As we close out another year, it’s worth taking one final beat to appreciate how good we had it in the cinema this year. Despite how much time (and money) I spend watching movies in a given year, this final countdown is often something I just smash out in one session in the post-feverish haze right after I’ve put my whole life force into the Games list, and before the New Year’s celebrations begin. This year I couldn’t quite do that; it was just so difficult to cut the list down to a mere ten, let alone decide which film to put above the rest in a slot that really felt quite arbitrary in 2025. We definitely did have it good.
IMAX’s first full year back in Sydney since the advent of Letterboxd culture was a properly stacked one; I visited six times in 2025 and loved every session, and that’s because the year delivered high-end action on a scale rarely seen. There was plenty of sub-genre variety within that action, too, so even though that’s probably the biggest theme throughout the list, I never felt things were getting too samey. It’s also pleasing to realise as I type this that just one movie on the list was a streaming exclusive.
Anyway, from the 31 new-release films I saw in 2025 (not including anything released after December 15th, sadly), these are my ten favourites. Thanks for reading this year.
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VR BEST OF 2025 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. Nobody ever agrees with me 100%. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.
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10. K-Pop Demon Hunters
Coming in for its fourth and final main-list mention this month – a tied Vagrant Rant record – the unlikely flint that re-ignited the K-Pop scene for yet another new generation kicks off our final top ten. It rises above an extremely competitive field thanks to the inimitable, whimsical Sony Animation style that, as the Spider-Verse movies have made abundantly clear, tends to bowl critics over en masse. Just as heartwarming, however, is the career boosts for the large squad of talented would-be (and in some cases former) K-Pop stars with great vocals and/or production talent that didn’t quite fit into the industry. Much like the last big Sony movie from this team, KPDH does feel like it ends way too quickly, but the journey there is a blast.
9. Weapons
Marketed as a horror movie, formally a mystery caper, secretly a dark comedy; Zach Cregger’s Barbarian follow-up is a slippery film to categorise, but it absolutely hums along for the majority of its run time. You might accuse the pulp-novel-esque structure, which shifts perspectives like book chapters, of cutting the story’s tension a bit, but it also enriches the small-town community vibe, lines up some killer callbacks, and shares the spotlight among a committed cast who each take out a Jenga piece until everything comes crashing down. Immensely engaging to unravel as you watch, just as meaty to unpack thematically afterwards, Weapons officially makes Cregger a directorial voice worth keeping an ear on.
8. Bugonia
When I learned that Bugonia was a remake of a Korean film immediately after I saw it, everything about the whole oddball production immediately made so much more sense. This is an unashamedly genre-hopping, wildly unpredictable movie that is only fleetingly interested in catharsis – and probably during the parts of the story you don’t expect to get any. Yorgos Lanthimos’ tall-yet-claustrophobic 3:2 frame digs right into the creases of Jesse Plemons’ and Emma Stone’s faces as they duke it out in a war of impassioned pleas, internet/PR-prepared responses and moral gambits scored to ludicrously overblown effect by Jerskin Fendrix. The whole time, it feels like anything could happen. Because it probably will.
7. Thunderbolts*
The one movie I bet against all year that proved me quite emphatically wrong, Thunderbolts* is the perfect MCU film for the moment in a way that rarely lines up for Marvel Studios: the malaise and deep well of negative emotions in which its misfit primary characters are stuck mirrors the very state of the tired ongoing story continuity. But while that may be the accidental reason why it works so well, the deliberate one is that this mega-studio is just still so good at telling stories about recalcitrant team-ups. From the moment Florence Pugh jumps off a very real building in the first minute of the movie, all the way until that weird asterisk in the title is finally explained, Thunderbolts* might be the most depressing breath of fresh air the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ever produced.
6. Superman
The so-called “DCU” finally began life on the big screen in 2025 by bringing its A-game at the first time of asking. James Gunn had to achieve an awful lot with the latest reboot of Superman, introducing the world to yet another incarnation of the man of steel while simultaneously ensuring a fleet of other new character interpretations – many of which had never been in a Hollywood movie before – were served well enough to seed inevitable spin-offs. His solution? Scrap the origin take and go straight for a compelling in-media-res Lex Luthor showdown that believably keeps Supes busy. The result isn’t the cleanest spectacle, but Superman is crucially heartfelt, visually spectacular, and does indeed make stars of the likes of Guy Gardner, Metamorpho, and Mr Terrific.
5. The Count of Monte Cristo
2024 Three Musketeers writers Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière seemed extra keen to show their ongoing passion for Alexandre Dumas’ work this year, because they almost immediately turned around and co-directed this fabulous new adaptation of one of history’s most adapted works. Their take is a little more fantastical than usual in its scene-to-scene mechanics, occasionally brushing its rakish star Pierre Niney up against the kinds of tricks, contraptions and abilities usually seen in Resident Evil villains; but in the big moments the film makes a few smart changes that arguably ground the classic tale of poisonous revenge more than you’re likely to see elsewhere. And of course the action and plentiful hallway yelling scenes are cinematic gold.
4. Black Bag
Steven Soderbergh’s legendarily unpredictable career added another stellar left-field chapter early in 2025 in the form of the lithe, witty, economical, electric Black Bag. The best advertisement for a 90-minute runtime I’ve seen since A Quiet Place (or perhaps No Exit), this one locks you in very early and demands you pay attention as a small group of talented character actors, newcomers, and genuine stars set about igniting David Koepp’s tight spy-thriller script on fire. Virtually every scene takes place in a lavish but small room, giving the whole production a theatre vibe. The tension barely lets up for the whole movie, making the sparse moments of levity even funnier. By the immensely satisfying end you are left with the distinct impression that you might have just watched one of the most aspirational onscreen Hollywood relationships in years. The surprise of the year for me.
3. One Battle After Another
So good it finally convinced me to go back and watch a bunch of Paul Thomas Anderson’s other films right after I saw it (I’ve now seen half his filmography), One Battle After Another is the second extremely long Leo DiCaprio vehicle in three years to absolutely fly by. Packed to the proverbial gills with deeply flawed characters pathetic enough to laugh at, feel for, or both, Anderson refuses to sit in the malaise of their mistakes and shortcomings: the camera and actors are constantly on the move, urged on by that brilliantly frantic Jonny Greenwood piano score: Sean Penn power-walks like a busted puppet, Benicio Del Toro saunters, Teyana Taylor sprints, and DiCaprio commando-crawls in a dispassionate wide shot like an outtake from that quaaludes scene. The most unconventionally entertaining chase movie since Fury Road.
2. Wake Up Dead Man
Rian Johnson has made whodunnits cool again and moved one step closer to S-tier status as a writer-director with his third Knives Out film, which leaves him three-from-three. This is clearly no fluke; the man adores the mystery fiction genre and seems to have endless ideas for how to write unapologetically of-the-moment brain-teasers that make a point. This time around he zeroes in on a location so small and so tactile that you (crucially) know its geography and principal inhabitants inside and out by the end of the first act – when Benoit Blanc finally appears. Yes, Blanc returns firmly to the supporting player role he inhabited in the original Knives Out, and yet he has never felt more rounded as a character. The mystery is typically labyrinthine and satisfying, but the incredibly moving ending brought me to tears for completely different reasons.
1. Sinners
2025 was such a top year for movies that this doesn’t feel like a clear frontrunner for me, but the feeling I had leaving the IMAX theatre post-Sinners was simply unlike anything I felt after the other 30 this year. Ryan Coogler has completed his transformation into a connoisseur of film stock in the prestigious Nolan ball park, and the way he maximises the frame with ultra-dramatic transitions from the very wide 70mm to the very tall IMAX at the exact moments when the dramatic tension is about to snap is a flavour of theatrical dynamite I have never experienced before.
The movie may be sold as a horror story, but it’s almost equally a blues musical, and the performances of Miles Caton and co. are hypnotic – which is to say nothing of the phenomenal Ludwig Göransson score. I was playing through South of Midnight when I saw the film and had recently finished watching True Detective Season 1 for the first time, so the crossover of American deep south culture felt particularly alive to me, but even in a vacuum this is a thing of beauty and terror: a pulse-pounding, special film I hope allows Coogler to continue exploring a world beyond adaptation and sequels.
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Honourable Mentions
–F1
It kills me that this one had to come out the very year I got heavily into Formula 1, because if Joseph Kosinski’s visually stunning F1 had released in 2024 it absolutely would have made the main list. Overseeing the invention of a new camera rig just for the sake of speedy spectacle would usually get you on there, but unfortunately now I just see all the real-life inaccuracies.
–Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
Eventually this becomes an all-time MI spectacle filled with the very real stakes for which the series has become known – and which the last pandemic-shot movie couldn’t really attempt. It just takes an awful long time to get there.
–Wicked: For Good
The follow-up to my 2024 movie of the year was shot at the same time and is subject to all the same high-quality sets, costumes, and effects; it just can’t really overcome the comparative lack of fun and pizazz within the stage musical’s second act.
–Fantastic 4: First Steps
The MCU’s second cinematic period piece is an achievement of kitsch production design, operatic score, and runtime restraint, although it can’t help feeling like it’s in a hurry to leave its own timeline.
Vagrant Rant 