Best Of
The Best Movies of 2025
By Jordan A. · · Updated · 5 min read
2025 was the year the mid-budget original film came back, and it came back winning. The two most talked-about releases of the year were an original horror picture set in 1932 Mississippi and a three-hour Paul Thomas Anderson film loosely derived from a Pynchon novel. Neither is a sequel. Neither had a pre-existing audience.
Every film below was released in 2025. That is the only rule, and it is worth stating because these lists have a habit of padding themselves with older titles and with films that were announced and then never made. Where each streams changes month to month, so check the title page on BingeNext for current US options.
The two everyone argued about
Sinners was written, produced and directed by Ryan Coogler, with Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who return to the Jim Crow South in 1932 and open a juke joint. It is a horror film, a music film and a period drama in roughly equal measure, and the sequence at its center is the best-directed ten minutes of the year. Choose it if you want a film that is doing several things at once and lands all of them. It is genuinely frightening in the last act.
One Battle After Another is Paul Thomas Anderson working from Pynchon's Vineland, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro. It is an action comedy that keeps flipping into paranoia and back. It shares nothing with Sinners except ambition. Choose it if you like long films that trust you to keep up. Skip it if you want a plot you can summarize.
The best of the big releases
F1, directed by Joseph Kosinski with Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, is the most purely enjoyable thing on this list. It is a sports film with a completely predictable shape, executed with camera work that puts you inside the car. Choose it if you want a Sunday afternoon film that works on a big screen and does not require anything from you.
Superman, written and directed by James Gunn with David Corenswet, restarts the DC film universe and is far stranger and warmer than the marketing suggested. It shares F1's lack of cynicism.
Jurassic World Rebirth, from Gareth Edwards with a David Koepp script, is the seventh Jurassic film and the first in a long while that treats the animals as animals. Edwards is a director who understands scale better than almost anyone working, and the film is worth it for that alone.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is Christopher McQuarrie closing out the series. The set pieces are extraordinary and the connective tissue is heavy with ceremony. Choose it if you have been following since Ghost Protocol.
Horror had a very good year
Weapons was directed, written and co-scored by Zach Cregger, with Josh Brolin and Julia Garner leading an ensemble. It is structured as overlapping perspectives on the same disappearance, which is a real formal idea rather than a gimmick, and it is the scariest wide release of the year.
Frankenstein is Guillermo del Toro's version of the Mary Shelley novel, with Oscar Isaac as Victor and Jacob Elordi as the Creature. Del Toro has wanted to make this for thirty years and it shows in the design. It is more tragedy than horror. Choose it if you want the sad, gorgeous version.
Bugonia is Yorgos Lanthimos remaking the 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet!, with two men kidnapping a chief executive they are convinced is an alien. It shares Lanthimos's usual deadpan escalation and it is his most accessible film in years.
The quieter ones
Hamnet is Chloe Zhao adapting Maggie O'Farrell's novel about the death of Shakespeare's son and what his wife did with the grief. It is the most emotionally direct film on this list. Bring a handkerchief and mean it.
Train Dreams, directed by Clint Bentley from the Denis Johnson novella, with Joel Edgerton, follows an ordinary labourer through the American West across a lifetime. Almost nothing happens and it is one of the year's best.
Materialists is Celine Song's second film, with Dakota Johnson as a New York matchmaker caught between an ex and a wealthy client. It is a romantic comedy that is actually interested in money, which makes it much sharper than the genre usually allows.
Warfare, from Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, reconstructs one 2006 engagement after the Battle of Ramadi entirely from the memories of the men who were there. No score, no arc, no context. It is the hardest watch of the year and among the most impressive.
The one you did not expect
KPop Demon Hunters, from Sony Pictures Animation for Netflix, co-written and directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, became the most unavoidable film of the year mostly by word of mouth. The animation is inventive, the songs are genuinely good, and it is far better constructed than a novelty hit needs to be. Choose it if there are kids in the house, or if there are not.
Where to start
If you only watch one film from 2025, watch Sinners. If you want the most rewarding three hours, One Battle After Another. If you want something everyone in the room will enjoy, F1 or KPop Demon Hunters. If you want to be moved, Hamnet. If you want to be frightened, Weapons. And if you want to understand what the year was actually about, watch Sinners and Warfare back to back on a night when you have nothing early the next morning.
Narrowing a year of releases down to the two that suit you is the part nobody enjoys. BingeNext for movies takes a couple of films you already loved and returns a ranked shortlist, each pick carrying a one-line reason and where it streams. A run takes about a minute, and one pick a day is free without an account.
Topics covered: best-of, 2025, ranking, movies, cinema, blockbuster, indie
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and is responsible for every guide published on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu. Dates, season counts and where-to-watch details in these guides are checked against official sources before publishing, and corrections are welcome at Jordan@Bingenext.com.