Superman. I'll preface this by saying Superman isnt a bad bad movie, but it was riding on quite a lot of outside context. DC was being reset and I had high hopes for this one. However, it felt like typical non-Batman DC flick womp womp. Too many characters, too much CGI, just meh. I had extra high hopes because I was hoping Gunn would bring back the magic. I think his formula has gotten stale and it feels like the days of bringing it are over. Superman kinda solidified that for me.

Honorable mentions to Weapons and Sinners.

Ruin Explorer said:

With genuine respect, I feel like this is wishful thinking/projection based on the fact that Mackie is a fine actor (probably a better actor than Evans, to be honest).

The character though, is "What is Captain America had less moral fiber, was more of a boring and slightly gross centrist/"""realist""" (there cannot be enough quotation marks for this), more of a rules-follower, more of a soldier, and less of man-out-of-time absolutely committed to a perhaps """outdated""" moral and ethical framework?"

He even acts in kind of a gross way at the end of BNW, he just doesn't have the moral purity that Superman or WW2-origin Cap have. He's got just a little too much humanity, self-interest, and willingness to do only kinda the right thing. That makes him more realistic, maybe, but... Captain America is not a character about realism in that way.

There were a couple of moments in BNW where it seemed like it might become a good movie, and sure, the aerial battles were stand-outs (in part because all the hand-to-hand battles were embarrassingly bad, like the very first one is just sad, really hope that was some "not quite over the pandemic" thing but oof - and to be clear that's on the director and fight choreographer, not Mackie), but that was a truly bad movie for my money.

I'm sure it wasn't actually remotely near the worst because these ones Variety lists seem much worse (Mike Flanagan whyyyyyyy) but still.

I think with Cap, they need to keep Mackie, but do a Spider-Man: No Way Home, where they like strip down and rebuild the character morally, so he discards the whole bunch of bollocks of officially working for the US military (which is hard-incompatible with being fully morally upstanding, it requires moral compromise), reporting to the president, where he outright rejects the between-wars military-industrial complex (WW2-origin Cap never relies on it or works with it), and so on, and focuses on being a bastion of decency and of a specific values which society (not just in the US) has seemingly abandoned in favour of billionaire-worship and faux-"realpolitik". They managed it really well with Spider-Man, I was shocked - the entire structure of the movie laser-targeted the one major issue (for me) with Tom Holland Spidey - that being that he was essentially "Iron Man Jr." not Spider-Man, because he lacked the deep ingrained, challenge-formed morality of Spider-Man and had access to way way too many resources. No Way Home stripped all that away. I am still surprised that the writer(s) understood this and wanted to fix this, I had assumed they just didn't get it.

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Thank you! But I don’t think Sam and Steve, either in the comics or the films, are the same character, or should be. You shouldn’t be expected to be a moral paragon just because you put on a flag this morning, that’s a recipe for disaster (sorry about that, John Walker).

Comics Steve is the OG moral paragon - he represents nostalgia for the Greatest Generation and he is basically always right, in a way that applies to no other character in his universe (or perhaps any other character except Comics Superman). This is a very difficult character to write, especially as a main character and especially as a continuous character; I think Ta-Nehisi Coates did it best because his version is always re-examining his privilege and always trying to punch up, which other versions (sorry, Mark Gruenwald) are less good at.

MCU Steve deals with this challenge by casting Chris Evans, who’s very good at being someone who’s very sure that morality exists and that he should try to follow it, but does question himself and is actually quite anxious about it. But this can’t work forever and I’d argue it fell down quite hard in Civil War. What Steve does in most of that film is rationalise his love for Bucky as the right thing to do, and it shows. He’s not wrong, but he’s not right either, which is the tragedy of the central conflict.

Both Comics and MCU Sam are not that guy. They’re a good person trying to do good things while shouldering a massive legacy they didn’t necessarily want in any way and which they (for good reasons) see as enormously problematic. Sam doesn’t have most of Steve’s uncomplicated privilege, and his friction with his role and with the whole idea of America is central to his theme. His stories are therefore always going to be morally complicated and conflicted, and will involve a lot of compromise. In BNW some of that compromise is about working closely and uncritically with the US military and government, which Sam has of course done before but which he now has to do in a new and much more public and scrutinised role. It’s messy and difficult in a way that Steve never had to deal with (and in any case rationalised away by working as a consultant for a shady super spy organisation instead, which is definitely not morally better, just easier to ignore real world issues).

Best Movies: Sinners and Superman

Favourite Movie: KPop Demon Hunters ... and I'm not even a little ashamed about it, and I don't have kids, so rewatching it over and over was all me. The soundtrack was in constant replay, the animation was joyous ... the tiger was so cute.

Worst Movie: Wicked part 2. Okay ... I think Captain America was actual the worst film that I saw this year ... but I expected it to suck and it lived down to expectations. I enjoyed part 1 of Wicked, but the flaws of part 1 (being a little overly stretched out and not enough music for a musical) were compounded in part 2 without the advantage of having Defying Gravity as the banger to close out the movie. And when the music in a musical doesn't hit ... you're in trouble.

Biggest Disappointments, ie, why weren't you better?: Wicked Part 2 and Frankenstein. Already talked Wicked, but Del Toro's Frankenstein, to me, deserves a mention. Because, on paper, this should have been a slam dunk for a potential fav movie of the year. Love Del Toro, love Oscar Isaac, haven't seen Elordi in much but he's hot and I want to see more ... but this film left me cold.

Vael said:

Favourite Movie: KPop Demon Hunters ... and I'm not even a little ashamed about it, and I don't have kids, so rewatching it over and over was all me. The soundtrack was in constant replay, the animation was joyous ... the tiger was so cute.

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No reason for shame, it rules.

I'm not sure I recall most of the movies I saw. I used to write short reviews on Facebook, but I don't go there anymore.

The most surprisingly good movie was KPop Demon Hunters. So much more than I ever expected.

We're likely watching sinners tonight....

Hard to say just one film in a year of amazing films, but I think the best film I saw this year was Train Dreams on Netflix. I watched it 2 nights in a row.

Favourite film would be Friendship.
with Predator: Badlands being an honourable mention.

Older Beholder said:

Hard to say just one film in a year of amazing films, but I think the best film I saw this year was Train Dreams on Netflix. I watched it 2 nights in a row.

Favourite film would be Friendship.
with Predator: Badlands being an honourable mention.

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Train Dreams was interesting to me. I really related to the story, even though almost none of that obviously happened to me. It was slow, but not? I really liked that movie a lot.