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Thomas Duffy’s Top 10 Films of 2025
2025 was a fantastic year for cinema with many great performances, but only one really astounding, groundbreaking cinematic achievement – the work of Rose Byrne in the year’s best picture, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. What could have been a run-of-the-mill twisted horror film became the movie event of the year and, yet, the film has failed to earn much more than $1 million at the domestic box-office. That’s because the film (released by A24) isn’t a typical mainstream movie and needs to be handled with care. A24 hasn’t been able to properly understand the best way to market this masterpiece except to say they may be waiting for Rose Byrne to officially get her Oscar nomination to launch a fully loaded ad campaign for the movie. It’s hard to compare the other pictures that were released this year to If I Had Legs I’d Kick You because they may pale in comparison. In coming up with a ten best list, I’ve honored the craftsmanship of Byrne’s movie which was directed by Mary Bronstein. These runner-ups to If I Had Legs I’d Kick You all represented brave ideas for films which triumphed against the odds and each movie that is mentioned on this top 10 list officially broke new boundaries and showed what the cinematic experience can be like at its most emotional, intense and powerful. Folks, here are the ten best movies of 2025.
Thomas Duffy’s Top 10 Films of 2025
10. The Voice of Hind Rajab
When one watches the precision and intensity found in the tightly edited masterpiece, The Voice of Hind Rajab, it is easy to admire the craftsmanship that went into the volatile project. This film centers on the killing of a young six-year old Palestinian girl in Gaza whose last moments alive are shared with the Red Crescent rescue team which carefully tries to come up with a strategy to save her life by employing an ambulance to help her before she dies. This young girl’s name was Hind Rajab and she was in a car with her dead family members, holding on to her life and hoping someone would come to her aid before it was too late. What is essentially the story of a few people gathering together in an attempt to save the young girl’s life, director Kaouther Ben Hania goes in on this project with careful construction and terrific acting by the small cast of characters (arguably led by the great Saja Kilani). With real life footage and sound recordings employed in the story, imagine a topic so terrifying that it could unite different types of passionate people who come together for the common cause to preserve human life. This movie doesn’t ever take a single risk that doesn’t pay off emotionally as it proves the power of a genuinely moving cause as a very, very thin line is walked on throughout. This is great film-making in motion.
9. Materialists
The best performance in director Celine Song’s follow-up to Past Lives, Materialists, may be that of one of its supporting actresses, Zoe Winters. She plays a woman who gets involved with a bad guy through the New York dating agency run by the character played by Dakota Johnson. Winters has but a few scenes, yet she owns them ever so well. Johnson’s love triangle in the picture is between her character and the characters played by Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. Johnson is the quintessential matchmaker whose career is built on finding successful matches as she, herself, can’t seem to connect with the right man on her own accord. Exploring the lives of a rich man, a poor man and a woman who financially falls somewhere in-between, Materialists is complex and daring. Chris Evans is believable as Pascal brings dignity and compassion to his own particular and intriguing role in the film. Between Johnson and Winters’s collective work, Materialists is the most digestible romance movie of the year and is a true winner in every respect.
8. Hamnet
Don’t look any further for the year’s most cultured view on the delicacy of the human condition. Jessie Buckley is amazing as Agnes, William Shakespeare’s lover. Paul Mescal brilliantly assumed the role of the bard, William Shakespeare, himself here with magnificent results. Jacobi Jupe in the title role of Hamnet, the young son of William and Agnes, was so heartbreaking and convincing that he, himself, is a true up-and-coming star. This film explored the tragic death of Hamnet which inspired the all-time great Shakespeare play, Hamlet. Buckley’s emotionally charged performance helps navigate the timeless themes of passion and love in such a way that this picture will be an unforgettable experience for anyone bringing their own personal lives and emotions into watching the film. This movie will have audiences searching their souls to find their own answers in regards to life and death and what it all means as well as pondering how art influences life and vice versa. This is truly moving film-making in motion and the picture is masterful and awe-inspiring to behold.
7. The Chronology of Water
Director Kristen Stewart’s cinematic gem, The Chronology of Water, drives home the point of how trauma influences life and art. Commandeered by Imogen Poots’ towering, Oscar-nomination worthy performance as the lead character, Lidia, a swimmer, an artist and a survivor of abuse, this film never rings false with its haunting moments of truth. You may think you’ve seen a tale of an emotionally and physically abused woman before, but you’ve never witnessed it the fascinating way Stewart’s film presents it. In a tense and unnerving manner, Poots digs deep inside her character and comes up with a remarkable portrait of pain that shows how coping mechanisms can help give a woman the willpower to live and triumph against all odds. With fine turns by Thora Birch and, especially, Jim Belushi as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author, Ken Kesey, the acting is of the highest caliber here, making the final results all the more haunting and all the more authentic to experience.
6. Sinners
It would be impossible to imagine a vampire movie any more satisfying than the one displayed in the box-office triumph, Sinners. Sinners doesn’t stop at being simply a vampire movie, though. It’s about two brothers, Smoke and Stack (both played to perfection by Michael B. Jordan) and their different ways of life and unique methods of expressing themselves. Through their relationships with women and their bond with each other, we see how their lives connect and fall apart due to the events that transpire in the thrilling film. The last scene which takes place during the end credits is so pivotal to understanding the movie’s message of the power of life and director Ryan Coogler wisely keeps the movie fast-paced and totally intense all the way through. Don’t invite the vampires in or else. That advice is thwarted by some of the characters here who suffer the consequences of their actions and the actions of others. If one movie has a definite shot at the Oscar for Best Picture this year besides the critical darling, One Battle After Another, it’s the totally energetic and brilliant film which dares to defy exclusive categorization, Sinners.
5. F1: The Movie
A summer blockbuster with a dramatic edge and a great music score is F1: The Movie. Brad Pitt delivered the performance that will define the latter half of his distinguished career. Director Joseph Kosinski takes the viewer inside the world of a Formula 1 race car driver who is trying his hand at a new shot at glory. With great supporting turns by Kerry Condon, Damson Idris and Javier Bardem, we’re drawn into that driver, Sonny Hayes (Pitt)’s life. His career triumphs and downfalls become the viewer’s own as well as audiences root for him to go all the way in a race that defies expectations. The race car scenes are of the most impressive quality and are, in two words, relentlessly entertaining. There is not a dull moment in this two and a half hour-plus movie. It’s an action film and a human film with Hayes displaying his moments of humanity in addition to his exclusive skill sets which take center stage on the race track. This is what going to the movies is all about.
4. Anniversary
This is the movie that they didn’t want you to see. It got buried with a minimal theatrical release, but Anniversary is a masterful work of art of the highest caliber. Phoebe Dynevor plays the creator of a movement called The Change which is implemented into a society which becomes frighteningly dangerous to exist in. Diane Lane and Kyle Chandler play the parents of Dynevor’s character’s husband, played by Dylan O’Brien. All the grown kids of Lane and Chandler’s characters suffer as the plot unveils its harrowing plot details one at a time in a probing manner. There is not a false note in any of the supporting performances, which includes a solid turn by Zoey Deutch. This is a film about what happens when society is not careful in terms of trying to make the changes in the country that it thinks it wants. This film may have been buried by other films and gotten lost in the shuffle, but after viewing it, it’s impossible to shake from one’s mind. This is the type of movie that stays with the viewer for months or even years. It begs to ask the questions we don’t want to ask about ourselves, our country and, yes, even our own families. What a masterwork from director Jan Komasa.
3. Nouvelle Vague
Zoey Deutch is Jean Seberg, the star of the new wave film Breathless from the early 1960’s, in Richard Linklater’s perfectly made black and white love letter to the craft of film-making, Nouvelle Vague. Guillaume Marbeck becomes director Jean-Luc Godard, a passionate film critic who has a knack for coming up with his own particular film-making methods that take on hilarious aspects of the very funny new Linklater picture. Deutch is the star of the film in many ways as her radiance sparkles. Marbeck is nothing short of exquisite in his own role to boot. As the movie shows us so many images of people involved in the craft of movie-making back in the era, Nouvelle Vague is informative and hugely entertaining to watch in every way. Imagine an Ed Wood with talent and you get an idea of just how passionate Godard was and how his leading lady, Seberg, inspired him to create one of the most definitive movies of its time. Linklater is a genius for bringing this humorous and compelling movie to the screen which is simply delightful from its opening scene all the way to its closing one. This movie is on Netflix and demands to be seen.
2. Marty Supreme
Forget everything you know about film-making and sit back and relax when you watch the intense Marty Supreme. Timothée Chalamet owns the screen in every way imaginable in the best leading male performance of the year. As the title character, a table tennis player on a mission to be the best, Chalamet sinks his teeth into his desperate and talented character in a riveting way that makes this movie a picture to be reckoned with. Directed by Josh Safdie, the movie moves at a crackerjack pace with three phenomenal supporting turns by Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion and Abel Ferrara. Fran Drescher even impresses as Chalamet’s character’s mom. This is the type of movie Scorsese could have made in his day only more in the style of the terrific Safdie who ever since Uncut Gems has proven his ability to tell truly wired stories about men on the edge. Chalamet never lets up and will have audiences rooting for him as he makes mistakes that could have viewers shouting at his character and telling him what to do. Aren’t those the best kind of movies? Those films which engage the audience and should be experienced with an audience. That’s just what this picture is at its core. If you think it’s just about table tennis, it’s definitely not. There’s so much going on here, there’s bound to be something to appeal to any and every movie-goer.
1. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Rose Byrne pretty much, arguably, gave the only performance worthy of a lengthy standing ovation this year. At this year’s New York Film Festival screening I attended, Byrne received a standing ovation for her powerful and disturbing work in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Director Mary Bronstein worked with Byrne so well that the actress runs away with this movie, leaving everyone else in the movie trying to catch up to her. Christian Slater as her character’s husband cannot keep up with her as she tries to raise her daughter after having to move out of her home when a huge hole in the ceiling appears. Byrne’s best scene comes in a support group of other grieving mothers where Byrne tells the other moms that it is their fault they’re there. Byrne’s raw and unrelenting turn here can remind one of great cinematic performances like Natalie Portman’s in Black Swan, but Byrne is in a category all her own here. Let’s not forget Conan O’Brien as the therapist who tries to help Byrne’s character find sanity in her insane life. O’Brien is a gem to watch as he plays a part completely different from his television persona. A24 needs to re-release If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and put it out widely in order to see if audiences can discover the movie that Byrne sets the acting standard with. She raises the bar so high that it’s doubtful anyone will reach the height of that bar any time soon in the immediate future. This is the type of film that makes movies worth watching.
Look for reviews of more of the new releases of 2025, including an upcoming review of Avatar: Fire and Ash tomorrow. 2025 was a year in film like no other and it will only get better if the film-making experience has truly evolved like this year suggests it has and stays like this. We are where we need to be “at” in order to be at the highest point movies can exist. There are no limits as to what can be done and the filmmakers of “now” continue to impress greatly. I look forward to 2026 with great anticipation.
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