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Movies of 2025!

Familiar Touch

It’s already April and I’m finally getting to my favorite films viewed last year. 2025 was a great year for independent film. While many have said otherwise, I was able to create a Top 40 film list all earning 4 stars out of 5 or more! Films I swore would be in my Top 10 for the year ended up much lower because of the number of particularly strong films I saw. And I saw a lot of 2025 releases. To be clear, this list is films I have seen that were released in 2025, not films I saw in 2025. It appears I watched 108 films released in 2025. I may have missed a couple, but it’s nice to break 100 again. Perhaps the first time since the pandemic kept us indoors in 2020 and 2021.

There were only two big budget studio films in my Top 40, Fantastic Four: First Steps and Is This Thing On? Last year’s big Oscar winners didn’t fare all that well with me, with One Battle After Another hitting at #72 (and I actually enjoyed this film well enough), and Sinners at #86. The other big superhero flick, Superman came in at #87. Below are the films I ranked #31 – 40, with a few honorable mentions below.

Jazzy

#31) Jazzy – In Morissa Moltz’s sequel of sorts to her lovely debut narrative, The Unknown Country explores the passage from childhood to young adulthood, as Jazzy must deal with her best friend moving away. As in her previous films, Maltz melds narrative and documentary, and features a great cameo from her last film, Lily Gladstone.

#32) The Testament of Ann Lee – Mona Fastvold’s big swing scores a double, I guess, with her ambitious and massive telling of Ann Lee, the woman who founded the Shaker movement. The first half of this film was a bit scattered, and dragged, but once the family and movement left the UK for the colonies, things really took off. The music and choreography were outstanding, those extended sequences really pulling the viewer into the worship of the community. Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, and Christopher Abbot give strong performance. This is a unique and powerful story told by a bold new voice who co-wrote and produced The Brutalist.

Oceans are the Real Continents

#33) Oceans Are the Real Continents – Three stories focusing on residents of different generations living in the inland town of San Antonio, Cuba illustrate separation in this gorgeous and poignant debut feature from Italian writer/director Tommaso Santambrogio. Alex and Edith are a young couple in their 20’s both theatrical artists, who face a critical turning point when Edith receives the opportunity to go to Italy and has no intention of returning. Frank and Alain are childhood pals who dream of becoming famous ball players for the New York Yankees, living with their families in neighboring mansions despite the real threat of Frank’s family emigrating to the U.S. in the near future. Milagros is solitary woman in her later years still mourning the loss of her husband in the Angola War years in the past. The three stories all take place in the same town, but they rarely intersect, and even then only incidentally. Yet they tell the story of Cuba in a profoundly moving way, highlighted by the stunning black & white cinematography. Sound Design is also stunning with the wind morphing into the ocean tides, then once more into a burning car in a marvelous sequence. All the characters are played by non-actors, and do a stellar job; a tribute to this new director’s skills.

#34) The Secret Agent – There’s a lot to like about Kleber Mendonça Filho’s latest film, but there’s not enough to rank it higher on this list. Filho is an interesting and accomplished filmmaker, and his latest, a look back on a widower being persecuted by government officials for some unknown reason in a small Brazilian city highlights some of his strengths. However, the excessive running time, and the bizarre use of his over-the-top, cartoonish violence (something that really detracted from Bacarau as well) disrupted the tone and effectiveness of the film. Great performance from lead actor Wagner Moura, and the supporting, ensemble cast is one of the best of the year. Filho’s use of his home city is always fascinating. This film really used place so effectively. The fascinating reveal focusing on the young researcher looking at news archives was beautifully done.

#35) No Other Choice – A little too long, and while necessary, the first third of the film drags a little, but when things start popping, the film really leans into the absurdity, and that’s a good choice. The screenplay is taut, great to see Don McKellar involved. Superficially fun, but it has depth as it explores class divisions and the capitalist struggle to succeed. But then, that is director Park Chan-wook’s bread and butter, and he brings it to the fore beautifully with both humor and dread.

#36) Train Dreams – Gentle storytelling of a man’s long life, with moments of incredible beauty, alongside devastating loss and senseless violence. Clyde Edgerton is very strong as our subject, Robert, with lovely supporting roles from Kerry Condon and William H. Macy. Sadly, the film didn’t resonate as much with me as it should have given that it’s really my kind of film. When Kerry Condon’s character appeared, she injected such a beautiful, vibrant energy into the film I just kept hoping she would return. Cinemtography was beautiful, with the forest being such a huge part of the film. Nice racial and ecological themes running throughout. Director Clint Bentley and co-writer Greg Kwedar were the team responsible for 2024’s powerful Sing Sing, and they certainly do know how to tug the heartstrings.

Dead Mail

#37) Dead Mail – This was a surprise, and I wish it could have fought it’s way higher up my list! Taut, well-produced thriller with a low budget, but well-written and fascinating characters. Writer/directors Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy have created an original suspense/horror flick around the dead letter office at the post office, with a backdrop of synthesizer geeks. The cast is terrific, especially Tomas Boykin who plays a great protagonist unlike the usual fare, and when he disappears abruptly from the film his absence hits hard. Great tone throughout. Well worth a look!

#38) A Nice Indian Boy – Naveen is part of a nice, traditional Indian family, but as a gay man with a non-traditional sister, things don’t always run so smoohtly. When he brings his iancé Jay home to meet the parents, can they accept his white orphan boyfriend into the family? Director Roshan Sethi, working with a screenplay by Eric Randall, adapted from a play by Madhuri Shekar, amps up the family drama, the over-the-top hijinks of planning the perfect Indian wedding, Jay’s sweet patience, ad Naveen’s amusing neuroticism to create a fun-filled movie. Karan Soni and Konathan Groff are adorable and engaging as the trying-to-be-happy grooms-to-be.

#39) Familiar Touch – Kathleen Chalfant owns every scene in this gently exquisite film directed beautifully by Sarah Friedland. It tells a story about aging and memory that is both comforting and immutably sad. The sad history of the film revealed that David Lynch mainstay actress Grace Zabriske was developing this film with Friedland intending to play the lead, but her own growing dementia prevented her from playing the part. While Chalfant made the role seem effortless and powerful, I would have loved to see Zabriskie tackle the role.

September 5

#40) September 5 – Skirting the line between independent and Hollywood films (Paramount invested some into the production that was mostly funded independetly) Tim Fehlbaum tellsw a riveting story about journalism. The film is a straight-forward, well-made political thriller about the terrorists who took 11 Israeli participants at the Munich Olympics in 1972 hostage, and the live news coverage of these events by ABC. Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, and Ben Chaplin are all well-known, strong actors who bring the real life individuals to life. I was particularly pleased to see a terrific performance by Leonie Benesch (The Teachers’ Lounge) in a pivotal role.

Honorable Mentions: Suze, An Unfinished Film, Bob Trevino Likes It, I’m Still Here, Father Mother Sister Brother, Viet and Nam, Ponyboi, To Kill a Wolf, The Girl with the Needle, Invention, The Practice, D(e)AD

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Favorite Books Read in 2025 — #’s 7 & 6

Closing in on the Top 5 we have a couple of international novels that take place abroad. One is a literary novel with elements of time travel, the other is a mother son story set in war-torn Beirut with a wittily biting voice.

#7 – The True True Story of Raja the Gullible by Rabih Alameddine (2025)

Acclaimed author Rabih Alameddine has written a caustically funny novel about a Lebanese man living in Beirut across six challenging decades, both personally and nationally, all while dealing with his beloved and hated mother. Nearing the age where many people retire, Raja, the solitary, orderly, “neighborhood homosexual” is still teaching his “brats” when an opportunity presents itself to take a three-month sabbatical in America — a journey that sends him on a journey throughout his life, recounting the personal and political upheaval he has endured.

Alameddine has a sarcastic humor that gets Raja through difficult times. His relationship with his mother is complex and fascinating, and it’s always illuminating to read LGBTQ+ stories from outside mainstream American culture.

#8 – A Line You Have Traced by Roisin Dunnett (2025)

Beautifully written speculative fiction about three women from different times whose connected lives come together in a unique way to change the course of the future as the world approaches an environmental collapse. Bea lives in Post World War I London living a quiet life in Jewish East London, confused by the sporadic, mysterious visits by an ‘angel.’ Kay hangs out with her friends in contemporary East London’s underground queer scene finding herself visited by time travelers. While years in the future, Ess, part of a group that is preparing for the end of human life on earth, becomes caught up in a plan to make a journey into the past to help save the present.

Roisin Dunnett’s debut novel is an intricately plotted portrait of three unique women and the unbelievable encounters they must make sense of. With deep roots in the exploration of personal history, it’s a unique and vibrant work.

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Favorite Books Read in 2025 — #’s 9 & 8

Interestingly enough, as we enter the Top 10, we’ve got two books about plants! In fact, the #9 book, a science fiction novel, was mentioned on the #8 book, a non-fiction book about intelligence in plants! In fact, I only read the first book because of it’s mention in the second. Still, it has reopened a fascination with plants that I used to have when I was young, so both were very welcome. Another interesting twist occurred when I found out that the author of my #8 book is the daughter of a woman who is working for the Provincetown Film Society, an organization upon which I serve on the Board.

#9 – Semiosis by Sue Burke (2018)

Semiosis

Intriguing science fiction tales that explores a colony of humans who fled earth and find themselves on a planet they dub Pax. Over the first several generations, they explore an utterly alien world while the author explores the possibilities of sentience, and even intelligence in all manner of lifeforms, particularly plants. Author Sue Burke clearly did her research on recent studies of plant intelligence, and it makes for a pretty fun ride. Starts off a little amateurish, but builds well and ends strongly.

Semiosis is the first of a Semiosis trilogy with Interference coming in 2019, and Usurpation coming out in 2024. With the first book hitting the Top 10, it seems like I should be eager to read the rest of the trilogy, but I’m hoping they will be stronger entires in the series.

#10 – The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoë Schlanger (2024)

The Light Eaters

Zoë Schlanger’s examination of the controversial but growing study of plant intelligence is an accessible and revelatory look at how botanists historically and more importantly in recent years, have begun looking at the concept of consciousness, awareness, intelligence, agency… in plants. Whether it’s learning that plants seem to possess identity, and also memory, but also influence other organisms around them through chemical secretions, The Light Eaters has certainly adjusted the way I view the vegetable world.

The very notion of human supremacy among the earth’s inhabitants is laughable when you consider the fact that if all plant life was wiped out, humanity would die off pretty quickly, but if all humans were wiped out, plants would undoubtedly thrive.

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Favorite Books Read in 2025 — #’s 11 & 10

Dipping my toe into my Top 10 books of the year, we have a couple of novels actually published in 2025 as well (okay, #11 was published in December 2024 — close enough). Both are by authors new to me, and both we impulse reads, which turned out to be good choices. I was particularly taken by my #10’s title. and MA setting. Both had moments that took me out of their stories, which kept them from getting higher on my list, but still, I enjoyed them both very much.

#11 — Rental House by Weike Wang (2024)

Compact story about an interracial couple from very different backgrounds, navigating adulthood, marriage, their strong-willed parents, and their very different outlooks on life. Weike Wang’s third novel was sometimes difficult to read, as the main characters were so wrapped up in their own heads they had difficult reaching out to each other, but this is a thoughtful examination of complex relationships and a strong read.

#10 — The Frequency of Living Things by Nick Fuller Googins (2025)

The four women who make up the Tayloe family endure exhilarating joy, consuming rage, and devastating grief through the course of Nick Fuller Googins’ novel, The Frequency of Living Things. Youngest daughter, Josie, brilliant scientist fascinated by the order and loyalty of colonies of ants, keeps the family moving forward. When her sisters ask her for help, the serotonin in her system skyrockets and she takes control. The twins, Emma and Ama, creative musicians, struck it huge with the band JoJo & the Twins, when they were young. One massive hit and a Grammy nomination , and that was it. Emma, kept them going, getting the band gigs in smaller and smaller venues, while Ama spirals into an opioid addiction that lands her in jail where she must detox not only from her drugs, but her family. Then there is their absent mother, Bertie, political activist, always focused on her cause, less so on her daughters. When her daughters need her the most, she is on a ship headed for Gaza to help the Palestinians.

Googins creates a compelling and powerfully dramatic colony of women in the Tayloe family, carefully giving them each full inner lives with insight, and emotion. It’s a rough ride for JoJo and the twins, and there are times when it seems like the colony just won’t make it. Googins takes the reader on a wild and dark path that ultimately leads to the future.

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Favorite Books Read in 2025 — #’s 12 – 14

As we near the Top 10, we start to get deeper into fiction and start to leave the plays behind. My novel reading is a mixture of recent publications, recommendations from co-workers, and reading advanced readers copies that were sent to me by publishers back in the 2015 – 2017 time frame when physical galleys were still being created. I have a bookshelf in my office filled with titles that looked intriguing, and now that my retirement is not that far away, I’m trying to get through some of them! Of course, some are just titles that jump out at me, like #13.

#14 – To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage (2025)

I had trouble trouble reviewing Eliana Ramage’s To the Moon and Back. There is so much to appreciate bout this novel, from the beautiful command of language, to the intricate, complex women that inhabit it. The first challenge the novel faces is also a positive. The books explores so many threads, each of which could power an entire book on its own. In some ways, this is more like life. We don’t grapple with one single issue as we grow, there are a plethora of challenges hurled our way. For Steph, Moon’s main character, there is her single-minded pursuit to become an astronaut, there is the conflicting feelings about her Cherokee heritage, there are the complex relationships with her mother and her younger sister, there is the mystery of her birth father, there is the connection with her mother’s boyfriend, and the very messy entanglements with the women she falls in love with. All of this is then shoved into a coming-of-age story. Somehow though, for the most part, all of it is handled very well.

Where I am somewhat disappointed is how neatly it all gets wrapped up in the end. After a complex, involving three-quarters of a novel, when things start falling into place (partly due to a rather dramatic and unexpected — slightly ridiculous? — experience) everything starts resolving, like a Hollywood movie.

In the end, due to its many strong points, I am giving To the Moon and Back 4 stars. It really kept me going and Ramage creates some interesting characters, an includes a heck of a lot of research to bring reality to their worlds.

#13 – We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, E. Madison Shimoda (Translator) (2023)

Part of that unique genre of Japanese novels that feature cats, We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, by Syou Ishida, features a series of interconnected stories about a mysterious Kyoto establishment, The Nakagyo Kokoro Clinic for the Soul. Visitors learn about the clinic through byazntine recommendations, are greeted by a less than welcoming receptionist and diagnosed quickly by a somewhat distracted doctor — with the end result inevitably being prescribed a cat.

We cat lovers know that cats have miraculous healing properties, but is delightful to enjoy this novel about them. An intriguing through-line slowly emerges introducing a magical realism aspect that borders on full-on magic. There is a unique cadence to the modern Japanese novel, but it’s easy to become accustomed to, and the result is charmingly rewarding.

#12 – After the Flood by Kassandra Montag (2019)

When the worst tragedies have befallen you, you can either be consumed with guilt, or reach for hope. Myra and her young daughter Pearl are struggling to survive an earth that has been overcome by massive flooding so only the mountain ranges attract small colonies, while raiders haunt the waters. When she learns through an act of violence that her older daughter, stolen from her by her husband years ago, might still be alive, she risks everything to find her.

After the Flood is a taut, dark, heart-rending tale of survival, grief, and guilt. The earth that author Kassandra Montag has imagined is vivid and filled with danger. Lots of action, adventure, and edge of your seat suspense seen through the eyes of a mother driven to save her daughter. This was one of those books that have been sitting on my office bookshelf for nearly 7 years. Glad I finally picked it up! This was Montag’s debut novel and she has written several since, which are now on my “to-read” list.