Top Five Films of 2025

The phrase "may you live in interesting times" rang disconcertingly true in 2025, with every week seemingly presenting us with some new, unprecedented tragedy or scandal. For me, the cinema has been my refuge from this terrible year – a consistent source of entertainment and enlightenment.

While it seems that streaming is often the preferred method for watching today, there are more avenues than ever to catch great films, and I was able to see incredible movies at local art collectives, university film clubs, independently owned theaters, as well as the multiplex. I was even lucky enough to attend the Toronto International Film Festival this year, something I hope to make a regular tradition. Though it doesn't always feel like it, terrific works of cinema are being produced in every corner of the globe. So here are my top five films released in 2025:

1. Sentimental Value

Joachim Trier's quiet family drama proved to be the best film of 2025 and the director's best film yet. The story of sisters Nora and Agnes (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) who must reexamine their complex relationship with their famous film director father (Stellan Skarsgård) after he casts a young American actress (Elle Fanning) for a role he originally wrote for Nora is a powerful meditation on shared family trauma, the myriad ways people deal with grief, and how art can be used to preserve the past.

Trier addresses these themes with some ingenious editing and mise en scène, and it is all carried by four incredible performances, especially Reinsve and Skarsgård. Trier brilliantly displays how history, personal tragedy, art, people, places, and objects all coalesce to tell a person's story. And when that person is gone, these fragments of a life will endure.

2. It Was Just an Accident

For the last 15 years, Jafar Panahi has been making films he technically wasn't legally allowed to make. At the risk of imprisonment for supposed "crimes against the Islamic State," Panahi has used increasingly clever and creative ways to circumvent the restrictions placed on him, and it all culminates with this – easily his angriest film. The story of a group of people who, by chance, come across a man who may have been the government official who tortured them in prison is a passionate cry against the injustices of a theocratic regime. That said, it also manages to be, at times, darkly funny, and full of the empathy and humanism so prevalent in Panahi's works. That is, until we reach the ending, one of the most nerve-wracking in recent memory. Panahi's career has shown us that no amount of authoritarianism can ever silence great art.

3. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk

After the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, French-Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi planned to travel to Gaza to report on the situation firsthand. Although denied entry, she met a young Palestinian woman named Fatima Hassouna, who offered to give daily updates of her life to Farsi via WhatsApp as things in Gaza became increasingly dire. The result is an incredible documentary detailing life in a war zone and a chronicle of one woman persevering through a devastating situation with the help of religious faith, dreams of a better future, and the most radiant smile. It becomes so easy to ignore deaths when they are presented as numbers on a news ticker. Farsi and Hassouna become chroniclers of a terrible humanitarian crisis, accentuating the true human cost of war all the way to one of the most important films of the year's heartbreaking denouement.

4. Hamnet

Chloe Zhao's follow-up after getting that Marvel money is a gorgeously shot, heart-rending adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's novel and her best film yet. The plot centers on the love and lives of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) before and after the tragic death of their only son, inspiring the creation of Shakespeare's greatFILMtionally devastating meditation on how we process loss and how art is used to express the complexity of life (an interesting companion piece to Sentimental Value). Full of beautiful, sumptuous cinematography reminiscent of a Terrence Malick film and anchored by two of the most talented young actors working today (especially Jessie Buckley in the performance of a lifetime), Zhao's film is a tale of love and loss, grief and redemption that would make The Bard proud. The very reason we go to the movies.

5. Twinless

James Sweeney's tale of love, friendship, and betrayal was something I decided to watch on a whim. To my surprise, it turned out to be one of the best films of the year. The story of two men (Dylan O'Brien and director Sweeney) who meet at a twin bereavement support group and then form a seemingly unbreakable bond takes us through the different ways people deal with loss and heartbreak, and examines the thin line between intimacy and codependency. Telling his tale out of order, Sweeney sets up the close bond first, so when the other shoe drops, and a character's true motivations are revealed, it proves just as shocking for the audience. That said, Sweeney never condemns his characters, even at their most despicable. The result is a film that is funny, awkward, tragic, infuriating, and oddly sweet. In other words, achingly, wonderfully human.

Honorable Mentions

Sorry, Baby

Eephus

One Battle After Another

Suspended Time

Eddington