A Round of Applause for 2025
At a time when cinemas (you remember those dark rooms that often smell like a mix of overly buttered popcorn and urine, with mostly comfy – sometimes not – seating, and giant screens that make a size 12 font look like the Hollywood sign?) are facing declining box offices largely attributed to the “Netflix effect”, my annual movie blog feels less called for than ever (which I hadn’t thought was possible). And yet, I prevail. Sure, I could cave and start adding movies I watched on planes or on my home television set (most likely distracted by the day’s Wordle or Connections), but unlike many, it would seem, I truly believe the act of going to a cinema is one of the most cathartic experiences available today.
And so, instead of adjusting the way I do my lists, I’m going to do something we’re all so good at nowadays: ask you all to change for the benefit of me. So before we get to the best (and worst) of 2025, here’s a not-so-subtle reminder of good cinema etiquette, in the hope that we can lure more people away from their distraction-filled home cinemas into what should be the silent, dark, and singular experience of movie watching.
Do not speak in a movie. This is not a sporty sports match/game/thingy where anyone has asked for a commentator. So don’t be one.
If you insist on eating or drinking in a cinema, please unwrap your chips/crisps, chocolates, candy, or choc tops before the movie commences. Or, at the very least, wait until a loud, Dolby-loving action scene to open them so that witty dialogue (similar to the top-shelf writing you’re getting in this blog) is not drowned out by the crumpling of your noisy items of mass mastication. Sidebar: if you’re going to see a live show, even if that theatre is selling food, DON’T BUY IT. Food does not belong in a theatre.
You don’t need to drink the last sip of your 2L sugar drink. You probably should have stopped drinking it 1.5L ago.
And finally, this one goes out to all the cinema houses and shopping centres out there: if your cinema has a car park, please provide a minimum of five hours of free parking to allow cinema-goers to enjoy the nostalgic joy of the classic “dinner and a movie” experience, without getting indigestion from having to eat food at the same speed we scroll social media at. Given restaurants and entertainment venues are basically keeping your shopping centres alive, it’s the least you can do.
Right, now that I’ve helped save the cinema-going experience for us all (go me), let’s get cracking on the films of 2025, which, surprisingly, was one of the most stable years of cinema I’ve seen since starting these reviews almost two decades ago. In fact, for the first time ever, EVERY movie I saw this year sat between 3 and 4.5 stars, meaning even the duds were mostly still entertaining popcorn fluff, and almost everything else was good, if not great.
But despite a high-quality year overall, there were only two movies that ascended into the ranks of great. The first, and hands down my favourite film of the year, was Ryan Coogler’s vampire masterpiece, Sinners. It’s often easy to underrate the “horror” genre, but for a film to come out in 2025, over 100 years since movie-making first began, and yet provide a highly original, thrilling, and socially pointed vampire movie that instantly supersedes almost all vampire films that have come before it cannot be understated. This movie is utterly remarkable on so many levels. From its slow, foreboding atmospheric build, to its stellar cast led by Michael B. Jordan in dual roles, and its oh-so-clever and expertly balanced social commentary, this film is a work of art. I only hope the upcoming awards season gives it the attention it deserves — because it deserves it all.
In close second place came a darling of last year’s awards season, but one that ultimately failed to convert many of its nominations into wins due to a swarm of controversy early in the year: Emilia Perez. Unlike Sinners, this is a flawed film. Some of the songs don’t land, the acting is a bit uneven, and there are certain storytelling elements I could have lived without. But the originality of this film is what elevated it to my second favourite film of the year. This movie shouldn’t exist. It’s a dark, legal, trans crime drama which also happens to be a musical. Yep. Let that sink in. And whilst it doesn’t quite nail any of its attempts seamlessly, it very nearly does — and that, to me, is a pretty remarkable achievement. So in spite of its flaws, and the controversy surrounding it, I was transfixed by this film. I very nearly bought a second ticket to watch it again straight after, just to better understand how and why it existed in the first place.
Rounding out the top three is a little more challenging this year, with a whopping 12 films all earning the solid “I loved it, but it didn’t change my world” rating of four stars. But sitting slightly ahead of the other 11 was the Rian Johnson Knives Out sequel, Wake Up Dead Man. This was easily my favourite in the franchise to date, mainly due to the enormously clever and rewarding whodunnit, and the exceptional cast, including Daniel Craig, Glenn Close, and Josh O’Connor, who may very well be becoming one of my new favourite actors after last year’s sterling Challengers and now this.
Other highlights of the year included the Wicked sequel For Good, which tried admirably to smooth over some of the flaws of the stage musical’s second act with a slightly better earned storyline; the captivating papal drama Conclave; and the other completely insane movie of the year that I suspect will sweep awards season — One Battle After Another. Other surprises included DC trumping Marvel with the best superhero movie of the year, Superman (they had me at the Clark and Lois ethics interview scene alone, which may very well have been my favourite scene of the year), and Disney Animation once again besting Pixar with the delightful Zootopia 2, sticking its landing far more successfully than the nearly great, but slightly lacking in conviction, Elio.
On the other end of the scale (albeit not a very large scale this year) were the perfectly fine, but fumbling on delivery, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and the amicable attempt to reboot the franchise, Jurassic World Rebirth. Both films were far from awful and still provided an entertaining escape from the real world, but I felt both had much more potential than what was delivered, and ultimately, in an above-average year, that’s all it took for them to end up on the bottom of the 2025 leaderboard.
Now, before I wrap up on 2025, I did want to jump back on my soapbox to whinge about three films that, whilst none were awful, received so much attention — whether due to budget, awards buzz, or because they happened to be the third attempt at a reboot in 20 years — that I just couldn’t let them slide without comment (well, I could have, but where would the fun be in that?).
The first was Marvel Studios’ very own attempt to finally bring their iconic superhero family to the big screen in Fantastic Four: First Steps. I’m putting it out there: other than the visual aesthetic of this film, I actually think this was the worst Fantastic Four film to date. And with two of the biggest Marvel films due in 2026 (Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday), I really hope Marvel takes a step back and spends time building its characters once more. With First Steps, it almost felt like there was no need to establish character because clearly we knew these characters from previous iterations. And whilst that’s true, this film felt incredibly hollow because of it.
Next up, The Brutalist. This one’s pretty simple. No film should ever be four hours long — particularly a film of this nature. My frustration with this film was that, for many, its length almost felt praised. But in reality, this is just really poor direction and editing. Now, if this film had shown some sense of restraint and had come in at least 1.5 hours shorter, then it might very well have been a masterpiece. But I refuse to praise it for failing one of the basics of movie-making: editing. And for making it near impossible to do the "dinner and movie" concept in under 5 hours. There's a reason this is cinema, and not a test match.
The same could also be said for the third film, Avatar: Fire and Ash. Look, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: these films are absolutely stunning to behold, and James Cameron should be incredibly proud of the visual world he has created. But there was zero need for this film to be over three hours long, particularly when you still end up with very little emotional connection to the characters or the world in which they exist. I will give this latest film some credit though, in that I did actually appreciate some of the themes of grief and loss and the way it handled them. For the first time in any Avatar film to date, I did have some emotional investment in a few of the characters. But after nine hours of screen time to get there, that’s not exactly what I’d call a win in storytelling.
And on that note, I’ll step off my soapbox, jump in my car, and head to the cinema — because 2026 awaits.