Yea I think Resurrection and The Secret Agent are my last two blindspots that I wanna see before list making
Favorite 2025 movies: 1. One Battle After Another 2. Eephus 3. Eddington 4. Weapons 5. Harvest Brood Favorite First Watches in 2025 (weak order) 1. One From the Heart 2. Megalopolis 3. The Killing Tide 4. Chilly Scenes of Winter 5. Something Wild 6. Werckmeister Harmonies 7. Ogroff 8. The Passion of Joan of Arc 9. Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point 10. Dream Stalker 11. Lost Highway 12. Black Rain White Scars 13. Le Samourai 14. Twisted Issues 15. Seven Samurai 16. Man With the Movie Camera 17. Ms. 45 18. Witch’s Game 19. Kaili Blues 20. Bram Stoker’s Dracula 21. Retribution 22. Black Mamba 23. Toga Party Massacre 24. Oslo 31 Aug 25. Beau is Afraid https://boxd.it/R9V0I Ended the year with 206 films, not bad.
I am considering publishing part one of my list today but it is really cold so it probably won't happen.
A quick list coming to the end of the year of my favourites of the year. Some of these might be technically 2024 premieres, but it's always a grey area. Plenty I'd still like to see. Order is rough enough to not actually matter. Hard Truths By The Stream One Battle After Another The Ballad of Wallis Island Sentimental Value Blue Moon No Other Choice What Does That Nature Say to You? Black Bag Eddington The Last Dance Sinners Sorry Baby Left Handed Girl The Quiet Son Jay Kelly Friendship The Ugly Stepsister The Shadow's Edge The Mastermind
For some non-2025 watches, I watched all of Yasujirō Ozu's surviving films in chronological order (36 of them) from summer 2024 to summer 2025. I think probably the first case I've been through a major filmmaker in order. All of his films are variations on a theme, clashes between generation and expectations in middle class Japan. The more you watch, the more variations you see and the more you understand. Once I'd finished with Ozu, I started watching Herzog documentaries. I love how a lot of them feel like structure-less, like hearing about an overseas trip from an interesting uncle. I love some of his voiceover too, you'd be hearing some scientist talking and the Herzog interrupts in voiceover saying something like, "This man was so boring, I could not pay attention to what he was saying." What a man. Some of my favourite non-2025, non Ozu, non Herzog first watches, in very little order; The Ascent Sansho The Bailiff Eternity and a Day Landscape in the Mist All About Eve Army of Shadows Ordet I'm Still Here Das Boot Rocco and his Brothers Perfect Days The Father Samurai Rebellion We All Loved Each Other So Much Fail Safe Il Sorpasso The Holdovers Anatomy of a Murder The Devils Y Tu Mamá También The Grapes of Wrath Il Posto The Colour of Pomegranates Faust Camera Buff The Insider Mouchette Time Still Turns the Pages Witchhammer Hyenas
Worst of the year list is almost done. It was hard to narrow it down; I had 17 finalists. I went with a Bottom Ten instead of the usual five.
In this space last year I talked about how often we correlate film years with the political climate of the era, in particular the leader of the American Empire at the time. 2024 was a down year and it coincided with the inelegant end of our oldest President ever. With 2025 beginning with the coronation of the new oldest President ever, and an amoral charlatan at that, it seemed like we were in for an even worse time at the cinema. Something strange happened, though; 2025's slate of films are arguably the best since the pre-pandemic era. The best American director of the last thirty years made possibly his best film, two of our most prolific directors blessed us with two films each, and young and up-and-coming international directors released compelling work. While there is no Spielberg or Scorsese or Tarantino or Spike Lee or Eastwood, we saw more and more development from the crop of directors who are too young to have their mid-life crisis yet. However, before the top ten is revealed, a bottom five is in order. One cannot appreciate the highs without suffering through the lows; one cannot eat in a fancy restaurant every night or win in every contest. This list is incomplete for multiple reasons; firstly, there was no need to sit through A MINECRAFT MOVIE or FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S 2 because there are things that are best moved on from at a certain point. If the list came out in a month, more likely there would be other films to highlight. All these lists are incomplete by definition, so here are the ten most painful experiences. 10. A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE DIRECTED BY: KATHRYN BIGELOW Bigelow has been poking at the national wound of 9/11 and the War on Terror for a while now. THE HURT LOCKER was a film about war without acknowledging any of the politics of said war, and when she was showered with awards she decided to follow it up with the "maybe torture works?" of ZERO DARK THIRTY. When no one saw DETROIT (I did not know it existed until I looked up her career), she decided to go back to the well. While Stanley Kubrick skewered the constant fear and hysteria caused by our bumbling overlords in DR. STRANGELOVE, here we get nuclear disaster-as-rollercoaster. Is it a real bomb? Is it Sinophobia or Koreaphobia? Aren't ambiguous endings arty? The most disgusting film in this subgenre will probably always be UNITED 93, but this is an odious competitor. 9. THE LIFE OF CHUCK DIRECTED BY: MIKE FLANAGAN A funny thing has happened in the last few years: ever since the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the winners of that most vaulted award have generally gotten much better. Yes, GREEN BOOK wasn't that long ago and no one will remember CODA, but the slate has generally been critically adored. Because of this, the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival has now become the most egregious sinner of bad filmmaking. AMERICAN FICTION, GREEN BOOK, JOJO RABBIT, and THREE BILLBOARDS are just some of the recent winners. Thanks to this films delayed release, the last two winners appear on this list, and it was obvious from the trailer that this was going to be every bad awardsbait cliche at once. The batting average for Stephen King adaptations would get you kicked off even a minor league team. 8. DIE MY LOVE DIRECTED BY: LYNNE RAMSAY Was RATCATCHER directed by someone else? 7. FRANKENSTEIN DIRECTED BY: GUILLERMO DEL TORO There are certain questions we will always wrestle with. Is there a god? Does evil exist? Is there free will? Why can't they make a faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN? While the answer should seem obvious (Victor Frankenstein lying in bed for months and The Monster becoming a philosopher wouldn't translate well to film), people keep hoping. The classic 1931 film takes a radically different interpretation of the Monster, turning him from a fallen Adam to a killer on the loose. Kenneth Branagh's adaptation claimed to be faithful and mostly was, but still took a major left turn near the end. Here we get something between the two, but with some of the most cringeworthy lines imaginable. Every high school student forced to read the book can identify the theme about who is the real monster, but here we have to have a character tell us in his death throes. Who needs subtext? After all, Netflix has asked its creators to dumb down their scripts since people are half-watching while on their phone. 6. HAMNET DIRECTED BY: CHLOE ZHAO In the underappreciated show EXTRAS, Kate Winslet is the featured performer in an episode, filming a Holocaust drama. When lead character Andy tries to suck up to her by commending her bravery for lending her name to such an important historical topic, she callously corrects him by telling her it is all just a way to win an Oscar. Life imitates art, and this joke became reality when Winslet did win one a few years later for a pretty awful and grotesque Holocaust film. If there was a second place to the Holocaust for Oscar season, it is definitely Shakespeare, not just adaptations but films about and surrounding him. Because we know so little about his life, it is fertile ground to make up pretty much anything you want, as the romantic comedy SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE showed. While there is a lot of speculation that his son Hamnet's death was a large inspiration for his greatest play, he was probably even more of an absentee father than the film suggests, and Hamnet and his twin Judith were named after a family friend and his wife. The film peppers in references to his famous plays and lines like a college-educated liberal's version of a superhero popping up in the latest mashup film. It really pours it on with a scene of Anne Hathaway, already having parted the audience like Moses and the Red Sea, leading a giant crowd reaching out to the actor playing Hamlet in the protracted death. In case you did not know how you were supposed to feel, the ambient sound cuts out for the song "On the Nature of Daylight", which is the most overused song of the last decade. 5. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER DIRECTED BY: JENNIFER KAYTIN ROBINSON We are really getting to the "there's very little meat in these gym mats" era of legacy sequels. Who was clamoring for the return of MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE and SCRUBS? This series was always just an attempt to piggyback off the success of SCREAM, fizzling out even faster and never entering the status of revered genre classic. No one wondered what Julie James and Ray Bronson were up to, and no one was anticipating the sequel-setup Brandy cameo because no one even remembered the second movie. Normally this would be the part where a joke about an even more bizarre franchise being reborn, but they are releasing SCARY MOVIE 6 next year. 4. MATERIALISTS DIRECTED BY: CELINE SONG She was a master at helping others find love, except when it came to herself. It sounds like such a bad and hackneyed plot, but they actually took this Hallmark movie concept and made it into a real film. People got a little carried away with PAST LIVES, but it was often thoughtful and seemed like a promising debut from a new young filmmaker. Here we get a scene where Pedro Pascal stops playing a character and has nepo baby Dakota Johnson list all of character (and by extension, the man of the moment himself) highlights. It has the emotional maturity of a teenager's Tumblr page. 3. SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE DIRECTED BY: SCOTT COOPER It's about the music, man. 2. WARFARE DIRECTED BY: ALEX GARLAND The praise heaped upon Alex Garland has always made it feel like the world was upside-down. How could people stomach the awful third acts of the Garland-penned 28 DAYS LATER and SUNSHINE? Were the people over the moon about EX-MACHINA new to watching movies? Was the inferior remake to STALKER, now called ANNIHILATION, not shameless enough? Ultimately, though, the arc of film history is long, but it bends toward justice. False prophets always get exposed sooner or later (ask Jason Reitman how it feels being reduced to the GHOSTBUSTERS reboots), and starting with MEN, people started to realize the would-be Emperor had no clothes. CIVIL WAR was worse, but here we have another movie that treats combat in only the most explicit terms. There is no time to grapple with anything heady or meaningful; we are here to make you say "dude can you believe that was based on a real story?". Who gives a damn? Accuracy is irrelevant; we are here for themes. 1. HAPPY GILMORE 2 DIRECTED BY: KYLE NEWACHECK Adam Sandler should be ashamed of himself. He has already won as the most successful comedy star of his era. He came shortly after Jim Carrey, who is mostly a recluse with his anti-vaccination wife when he is not making SONIC sequels. He weathered the dual threats of Will Ferrell and Seth Rogen, still making major films as they have waned in popularity. He has more money than some small countries, and while he has earned significant acclaim for a few films with real directors, he can't help but squeeze the marks one more time. Sandler's worst comedies suffered because he often played a thinly-veiled version of himself and the humor was just punching down on people he looks down on, but here he is coming at the audience. Are you stupid enough to watch my lazy movie with lazy cameos and lazy writing and lazy camera work? I like to believe I slightly absolve myself by downloading the movie and not adding to Netflix's streaming number, but he still got my time and I am a poorer person because of it.
My worst of the year: Fixed A House of Dynamite A Minecraft Movie Honey, Don’t The Life of Chuck Is This Thing On? Flight Risk In Whose Name Captain America: Brave New World
Nevermind I don’t have time for that conversation. Do you read books? I feel like you never talk about the books you read
As far as fiction, not much outside of work. I read a lot of political journals but I should read more classic literature.
Die My Love was only good because it was effective; in the sense that I can still hear the barking dog in my head.
Bottom 5: 5. F1 I liked this but I'm not about to do a bottom FOUR, that's insane. Brad Pitt was awful though. 4. Materialists Nothing I can say that Tetra didn't say better. Zoe Winters was good. 3. The Smashing Machine I know people are saying take it easy on Benny - and some people are definitely going too far - but the guy made Emily Blunt terrible, that's got to come with consequences. I was intrigued by the real life story but I left thinking possibly my least favorite post-film question - "why was this made?" 2. Honey, Don't It's incredibly impressive at how bad this was considering how good it sounds on paper. 1. Cleaner I have only myself to blame for this one but my boy Sanji was in it so lol.
1. Afternoons of Solitude 2. Marching Powder 3. The Electric State 4. HIM 5. It Ends My bottom five for the year.
A quick worst of the year for what comes to mind. Honey Don't Another Simple Favour Back in Action Flight Risk Highest 2 Lowest Materialists HIM Fantastic Four The Roses M3GAN 2.0 The worst thing I watched this year was 21, the card counting film from 2008, which I thought would be a passable but forgettable bit of genre fun, but it was absolutely appalling. Really caught me off guard with how much I hated it.
Top 50 Films of 2025 1. One Battle After Another 2. Bring Her Back 3. Nosferatu 4. Eddington 5. Bugonia 6. Marty Supreme 7. Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc 8. No Other Choice 9. The Ugly Stepsister 10. Superman 11. Sinners 12. Sentimental Value 13. www.RachelOrmont.com 14. Avatar: Fire and Ash 15. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle 16. The Girl with the Needle 17. Die My Love 18. The Seed of the Sacred Fig 19. It Was Just an Accident 20. Caught Stealing 21. Friendship 22. Left-Handed Girl 23. The Shrouds 24. Late Shift 25. Sorry, Baby 26. Together 27. Train Dreams 28. Eternity 29. Babygirl 30. Weapons 31. The Fantastic Four: First Steps 32. Materialists 33. Ballerina 34. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You 35. The Naked Gun 36. Pillion 37. Thunderbolts* 38. Freaky Tales 39. The Assessment 40. The Housemaid 41. I Swear 42. Wake Up Dead Man 43. Hurry Up Tomorrow 44. Predator: Badlands 45. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning 46. Black Bag 47. Roofman 48. Mickey 17 49. Novocaine 50. Final Destination Bloodlines Top 20 Tv Shows of 2025 1. The Pitt 2. The Rehearsal 3. Pluribus 4. Adolescence 5. The Chair Company 6. Severance 7. The Bear 8. Black Mirror 9. American Primeval 10. Daredevil: Born Again 11. Foundation 12. Hal & Harper 13. The Studio 14. Andor 15. Gen V 16. Peacemaker 17. Overcompensating 18. The White Lotus 19. Creature Commandos 20. You
Top 25 for 2025 1. Frankenstein 2. Sinners 3. Wake Up Dead Man 4. 28 Years Later 5. One Battle After Another 6. Mickey 17 7. The Last Stop in Yuma County 8. Flow 9. The Fantastic Four: First Steps 10. Weapons 11. The Bad Guys 2 12. Predator: Badlands 13. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning 14. A Real Pain 15. Bring Her Back 16. Predator: Killer of Killers 17. Zootopia 2 18. Black Phone 2 19. Caught Stealing 20. Hard Truths 21. Together 22. Palestine 36 23. Black Bag 24. F1 25. Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story Full list, watched 120 films overall - 2025 in Film Top 25 first-time watches released before 2025 (per UK release dates) 1. Police Python 357 2. Incendies 3. High and Low 4. Harvey 5. What's Up, Doc? 6. The Demon of Mount Oe 7. Choice of Arms 8. Under the Silver Lake 9. Rosa la rose, fille publique 10. Night of the Juggler 11. Man of the West 12. Killer Constable 13. The Avenging Eagle 14. The Sentimental Swordsman 15. Shogun's Samurai 16. Gloria 17. The In-Laws 18. A New Leaf 19. Stray Dog 20. Not Guilty 21. Maurice 22. The Betrayal 23. Diva 24. Back to the Wall 25. Dersu Uzala Watched sixty films in total that I gave 4.5 stars or more that were released before 2025, full list - Favourite pre-2025 First Time Viewings