The Best Movies and Performances of 2025

Just what everyone wants 2 months after the Oscars: another film lover's top movies and performances of the year! 2025 was a terrific year for cinema, and almost as good at the Oscars themselves. We had major horror successes, PT Anderson's best film since There Will Be Blood, new nomination records, a passionate Quaker musical, and an exquisite film that reminded us of the vitality and necessity of the medium. Follow along as I share some favourites from 2025.

Note: my list, my rules. There are times when 5 nominees is just right and times when it feels limiting and arbitrary. I admire and respect critics and cinephiles who refuse ties or hold at 5, I'm just not one of them. I also have 7 acting categories, the 4 we know and love + 2 Best Cameo/Limited Performance and Best Ensemble.

Best Supporting Actress 

Mariam Afshari, It was Just an Accident 

Glenn Close, Wake Up Dead Man*

Laura Dern, Is This Thing On?

Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value

Nina Hoss, Hedda

Amy Madigan, Weapons

For me, Close is a winner 37 years ago for her searing work in Dangerous Liaisons, and she earns a late career second award for her surprising, funny, heartfelt work in the third instalment of Rian Johnson's Knives Out movies. Afshari is a wonder in her role as a vengeful torture victim, Hoss offers more of her regal intelligence as Tessa Thompson's ex (and one of her many playthings), and Madigan plays her Oscar-winning witch as just imbalanced enough to be scary for every moment of her screentime. Elle Fanning and Laura Dern have kind of opposite assignments: Fanning has to layer her artifice with reality (or is it her reality with artifice?), while Dern is asked to offer years of pre-movie story. Both achieve their goals brilliantly and offer the best performances in their respective films (I said what I said). Fanning finds her way deep into this limited actress showing us the show and exposing the lost woman in over her head at the same time. Dern, also giving ace lived-in work in Jay Kelly, is richly layered as a divorcée finding her path.

Also great in 2025: Wunmi Mosaku's knowing Annie in Sinners, Gwyneth Paltrow's actress who sees through Marty's games and still goes along, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in Sentimental Value, Teyana Taylor's angry revolutionary, and Kirsten Dunst's weary mother hoping, but not certain, that the charmer is all he seems in the under-appreciated Roofman.

Best Original Screenplay

It Was Just an Accident*

The Secret Agent

Sinners

Sorry, Baby

Twinless

Jafar Panahi's morality tale of a day that suddenly shifts when a mechanic believes he has run across his torturer from an Iranian prison, and seeks out some of his fellow prisoners to figure out what to do (and see if he's right) is extraordinarily well written. Panahi captures the fear, rage, and uncertainty of his characters and gives us a difficult story that elides winners & losers or right & wrong to question and challenge his audience. All four fellow nominees avoid the easy route, actually, and all of their movies are richer for it.

Also great: Kelly Reichardt's "thriller" The Mastermind, Diego Cespédes's found queer/trans family in The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, and the very much blood familial tale of Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value. Mary Bronstein's screenplay for If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You is beautiful and heartbreaking even without its bold direction, and it's a shame it didn't garner more attention for her writing.

Best Cameo Actor

Luciano Chirolli, The Secret Agent

Billy Crudup, Jay Kelly*

Udo Kier, The Secret Agent

John Carroll Lynch, Sorry, Baby

William H. Macy, Train Dreams

The scorned friend of Clooney's youth is so well-played by the always engaging Billy Crudup, he's almost too obvious as a winner here. Crudup suggests all of the history the movie then takes pains to show us, but that doesn't detract from his excellent work. All the men here are win-worthy, especially the great character actor John Carroll Lynch having a sandwich with our lead.

Also great: dug Billy Magnussen's brief dumpee in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey and the wordless rival of Marty Mauser, Koto Kawaguchi.

Best Cameo Actress

Alice Carvalho, The Secret Agent*

Kerry Condon, Train Dreams

Gaby Hoffman, The Mastermind

Riley Keogh, Jay Kelly

Tania Maria, The Secret Agent

I know the last two are kind of a cheat, but I really wanted to celebrate their work. Alice Carvalho counters Luciano Chirolli's arrogance with intelligence and intensity and makes the most of her scene as Wagner Moura's wife. I just loved Condon's sweet work and thought Hoffman's pan rustling and knowing glances told so much story in her short appearance as an old friend of Josh O'Connor's.

Also loved: Thora Birch (another cheat) as Imogen Poots's sister in The Chronology of Water.

Best Documentary

Come See Me in the Good Light

My Undesirable Friends: part 1- Last Air in Moscow*

The Perfect Neighbor

Sly Lives!

The Tale of Silyan

Hard to argue with the urgency of Julia Loktev's stories of just before, and many many months after, Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The attempts to continue journalism and the constant reduction in safe places and safe people keep creeping in as the five-hour runtime proceeds. Honeyland's Tamara Kotevska continues her merging of documentary and narrative as we follow farmer Nikola Conev's bond with a stork while he struggles to keep his farm in The Tale of Silyan and Geeta Ghandbir haunts us with The Perfect Neighbor.

Best Non-English Language Film

Caught by the Tides

No Other Choice

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Resurrection

The Secret Agent*

The Tale of Silyan

I was mesmerized by Jia Zhang-ke's memory piece and the glorious world-making of Bi Gan's Resurrection. Kleber Mendonça Filho's grounded glance at 1970s Brazil and the world that has come of it really wowed me with its ability to make space for magical realism, and On Becoming a Guinea Fowl's painful secrets emerging as a family mourns were also highlights. I'm not his biggest fan, but Park Chan-wook's darkly hilarious No Other Choice surprised and delighted me.

Also loved: two TIFF greats, Renoir, by Plan 75's Chie Hayakawa, and As We Breathe, about a family's struggles while a chemical plant outside town burns. The tender Cactus Pears and the above mentioned 

It Was Just an Accident were also terrific.

Best Ensemble

Eephus

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

The Secret Agent*

Sentimental Value

Chase Infiniti is a helluva find, but for my money, the inaugural Best Casting Oscar should have gone to Gabriel Domingues. He not only casts his lead brilliantly and does excellent work with the major supporting players, but everyone brought into Marcelo's life or circling it, feels like a cross-section of Brazilian reality. Fear not that I'm confusing the awards, I just felt his work was worthy of a shout out as it leads us to the work of the excellent ensemble that exists in every moment of The Secret Agent. Colleagues, dinner companions, survivors, fellow regime escapees, all work as one to tell the expansive story of the movie they're in. Each of these does the same in time with their own films, from baseball dudes of all kinds to fractured families, and a more unified chosen one.

Also loved: It was so hard to leave out the excellent vampires, musicians, shopkeeps, and witches of Sinners and the strongly unified work of those that fled the wildfire and landed in FEMA trailers in Rebuilding.

Best Supporting Actor

Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another

Ralph Fiennes, 28 Years Later*

Delroy Lindo, Sinners

Archie Madakwe, The Lurker

Adam Sandler, Jay Kelly

Fiennes, still one of our finest (and finest) actors, is incredible as the exhausted Dr. Kelson, who is still working to understand the rage virus and its impacts. Lindo and del Toro both make the most of older, wiser characters far away from the fiery younger guys we've seen them play plenty. I think Adam Sandler has been funny in some Adam Sandler movies and pretty good-great in some NOT-Adam Sandler movies, but he's just terrific as Clooney's long-suffering agent trying to manage this appearance, the sudden trip shifts, his wife (the hilarious Greta Gerwig--- Greta, your movies rule, but do more acting! Please?), and a lot more. Sandler finds a much deeper humanity that clearly Baumbach helps bring out in him. The icky, insatiable, impossible-to-look-away from duet of The Lurker only works if Archie Madakwe is as maddening, generous, and desperate as he is against Théodore Pellerin.

Also loved: Alexander Skarsgard gives great dom, Andrew Scott suggests a ton of weariness that pre-dates this evening with his former writing partner, and Chris Evans is surprisingly soulful as a waiter looking for love.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Hedda

The Naked Gun

No Other Choice*

Train Dreams

Wake Up Dead Man

Walking a fine line, Park and his collaborators Lee Kyoung-mi, Jayhe Lee, and Don McKellar, craft a rich script with both some of the year's best dialogue and scene constructions. The Naked Gun (1988) is a tough movie to follow, especially almost 40 years later, but it has jokes & sight gags to beat the band without punching down *or* scolding, while following 2 other positively received films makes it a surprise that Johnson's third screenplay for Benoit Blanc's adventures is his best. Train Dreams is largely a visual wonder, but the adaptation choices enrich what's onscreen, and Nia Da Costa strengthens the Ibsen's humour and social commentary by updating the setting and making her lead Black and queer.

Also great: PTA's One Battle After Another and Chloe Zhao teaming with Maggie O'Farrell for Hamnet. Kristen Stewart's intense take on The Chronology of Water and Ira Sachs fascinating and being fascinated by Peter Hujar's Day.

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Nia Da Costa, Hedda

Kleber Mendonça Filho, The Secret Agent

Bi Gan, Resurrection*

Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident

What Bi Gan accomplishes in Resurrection is nothing short of a miracle. Visually inspired, heartfelt, earnest, and technically masterful. I was in awe from beginning to end. Da Costa plays into and with her lead's actions and manipulations, PTA gives us his brilliant scope and narrow focus constantly. Both Panahi and Filho have to make us sense the tension but not give into it, and both accomplish that beautifully.

Also loved: Jia's mesmerizing Caught by the Tides, Zhao's hypnotic Hamnet, Park's sense of humour in No Other Choice, and Trier's honesty in Sentimental Value. Kristen Stewart's direction of The Chronology of Water isn't new as much as it doesn't remind me of anyone else's work.

Best Actor

Lee Byung-hun, No Other Choice

Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon*

Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent

Dylan O'Brien, Twinless

Josh O'Connor, Wake Up Dead Man

Jesse Plemons, Bugonia

The delightfully verbose Ethan Hawke, who never seems to want anyone to make *that* big a deal about him, meets his match in the gregarious Lorenz Hart, forever seeking an audience for his exhausting disdain. Worse, he's often right in his observations. Hawke is masterful at playing Hart's need and self-awareness while still clinging to his worst tendencies. Extraordinary work. Moura and Plemons, in different ways, are the heart of their movies as their characters seek a specific kind of closure. O'Connor had another banner year, but his slightly lost priest is a highlight of his talent at being engaging and mysterious at the same time. Dylan O'Brien packs a great punch as the secretive twin and Lee Byung-hun is surprisingly grounding amid the chaos he's creating.

Also great: Josh O'Connor two more times, as a bewildered thief in The Mastermind and a quiet rancher in Rebuilding. Denzel Washington shows off his freestyle skill in another banger pairing with Spike Lee, Michael B. Jordan subtly but surely differentiates Smoke and Stack, Timothée Chalamet is enragingly winning in Marty Supreme, and Théodore Pellerin's intense eyes and insistent behaviour completes a duet in The Lurker. Stellan Skarsgard is wonderful as an egotist wondering why his daughters aren't that close to him.

Best Actress

Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You

Kathleen Chalfant, Familiar Touch

Jennifer Lawrence, Die My Love

Imogen Poots, The Chronology of Water*

Amanda Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee

Tessa Thompson, Hedda

No shade, but I had no idea Imogen Poots had this in her. She's unbelievable in KStew's feature debut, full of self loathing, anger, destruction, and hurt. An absolute force of nature. It was too hard to leave anyone off, from Buckley and Byrne's well-lauded, Oscar-faved turns, to Tessa Thompson reminding us of her strength at playing women who aren't to be fucked with, from Amanda Seyfried giving herself over to Mona Fastvold's vision, to Jennifer Lawrence offering her best work to date. And Kathleen Chalfant is heartbreaking as a successful woman who enters a care facility to treat her cognitive decline and chafes against it by reminding doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, and others of her intelligence and humanity.

Also great: there's still more! Eva Victor is excellent as a grad student facing the world & coping with her sexual assault, Renate Reinsve contends with panic, worry, and familial frustration brilliantly, Emma Stone shades her tough CEO better before she's kidnapped in Bugonia, but she remains such a great vessel for Lanthimos's style, and Tao Zhao gives a clinic in micro-expression acting in Caught by the Tides.

Best Picture

Hedda

One Battle After Another

Resurrection*

Sinners

Train Dreams

The brilliance of Bi Gan's Resurrection will be discussed for decades. This philosophical tour of the history of cinema welcomes its cinephile audience, but can also capture the casual viewer if they're willing to enter its world where dreaming has ceased, except for a few who continue the practice and are hunted for it. Resurrection takes us to one such fantasmer (as these deviant dreamers are known) and shows us the short films he is allowed before being killed by Shu Qi. Each reminds us of the beating heart it takes to create great cinema and is a moving love letter to the form, with gorgeous cinematography, exquisite design work, and one exceptional long take.

Each other film in this top five has its strengths and, in fact, would make a worthy number one. In different ways, they too are demonstrations of cinema's power and scope. Sinners explores the Jim Crow South with vampires, Black music as a unifying core, and differing racial interactions. One Battle After Another gives us a modern America that still is angry at its inability to control Black women and still has a revolutionary heart in many of its citizens. Train Dreams beautifully explores love, loss, and how to live a life. Hedda boldly repurposes Henrik Ibsen for 1950s UK sexual politics and academia.

Also great: from various places in my top 20, Eephus's belief in the power of baseball moved me to tears, I was shocked and wonderfully amused by Twinless, and adored observing Blue Moon's players. Caught by the Tides with its stillness and The Testament of Ann Lee with its constant motion both mesmerized. A glorious year for cinema!