PV Guide's 2025 favorites
My picks for the best new releases of 2025
After talking about books, music, and your picks for your favorite new releases of 2025, it’s time for my list.
2025 was a real mixed bag for me – I got laid off from the company I worked for nearly my entire professional life, but I also got to start PV Guide and Sports Movies That Don’t Suck. I generally reconnected with the things I wanted to work on.
I watch a lot of new movies every year. Part of that is because I want to be a good awards voter (I vote in GALECA’s Dorian Awards, the WGA Awards, and Vulture’s Stunt Awards.) But mostly, I just like seeing what artists are thinking about, grappling with, and trying around the world. I treasure being able to take a global view at modern cinema, thinking about the patterns and differences that shape our experiences, and identifying new favorite artists.
Some quick stats: I have watched 181 movies that came out in 2025. They span more than three dozen countries, and nearly two dozen languages. I liked most of them, to varying degrees! It was a good year for new movies. (Paid subscribers: if you want to see my ranking of all 181 movies or want to know what I thought of a particular movie, send me a message).
This list is an attempt to capture the titles that intrigued and moved me the most; the ones that stayed with me over the course of the last year. My hope is you’ll find a few things you’re interested in and learn a little more about me in the process.
So here are my favorite new movies of 2025, along with some rapid fire sub-categories, and for paid subscribers, my picks for my favorite TV and games. If you want to know more about any of these, where to watch them, or what you should prioritize on the streaming services you have, leave a comment or respond to this e-mail!
Movies of the year
Other movies I loved that could have made the top 10 on a different day but didn’t today: The Secret Agent, Dead Talents Society, Caught by the Tides, Ghost Killer, Sorry Baby, Sentimental Value, Kantara - A Legend: Chapter 1, One Battle After Another, Kill the Jockey, Thieves Highway, Pillion, 40 Acres, 100 Meters, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Trouble Man, Twinless, Hedda, A Little Prayer, The Phoenician Scheme, The Mastermind, Wake Up Dead Man, Cells at Work!, Blue Moon
10. Peter Hujar’s Day
In 1974, writer Linda Rosenkrantz began interviewing her artist friends about how they spend their days, logging 24 hours in their life from their point-of-view. The project was ultimately never finished, but she did speak to photographer Peter Hujar, eventually publishing his 24 hours in a book. The great filmmaker Ira Sachs (Passages) adapted that book into this unconventional movie, which takes the exact words from the interview transcript and turns them into a fascinating two-hander, led by two of the best acting performances of the year by Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall. Sachs has said this was likely going to be a short until he saw how well Whishaw understood the text, and it shows. I would absolutely love a whole series like this – it’s intimate and human in ways few other films reached in 2025.
9. The Testament of Ann Lee
Probably the year’s most confounding Oscar snub – there were movies I liked more that weren’t nominated, but they were all foreign movies/genre movies, and those tend to have a higher bar to clear in the US awards circuit. The Testament of Ann Lee is a flashy, historical American production with lavish sets, big set pieces, fantastic performances, and an Oscar pedigree (The Brutalist). It’s full of life and energy and all the things that make movies worth watching.
8. Cloud
Leave it to Kiyoshi Kurosawa to make one of the defining paranoid thrillers of our times. Cloud follows an online reseller oblivious to the consequences to his actions on people both near and far to him, offering a searing reminder that the internet is indeed real life.
7. Baby Assassins 3
My favorite franchise on the planet right now (and it’s not even close). A pitch-perfect match of the most captivating choreographed action in the business and stoner-adjacent comedy. I almost threw Ghost Killer in this top 10 as well, which is made by many of the same people, but I wanted variety in this list – so consider this a joint Baby Assassins 3/Ghost Killer entry. Nobody in the world is doing action comedy better than Kensuke Sonomura and Yugo Sakamoto.
6. Marty Supreme
This movie’s had me saying “Marty Supreme Marty Supreme Marty Supreme” or “I’m gonna become the Marty Supreme of ____” since I saw it. Just like Uncut Gems (which I slightly prefer), you can breathe in the air of New York in this movie. And just like Uncut Gems, Marty Supreme is filled with incredible faces and extraordinary people – terrific casting decisions all around. Chalamet’s performance in particular is one of the best of the year, the type movie stardom is made of. Also, as someone who cares very deeply about this sort of thing in sports movies, the ping pong scenes are terrific.
5. No Other Choice
That other major Oscar snub (not even international feature film!), every piece of Park Chan-wook’s film drives towards a holistic vision of itself. Between this and Sentimental Value, a great year for movies about houses. An explosive dark comedy thriller about shattered dreams and broken lives and the cruelty of scarcity in a rough labor market. Yeah I got laid off this year, what of it?
4. Bison Kaalamaadan
Mari Selvaraj’s movies feel like remembering a story you’ve been told long ago. I first fell in love with his work with Karnan, another story about an angry young man tired of being under the thumb of those in power. This one’s about kabaddi, but it’s no less powerful, with gorgeous cinematography full of arresting images, a terrific soundtrack I’ve been playing on repeat, and a powerful story about the path enmity leads to.
3. Eephus
This movie understands baseball in a way I’ve never seen a movie understand a sport. Baseball is the moments in between – loitering in the outfield until something happens, shooting the shit in the dugout, waiting in the on-deck circle. Listen to our episode of Sports Movies That Don’t Suck about Eephus with David Roth, or our episode with Eephus director Carson Lund on a different baseball movie, I Will Buy You.
2. Sinners
The Hollywood movie of 2025, matching big blockbuster thrills with a deep well of feeling and a sculptor’s precision at every turn. Sinners fires on all cylinders, and brings back adult entertainment with something for everyone to American movie theaters. The synergy between the soundtrack, the images, the story, the performances… Cinema is our only currently functioning form of time travel.
1. It Was Just An Accident
The movie of 2025, responding to, defining, and speaking to our collective moment. Truly great cinema can’t be separated from the circumstances in which it was created. It Was Just an Accident was made in secret by Jafar Panahi, an Iranian dissident who was released from prison in early February 2023 after a hunger strike. The tension of watching a movie that was made illegally, watching actors commit crimes in public and on film, is remarkable. But to nestle those meta conflicts in an excellent genre/thriller container with incredible emotional weight? A masterpiece.
Rapidfire sub-categories
Best twist on the standard zombie allegory: Operation Undead
Best movie where people time travel by sneezing: Escape from the 21st Century
Best movie shot like a retro sidescrolling survival horror game: Waves of Madness
Best movie about cow crimes: Thieves Highway
Best oner: Retro’s wedding sequence
Moment that made me go “holy fucking shit, I’ve never seen anything like that before” out loud: Final battle, Ne Zha 2
Best fight sequence involving a giant wooden tower: Kantara - A Legend: Chapter 1
Best movie that taught me about that taught me a surprising amount about the human body and also had fart jokes: Cells at Work!
Best movie about the ghost creator economy: Dead Talents Society
Best actual, laugh-out-loud comedy: One of Them Days
Best “I LOVE MY WIFE” movie: In the Lost Lands
Best movie where a car explodes a helicopter: Last Bullet
Best use of tonal shifts: Broken Rage
DTV action corner
Best fighting tournament movie: I Am What I Am 2
Honorable mentions: Alappuzha Gymkhana, Karate Kid: Legends, Gladiator Underground
Best Michael Jai White movie: Trouble Man
Honorable mentions: Don’t Mess With Grandma, Hostile Takeover
Best Scott Adkins movie: Diablo
Best Marko Zaror movie: Diablo
Best "elite military unit vs. aliens" movie: Osiris
Some other quick highlights of the year, from the worlds of TV and games:
Narrative TV
Others I loved: The Pitt, Pluribus, The Righteous Gemstones, Hacks, The Lowdown, The Studio, Murderbot, Matlock
Andor season 2
Great finish to my favorite Star Wars thing ever made. Complex, surprising, intense, inspiring, and fun.
Baby Assassins Everyday! season 1
A very fun episodic journey with the Baby Assassins – they translate shockingly well to the TV format!
Slow Horses season 5
Just the best. A terrific mix of comedy and spy drama. Getting a Ho-focused season was a surprising treat.
“Competitive” TV
Others I loved: Jeopardy!, Make Some Noise
Game Changer Season 7
The most consistently creative and funny show on Dropout, a platform with plenty of each. Personal highlights: the incredibly ambitious season premiere “One Year Later,” the Traitors-style “The Drinking Game,” and the viral video competition “Fool’s Gold.”
Physical: Asia Season 1
Despite enjoying Physical 100, I went into this spin-off skeptical of the premise and how it might map onto the franchise’s sometimes troubling relationship with bodies. Instead, I loved every minute of it, and now have about a dozen new favorite athletes I will follow across sports I never previously considered.
Taskmaster Series 19 and 20
The funniest show on TV had two great seasons in 2025 (three if you include the two-episode New Year’s Treat). The show’s popularity in the US is opening it up to new American contestants, but Taskmaster is still Taskmaster. Read my interviews with Ania Magliano and Maisie Adam.
Games
Other games I loved: Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, News Tower, HangTime!, Peak, Re/Match, Teamfight Tactics, Pro Cycling Manager 25, Cine2Nerdle Battle, Hitman Freelancer Mode
Blue Prince
Playing this puzzle game with Tristan and scrawling in a notebook together was one of the great highlights of my year. A game you really have to experience to understand.
The Chef’s Shift
I love typing games and cooking games. This combines both! It’s a winner.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Typically not a big RPG person, but I played this one on easy mode and was completely taken by the experience, a pure symphony of sight and sound. One of the great soundtracks of the year.
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
My big caveat for my RPG statement above: I love the Like a Dragon series. It’s the best video game franchise out there, and I had a fantastic time with this Hawaii-based pirate spin-off. It’s got fun mini-games, entertaining characters, endlessly silly moments, and makes terrific use of assets held over from the previous game.
The Roottrees are Dead
I’ve been in my puzzle/mystery game era recently, and this one uses really fun archival mechanics to create the family tree of a family dynasty. These systems work way better than I expected.
