Nathaniel's "Best" of 2025 (Part 2)

by Nathaniel R

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS

Consider today's list of abundance a sequel to Tuesday's overflowing cup of film joy. We previously covered honorable mentions which featured films from Brazil, Argentina, France, Vietnam, the American indie scene and Hollywood. Today we move on to the cream of the crop. Herewith a baker's favourite dozen films of the year. I heartly recommend seeing each and every one of them.

My absolute favourites of the year proved to be largely contemporary pictures coincidentally set in the only two countries I happen to have ever lived in: the US and Norway. The latter country arguably had their best film year ever with not one but five multiple award-winning pictures (Sentimental Value, The Ugly Stepsister, Dreams, Sex, Love) in international release. That said, this best / favourite list cannot be so easily pinned down to two countries in the present day. The best movies of 2025 transcend time and place just like that phenomenal "I Lied to You" sequence in Sinners, to include turn of the century England (17th century to be precise), the Jim Crow era South (rural Mississippi in October of 1932 to be exact), and the corner of 42nd and Madison here in New York City... albeit in some alternate universe where it's both now and also the 1960s. Aside from those detours and contemporary peaks at life and lives in the US, UK, and Norway, this list runs through a bustling night market in Taiwan, and holds tight to a dream home in South Korea that is really far more than its owners can responsibly afford.  Let's go to the movies...

Runners Up.
ThisClose to the Top Ten List

PILLION © A24

The basic rule for "runner up" as opposite to "honorable mention" is that I feel actual guilt about not having them in the top ten list and can easily imagine them being there in a different year. These movies are fabulous. I hate to contradict Cady in Mean Girls but "the limit DOES exist."  

PILLION (Harry Lighton, UK)
Qualifying Only. A24. 107 minutes

To be honest I don't think there's anything about this particular movie -- other than the idea of Alexander Skarsgard as a living breathing sexual fantasy-- that should work. And yet! Writer/director Lighton performs some kind of crazy alchemy here marrying the seemingly anti-romantic hierarchies of master and servant / dominant and submissive -- at least for those on that outside of that niche community -- to the sex comedy, and more tantalizingly the romantic drama. For all of the movies shock value (for sex tourists) it also contains a genuinely interesting journey to self-awareness via Harry Melling's leading performance and the movies zero-judgments point of view. Marvelous and one-of-a-kind.

SINNERS © Warner Bros

SINNERS (Ryan Coogler, US)
April 18. Warner Bros. 137 minutes

What is there left to say about Coogler's hugely popular genre fusion that hasn't been said? While I wouldn't take a wooden stake to the heart for it as so many of its most ardent fans would, there sure is a lot that's special. The tagline "It's gonna be a real ring-a-ding-ding!" is most true for its middle hour (after the long set up and before the protracted endings) when Coogler, his actors, the thematic concerns, and the incredible craftsmanship in music, costumes, and sets finally come together to make this night feel thrillingly alive despite all of the dying. 

NATHANIEL'S TOP TEN 
(alpha order but read on for more about rankings...)

 THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS © Disney / Marvel

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS  Matt Shankman, US.
July 25. Disney / Marvel Studios. 115 minutes.

After six or so years of decreasing returns and often generic superhero pictures, the world finally got an example of a genuine point of view again. It's been since Black Panther, really! A better comparison might be WandaVision since that project shares a director (Matt Shakman) and an equally specific 'take' on the overpopulated genre. I approached it with caution (this is the fourth attempt at Marvel's "First Family"!) but was quickly won over by its ace visual and aural craftmanship, and it's emphasis on strategy over might and its melancholy conflicts between familial bonds and societal responsibility. But mostly I felt like a kid again devouring comic books with a hunger not unlike Galactus for juicy planets. The giddiness survived a second viewing too. Maybe I just needed fundamentally decent heroes to root for again? 

 

HAMNET Chloe Zhao, UK.
Nov 26. Focus Features. 125 minutes.

This superb drama of grief and creativity features a kind of pagan spirituality in perfect harmony with its more cerebral interiority. You can feel the dirt under Agnes fingernails, the ache of 17th century labor just as clearly as you can feel the majesty of the physical earth, and the mystery and divine inspiration of the creative mind. Zhao's gorgeously linear take on Maggie O'Hara's non linear poetic prose is perpetually stirring. With each scene it builds towards the finale's transcendent even operatic grandeur extolling the power of art to reshape and reflect our lives. Hamnet provides the year's most traditionally satisfying emotional catharsis. 

LEFT-HANDED GIRL © Netflix

LEFT-HANDED GIRL (Tsih ShihChung, Taiwan)
Nov 14. Netflix. 108 minutes 

What a gift to see Sean Baker's producer soar in her own solo directorial debut (Baker is in the editing bay) While the running time and narrative focus are both tight (bless) suggesting a highly controlled vision, there's a wonderful sense of chaotic looseness throughout in performance, visuals and story beats as if anything might happen despite so little variance in each tough day for the impoverished central family (mom, teenage daughter, and precocious five year old sister). That kind of energy is fitting given the often child's eye point of view as little I-Jing (adorable Nina Ye, fantastic as the titular character) tears through Taipei's night market with naughty and feral abandon. It all comes together explosively at an angry extended family dinner. The disarming happy coda is its sweet and playful desert. 

 images from LOVE, DREAMS, and SEX © Strand Releasing

LOVE | SEX | DREAMS (Dag Johan Haugerud, Norway)
April-July-September. Strand Releasing. 119-118-110 minutes

When I first heard about Haugerud's "Oslo Trilogy" I thought the tag bordered on blasphemy. The Oslo Trilogy is Joachim Trier's thing (Reprise, Oslo August 31, Worst Person in the World)!!! But 2025 was a year of abundance (in cinema at least) and we are now blessed with another rising Norwegian auteur with big ideas. The comparisons thankfully end there as Haugerud is a totally different filmmaker in temperament, thematic approach, and visual style. I quickly forgot my reservations as I became emotionally invested in several citizens of Oslo like a single urologist who begins to rethink her romantic wariness after befriending a gay co-worker  (Love), two heterosexual married chimney sweeps puzzled by their recent feelings  (Sex) and three generations of female writers (Dreams) grappling with the extent of the youngest's relationship with her teacher. These characters and their various social circles share secrets, contemplate life, confide in and question one another's beliefs, and reel from their experiences, preconceptions, and reactions to  love, sex, and dreams. You can (almost) interchange the titles hence their subheader titles each of them listing the other two i.e. Dreams (Love, Sex). While Love is the most emotionally satisfying, Sex the most intellectually fascinating, and Dreams the most provocative, together they amount to a major humanist triumph. To quote a famous song: What the world needs know is love.... (and sex and dreams). This trilogy took up more mental space for this cinephile than any single film in 2025, the films gaining strength from their close proximity (though they don't share characters) as reflections, echoes, departures, and variations on a theme. 

A NICE INDIAN BOY © Blue Harbor

A NICE INDIAN BOY (Roshan Sethi, US)
April 6. Blue Harbor. 96 minutes

Sethi struck romantic dramedy gold by pairing the world's most adorably earnest Broadway star (Jonathan Groff) with his own husband and regular leading man (Karan Soni). Their onscreen odd couple romance has just the right balance of laughs, conflict, hesitancy, confusion, and emotional punch. Was there a leak in my ceiling? Oh, no, Nathaniel, those were just happy tears. So this is what a gay romantic movie looks like when it's utterly free of cynicism while still acknowledging the cultural, romantic, homophobic or familial difficulties couples can face? A second viewing confirmed that it will likely be a future perennial comfort film. I loved every minute of its gloriously tight running time. 

NO OTHER CHOICE © NEON

NO OTHER CHOICE (Park Chan-wook, South Korea)
Dec 25. NEON. 139 minutes 

There's no suspense as to my Gold Medal this year if you've been reading along. Park Chan-wook's latest twisty, hilarious, provocative, visually exciting, and clever thriller is about the manager of a "specialty paper" factory who is suddenly laid off and confronted with his own obsolence. The dire lengths he will go to to regain his place in the lose-lose world of increasingly unhinged capitalism paired with the movies final stinger are as thematically unforgiving as they are narratively exciting. It's all anchored by a never better Lee Byung-hun in a performance of incredible spontaneity and tonal range. When the movie ended -- I saw this one alone -- my face was hurting; I realized I'd been watching the whole thing with ever widening eyes and a huge giddy smile. Cinema, in the hands of masters, is the greatest thing on earth. And speaking of...

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER © Warner Bros

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)
Sept 26. Warner Bros. 162 minutes 

P.T. Anderson has crafted the year's other juggling act of a masterpiece (and future Oscar winner). He keeps it ALL up in the air -- indelible characters, crazy good dialogue, physical comedy, in-the-moment political fury, biting satire, heightened absurdity, narrative twists, and violent setpieces --whizzing around each other for nearly three hours. And yet the movie absolutely flies by and never feels disjointed. It's perpetually riveting whether these characters are in the peaks or valleys of their dangerous stories. It's like you're inside one of those cars on the rolling hills in the movie's already legendary finale. You can never truly anticipate or prepare for what's waiting for you over the next horizon. 

ROOFMAN © Paramount

ROOFMAN (Derek Cianfrance, US)
Oct 10. Paramount. 126 minutes.

What a surprise! It's increasingly rare to discover a completely mainstream effort that is this well-judged, kind-hearted, and handsomely executed. Such a pity audiences didn't turn out in droves for it! Roofman never once feels effortful or self-important (therein surely lies its poor top ten list and awards season performance -- absolutely zero prestige vibes!) and yet Cianfrance's dramedy is actually doing a lot simultaneously. Consider how successful its world building is (the garish Toys R Us, the suburban mundanity, and the early Aughts period-work), tonal control (swerving through slapstick, heist / escape setpieces, and romantic comedy beats without once dropping the ball of its slow burn character arc. At the center is a dazzling career best star turn from Channing Tatum as a good hearted thief with impulse control problems and unrealized potential. Among the endearing ensemble, Kirsten Dunst shines brightest (this actress!) as the divorced mom that disrupts his vanishing act from society.

SENTIMENTAL VALUE © Neon

SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Joachim Trier, Norway)
Nov 7. NEON. 133 minutes 

While Joachim Trier broke out internationally in a very big way with his greatest film (Worst Person in the World, 2021) he was a special filmmaker from the jump. His career began with a jolt of hyperactive cinematic energy twenty years back with Reprise (2006) a film about best friends with twin ambitions to be celebrated novelists. After joyfully submitting their debut manuscripts together, one is instantly celebrated, the other rejected. The film follows their subsequent struggles with mental health, egos, creativity, suicide attempts, romantic relationships, and attempts at "comebacks". Twenty years later, in mature full circle effect, Trier is experiencing his biggest success with another film re-deploying this kit of parts though cinema and acting are now fused with writing to form a larger artistic milieu. While it would be reductive to claim this is all self-portraiture (a childless early thirties screenwriter making his first film vs the maturity of an early 50s auteur with his own young family and  celebrated filmography) it's also true that the most fascinating shift from his debut feature to his latest is that volatile friendships and immature relationships have been replaced by intricate histories, family trauma, and parent-child dynamics. While fully cinematic in execution, the scope and depth of Trier's films have always been novelistic. I iove to imagine he'll make dozens more to place on the shelf, building us a hyggelig Nordic library in the process.

TWINLESS © Roadside Attractions

TWINLESS (James Sweeney, US)
Sept 5. Lionsgate / Roadside Attractions. 100 minutes 

Sometimes a movie's true emotional power isn't felt while you're watching it, but in the way it lingers. When I first saw Sweeney's hyper-specific and wholly original indie I was fully engaged and left the theater with a simple uncomplicated "good movie" assessment. And then I went on with my day. But the slippery movie, about two lonely men who meet in a support group for people who've lost their twins and have to learn to live without their other half, just wouldn't leave my thoughts. For weeks afterwards I found myself pouring over key moments (particularly it's razor sharp structural gambits) and finely detailed characterizations, alongside its showiest triumph (Dylan O'Brien's incredible performance dexterity as two very different twins). I became more and more fascinated with how it reconfigures itself both during its running time AND later in memory. That shape shifting is not unlike what these lonely men awkwardly attempt, shifting to better fit the needs of the other. Months later I am embarrassed at that initially weak praise of "good movie". Nope, it's one of the very best of a great film year. i

 

Yes, this means the 26th annual Film Bitch Awards are now in full swing. The nominees have now been announced in 27 of our 42 categories. More to come...

Pg 1 - Picture, Director, Screenplay etc. All Nominees Announced!
Pg 2 - Best Casting announced -- Individual Acting Prizes TBA
Pg 3 - Visual Categories. All Nominees Announced!
Pg 4 - Sound and Music -- All Nominees Announced! 
Pg 5  -Best Ensemble & More Announced. Other "Extra" Acting Prizes TBA
Pg 6 - Best Screen Animal announced.  Other "Character" Prizes TBA
Pg 7 - Best Sex Scenes announced. Other "Scene" Prizes TBA