Josh’s Favorite Movies of 2025 — Part One!
I’m excited to kick off my list of my favorite movies of 2025!
As always, let me begin by noting that, while I did watch a lot of movies in 2025, there remain many movies that I wanted to see but didn’t get to. These include, but aren’t limited to: Is This Thing On?, Ella McCay, The Housemaid, The Amateur, Elio, The Unholy Trinity, Hamnet, Train Dreams, Weapons, Nuremberg, Mickey 17, and more. So if you loved one of those movies and you’re wondering why it’s not on my list, now you know!
Let’s kick things off with a few honorable mentions:
A Real Pain — I saw this 2024 movie after I’d posted my 2024 best of the year list. If I’d seen it earlier, it definitely would have taken a top position! Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed and stars in this movie about two cousins taking a Jewish heritage tour through Poland in the hopes of finding the place where their grandmother grew up, and reconnecting with their family’s Jewish roots. The film is beautiful; moving and funny and also strange and off-putting at times. Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin are magnificent as the very different cousins, David and Benji. There is real emotional depth and pain here, balanced with a lightness that kept the film enjoyable. Wisely, the script doesn’t resolve in any sort of pat, easy answers; the Holocaust is too momentous an event to be easily wrestled with. But I loved going on this journey. Click here to read my full review. Click here to watch it now on Hulu, or click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.
Billy Joel: And So it Goes — I loved every minute of this two-part documentary, running about five hours in total, that explores Billy Joel’s life and career. It’s directed and produced by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin. Those five hours blew by, and I’d have happily watched several hours more. This is a credit to how well-made this documentary is, how much I love Billy Joel’s music, and how great a raconteur Mr. Joel is. I’ve been a fan of Billy Joel’s music for as long as I can remember, and this documentary captures everything I’d hoped it would. Click here to read my full review. Click here to watch it now on HBO MAX.
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair — Getting to see Quentin Tarantino’s four hour and forty-one minute epic on the big screen was absolutely one of my favorite movie-going experiences this year, though I didn’t think it “counted” as a 2025 movie to be included on my main list. But this was pure cinematic joy. I’d always longed to someday see Mr. Tarantino’s often-rumored and much-discussed re-edit of Kill Bill that combined the two films into the single film it was always intended to be, and the result exceeded my expectations. These already great films work even better as one combined film, and I was tickled any time I spotted one of the subtle changes or additions that Mr. Tarantino made to this re-edited version. The experience was a reminder of what a master Mr. Tarantino is. Click here to read my full review.
OK, now here’s my list of my favorite movies of 2025!
20. Predator: Killer of Killers and Predator: Badlands — I’m kicking things off with a tie between the two new Predator movies we got this year, both directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who directed the amazing Prey. Neither of these films was as good as Prey, but as a long-time fan of this franchise, it was exciting to see not one but two solid new Predator movies released this year! They each stand completely on their own, but it’s fun to start to see the threads of continuity Mr. Trachtenberg is weaving between these very different types of films. Killer of Killers is an animated anthology film, telling three stories set in three different time-periods and locations: the frozen landscape of Scandinavia in 841, Japan in 1609, and a group of U.S. fighter pilots in the North African campaign in 1942. The animation was excellent, and I thought it was a lot of fun seeing a Predator dropped into those three very different types of movies! Then, Predator: Badlands was a live-action film set in the far future on an alien world, as we follow a young Predator on a hunt for a supposedly unkillable creature as a way to prove his worth. Along the way, he partners up with a damaged Weyland-Yutani synthetic (I loved this crossover with the Alien franchise) played by Elle Fanning. Click here to read my full review of Predator: Killer of Killers, and click here to watch it now on Hulu. Click here to read my full review of Predator: Badlands, and click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.
19. Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere — I’m something of a sucker for a musical biopic, and I had a great time watching Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) channeling the Boss in this chronicle of the tumultuous making of the 1982 album Nebraska. Mr. White is terrific as Bruce Springsteen, conveying his musical genius — he does a great job singing a bunch of classic Springsteen songs throughout the film — and also playing the drama as we see Bruce wrestle with the demons of his mental health challenges and the lingering trauma of his difficult childhood. Jeremy Strong is terrific as Bruce’s manager and producer, Jon Landau, tasked with loving and supporting his burgeoning superstar client and friend while also placating the music studio brass who just want Bruce to write some more hit singles. This film would be higher on my list if I was happier with the ending, which felt too quick and easy to me and like it jumped over some critical pieces of the story. Still, I had a great time watching this. My full review is coming soon. Click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.
18. Jay Kelly — George Clooney plays an aging movie-star (the titular Jay Kelly) looking back on his life and finding himself lonely and regretful about many of his life choices, while Adam Sandler plays his manager Ron, who has spent much of his adult life taking care of everything Jay wanted and needed. I found myself quite taken by Noah Baumbach’s film, despite my initial resistance towards feeling any empathy towards someone as rich and famous as a George Clooney-type mega-star. It was Adam Sandler who really grabbed my attention; I have enjoyed Mr. Sandler in serious dramatic roles before this (Punch-Drunk Love, Spanglish, Funny People, and most especially in Uncut Gems), but he is next-level great here. He steals the movie from George Clooney (who is also terrific, by the way). (It’s interesting to me that both Jay Kelly and Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere spotlight the long-suffering manager working on behalf of a famous star!) One amazing supporting turn after another by the likes of Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent, Riley Keough, Greta Gerwig, Grace Edwards, and Patrick Wilson further elevate the story. My full review is coming soon. Click here to watch it now on Netflix.
17. F1 — This film’s story is predictable, and there’s not very much character development. But the car-racing action in this movie is jaw-droppingly incredible. Watching this movie on the big screen was one of the most astonishing times I had in a movie theatre this year. Joseph Kosinski (who directed Tron: Legacy, Oblivion, and Top Gun: Maverick) and his team have found an incredible way to film the F1 car races that puts the audience right there in the drivers’ seat with the racers. The car racing scenes in this film are intense and gripping; the technical achievement here is praise-worthy. And it doesn’t hurt that Brad Pitt is compelling and fun-to-watch as always as the talented but washed up driver Sonny Hayes. Click here to read my full review. Click here to watch it now on Apple TV+ or click here to watch it now on Amazon Prime Video.
16. Avatar: Fire and Ash — Speaking of astonishing visual experiences (albeit in a film that is thin on character development), let’s talk about James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash. To say this film looks amazing is an understatement. Right from the very first second of this movie — an incredible shot of two Na’vi boys flying through the air on their winged banshees — through the three hours and 17 minutes that follows, I was blown away by what I was seeing. James Cameron and his team have created a completely convincing fantasy world. Every single shot of this movie is an incredible visual effects achievement. I didn’t for a second doubt the reality of what I was seeing, even though almost this entire film — all the Na’vi characters, all the creatures, all the locations across Pandora — are visual effects. The way motion capture has been used to blend the subtle nuances of the actors’ performances with the completely fantastical Na’vi character designs is next-level extraordinary. Do I wish the film dug more deeply into its characters and themes? Do I have problems with the film’s unusual pacing and narrative structure? Do I wish this very-long film had a friggin’ intermission in the middle? Yes I do, but I also bow my head before the visual effects achievement this film represents. No one is making movies like this other than James Cameron. Click here to read my full review. Avatar: Fire and Ash isn’t streaming yet; if you want to watch it, go watch it in a movie theatre on the biggest screen possible!
Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll come back tomorrow for numbers 15-11!
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