Oliver Weir’s Best 10 Movies of 2025

      Following The Film Stage’s curated list of the top 50 films of 2025, our contributors are sharing their individual top 10 selections as part of our end-of-year reflection.

      Earlier this year, I lost my father, Alan, at the age of 61. He was the kindest and funniest person I've ever known, and most importantly for this discussion, he was the one who introduced me to cinema. Many of the films I cherish—such as Eraserhead, This is Spinal Tap, Being There, Gregory’s Girl—were either watched for the first time with him or recommended by him. Occasionally, I would introduce him to new films that he deemed worthy of his ever-growing all-time top 5. As you can imagine, my focus has not been on films for much of this year, and it took me time to return to my previous viewing habits. However, over the last month or two, I have managed to catch up on many of the year’s significant releases and stay updated with the winter schedule. Before I present my top 10, I thought it would be helpful to mention some films I missed and share a few honorable mentions.

      Not Seen: Caught by the Tides; Sirāt; BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions; My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow; Cloud; Sorry, Baby; Reflection in a Dead Diamond; The Fishing Place; The Chronology of Water; Highest 2 Lowest.

      Honorable Mentions: Sinners; Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning; Afternoons of Solitude; Misericordia; Die My Love; Hamnet; Ella McCay.

      10. The Things You Kill (Alireza Khatami)

      Khatami’s intriguing thriller is reminiscent of Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just An Accident in many respects: both are directed by Iranian-born filmmakers, both delve into themes of justice, generational trauma, and oppressive societal hierarchies, and both conclude with the arrival of an unseen presence. However, Khatami’s bold cinematography, the fluidity of the characters, and the mid-film twist—which Khatami describes as a kind of Brechtian distancing effect compelling the audience to “fight their way back into the film”—contrasts sharply with Panahi’s realism. The use of mirrors has rarely been more effective.

      9. The Monkey (Osgood Perkins)

      This gory horror-comedy about two brothers dealing with a murderous monkey toy is also one of the year’s most insightful and empathetic reflections on death, and undeniably the funniest. What else can be said? Sometimes, while trying to reconnect with your estranged son, a woman unexpectedly leaps into an electrified swimming pool, resulting in a bizarre explosion that can only be described as a leg and some mist.

      8. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)

      Josh O'Connor—who stands out among the talented group of young-millennial English actors (including Callum Turner, George Mackay, and Harris Dickinson)—stars as J. B. Mooney, a middle-class fool who believes he can orchestrate an art heist with his equally foolish friends. Unsurprisingly, his plan doesn’t unfold as intended, leading to a pastel depiction of the Vietnam War as his desperation deepens. Reichardt maintains a loose and subdued atmosphere, yet the overarching narrative resembles an expertly extended joke, culminating in an astonishingly poetic moment of (in)justice.

      7. The Ice Tower (Lucile Hadžihalilović)

      Watching this slow, mysterious fairy tale differs greatly from the expectations set by its synopsis (a runaway orphan lands on the set of The Snow Queen). There is almost no plot, just a dark, primordial ambiance from which the characters cautiously emerge and withdraw. The enigma of the tower and its surroundings evokes comparisons to Stalker and Picnic at Hanging Rock, yet its stark coldness—and its distinctly French essence—reminds more of Kieślowski’s Three Colours: Blue.

      6. Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh)

      In this spy thriller, Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett portray married secret agents in a web of double-crossing and intrigue, featuring more McGuffins and red herrings than actual characters. I left the theater exhilarated, yet also pondering, as Tom Burke’s Freddie does following a cryptic polygraph test, “Wait, what did we just learn?”

      5. On Falling (Laura Carreira)

      As Maurice Brinton notes in his essay “Capitalism and Socialism”: “Conflicts in class society do not solely stem from distribution inequalities or from a specified surplus value resulting from a set pattern of ownership of production means. Exploitation not only leads to limited consumption for many and financial gain for a few. This is merely one aspect of the issue. Equally crucial are the efforts by both private and bureaucratic capitalism to constrain—and ultimately suppress—the human