CREDIT (Clockwise from Top Left): Ketchup Entertainment; A24; Paramount Pictures; Warner Bros.

It was a great year at the movies in 2025, just as it was last year, and will be every year in the future as long as cinema continues to exist. Here are my 20 favorites, along with quick summations of why I would recommend them.

1. Sinners: This bloodthirsty masterpiece isn’t too scary for anybody. Instead, it’s revelatory for everybody.
2. The Naked Gun: If you love to laugh, you NEED to see this movie! Because 2025’s The Naked Gun insists that you must laugh as often as possible (much like all the other Naked Guns before it).
3. Weapons: If you love to laugh while being scared, you NEED to see this movie! Freaks assemble in Pennsylvania.
4. One Battle After Another: This is a thrilling and fascinatingly complicated story. It’s also pretty funny, even though I didn’t laugh once while watching it. Weirdly enough, though, that worked out just right.
5. Marty Supreme: The table tennis matches and the relationship dynamics are equally compelling. Which is to say, the entire movie is very compelling.
6. The Day the Earth Blew Up: If some movies are fantasies of how you hope life might turn out for the better, then I hope that Porky Pig and Daffy Duck are at the controls when the apocalypse arrives.
7. Bring Her Back: This is one of the most disturbing and unforgettable movies I’ve ever seen, and I find that richly rewarding.
8. The Luckiest Man in America: Paul Walter Hauser’s embodiment of the guy who broke Press Your Luck is un-look-away-able, with just the right dash of surreal.
9. Sentimental Value: This is a pretty straightforward tale of family dynamics (and showbiz), but I was kind of overwhelmed by how hard the conclusion hit me.
10. Highest 2 Lowest: If you love Maximalism & New York G-damn City, then this is the movie for you.
11. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You: This movie made me feel disoriented, in the most impressive way possible.
12. Blue Moon: If you want to see Ethan Hawke just eating an entire screenplay, then grab yourself a Blue Moon.
13. The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants: I’m here to report that there is still plenty of silly magic Alive + Ready 2 Go in Bikini Bottom!
14. Drop: This was basically the best real-time thriller of 2025. Wonderfully contrived!
15. Novocaine: A Star is Born, the pain-free version. Congratulations, Hollywood’s Good Boy.
16. Companion: If you want your robots horny and in control of their own destinies, then please go hand in hand with Companion.
17. One to One: John & Yoko: This is the sort of documentary that transports you back to an  earlier time and scrambles your brain into another dimension.
18. Oh, Hi!: Relationships are complicated when signals get mixed, and Oh, Hi! is a fun and thoughtful way of turning that situation into a movie.
19. KPop Demon Hunters: Catchy songs, eye-grabbing animation, emotionally resonant themes.
20. Spinal Tap II: The End Continues: The people behind this mock-rock-doc sequel are still experts at making us chortle. RIP Rob Reiner.