Leonardo DiCaprio in a scene from One Battle After Another.The Associated Press
The great mantra of the film industry going into this year was “Survive till ’25,” at which point the entire sector would right itself after the pandemic, the strikes, frenzied conglomeration and so many other injuries both endured and self-inflicted. So, yeah, that hasn’t quite worked out.
We’re exiting the year with one less Hollywood studio (godspeed, Warner Bros.), at least one other major player in absolute thrall to Donald Trump and his philistine cronies (Paramount) and a number of once-promising fall-season films that simply fell flat on their faces.
But between all the doom and gloom, there were – as there always will be – masterpieces large and small, and all of them making triumphant landfall, at least briefly, on the big screen. Here are the top 10 films of 2025, and how to watch (most of) them right now.
10. F1
Considering how much Hollywood has invested in empty-headed crowd-pleasing cinema, it’s baffling that so many filmmakers get the formula so wrong, so frequently. But not Joseph Kosinski, who follows up Top Gun: Maverick with his knock-down, bare-knuckle, go-go-go-go concoction – the kind of big and brawny blockbuster that will make even the most cynical cinephile instinctively lean forward a half-dozen times before the one-hour mark. Nothing is exactly new in F1, yet at the same time it is all immensely, rewardingly renewable – a true blue box of recycled cinematic trash, compacted into something irresistibly bright and shiny. (Streaming on Apple TV starting Dec. 12)
The best of 2025: Ask us your questions about the top movies, music and TV of the year
9. We Are Storror
We’re only two entries into the list and I’m taking liberties when it comes to “2025″ eligibility. Technically, Michael Bay’s documentary about a British collective of parkour athletes isn’t a 2025 release – it only enjoyed a single screening at the SXSW Festival this past March, and its general-distribution fate remains unclear. But I cannot recall a more intense, overwhelming, nerve-rattling cinematic experience than watching Bay’s sky-high version of Jackass, which is as terrifying as it is heartfelt. Put this in Imax, and you’ll make a billion dollars. (Release TBD)
8. No Other Choice
Lee Byung-hun in a scene from No Other Choice.Elevation Pictures
Director Park Chan-wook might as well have titled this Sympathy for Mr. Severance, as the Korean master slices and dices an era in which corporations treat employees as mere chum for the industrial killing floor. Following the half-baked revenge scheme of an unjustly laid-off company man, No Other Choice is as unsettling as it is darkly hilarious, all shot with Park’s typical commitment to nailing that one perfect shot. (In theatres Dec. 25)
7. Alpha
Another technicality, if you’ll allow me, but Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to her 2021 sensation Titane has been unjustly shunted off into a barely visible corner this year after its polarizing Cannes premiere in May. At once a metaphor for the AIDS crisis and a meditation on the million little traumas that are inherited across families for generations, the French-language thriller is not easy viewing, nor are its themes entirely scrutable. But Ducournau hits such a nerve, and with such ambition and intensity, that the film grips and lingers with a ferocity unmatched by many of its far more visible and heavily promoted awards-season competitors. (Opening in Canadian theatres early 2026)
6. The Shrouds
An enormously thoughtful, patient and frequently hilarious dissection of memory, sex and the expiration date that we are all staring down, The Shrouds lands as something of a grand syllabus of David Cronenberg Studies. Yet the film, which also boasts a brilliant bit of Cronenberg cosplay from its star Vincent Cassel, isn’t a last will and testament from the Canadian icon, either, no matter his frequent threats of retirement. If anything, this is evidence of a fiercely alive filmmaker, as charged in his passion and committed in his ambitions as ever. (Streaming on The Criterion Channel)
5. The Mastermind
Josh O'Connor in a scene from The Mastermind.The Associated Press
Just as Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff was a Western with far more on its mind than conquering the frontier and Showing Up was an art-school comedy that resisted any kind of metaphorical or literal framing device, The Mastermind is an anti-heist movie that skips over the adrenalin rush of a high-stakes score to wrestle with the more complicated comedown. Go in with your expectations set accordingly, and this is a wonderful view-askew look at Americans entirely unsuited to their time and place, with a standout performance from Josh O’Connor, the year’s busiest leading man. (Streaming on MUBI starting Dec. 12.)
4. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Rose Byrne in a scene from If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.Logan White/The Associated Press
There are almost too many moments engineered inside Mary Bronstein’s fantastic high-wire comedy/drama/horror film that force the audience to quickly choose between laughing, crying and screeching like a banshee. But if you can survive such emotional oscillation, then you’re rewarded with a lead performance from Rose Byrne that is as close to a revelation that you’ll find from any actor this year or the next. (Available on-demand)
3. Marty Supreme
I’m on the record as admiring what Benny Safdie accomplished with The Smashing Machine, a sombre and enjoyably strange character study that marked his solo directing effort following a creative parting from his brother Josh (with whom he made such wild rides as Good Time and Uncut Gems). But with Josh’s Marty Supreme, it’s clear which brother is committed to quadrupling down on the electrifying mania of the siblings’ earlier work. Propelled by a Wile E. Coyote-meets-Sammy Glick performance by Timothée Chalamet (and, perhaps regrettably, destined to propel Canadian deal-maker Kevin O’Leary to the Oscars stage), Marty Supreme is a relentless tour through the mind of a man who dares to dream big, damn the consequences. (In theatres Dec. 25)
2. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol in a scene from Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.Elevation Pictures
One final technicality to close out the year (hey, it’s my list, my arbitrary rules): Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s madcap masterpiece doesn’t open in theatres till February, 2026, but it has already become so deeply woven into the fabric of 2025 Canadian culture – from its instantly iconic TIFF Midnight Madness premiere to its sold-out roadshow screenings across the country – that to ignore its impact would be as ridiculous as, well, any single minute of the Toronto-set time-travel comedy. In a year in which Canadians were asked to define their homegrown pride and then stand up for it, NTBTSTM delivers a perfectly idiosyncratic rallying cry. (In theatres Feb. 13)
1. One Battle After Another
Thoughtful yet incendiary, romantic yet skeptical, patently absurd yet at the same time brandishing a mirror that so clearly and unforgivingly reflects our own cracked reality, Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic arrives with the kind of casual, confident brilliance that feels deceptively effortless. By its end, One Battle After Another reveals itself as Hollywood’s most contradictory creation in ages: a crowd-pleasing political manifesto, a riotous action-comedy of ideas, a movie constructed for the eye as much as the heart and mind. Revolutionary, one might say. (Available on-demand)
Runners-up: Train Dreams, Eddington, The Secret Agent, The Testament of Ann Lee, It Was Just an Accident, Sound of Falling