I didn’t write many reviews in 2025 because of work and life getting in the way, but I still watched as many movies as I usually do. The last year had a few really fun movies and then there was, well, everything else. I think the most common grade I gave this year was a D, so not exactly a banner year for cinema.
As usual, I am only counting movies that received a significant theatrical release. That excludes Netflix movies that were released in like six theaters for a single afternoon (looking at you, Frankenstein and Wake Up Dead Man). I also don’t like including streaming movies on a worst-of list, as the majority of them are just made as background noise with little concern given for quality. As much as I would enjoy ranting about what a piece of shit Happy Gilmore 2 is, it just isn’t worth it. Netflix doesn’t care about making good movies, so it almost feels hollow to mock them for failing to do so.
Without further ado…
My Top 5 Films of 2025:
5. The Naked Gun: With comedy being an also extinct genre, this was a breath of fresh air. Liam Nesson is perfect casting and, while a lot of the jokes didn’t land for me, enough did work for me to laugh out loud multiple times. I now have the perfect response if someone ever asks me if I suspect foul play.
4. Eternity: A chick flick! This is a really funny, charming and creative take on the afterlife and choosing who you want to spend eternity with. I could do without some of the shoehorned 2020s-approved messaging, but it wasn’t enough to take me out of it. And it made The Film Nurse cry. Like, a lot.
3. Superman: People seem to be mixed on this one, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Perhaps more than any other superhero movie, this creates the experience of reading an issue of a long-running comic. Fun, colorful and running at a breakneck speed, Superman is the antithesis of the glut of drab, dark, self-serious comic book movies we have gotten in the last few years.
2. Bugonia: I was a bit bummed to discover that this is a remake of a Korean movie from 20 years ago, as I was initially struck by how original Bugonia is. It ain’t original, but it is still a quirky, fun thriller with a great premise and an ending that will either make you love it or hate.
1. Weapons: Following Barbarian and Weapons, Zach Cregger is officially my favorite horror director working today. Weapons is original, funny and suspenseful and I am just a sucker for this kind of multiple-perspective narrative. The ultimate reveal isn’t as good as the setup, but this was still the best time I had in a theater in 2025.
The 5 Worst Films of 2025:
5. I Know What You Did Last Summer: You know that a movie is a piece of shit when Jennifer Love Hewitt can’t keep it out of my bottom five. A lame, safe slasher movie when considered in a vacuum, it somehow also insults the legacy and intelligence of a series that wasn’t particularly smart to begin with.
4. Megan 2.0: How do you make a sequel to a lame killer doll movie? You make it a terrible remake of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, obviously. Just an all-around baffling series of choices were made with this thing.
3. Mickey 17: This movie has a seemingly fun concept. Seemingly. But it frequently grinds to a halt so that Mark Ruffalo can do his anti-Trump schtick that seems to now completely encompass him as a person. It ultimately abandons its core concept altogether to become a lame, live-action ripoff of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
2. Clown in a Cornfield: I’m in the minority on this one and I almost feel bad hating this movie because the writer and director appeared on The Last Drive-In earlier this year and they seemed like genuinely good dudes. But if you want me to hate your movie, make it driven by a political agenda that overshadows everything else. By the end of the movie, I was rooting for the boomer villains to kill these annoying, whiny kids and I don’t think that’s what the movie was going for.
1. Him: I had blocked this movie from my memory and forgot that it exists, but the horror returned to me when I saw the title in preparation for making these lists. Fuck this movie. I haven’t seen this come up in many worst-of lists for the year and that baffles me. I’ve made it clear that I hate forced political agendas in genre films and Him can take its racist bullshit and shove it up its ass. Putting that aside, this is a pretentious, painfully boring, “artsy” horror movie without any scares or characters. It also doesn’t understand how the NFL draft works, which is odd given the subject matter.
