Top 5 films I saw in 2025

2025 is behind us, and it felt like a weird year for movies. I saw so many solid movies that it was tough to narrow a top 5 down, but none really jumped out like in 2024's list. Still there were some great films that still are with me.

All About My Mother

All About My Mother tells stories of people who live through the worst of life and choose to live again rather than shrink into loneliness. It's soft and colorful and full of hope. In the midst of unrelenting pain All About My Mother somehow captures all the beautiful things we are desperate for.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

I never thought a new Star Wars film would be in my top 5 of 2025, but Rogue One as the finale to Andor is that good. It's a story of true rebels in a Star Wars universe, those without superpowers who risk everything for a cause to fight for. The trope has been so unrelenting in modern cinema it's easy to become cynical about it, but Rogue One managed to reignite my romance for it again.

The Long Walk

This is a movie about brotherhood, not just between the two leads but all the boys who walk. The Long Walk is an unflinchingly honest look at the insecurities and flaws that make a man, from the boy desperate for a friend to the one who realizes too late he wanted the wrong things.

Her

There is no Judgement in Her of the relationship between the man who even in profound loneliness can't open himself to the pain of another relationship and his computer. It unravels gently and shows to want to live is to open us to that pain; there is no escaping it.

Nomadland

I saw this towards the start of 2025 and it's stayed with me even now. Nomadland is the story of a woman and of people who don't feel they belong anywhere, so they wander and find home with each other. It never glamorizes this life, neither does it judge them. It's a naked lens into their lives and it's captivating.