Benjamin Judge's judgements

OK. Here we go. This is the big one. These were my very very favourite films of 2025. Obviously, there are films here that are in everyone’s best-of-2025 lists. It would be weird if there weren’t. But I hope that you find a few things here that you haven’t seen yet. There’s nothing like finding some new films to watch, is there?

25: Superman

Finally, somebody had the guts to just take it as read that the audience know the story by now and skip the whole escape from Krypton/grow up in Smallville/move to New York stuff and cut to the chase. Bring on the giant lizards!

One of the great things about the Superman story is that it is simple enough that wildly different ways of telling it (such as Richard Donner’s and this one) can both succeed without undermining the other. It’s all Superman. It’s all good. James Gunn has shown time and again over the last decade that he knows exactly how to make a superhero movie and that he knows how to use a large cast. Superman was another triumph.

24: Broken Rage

Hidden pretty deeply on Amazon Prime, this Takeshi Kitano film is worth searching for. It is only 62 minutes long and split into two halves. The first half is the story of an aging hitman who receives jobs in envelopes left for him in a cafe, kills a man at a leisure centre, is arrested, interrogated and then asked to work undercover for the police to clear his name. The second half is exactly the same story but this time as exaggeratedly broad farce. Like, really dumb. Like constantly tripping over and chairs collapsing dumb. I couldn’t even begin to tell you why this film works but it is one of the funniest, most special things I have seen in a long time.

23: After the Hunt

After the Hunt is a film that wades into the culture wars with a machine gun in each hand and a ‘Nobody Wins’ t-shirt. It was pretty much destroyed by the critics for not taking a side but, in my opinion, is much more enjoyable for taking a strong absolutely-everybody-is-a-prick stance. The film is supposed to be a provocation. If it provokes you, it is doing its job.

22: The Monkey

More a comedy than a horror film, The Monkey uses how jokes and scares are constructed to push them into doing things they weren’t supposed to. It is at the same time a really silly film and an extremely clever one. Underrated.

21: Legend of Ochi

A girl and her monster searching for family. Visually, a lovely throw back to the physical effects and puppet work of the 1980s but with an original side too. Amblin pushed through a Wes Anderson shaped sieve then knitted into something new.

20: Good One

A quietly furious film about the delicate social structures that allow trust between people and how easily they can be kicked away.

19: Sorry, Baby

Another film that deals with how men can be the absolute fucking worst in a reserved but powerful manner.

18: Lollipop

I know awards shows are irrelevant and ultimately good work is remembered long after the garlands are handed out, but if Posy Sterling doesn’t win all the awards for her portrayal of a mother trying to get her children back being driven mad by the system then there is no justice in the world. The control in her performance is incredible. The way she lets her character’s angst and rage slip out and then reigns it back in is perfectly weighted.

The writing is also brilliant. Daisy-May Hudson knows exactly when to put in a line that highlights the blind spots in the care and the welfare systems and when to just let a character lose it; when to make a point and when to break your heart.

17: Superboys of Malegaon

Superboys of Malegaon is based on a documentary about a group of friends who make spoofs of Bollywood blockbusters. Just a really lovely sweet film about creativity and friendship.

16: Eternity

Elizabeth Olsen arrives in heaven to find both her husbands waiting for her. Does she spend eternity with the husband who died in the war or the man she spent the rest of her life with? What made this high-concept comedy really shine was the writers’ commitment to both the concept and the comedy. There are loads of funny jokes based around things like the idea of a huge conference hall offering different versions of heaven (Man Free World ‘You’ve had to deal with your last man‘ #443 at Full Occupancy #444 Opening Soon) but the story has real heart too.

15: One Battle After Another

I’m just going to assume you don’t need to tell you why this was good. We all loved this one.

14: Black Bag

In which Steven Soderberg asks, what if James Bond was a happily married monogamous couple? It was a question I had never considered and didn’t know needed answering but I very much liked the results.

13: Him

Marlon Wayans gives an incredible, career-defining performance as a Quarterback training his replacement in this horror-adjacent exploration of toxic masculinity in sport.

A lot of reviews seemed to only half get what the film was doing. I suspect, like ‘Don’t Worry Darling’, ‘Him’ is a few years ahead of its audience. [Just as everyone knows what a trad wife is now, but didn’t in 2022, there is still a majority in 2025 who haven’t had to experience the full extent of the manosphere] For me, every second of this film, from the opening to the increasingly creepy training camp, to the bonkers ending, was perfection.

12: The Wedding Banquet

I have only realised as I type this top 25 quite how many of the films in it are about friendship or kindness or both. Nice people being nice. Maybe, at a time when the country I live in seems increasingly willing to flirt with fascism, a bit of human kindness was what my subconscious needed? Maybe I’m just a softy? Hopefully not both, eh? Or I am going to be screwed after the next General Election.

Anyway, of all the kind films about nice people this story about a man from one gay couple pretending to marry a girl from another to keep his bigoted grandfather happy was the kindest and the people in it were the nicest.

11: Thunderbolts*

I quite like Scorsese’s description of superhero movies as being like hamburgers, not meals, because sometimes, what I really want is a hamburger. Sometimes you just want to sit down and watch a movie. Not a film. A movie. A hamburger. And, if you go to Everyman to see it, you can eat a really good burger while you watch it. That’s what I do.

It’s a slice of heaven on earth, mate. Big burger of a movie, big burger, sweet potato fries, vanilla milkshake. Boom! Nothing else like it.

Thunderbolts* is a tasty burger.

10: Tornado

This film about a girl and a gang in 1790s Scotland is both a samurai movie and, spiritually, I think, a Western. A young girl, who works with her father as a puppeteer and putting on fake sword fights, almost accidentally gets involved in robbing a crime gang led by Tim Roth.

So much is done with so little in this film. So many interactions are almost wordless. An atmosphere is built up without show. You get very little of the world beyond the characters the action revolves around. And yet, the film is magnetic, entrancing. You are totally drawn into a world, a time and place that you have never thought about before, that is instantly real. What a film.

9: Marty Supreme

Another you already know one. Worth saying though, even if everyone else has pointed it out, that Timothée Chalamet makes an excellent heel.

8: Wake Up Dead Man

I’m just going to say it. I think this was the best Knives Out film yet.

7: Friendship

I get that Tim Robinson is an acquired taste, but if you have acquired that taste you are going to love this. And even if you haven’t, this might be the gateway drug you were waiting for. Saw it twice at the cinema. Can’t wait to see it a third time.

6: The Phoenician Scheme

I get that Wes Anderson is an acquired taste, etc, etc…

What I loved about Asteroid City was it felt like Wes Anderson investigating and analysing his own method of film-making, and what I loved about The Phoenician Scheme was it felt like the film a man who had investigated and analysed his own method of film-making might make now he had got that out of his system. A relaxed Wes Anderson, just vibing.

5: Listers: A Glimpse into Extreme Birdwatching

In this documentary, two stoner brothers decide to try to break the record for seeing the most birds, in 48 states of the USA, in a calendar year. Obviously, they don’t succeed, but their journey (both physically and mentally) is an absolute joy to watch.

Listers has become an absolute sensation in the birding world because the Reiser brothers fully commit to the project and because they interview other birders with kindness and a genuine interest in what makes them tick. But the film would (and does) appeal to anybody. It is, at its core, just two very funny, really nice lads discovering the joy that can be found from the natural world. And who doesn’t like that?

The film was released free-to-watch on Youtube. Give it a go.

[btw Thanks to Dan Carpenter for tipping me off about this film’s existence]

4: Parthenope

Parthenope was the ancient city that stood where Naples now stands and it is the name of the lead character of this film. And while the woman is in almost every scene, it is the city that the film is about, and for. Logic is almost non-existent and the narrative lurches from one thing to another because cities don’t have logic and are full of contradictory narratives.

I absolutely adored this dream-logic tour of Naples and was genuinely shocked and surprised to read the reviews.

3: Left-Handed Girl

For me, this was the highlight of Netflix’s batch of award-worthy films they released at the end of the year. It is an un-showy family drama, just some people getting by, but it contains all of humanity. It is a masterpiece.

2: M3GAN 2.0

M3GAN 2.0 is a sort of Terminator 2 to M3GAN’s Terminator. It is a bit lighter, a bit sillier, a bit funnier. It got a kicking critically for not following in the original’s footsteps but, in my opinion, that story had been told. Taking things in a new direction was a smart decision. And, judged on what it was trying to do instead of what you might have wanted it to be, M3GAN 2.0 is a massive success. The film is a blast. A proper roller coaster of a movie. I loved it.

1: ekō

Of course I conclude my list with a film you haven’t heard of. You don’t watch 225 2025 films in 2025 without being a pretentious little shit, do you?

ekō is a Malayalam-language mystery thriller. It is brilliant. The plot is quite complicated (to give you an idea of how many stories intertwine in the narrative, the description of the plot on Wikipedia is 971 words long) but it flows and unravels so neatly, so perfectly, that every moment of the film is a joy. It relies not on twists but the gradual opening up of the story. Every revelation feels earned.

It is also (being largely shot in the mountains of Kerala) a gorgeous looking film. Sandeep Pradeep and Biana Momin both give superb performances in two of the main roles. The whole thing is great.

The good news is, ekō is on Netflix, so you can watch it if you fancy it.