Best of 2025 - End of Year Report

Hi folks. 2025, eh? Bit of a prick, all things considered, but I reckon it was a pretty good year for films. My list was down from last year, I actually went 6 weeks without seeing a single film! Still time to see some great ones though, and here they are, from 10 down to 1.

[Click on the titles for links to full reviews]

10. Hard Truths (2024)

Mike Leigh is still punching them out, and this scathing drama reunites him with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (from Secrets and Lies). She stars as a miserable, lonely wife and mother, constantly verballing those around her. Her sister is the only one who can put up with her. A tough watch but utterly engaging and though-provoking.

9. Of Caravan and the Dogs (2024)

This was one of a few gems from the Revelation Film Festival in July. It's a documentary about Vladimir Putin's attacks on press freedom in Russia and how media groups tried to handle the situation. It's depressing but also filled with hope that there are still folks fighting the good fight. One such outlet is Novaya Gazeta - their boss is the nominal 'star' of the film.

8. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (2024)

Another doco, this one delving into the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. It's all found footage, set to a cracking jazz soundtrack, and it's completely fascinating. The big guns get a run out - Castro, Khrushchev, Eisenhower, X, as well as the musos, Simone, Gillespie, Armstrong, et al. This should really be shown in high schools.

7. Conclave (2024)

Performance heavy papal drama about the voting in of a new pope. Ralph Fiennes rips it up but isn't alone - John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, Sergio Castellitto and Isabella Rossellini all have fun with their roles. Superbly written by Peter Straughan and well directed by Edward Berger. Tense and clever.

6. Sinners (2025)

Very nearly made the top 5, this. Ryan Coogler's tight, edgy supernatural horror/thriller, starring a super-charged Michael B. Jordan as twin gangsters is a real rush of a film. I've tried to dance around the central conceit so I won't go and spoil it (though I guess everyone knows what it is by now). Chase it down if you haven't seen it yet - it may be the most accessible film on my list.

5. The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)

A quiet British three-hander about a reclusive millionaire forking out to reunite a folk duo. Those three hands are Tim Key, Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan, and all are brilliantly naturalistic in their roles. It's a film that balances grief and humour really well and the pace is spot on. Key and Basden adapted this from their earlier short film, so they know the story and characters well. A warm cup of Bovril of a film.

4. The Secret Agent (2025)

Kleber Mendonça Filho has some previous with this type of provocative film. This is set in late 1970s Brazil, just before the end of the military regime(s), and follows an ex-academic (Wagner Moura) who's on the run for some reason. He arrives in Recife during Carnival and encounters all manner of benign and malevolent folk. Hard to shake the feel of this film, it could have even been higher on the list.

3. Zodiac Killer Project (2025)

A fantastic novelty film, where Charlie Shakleton made a film about not being able to make a film. The rights to a Zodiac Killer book were promised to him, then taken back while he was scouting locations in California. Rather than return to England empty-handed, he decided to make a 'what if?' documentary. And it's an absolute corker - inventive, smart, analytical and very funny to boot. It was a Rev screening so it might be hard to track down, but don't pass it up if you get a chance.

2. It Was Just an Accident (2025)

Here's a brilliant Iranian film about past trauma and the differing ways to handle it. Jafar Panahi has suffered a fair bit to bring his version of Iran to the screen and even now, on the back of the film, he's been charged in absentia. It seems that if or when he returns home, he'll be arrested. Fair play to the bloke. This is an amazing study of people and the decisions they make. It's gripping, uncomfortable, endearing and oddly funny, all in one film.

1. One Battle After Another (2025)

Here it is. A staggering achievement from Paul Thomas Anderson. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as an bong-addled, ex-revolutionary, trying to communicate with his teenage daughter when events from the past come to bite him on the arse. Sean Penn is sensational as the oncoming storm, Benicio del Toro and Chase Infiniti are also outstanding, but it's the package that seems near perfect. It's part satire, part thriller, part protest cinema, all put together with the confidence and pacing of an auteur at his peak. Not just the best of the year, but also one of the best of the century so far.

Some extra musings...

Best kids' films: The Wild Robot, Coco.

Feelgood films: All We Imagine as Light, Two to One.

Feelbad films (but still good): The Story of Souleymane, The Order, I'm Still Here, The Correspondent, Longlegs, The Tasters, 28 Years Later, Boiling Point, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Rolling Thunder.

Weirdest films: Bugonia, Eraserhead, The Surfer, Love Lies Bleeding, The Shrouds, Eight Postcards from Utopia.

Best shits and giggles: Splitsville, Friendship.

Best scenes: The music hall number in Sinners; the mirror maze inside Bob's head in Thunderbolts*; the water bridge in 28 Years Later; the toad scene in Friendship; the street protest in One Battle After Another; the attempted hit in The Secret Agent; the confrontation (with very loud music) in No Other Choice.

Best performances: Sean Penn, Leo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro in One Battle After Another; Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths; Michael B. Jordan and Hailee Steinfeld in Sinners; Carey Mulligan in The Ballad of Wallis Island; Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd in Friendship; Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent; Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in Hamnet.

Best music: Hard to pick actual songs this year, so I'm going with soundtracks - starting with Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat; The Ballad of Wallis Island; Shaft; One Battle After Another; The Secret Agent.

Comments

Nosferatu

The best looking film of the year, this has a gorgeous array of visuals that elicited a number of quiet 'wows' and intakes of breath from yours truly. Big praise to cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, production designer Craig Lathrop, art director Robert Cowper, set decorator Beatrice Brentnerova, and of course, director Robert Eggers for getting this crew together - he seems to use a lot of the same folk for his films, and fair enough, when this is the final product. Eggers has adapted the script from Henrik Galeen's original for F. W. Murnau's 1922 film, itself none too subtly ripped off from Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula . This is Eggers' fourth feature after The Witch , The Lighthouse , and The Northman and while I haven't yet seen the first two, I didn't care much for The Northman , typically wondrous images aside. He flirts with the pomposity that affected his previous film but here it matches the gothic tones and source text, that is until Aaron Tayl...

The Captive

Screening at the Spanish and Latin American Film Festival , Alejandro Amenabar's first film since 2019 is a mildly controversial take on the 5-year captivity of legendary Spanish author, Miguel de Cervantes. We begin the film as Cervantes is led into a dusty courtyard in Algiers, along with many other kidnappees. Before he can be sold as a slave, or sliced up for insubordination, he presents a letter from the Spanish court, signalling that perhaps it's better he be kept as a hostage for ransom. The film takes a bit of time to get rolling from here but when it does it settles into a clever mix of melodrama and weighty ideas. Cervantes, with his weak left arm acting like an acting crutch, slowly becomes the cheerleader of the prisoners, writing his stories in the air, only stopping when he temporarily runs light on material. The story takes a hurdle when the Bey, a high-ranking provincial governor (Alessandro Borghi) overhears the stories told in the courtyard and summons Cerv...

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...

The Good Boy

This English/Polish co-production is not to be confused with Good Boy , a dog-based horror film, even though in most regions the definite article is removed - it seems only Australia and the UK have it as The Good Boy . To muddy the waters more, in some areas, including the US, Brazil and the Netherlands, it's called Heel , something you might say to a dog. Anyway, I'll call it THE Good Boy because that's how it's being sold here. It's directed by a Polish guy called Jan Komasa, who's done some features in Poland, and written by first time writer Bartek Bartosik, alongside slightly more established Naqqash Khalid. They've concocted a genre pic that flirts with horror, winks at black comedy and straight up propositions psychological dependency drama. At the beginning of the film, young scally Tommy (Anson Boon) is a hateable twat, acting 'the big I am' on a night out, drug-fucked and aggro with everyone, until he sets off on his own for more action. ...

The Christophers

The title of the film refers to a series of paintings started by Julian Sklar in the 90s but left unfinished for reasons made clear later. Sklar, as played by Ian McKellen, is eccentric and irascible, and seems to be a blend of famous British painters, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. As Sklar is getting on in years, his grown children hatch a plan to have the paintings 'completed' for sale, with, or preferably without, their father's knowledge. For this undertaking they must enlist renowned art restorer (and dab hand forger), Lori Butler, an old acquaintance from art college. The premise is fine, but unfortunately, as created by Steven Soderbergh (director) and Ed Solomon (writer), it doesn't have any legs. Paradoxically, the best bits are probably also part of the reason it falters. McKellen is superb as the lovelorn painter, artistically blocked and emotionally bitter. His pithy, acerbic dialogue is great and he gives the performance full welly, but the actual storyli...

Head-On

I saw this confronting 2004 drama at the German Film Festival as part of a retrospective of Fatih Akin films. Unfortunately, there was only one screening in Perth, there might be extra shows in other cities. Akin's a great stylist, authentic and functional, and his films are informed by his cultural standing as a German-Turkish writer/director. In this film, a rough looking bloke called Cahit (Birol Ünel) smashes his car - head-on - into a wall after a heavy night on the turps. While getting treatment, he meets Sibel (Sibel Kekilli), a young woman who recognises his shared dual nationality status. She's looking for a 'Turkish' guy to marry, so her parents will get off her back. Initially sceptical and aggressively dismissive, Cahit realises Sibel is dangerously desperate, so he agrees to the sham marriage. There's an early bump in the road when Cahit kicks Sibel out on their wedding night for asking about his dead wife. Soon enough though, things settle into a room...

Franz: Becoming Kafka

In this fractured, somewhat unconventional biopic, various characters take on the role of narrator, breaking the fourth wall within the story. As curious as the method of delivery here is, the bones of the film itself still function to paint the picture of one of the 20th century's most lauded writers. We witness Kafka's less than perfect childhood with unloving father and powerless mother; his possible spectrum hovering; his near-crippling insecurities; his tricky relationships with women; and eventually the illness that brought on his early death. Director Agnieszka Holland is still firing at 77 years old, she's quite happy to lean towards experimentation and, along with her co-writer, Marek Epstein, she imbues the film with a surrealism similar to Kafka's work. Aside from the 'to camera' narration, the timeline jumps around, even bringing in elements of 21st century Kafka tourism with French, Japanese and American tour guides, who may or may not be on the lev...

The Talented Mr. F.

Screening at the German Film Festival, this is a mind-boggling tale of a 'you-tuber' dickhead who nicked a short animation film off a couple of German university students and passed it off as his own work. The thief, or the 'talented' Mr. F. of the title, is Samuel Felinton, a ubiquitous pud with a probable case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). This diagnosis has been mentioned on Reddit but his baggage is weighty so fucks knows what's wrong with him. We open with Moritz and Julius, who made a cute little robot anime, uploaded it to YouTube to see if anyone liked it, and when it gained loads of hits and positive comments, took it down. Emboldened by this public favour, they then started to enter their short, Butty, into various film festivals. When the replies came back that it couldn't be accepted because the film was already doing the festival circuit, the lads freaked out. Turns out Butty 's brief online life was enough time for Felinton to d...

Best Films of 2011 to 2020 - End of Decade Report

I realised a few weeks ago that I've been doing the Film Shapes blog since 2011. This got me thinking that it might be a doddle to put together an aggregation of the top tens of each year, a kind of 'best of the decade' list. Not such an easy task. I've had to stretch a mooted ten out to twenty and the order has been troubling me for some days. As it turns out, all these films were actually made between 2011 and 2020, otherwise titles like Inception may have snuck in. Anyway, I'll leave you with this for now and bugger the consequences. 20. Slow West (2015) An odd, melodic Western, directed by John Maclean (of The Beta Band), this has young Scot, Kodi Smitt-McPhee crossing the perilous US west, helped or hindered along the way by their excellencies Michael Fassbender and Ben Mendelsohn. As the title suggests, it's slow-paced but that's what sets it apart from other films of its ilk. Come to think of it, this is a pretty lonely ilk. 19. Bohemian Rhap sody ...

The Magic Faraway Tree (Me) (Kids)

I probably read these books as a kid (can't remember) but I certainly read them to my kids a few years ago, so the whole family took a trip to the Palace cinema to check out this new film version. It's adapted from the Enid Blyton book(s) by Simon Farnaby, the writer of Paddington 2 , Wonka and Mindhorn , and directed by Ben Gregor, a British TV journeyman. The cast is chock-full of screen dignitaries, from Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy, to Python Michael Palin, to Dame Judi Dench as a talking fridge (!). Modernising this classic kids' book series from the 30s and 40s means adding some stuff about screen (over)usage, the splintering of the family unit, and the desire to get back to the basics of life. In this case, the Thompsons go rural in a rundown barn with old tractors, and chickens living on the stove. The family is made up of Tim and Polly (Garfield and Foy), and the three children, Beth, Joe and Fran, played by Delilah Bennet-Cardy, Phoenix Laroche and Billie Gadsd...

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