Benjamin Judge's judgements

We’re nearly at the finishing line. We’re firmly at the point where you can get angry about me liking something instead of angry at me for not liking something. As long as you’re angry though, yeah? As long as you think I’m an idiot. That’s all that I need from you.

Of course, throughout the whole list, the ordering is a bit arbitrary. If I had compiled this list a week earlier or a week later, some of these films might have made the top 25. A slightly different mood, a different thought, and everything changes. It almost highlights how pointless the whole endeavour has been, doesn’t it?

Anyway…

50: Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

After a last episode, a Christmas special and two films, Downton finally got the final finale it deserved. It was so in tune to the needs of the character’s arcs that the film would make almost no sense to newcomers. And that is how it should be. People shouldn’t be able to stumble into a story that is 98% concluded and expect a recap. Watch the damn show, dipstick.

Highlights? The conclusion of problematic favourite Lady Edith’s narrative arc to full heroism. Mrs Patmore getting ‘the talk’ from Mrs Hughes. The line, “That’s not much use to us.” Carson’s eyebrows doing their thing. The Pamuk call back. Lady Merton recovering from a trip in Molesley’s sports car. Cora’s withering looks. All gold.

Of course, Downton Abbey is, and always has been, Conservative Party propaganda, so the story concludes with commie chauffeur, Tom Branson, turning to the dark side and fully embracing rentier capitalism. You can’t have everything, I suppose.

49: The End

You don’t get many post-apocalyptic musicals so you should embrace them while you can. This film really seemed to split the audience. You either loved it or you hated it, and to be fair I can see why it might wind a person up. But I really fell for its slightly ridiculous concept and the level of commitment that everybody involved in the film gave to it.

48: All Happy Families

A really smartly made family drama where each member of the family got their fair share of the story. One of those lots-of-things-coming-to-a-head-at-once airing-out-the-dirty-laundry stories that usually get relegated to television nowadays but absolutely deserve their time on the big screen.

47: Santosh

A look at corruption in the Indian police force that has been refused a release in India. It really wouldn’t be the first film to tackle the subject, but perhaps the pared back, realist tone of the film made its attack more pointed in the eyes of the censors. It was originally intended to be a documentary. They’d have really hated that.

46: Coolie

Another slightly deranged Tamil action movie (I like what I like, friend) this time headlined by Rajinikanth (who looks great for 75) as a clean-living, hard-punching, problem-solving, organised crime-decimating man sticking up for the little guy. Features an absolutely electrifying performance from Rachita Ram.

45: You’re Cordially Invited

Not everyone likes the same Will Ferrell films. Personally, I think The House is an underrated masterpiece and Spirited is a top ten Christmas film. And I also loved this. The man wrestles an alligator, for Pete’s sake.

44: She Rides Shotgun

Most of the praise for this film has been aimed at Taron Egerton and, especially, Ana Sophia Heger, and rightly so because they are both phenomenal in this story of a father and daughter trying to outrun an organised crime outfit with half a town on the payroll and fingers in every aspect of law enforcement. But, can we just have a moment for John Carroll Lynch who, after playing the nicest guy in the world in Sorry Baby, who just gives his time to somebody in pain, saying the right thing and making them a sandwich, goes on to play an irredeemable psychopath in this film. Respect the man’s range, guys. John Carroll Lynch is a flipping legend.

43: Deaf President Now!

This documentary, about the 1988 student protest at Gallaudet University that demanded the school (set up for the education of deaf and hard-of-hearing students) appoint a deaf president, is well worth checking out if you have access to Apple tv. I’m sure that anyone involved in higher education won’t be massively surprised how patronising management were to staff and students at the time but I can’t imagine a stronger argument for the effectiveness of well organised protest. Great stuff.

42: Freaky Tales

This anthology if interlocking stories based on real events that took place in 1987, in Oakland, but pushed to often outrageous extremes in the telling was, I thought, a blast.

41: Nickel Boys

It really took me a while to get used to the unusual way this film is shot but as it became clear why RaMell Ross had chosen it, I began to see another way of looking at the world. Great stuff.

40: Sister Midnight

2025 was quite a big year for vampires, with Nosferatu and Sinners both having success with the critics and at the box office. This was a less heralded, but arguably more interesting take on the myth, both weirder and more grounded than either of the big hitters. Those stop motion birds were proper creepy too. Good work all round.

39: Ballad of a Small Player

Colin Farrell loses his shit in various brightly coloured suits. Hungry ghosts walk the earth. Almost everyone is a bastard.

Edward Berger is quickly establishing himself as a must-watch director, his films are nothing like each other but they share a bold, outlandish approach to story and a perfect eye for sumptuous imagery. Like Conclave before it, what holds this film together isn’t logic, or even story, but a kind of energy, or vision, that drives you through the film.

38: The Mastermind

Kelly Reichardt takes an almost opposite approach to Edward Berger in film-making, seeking earth tones instead of bright colours and showing the moments between the action instead of the action itself, conversations that wouldn’t make the script, let alone the cut of other crime films.

The results though, are equally wonderful to watch. Like a lot of Reichardt’s work, this is a quiet film that sits with you long after the watching.

37: The Librarians

An utterly heartbreaking documentary about the American Right’s war on books from the point of view of the people who are in the firing line. It’s on the BBC iPlayer if you are looking for something to anger up the blood.

36: The Fantastic Four: First Steps

It was fourth (fifth?) time lucky with the Fantastic Four, the IP that the studios just wouldn’t give up on. I was a big fan of the mis-en-scene on this one, all retro-futurist and that.

35: Audrey

This Australian film is one of the darkest comedies I have ever seen. In a nutshell, every member of a family finds happiness and a new lease of life when the eldest daughter falls into a coma. As I said. Dark. Very funny though.

34: It Was Just An Accident

An Iranian thriller about retribution that manages to be surprisingly funny at times, given the subject matter, but always managed to keep the tension climbing. I loved it.

33: Sinners

It has at least six too many endings to be a perfect film but Sinners has so much going for it. Michael B. Jordan is probably the best at what he does, so having two of him in one film really is a bonus.

32: The Ballad of Wallis Island

The premise of this film (lottery winner hires an estranged couple who were a folk duo to play a gig on an island to an audience of one person) sounds like it might end up being the most twee film ever made but it is not, at all. It’s brilliant. Tim Key’s performance, so steeped in sadness, is exceptionally good.

31: The Kingdom

A tale of growing up on Corsica with a dad as a mob boss. No spoilers, but the facial expression that Ghjuvanna Benedetti gives at the end of the film, when watching a news report about children heading back to school after the holidays, was one of the greatest moments of cinema in 2025.

30: Flow

He’s just a cat, standing in front of a lemur, asking him to help him pilot a boat through a post-apocalyptic wilderness. The Oscars get the Best Animated Feature wrong almost every year, but they were right with this one.

29: Opus

Ayo Edebiri is one of my favourite new actors, and I thought she was great in this, so I was a bit surprised that it received such lukewarm reviews. Apparently, we already have enough films in which rich people are the bad guys. I dunno man. Have you seen the world? Rich people are the bad guys.

28: The Materialists

I find it really hard to say what it is that makes Celine Song’s films so good. They are just really classy. There’s something about them. The attention to detail maybe? No. It’s not just that. They are just, I don’t know, but they are.

27: Pillion

This exploration of a gay BDSM biker gang was incredibly sweet. That look, in the park, heartbreaking.

26: Pavements

It almost went without saying that any authorised documentary about Pavement would play with the form, but the triple storylines (the opening of a Pavement museum, the rehearsals of a jukebox musical based on their work, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a biopic about the band) took things way beyond what I was expecting. It was arty as fuck, mate. Superb.