Ralph’s Annual Favorite Movies – 2025 Edition

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

UPDATE 1/30/26: Please note that I have not seen a number of the big 2025 movies yet which explains some otherwise inexplicable omissions. These include:

  • Marty Supreme – Which I saw last week and loved. It will be somewhere on my 2026 list.
  • Sinners, which I will be seeing in March as part of the Best Picture nominee round-up at my beloved World Theatre.
  • You’ve Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine, which will be showing at The World in February.

Over the last year, I and/or my Dear Wife have watched slightly more than 120 movies: some that were new releases (i.e Avatar: Fire and Ash), some that were 2024 movies getting viewed a little late (2024’s Conclave), and even one that was a vintage silent (1925’s Lady Windermere’s Fan).

There were also many, many rewatchings of old favorites, including Emilio Estavez’s The Way; Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first big musical, In The Heights; and my favorite Hitchcock comedy (were there any others?), The Trouble With Harry.

Roughly half of our viewings were of new-to-us films and half were reruns of old favorites.

This list is my 10 favorite movies I saw for the first time in 2025. This is in no way a 10-best list, particularly since half of them were originally released before this year.  They are just the 10 movies I enjoyed the most that I hadn’t seen before. They are presented in the order in which I watched them, followed by a list of honorable mentions.

What movies would you put on your list of favorites?

Ralph’s Top Ten Favorite Movies First Seen in 2025

In order viewed.

  • Small Things Like These (2024) – When Cillian Murphy won the Oscar for Best Actor in Oppenheimer in 2023, he used some of his new Hollywood cred to produce and star in a movie adaptation of Claire Keegan’s 2021 novella about the exploitation of unwed mothers in Ireland over several decades in the so-callled Magdalene laundries. Murphy plays a hard-working coal merchant whose clients  include the convent where his daughters get their education. During his rounds, he discovers the mistreatment of a pregnant young woman, and he has to decide what he can do to help her. No, not the feel-good movie of the year, but it’s an example of how small, interesting movies can still get made in this era of corporate cinema. The movie was released by a production company run by Matt Damon (Murphy’s co-star in Oppenheimer) and Ben Affleck. Viewed at The World Theatre, our local non-profit movie theater where I work as a volunteer.Trailer for Small Things Like These

  • Conclave (2024) – This multi-Oscar nominated film won Best Adapted Screenplay and was based on the 2016 novel by Richard Harris. This was by far my favorite movie I saw in 2025, viewing it at both The World Theatre and multiple times at home. It’s a thriller about the election of a new Roman Catholic pope following the death of a Francis-like pontiff. It has a stellar cast, starring Ralph Fiennes & Isabella Rossellini  (both nominated for Oscars), Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati and newcomer Carlos Diehz. Among the many reasons I love this film is because it is in many ways a modern take on the subject matter of 1968’s The Shoes of the Fisherman, starring Anthony Quinn and Sir Lawrence Olivier about the unexpected election of a Russian pope at the height of the Cold War. (And yes, this fall I watched the two back-to-back as a papal election double feature.) While both of these films recognize flaws in the church, they are both respectful of what the church tries to be. But neither should be seen as documentaries on how popes are elected.Trailer for Conclave

  • A Complete Unknown (2024) -In this music biopic Chalamet plays a young Bob Dylan breaking into the folk music scene and then trying to find a place in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. Chalamet did his own singing in the movie, and he does a credible job without lapsing into parody of the gravelly voiced singer/songwriter. Along with Chalamet, the film includes excellent portrayals of real people by Edward Norton as singer Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as a fictionalized version of Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo, Moncia Barbaro as Joan Baez, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash and Scoot McNairy as a very ill Woody Guthrie. It was directed by James Mangold, who also did the Cash biopic Walk The Line, along with several X-Men movies (including the brilliant Logan), the racing movie Ford v. Ferrari, and the big-budget Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. (Viewed at The World Theatre.) Baez and Dylan singing It Ain’t Me Babe from A Complete Unknown.

  • Poster for movie Lady Windermere's Fan, 1925Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925) – Back in 2023, I was fortunate enough to see three Buster Keaton short films with live piano accompaniment by Rodney Sauer at The World Theatre. In February of 2025, I got to see director Ernst Lubitsch’s silent film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan with Sauer heading up a multi-part orchestra to accompany the film at The World. Silent films can be a lot of fun, but they are at their best when they have live music with them. If you get the chance to see a classic silent with live music, grab the opportunity.Rodney Sauer discusses scoring and performing live music with silent films.

  • The Penguin Lessons (2024) – This is a thoughtful and sweet movie that is perhaps a bit too timely right now. Loosely based on a memoir by Tom Michell about his time teaching at a boys’ boarding school in Argentina in the 1970s during roughly the time of the Dirty War dictatorship. Steven Coogan plays Michell, who inadvertently rescues and adopts a penguin who’s been hurt by an oil spill. The penguin then ends up being a troublesome mascot for Michell’s classes. In an ironic twist, Jonathan Pryce plays the school’s headmaster. (Ironic because Pryce’s biggest claim to fame may be his portrayal of Argentinian strong man Juan Peron in the original Broadway production of the Weber/Rice musical Evita.) A solid entry in the “troubled teacher saves students at an elite boarding school” genre. You can watch it streaming on Netflix. (Trailer for The Penguin Lessons)

  • F1 (2025) – F1 tells the fictional story of former race great Sonny Hayes (Pitt) being recruited by old friend and struggling F1 team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) to try to bring the team a much needed victory. Hayes teams up with up-and-comer Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) who has a lot of skill but no idea how to really race. Although it is clearly a testosterone-heavy film, it also has compelling female performances from Pearce’s mother, Bernadette (Sarah Niles, best known for stage and TV roles); and team technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon, who brings her unabashed Irish regional accent that shone in the eminently weird and wonderful movie The Banshees of Inisherin). Back in July, I wrote a long blog post about F1 and several of my other favorite racing movies you should check out if this kind of thing appeals to you. Currently streaming on Apple TV. (Trailer for F1)

  • K-Pop Demon Hunters (2025) If you have young girls in your household, you have watched, and watched, and watched, and… the Netflix hit animated film about the K-Pop band Huntress who sideline as demon hunters… (But the title gives that all away. Produced by Sony Animation, the movie has already won the Golden Globe for both best animated film and best movie song (for Golden; the lyric video follows so you can sing along with it).  It’s great to see someone other than Disney turning out interesting and original animated films. This is from the same studio that brought us Mitchells vs. the Machines and the Spider-Verse movies. It’s had a brief theatrical run to make it eligible for the Oscars, but I’m still hoping it will get more time on the big screen.  Lyric video for song “Golden” from K-Pop Demon Hunters)

  • Frankenstein (2025) Director Guillermo del Toro’s take on Mary Shelley’s classic story of monstrous life and death (death and life?) has flaws, big flaws even, but it is a visually stunning and, at least to me, compelling take on the question of what makes us human, what makes us alive. Starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as The Creature, Mia Goth as both Lady Elizabeth Harlander and Victor’s late mother, and Christoph Waltz and Victor’s source of funds. If you like the arctic portion of the story, I would highly recommend checking out the AMC series based on Dan Simmon’s novel The Terror. (Frankenstein can be streamed on Netflix.) (Trailer for Frankenstein)

  • Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) – What is there to say about the incredible excess that is James Cameron’s Avatar series of films. These all take place in the computer animated world of Pandora with motion-captured performances by actors working in a giant room of abstract props known as The Volume. This third outing features a fantastic indigenous villain played by Oona Chaplin, who completely dominates the movie every moment she is on the screen. (She’s also Charlie Chaplain’s granddaughter.) It may be too late by the time you read this, but if at all possible see it in 3D on the best screen you can find. I was fortunate enough to see it on an Ultra DLX screen, which is the next best thing to an IMAX. One of the fascinating things that motion capture allows is having Sigourney Weaver, who is now 76 years old, play her teenaged daughter (more or less) in a convincing way. Don’t pay too much attention to the plot. All  three of these films they have huge problems. Just enjoy being able to visit the world of Pandora. (Trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash)

Honorable Mentions:

Here are the rest of the movies I first saw in 2025 that made a big impression on me.

  • We Live in Time (2024) – Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield star in this weepy story of a chef and her partner trying to make sense out of how they should spend the limited amount of timer they have as Pugh’s character deals with terminal cancer. But despite its downbeat theme, it’s really all about life.
  • Multiple Wes Anderson Films (2009-2025) – I saw a number of auteur Wes Anderson’s films for the first time last year, and loved all of them. These include three of  his 2023 quartet of short films based on the short stories of Roald Dahl – The Swan, The Rat Man, & Poison; his stop-action animated The Fantastic Mr. Fox from 2009; and his 2025 feature film,  The Phoenician Scheme.
  • Music by John Williams (2024) – A career retrospective of iconic film composer John Williams from his start writing the theme song for Gilligan’s Island to his long run of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg films. On Disney+
  • The Last Showgirl (2024) – What happens when movie and TV sex symbols get older? Hopefully they get to make thoughtful films like The Last Showgirl staring Pamela Anderson and co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis. A reminder of how good small films can be (such as this one, Small Things Like These and We Live in Time).
  • Paddington in Peru (2024) – Over the last several years I’ve celebrated my birthday by getting to pick a family movie at our local non-profit The World Theatre. I also serve cake to everyone attending the evening of my party. For 2025 we showed Paddington in Peru, the third in the popular lost-bear-in-Britain series. While it did not live up to the high standard of Paddington 2, a legendary sequel, it was my favorite family movie of the year.
  • Death of a Unicorn (2025) – So I got to see a strange, violent, bloody, incredibly funny movie that came out last spring called Death of a Unicorn starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Téa Leoni, and Richard E. Grant. The movie is very loosely based on the story told by a collection of seven tapestries known as “The Hunt for the Unicorn” that hang in The Cloisters annex of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. I wrote a whole post on these tapestries and movie  when it came out that you can read here.
  • Materialists (2025) – One of the seemingly dozens of movie starring or co-starring Pedro Pascal that have come out in the last couple of years. It was directed by Celine Song (Past Lives) and also stars Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans. It’s a small film that tells the story of a modern matchmaker, her actor one-time boyfriend, and a charming millionaire. The story is pretty simple, but the characters are fascinating.
  • Barton Fink (1991) – I’m a big fan of the movie podcast Blank Check, and it spent the last half of 2025 taking a long look at the films of the Coen Bros. Because of this, I rewatched a number of Coen movies and watched a few for the first time. One blind spot for me had been their golden-age-of-Hollywood black comedy Barton Fink, starring John  Turturro and John Goodman. Probably not for everyone, but definitely watch if you love old movies (i.e. movies from the 1930s and 40s).
  • The Birds (1963) – A classic Hitchcock offering that I had somehow missed watching before last year. The effects are dated, but it’s still incredibly creepy. And elements of it have found their way into the second season of the Addams Family series Wednesday.
  • One Battle After Another (2025) – Another black comedy, this one from Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor, I won’t try to explain the plot beyond that it deals with an aging revolutionary dealing with modern white supremacist culture. It’s billed as a likely multi-Oscar nominee.
  • And finally, one last movie from the very end of the year: A Carol for Another Christmas (1964) – Dated, heavy handed, and fascinating. That’s Rod Serling’s A Carol for Another Christmas – a call for world peace and cooperation in the atomic age of the early 1960s. I wrote more about it in my annual holiday movie post back in December.
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