Benjamin Judge's judgements

I can’t imagine how high the anticipation is by now. Only two hours until I announce my favourite film of 2025. Just picture it, some chump on the internet with an opinion to share. Everyone love’s that. Until then, here’s another batch of great films.

75: I’m Still Here

A lesson from history that, sadly, a brief look at the news will tell you, nobody in power seems to want to learn.

74: Good Fortune

Keanu Reeves is brilliant as a guardian angel who specialises in saving people who use their phones while driving (“They really like doing it”) and decides to try solving a slightly bigger problem: capitalism.

73: Roofman

There was a kindness to this based-on-a-true story that I wasn’t expecting and very much appreciated.

72: A Real Pain

Very good.

71: Another Simple Favour

Paul Feig’s other film this year, The Housemaid, seemed to be a more serious version of his 2018 film, A Simple Favour, with all the silliness and swag stripped back. This, the sequel to A Simple Favour, dials them up to eleven. It is ridiculous and fabulous and silly and wonderfully camp. I loved it.

70: Good Bad Ugly

Ajith Kumar’s 63rd film is full of references to his earlier films, all of which went over my head, so I imagine you could make a case that this film about a gangster coming out of retirement isn’t quite as batshit as it appeared to be. Given that at one point in the film it is implied that he had worked with John Wick, with a character played by Ma Dong-seok, was integral to the plot of Money Heist and had, at some point, ruled Malaysia, perhaps not. Either way, I very much enjoyed it.

69: The Last Showgirl

Nothing cheers the heart like a late-career comeback and Pamela Anderson shines in this film about a dying part of Las Vegas show business.

68: Ice Road: Vengeance

I will freely admit that this film has no place on anybody’s 100 best films of 2025. It wouldn’t be on mine. But 100 favourite films? That’s a different matter.

Liam Neeson plays basically the same guy he has played in a dozen films since Taken but this time he’s driving a bus in the foothills of the Himalayas, the budget is tiny and the plot is preposterous. Everything is very silly. There is no respect for geography. Car chases defy the laws of logic and physics. Some of the scenes set in Nepal were so obviously shot in Australia that you half expect a kangaroo to hop into view. Honestly, I’d have happily watched another hour of it. The whole thing has the vibes of the scrawniest kid in school, in the one half of football he is allowed to play each year, somehow manage to hit a thirty-yard thunderbastard into the top left corner of the oppositions goal while tripping over his shoelaces. Yes son! Back of the net!

67: Hard Truths

Michelle Austin was miraculous in this film. One of the performances of the century so far imo

66: Companion

Sex robot good, humans bad, in this short and surprisingly sweet horror comedy.

65: I Swear

Say what you like about the British. We might eat beans on toast and heat water in a kettle but we know how to make films like this.

64: Karate Kid: Legends

Yes, there is a lot of fan service in this what-if-Ralph-Macchio-and-Jackie-Chan-BOTH-trained-a-new-Karate-Kid pitch but the relationship between the two teens at the centre of this movie (played by Ben Wand and Sadie Stanley) is absolutely adorable and any Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fan will tell you that casting Ming-Na Wen as the Karate Kid’s mom leaves a lot of cool options for a sequel.

63: Kaantha

A director and his lead actor battle over the making of a film in this Tamil-language period action thriller. 1950’s Madras, and especially the sets of the film they are making, look gorgeous, and the film twists and turns in ways you don’t expect. Then, halfway through the film, Rana Daggubati turns up in what might be the greatest moustache in the history of cinema. Lots to enjoy.

62: Weapons

The huge wave of, “OMG YOU WON’T BELIEVE ALL THE TWISTS”, takes about this movie (that has no twists) meant I was a bit underwhelmed by it when I saw it. But it is a film that has stayed with me and that, in hindsight, I think I might have underestimated. Amy Madigan’s performance as Gladys is iconic.

61: Holy Cow

Teenage angst meets cheese-making in this brilliant, sympathetic look at an often neglected part of France.

60: 28 Years Later

I have never been a huge Danny Boyle fan. His films tend to have deep misanthropic seam running through them, where every character over the age of about fourteen is quickly established as being a piece of shit. However, in 28 Years Later, that distrust of humanity came up trumps in a film that pitches two equally horrible visions of modern Britain against each other. Six months later, I’m still not sure how I feel about that ending, and that, in my opinion, is a sign of great film-making.

59: Bring Them Down

ENORMOUS TRIGGER WARNING FOR ANYONE WHO LIKES SHEEP but if you can get past what happens to the sheep (and I don’t think anyone could ever fully get over what happens to the sheep) this is a brilliant warring farms drama that lurches toward disaster with a gloomy sense of inevitability.

58: September 5

Exquisitely written. One of those films with a plot that runs like clockwork, keeping the tension at a perfectly even level throughout.

57: Ballerina

As with a lot of the John Wick universe, if you come for the plot you might be disappointed, but if you come for the fight/stunt coordination you will go away happy. There is a moment in this film, with a grenade and a door that is so smart in its simplicity that it made me gasp with joy.

56: Dhoom Dhaam

A winning romantic action comedy in which a couple who don’t really know each other fall in love while trying to avoid being killed by gangsters.

55: Sentimental Value

I’ve made it clear early in this countdown that I have limited brain space for absentee-father-has-reasons dramas, as just nutting up and being a good dad is the absolute least you can do in this life and I have very little time for people who put themselves before the children, but if you are going to do it, if you make it this good you will have my attention.

54: The Second Act

A French meta-comedy where the characters know they are in a film and are also actors that know they are playing characters who know they are characters in a film. It’s less complicated than that sounds when you watch it, and the levels of reality add unexpected layers of depth to scenes. Proper sophisticated stuff.

53: Die My Love

Not, as the trailer implied, a horror film about an old woman tormenting a young couple, but a heightened reality character piece about a young mother struggling with her mental health. We really need to have a memorandum on misleading trailers btw. They don’t help anybody.

I listened to an interview with Lynne Ramsay in which she spoke about how while making the film she was less interested in following a narrative than creating an emotional landscape, and yes, Die My Love is an absolute mood. Jennifer Lawrence is incredible in the lead, terrifying, unpredictable and sympathetic in every moment she is on screen. 

52: Predator Badlands

A no-nonsense crowd-pleaser. A proper popcorn movie. Top stuff.

51: KPop Demon Hunters

Really good fun. Great songs. I liked the magpie.