In a year packed with 1990s revivalism, noir resuscitation and franchise exhaustion, these are the films I liked the most in 2025. I’ve attempted to avoid the obvious but not be wilfully obscure and have probably succeeded at neither. Without further ado, with links to full reviews, here goes – in 1-10 order.
A German black comedy so bleak you might laugh out of desperation, following a pair of oldsters as they reach the end of the road, and their two appalling adult children. Superbly underplayed by a top-notch cast, it’s a novelistic, dense, all-enveloping wallow in human misery, three hours long and worth every minute of the grief.
Bring Her Back (dir: Danny and Michael Philippou)
The Philippou brothers follow up Talk to Me with a modern horror classic about two at-risk teenagers being led into utter grimness by a seemingly OK foster carer (Sally Hawkins). This is the full “escalating dread” package, updating Hansel and Gretel to the modern world. Hawkins, excellent, is somehow outdone by Jonah Wren, who plays a feral child out of a nightmare.
Misericordia (dir: Alain Guiraudie)
The “cosy” murder mystery is given a gay makeover with master-of-this-sort-of-thing Guiraudie’s blank-faced farce about a young man returning to a village, where his presence stirs up all sorts of weird resentments. A bit Poirot, a touch Henri-Georges Clouzot, a deliberately French French film taking the familiar and giving it a good hard tug.
The Ballad of Wallis Island (dir: James Griffiths)
A folky duo are reunited by a bumbling, strange and very rich man who wants them to play for him alone on his remote island. Carey Mulligan is the big name but it’s the relationship between co-stars Tim Key and Tom Basden (who wrote most of the screenplay and the songs) that powers this quietly brilliant, wistful, funny and sad British classic – the sort that comes along every few years.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (dir: Christopher McQuarrie)
Somehow both too long and entirely justifying its running time, Tom Cruise’s final run around the M:I track is a lap of honour, a greatest hits tour and a demonstration that at 170, Tom remains one of the most fearless actors who has ever lived.
The Lost Bus (dir: Paul Greengrass)
Paul Greengrass works his magic with a simple story about a bus driver (Matthew McConaughey) trying to drive some schoolkids out of the blaze in one of the deadliest forest fires in California’s history. Climate change? No one says it out loud, instead Greengrass works up a dizzying atmosphere of smoke, heat and orange filtration with a masterly demonstration of film-making technique.
Motel Destino (dir: Karim Aïnouz)
A young criminal hiding out in a Brazilian sex motel becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of the man-and-wife owner. Like an unacknowledged remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, except neon-hued and far more explicitly naughty, Karim Aïnouz’s fraught three-hander conjures place and sexual tension brilliantly.
Superboys of Malegaon (dir: Reema Kagti)
A true story, retold, of a nobody in a nothing town in Maharashtra State, deciding to make a film. No money. No clue. Transposed to India, feelgood old-school Hollywood is the result, with the underdogs we’re all rooting for a perfectly cast ensemble, and a message about the joy of a joint undertaking liable to bring a tear to the eye.
Irish folk horror in the Irish language – a first! The Wicker Man is a clear influence on Aislinn Clarke’s second feature, 100-odd minutes of fraught, intense atmospherics set in an Ireland devoid of craic and fiddles, where a girl from the big city is given a proper monstering by the locals. Did someone also say Midsommar?
Lake George (dir: Jeffrey Reiner)
Offbeat, minimalist comedy noir about a hitman (Shea Whigham) sent to kill the ex (Carrie Coon) of a particularly nasty gangster. The writing plays to the actors’ strengths, the support roles are perfect too and though it’s familiar enough in plot and tone, Whigham, Coon and director Jeffrey Reiner play it like the Coen brothers never existed. Excellent call!
Honourable mentions: Omni Loop, Black Bag, Mountainhead, A Real Pain, The Surfer, Tornado, The Phoenician Scheme, Together, Hot Milk, Psycho Therapy, Relay
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© Steve Morrissey 2025