Top 20 Movies of 2025

2025 was a terrible year.

Things haven't been great for a while, but after this past year, everything now feels like it's going to end up as part of the opening voice-over montage at the beginning of a movie, the one that explains how exactly it is that things got so fucked up, like in the beginning of The Road Warrior.

For reasons long forgotten two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked, but nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. Cities exploded — a whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men...

2025 was the time of The Wrath of white America.

Incensed by demands of equality from those who weren't white, cis-gendered, straight, and Christian, apoplectic with rage at the audacity of a Black man being made President not once, but twice, white America was "forced" to vote three times for a cruel, stupid, entitled, and lifelong inveterate bigot, serial rapist, grifter, and criminal, a man who bragged publicly about buying the Miss Teen USA pagent so that he could peep on naked teenage girls, and whose name appears in the Epstein Files more times than Harry Potter's name appears in those shitty books by that wizened old harridan of a terf. They had no other choice but to embrace and cheer on and raise up as President, a man who is perhaps the worst person to have ever been born, the laziest, the dumbest, the ugliest, the most venal and vidictive and preening and pathetic, a man who is not just the obvious end result of their toxic and rotten culture, the pus-filled boil on the ass of white America, but sadly, is also the most accurate representative of who they truly are as a people.

And now finally, after long years of just barely holding back the swell of white America's evil like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, after years of barely dodging the wild spray of their bullets and somehow managing to cling to the edge by our fingertips and eke out a win, momentarily stalling their villainy for just one more year, after years of knowing the cruel pain that Cassandra's curse inflicted upon her, the monsters have finally won. Trump is finally free to indulge in all the hate-filled fantasies that white America longed for, the very reason they voted for him three times. And it was all thanks to "good" white America's outright refusal to deal with, or even directly acknowledge, the problem festering in their own homes that is "bad" white America.

And in the space of a year or so, that culture of hatred, of xenophobia, of entitlement, of white nationalism and petty vindictiveness, of wild-eyed Christian zealotry, has effectively killed the economy. It has put violent masked gestapo on American streets. People have been disappeared. People have been murdered. And in broad daylight. They're effectively dismantling public education too, infecting what's left of it with their idiot mythology, with their fake history, with their poop-flecked raw milk and their horse dewormer and their refusal to vaccinate. They're busy rolling back every hard won environmental and consumer protection we've ever had, making our food, our jobs, and our products less safe and less reliable, leaving us with no available options for recourse when we're inevitably harmed. The reason Elon Musk weilded a chainsaw at their bigot convention is primarily because he is stupid, and terminally unfunny and uncool, but also because they mean to take us out at the knees, to hobble us forever.

And they're doing all of this, while also ensuring the climate crisis will only get worse. A looming threat as clear as a dark wall of storm clouds gathering on the horizon, they're ignoring it in favor of their own convenience and comfort. They're too busy burning the bones of the last couple Mass Extinction Events, all while the American south is getting hotter, with people literally frying on the sidewalks, California is on fire, Florida is sinking into the ocean to the point where you can't even buy home insurance anymore, and the Colorado river is very quickly drying up. But god damn it, they need those giant pickups to go get their groceries! This constant demand to always be first is also why they continue to ignore the on-going COVID pandemic too, as well as the lingering effects of Long COVID, as the perceived imposition on their privilege during those initial days was an insult they were not willing to ever let slide again. Now, in response, their celebrated snakeoil salesmen have injected their entitled ignorance into every facet of public heatlh, creating new pandemics, and bringing diseases back from the brink of extinction.

And this is on top of the fact that they have also destroyed the main agriculture markets, most likely for good too, burning massive piles of reliable revenue out of pure racism. They're causing rural hospitals to shut down as well, also most likely for good. This, when coupled with the ignorance, isolation, and lack of culture and opportunities that make these rural areas generally unappealing for businesses, as well as any incoming workers, has killed off local industries, and all while their racism choked off the only actually competant available workforce too, the people who they villify and gleefully kidnap, to send off to their concentration camps. It's a series of moves which are not only stunningly stupid, cruel, and short-sighted, but have all but guaranteed that these small towns–these storied havens of the "real" America they claim to love, the places that they make all their crappy music and tv shows about, where many of the people who are directly responsible for installing this regime actually live–will eventually dry up and blow away. This is an ending that is becoming all the more likely as they wreck distribution networks, not just across the country, but around the globe, yet another situation that is probably for good too, due to all the good will they have shattered.

So here we are, increasingly isolated both at home and abroad, as our aging infrastructure and institutions crumble. There's no money to make, or to spend, and no food or gas or goods to spend it on, and all as resources shrink, and prices, ignorance, tempers, and temperatures all rise. In just a year, white America, driven by bigoted vendettas against a world where they are not the center of all things at all times, have taken an imperfect country, along with any and all efforts to make it better, and they have flushed it down the tubes, and all without offering a single idea of their own on how to improve people's lives after all of this either.

Not a one.

In just a single year, we are now stumbling headlong towards a very likely future where everything is on fire, and there's no water left to put out the flames.

And in the light of all of this, what did white America do?

They started a new war.

The people that the overwhelming majority of white America deliberately voted for, specifically because of their platform of hate, have thrown us into a quagmire. The unqualified bigots they have always rallied behind, their Pedo God-Kings, all those covetous idiots, those bitter little wannabes, those angry weaklings, all of the usual creeps, Nazis, and bigots that they love, now, due to substance abuse issues, due to mountains of insecurites, due to open greed and hatreds, and of course, the whims of their corporate masters, they are grinding our society to a halt.

Without fuel they were nothing. They'd built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped.

Those assholes and Nazis and bigots seemed to believe that they were going to waltz into the graveyard of empires, drop a few bombs, and then walk away from the explosions in slow motion as they put on their sunglasses. They started a war because it made them feel big and tough, and also because they hate brown people that much. Instead, their noses were bloodied almost immediately, and now they are desperate and looking for a way out. They're throwing fits on tv, wild-eyed, the panic crackling at the edges of their angry recriminations, all lying, and seemingly without thought, don't believe what you're lying eyes tell you, soaked in flop sweat, as we watch them realize in real time that it's actually only chickens coming home to roost, instead of the tickertape parades, big statues, and the handjobs from hot ladies that they were expecting.

And now, as it gets worse... and it will only get worse, as the ramifications of their idiot actions pile up... the worst part is knowing that these assholes are only going to get worse too. Soon enough, as history consistently shows, they will lash out, at us, at Cuba, at anyone they think they can easily brutalize, because hurting others is all they know how to do, it's all their culture has ever taught them to do. It's why their eager Brownshirts are patrolling our airports now, this is our punishment for witnessing their absolute ineptitude. Look what we made them do, they scream from the seat of power, where they control all the levers.

They are a people of staggeringly monstrous inhumanity.

All of which was heralded by their immediate crossed-arms refusal to wear a simple mask in a time of sickness. All of which was foreshadowed by the fact that when they were asked to care about other people, the tiny inconvenience of having to do that, the momentary discomfort that came with having to consider others, the brief glimpse of how standing up for your principles means being othered by their fellow white people, means discomfort, means that not everyone will like you, turned out to be more than enough to send them running to the polls en masse, to cast their vote for the 3rd time for Trump, for them to declare in one loud voice: "Care about others? Fuck you!"

And before you get all upset, you should understand, I know what I'm talking about. I grew up there, fully white, but just brown enough to notice. An insider who is always an outsider. One of the good ones, once they figure out what I am. So, yeah, I know these people. I'm from there. I've heard the way they talk when they forget for a moment that I'm not actually one of them, and I've heard the way they talk when they inevitably remember. I've learned the lessons that were shown to me over and over throughout my lifetime, so believe me, this is a foundational. It's deeply entangled in their culture. Bone-deep. Instinctual. Autonomic, as they say. Watch for it. Watch how it geysers forth at the merest of scratches. Watch the reaction when a "non-traditional" family (meaning: not white, not straight, not Christian) is featured in a cereal commercial. Watch their reaction to a POC actor getting a sci-fi/fantasy role that's otherwise always been a white role. Watch how they act whenever a POC woman happens to beats a white woman at some sport they've spent their whole lives otherwise not giving a shit about. Then... if you can actually find a real life example of it... watch the reaction when it's a transwoman. Honestly, take a look at how some of the members of Team USA acted during the World Baseball Championship, after they received their silver medals following their loss to Venezuela (a well-deserved loss after the U.S.'s recent illegal invasion of Venezuala, a move that the assholes in power clearly believed was an indication of how things would go in Iran). And then after all that, realize: We raised them to be that way. That's our culture.

And that... was 2025.

"Yes, but how was the band, Mr. Astor?"

You're right. I apologize for wandering off subject. I tend to rant when allowed. And we're here to talk about movies, right? Art. Escapism. Let's just let the band play on, shall we? Pay no heed to that increasing slant in the floor, or the steadily creeping rise of the waters. After all, the Oscars have come and gone, it's well past time that I post my favorite movie list.

Overall, the night went pretty much as I expected. I wanted Sinners to win, but I assumed One Battle After Another would, and most likely for all the reasons I've gone into in my reviews. That said, Michael B. Jordan absolutely deserved his win. No one else in that category was even close. Same with Jessie Buckley. She was the clear winner. I loved seeing Amy Madigan win for Weapons. It's always nice to see someone get some well-deserved accolades for an iconic role. And even though I have not yet seen the third Avatar, and even though I know that it is probably technically deserved, I still disapprove of that franchise winning anything, because... (extended fart noise).

So, basically... the Oscars went about as I was expecting.

Honestly, only Sean Penn's win was a surprise. He was good, of course, but I thought that maybe because his performance accidentally seemed too close to being Greg Bovino, that the bad taste of that would hurt his chances, but I guess not. I had assumed that this year's Best Supporting Actor category was going to be a three-way race for what basically amounted to a lifetime achievement award between Penn, Skarsgaard, and Delroy Lindo. I assumed that the question here wasn't so much whether or not they were specifically great in the specific role they were nomiated for (which they were), but that it would be more about the fact that they have all had long careers, they're all very good at what they do, they're all very talented, and they are all still well-liked, so the Oscar would really be more about acknowledging that. It's basically why Jamie Lee Curtis won three years ago. It's a thing that's always been true. The Oscars are always either paying someone back who lost once and time has since shown that they should've won, or it's rewarding someone who's simply been around for a long time. And if that was going to be the case here, I assumed the award would go to Skarsgaard, mostly because Penn has always hated Hollywood and Hollywood really hates that, and of course, Lindo is black, and Hollywood is super racist, so... yeah, I was surprised when it went to Penn. Maybe he got it because he reminded Hollywood of Greg Bovino so much, and they just really liked seeing an unintentional simulacrum of the littlest Nazi get the comeuppance that neither the real life version, not the rest of the Trump administration, will ever get maybe? Who knows.

Either way, for me, the Oscars are the official final nail in the coffin of the year. Goodbye 2025. Good riddance. 2026 already can't be done soon enough.

So what about me, you ask? What were my favorite movies of the year? Isn't that what this whole post was supposed to be about, Jon, you maudlin, overly-verbose son of a bitch?

That's a fair point.

All right, so...

My Favorite Movies of 2025

1. Sinners: The story of Smoke and Stack, twin brothers who return to their hometown in 1930s Mississippi, looking to open a juke joint and to start a new life, only to realize that there is more than one kind of evil in this world, and it all wants to spill their blood.
2. 28 Years Later: Three decades after the Rage Virus escaped from a bio-weapons lab, spreading its uncontrollably violent infection like a wildfire through the people of Great Britain, there are still those who are living within the island’s quarantine zone, uninfected, and trying to stay that way. When a young boy decides to leave his community and journey into the dark heart of the country that was once known as England, he is unprepared for what he finds waiting there for him…
3. Black Bag: When his beloved wife, Kathryn, is suspected of betraying King and country, intelligence agent George Woodhouse faces the ultimate test... loyalty to his marriage or loyalty to his nation.
4. Hamnet: After losing their son Hamnet to plague, Agnes and William Shakespeare grapple with their grief in 16th-century England.
5. Weapons: When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanishes on the same night, and at exactly the same time, a small community is left questioning who or what exactly is behind their disappearance.
6. The Secret Agent: On the run, after becoming the target of a violent dictatorship, a man attempts to flee persecution by the authoritarian regime that rules Brazi.
7. Sentimental Value: After their mother's death, sisters Nora and Agnes reconnect with their estranged film director father, Gustav, and he offers Nora a role in his new film. She refuses, so he casts an American star instead, causing the family to finally confront the issues of their past.
8. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery: A baffling death inside a quiet church draws Benoit Blanc into a tense investigation where faith, secrets, and suspicion blur, as the congregation turns against itself.
9. One Battle After Another: Bob is a washed-up old revolutionary who lives in a state of stoned paranoia, surviving off-grid with his head-strong daughter, Willa. But when his evil nemesis resurfaces and Willa goes missing, the former radical is forced to reengage with a world that he left behind long ago, so that he can find her before the sins of his past are visited upon her future.
10. Bugonia: Two conspiracy theorists kidnap the CEO of a pharmaceutical conglomerate, believing that she is an alien who is planning to destroy Earth.
11. Frankenstein: A brilliant scientist, driven to madness, obsessed with the question of death, brings a monstrous creature to life in an act of selfishness that will ultimately lead to both of their undoings.
12. Fantastic Four: First Steps: Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the Thing must defend the Earth from total annihilation, after the Silver Surfer appears out of the darkness of space, and announces the imminent arrival of Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds.
13. Superman: When Superman is drawn into conflicts both at home and abroad, the world questions not just his actions, but his character, giving the ruthless tech billionaire Lex Luthor the opportunity to finally get the Man of Steel out of the way for good. Will the intrepid reporter Lois Lane, and Superman's four-legged companion, Krypto, be able to help him before it's too late?
14. Freaky Tales: A vibrant green energy pulses through the streets of Oakland, California, as an NBA star, a pair of female rappers, some teenage punks, and a bookie’s shilo try to live and love in the year 1987, as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and corrupt cops all stand in their way.
15. Mickey 17: Deep space travel and terrestrial colonization is dangerous work, so in the future, most of it is handled by disposable employees, because each time that a disposable employee dies, a new clone of them is regenerated. One such disposable employee is a guy named Mickey, who signed up to be part of the expedition to colonize the distant ice world of Niflheim, and didn't really read the fine print.
16. The Mastermind: In 1970, J.B. Mooney puts together a crew for a daylight museum heist, with the goal of stealing four paintings. When holding onto the art proves to be much more difficult than stealing it was, J.B. is forced to go on the run.
17. Thunderbolts*: A disparate team of antiheroes band together on a dangerous mission, forcing them to confront the darkest corners of their own pasts.
18. The Phoenician Scheme: After surviving yet another assassination attempt, wealthy businessman Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda appoints his daughter, Liesl, a nun, as sole heir to his expansive estate and many businesses. Embarking on a final business trip together, along the way; Korda and Liesl become the target of scheming tycoons, foreign terrorists, and more very determined assassins.
19. Predator: Badlands: Cast out from its clan, a young and untested alien hunter, along with its unlikely android ally, as well as its even more unlikely little monkey-looking guy ally, embark on a treacherous journey across a dangerous planet, all in search of the ultimate trophy… friendship.
20. K-Pop Demon Hunters: Huntr/x is the K-Pop girl group sensation. Adored by fans the world over, they balance their public identities as pop stars with their secret identities as demon hunters, tasked with uniting the world through song in order to forever banish the demon king Gwi-Ma. But when Gwi-Ma sends a super sexy boy band of demons to usurp Huntr/x's spot at the top of the chart, not only is the whole world threatened, but the future of Huntr/x as pop sensations as well!

And there you have it!

These are all highly recommended by me, especially Black Bag, which it seems like a lot of people slept on. Also, special shoutout to the next five films in my list, who were close, but no cigar: 40 Acres, The Baltimorons, Relay, Predator: Killer of Killers, and Deathstalker. All of these are worth checking out too.

So, here's to next year, while there were a lot of great films this year, I hope the state of the country, the world, and of course, its general selection of movies, will be better in the months and weeks ahead.

Fingers crossed we all live that long.