Josh’s Favorite Movies of 2025 — Part Four!
We’ve reached the conclusion of my list of my favorite movies of 2025! Click here for part one, click here for part two, and click here for part three!
And now, here are my FIVE favorite movies of 2025:
5. Frankenstein — Guillermo del Toro’s new adaptation of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is a visual feast for the eyes, sweeping and spellbinding. Mr. del Toro manages to do what I thought was impossible: he has completely shed the shackles of the iconography of the classic Universal version of Frankenstein, and created a gorgeous film with a look and feel entirely its own. The movie is jam-packed with incredible imagery, both beautiful and horrific, from the breathtaking new design of the Creature, to the look of Victor’s tower and lab (with that striking enormous stone carving of the face of Medusa), to the coffin in which Victor’s mother is interred, and so much more. Oscar Isaac delivers a fierce, magnetic performance as Victor Frankenstein, and Jacob Elordi brings a perfect gentle soulfulness to the Creature. Mr. del Toro has spoken in interviews for years about is love of Frankenstein, and his dream of one day telling his own version of this famous tale. I’m delighted he was finally able to make it happen. My full review is coming soon. Click here to watch it now on Netflix.
4. Superman — James Gunn kicked off his rebooted version of the DC movie universe with this wonderful, joyous film. What a pleasure it was to see this fun, optimistic take on Superman — exactly the way he should be presented. It’s the faithful-to-the-comic-books adaptation of Superman that I never knew I wanted and needed! Watching this movie feels delightfully like reading several issues of a Superman comic book. It has all the joy and complexity and weirdness of DC comic books. This made me so happy; I loved the way James Gunn’s film dropped audiences into a fully-realized superhero universe already in existence, filled with colorful heroes and villains and other dimensions and Kaiju-like creatures and talking robots named Gary. The casting was impeccable. I think that David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, and Nicholas Hoult are the very best film versions of Superman/Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Lex Luthor that we’ve ever seen. And Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner is the type of absolutely perfect fan-wish casting that I thought I could only dream of. We get lots of fun, exciting super-hero action, and also rich character work. (That early interview scene between Clark & Lois is a show-stopper.) And I haven’t even mentioned Krypto! I can’t believe James Gunn found a way to make the idea of Superman’s super-pet work in a movie — and not just work; Krypto steals the movie! I’ve seen this several times already, and I like it more every time I see it. What a gift. Click here for my full review. Click here to watch it now on HBO Max, or click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.
3. Wake Up Dead Man — Rian Johnson’s third Benoit Blanc mystery was another riveting, fiercely entertaining murder mystery yarn that revealed intriguing philosophical depths as the story unfolded. The film can be enjoyed as a wonderfully twisty mystery, but it’s also an exploration of organized religion, asking questions about faith vs skepticism, different viewpoints of God and the role of a religious leader, and the ability or inability of human beings to repent and change their ways, as opposed to being forever damned for our sins. Somehow this complicated, interesting material is also a tremendous amount of fun! That’s the magic act of Rian Johnson’s movie. Daniel Craig is once again an absolute delight as Benoit Blanc, while Josh O’Connor blew me away with his rich, memorable performance as Father Jud, the open-hearted young priest with a violent past who finds himself at the center of a seemingly unsolvable murder mystery. Mr. Johnson has assembled a wonderful array of actors to fill out this story, most of whose characters then wind up being suspects for the murder: Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Daryl McCormack, Cailee Spaeny, Thomas Hayden Church, Mila Kunis, Jeffrey Wright, and more. I’ve tremendously enjoyed all three of Mr. Johnson’s Benoit Blanc movies. I hope he makes many more! For now, this is a movie I cannot wait to revisit. Click here to read my full review. Click here to watch it now on Netflix.
2. Sinners — Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a triumph, a gloriously enjoyable film. I was enraptured from minute one, and the film didn’t release me from its spell until the last of its two mid-and-end-credit sequences. (DO NOT stop watching this movie until the very end!) The film is gorgeously made, once again demonstrating Mr. Coogler’s extraordinary talents. Every scene is alive and captivating. The production values are incredible; Mr. Coogler’s team did a beautiful job bringing the world of 1932 Mississippi to life. The sets and costumes are exquisite. Mr. Coogler has a keen eye for how to frame a shot, and when he lets loose (such as in the show-stopping mid-film musical number, blending past and present streams of African American music together), he can hit the ball clear out of the park. The music in this film is transcendent. Once again, Mr. Coogler has collaborated with Ludwig Göransson (who won an Oscar for his magnificent work on Black Panther), and the result is a film in which the music is perhaps the main character. And then there is Michael B. Jordan, showing everyone how it’s done with his dual roles as brothers “Smoke” and “Stack”. Mr. Jordan is magnetic to watch, and the way he is able to subtly but clearly distinguish the two brothers from one another is an acting master class. By the end of this movie, I’d fallen in love with each and every character, wonderfully and memorably brought to life by an astonishing cast of well-established talents and amazing newcomers: Miles Canton as “Preacher Boy”, Delroy Lindo as Delta Slim, Wunmi Mosaku as Annie, Jayme Lawson as Pearline, Hailee Steinfeld as Mary, Omar Miller as Cornbread, Li Jun Li as Grace Chow, Yao as Bo Chow… I love every one of those characters! And of course, Jack O’Connell is memorable and loathsome as Remmick. The film is violent and thrilling and heartbreaking. I love it a whole lot. This could easily have been my number one film. Click here to read my full review. Click here to watch it now HBO Max, or click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.
1. One Battle After Another — Sinners came close, but there was no question that this masterpiece by Paul Thomas Anderson was my favorite movie of the year. Watching this on a big screen was an an almost overwhelming experience, one that reminded me of the power of cinema. I was riveted throughout the film’s considerable run-time. (The film is about two hours and 45 minutes long, but don’t let that scare you — this perfectly-paced film zips along.) The film is intense and funny and moving. It’s a rollicking adventure story and at the same time a fiercely angry movie with a lot to say about our world today and the mistreatment of immigrants and people of color here in the United States. It features staggeringly amazing performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, Benicio del Toro (who steals the movie), Regina Hall, and many others. The piano-music score is amazing; jaunty and incredibly stress-inducing in equal parts. The third-act car chase, up and down the wave-like hills of Texas Dip (in Borrego Springs, California,) is an extraordinary piece of movie-making genius, buffeting the audience like we’re riding the waves in an ocean; this sequence stakes a claim for one of the all-time best movie car-chases. PTA has crafted a world that isn’t quite our own, and at the same time feels like one tiny step removed from our present day reality. Watching Sean Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw use the United States military to hunt down Latino immigrants (legal or otherwise) feels scary and plausible. But PTA never allows his film to turn into a lecture or a depressing slog; the film is funny and adventurous, weaving the humor and the horror together into a magnificent whole. What a movie. Click here to read my full review. Click here to watch it now on HBO Max, or click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this look back at all the great movies of 2025! I hope you’ll come back on Monday when I begin my list of my favorite TV shows of 2025!
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