Armed with popcorn, soda and notepads to jot down first impressions, the members of PEOPLE’s movies team spent countless hours in theaters this year. (It’s a tough gig — we know.)
And after viewing the year’s biggest films — and debating the merits of each — we narrowed down our favorites to 10. Well, make that 14. There were a few more we couldn’t resist shouting out as honorable mentions.
Some made us laugh, some made us cry, some made us laugh until we cried – and a couple gave us more than a few jump-scares. Read on for what we consider the best films of 2025 — then head to the movie theater (or your sofa) and check them out for the first time (or enjoy a repeat viewing).
Sinners
Warner Bros. Pictures
Michael B. Jordan does double duty as twins alongside Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku and breakout Miles Caton, all defending their Mississippi juke joint from racist vampires. It’s proof, courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Coogler, that Holly wood can still deliver original hits with rich thematic material to bite into — literally.
One Battle After Another
Warner Bros. Pictures
In Paul Thomas Anderson’s tale of modern American resistance, Leonardo DiCaprio is at his zaniest as an ex-revolutionary protecting his daughter (Chase Infiniti) from a deranged colonel (Sean Penn) — if only he could remember the secret underground network’s code words.
Marty Supreme
A24
Timothée Chalamet gives an acting master class as a chaotic, success-hungry table tennis player desperate to strike up enough cash to compete in an international tournament. The supporting cast includes Gwyneth Paltrow and Fran Drescher.
Weapons
Quantrell Colbert/Warner Bros.
Hear that bell? It’s time to watch Amy Madigan’s tour de force as the daffy and dangerous Aunt Gladys in this horror-thriller about 17 suburban children who go missing overnight. When they disappear, the angry townspeople direct their anger at the kids’ hard-drinking teacher (Julia Garner) — but she’s not the one they need to worry about.
Hamnet
Agata Grzybowska/2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC
Director Chloé Zhao’s tearjerker stars Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare, who stages Hamlet after he and wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) lose their son. The line “Good night, sweet prince” hits different now.
Bugonia
Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features
In her fifth collaboration with filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone is light-years away from their childlike Poor Things creation. The film sees her wear power suits and stilettos as Michelle, a cold-blooded pharmaceutical CEO — that’s until she’s kidnapped by two cousins (Jesse Plemons and Aidan Delbis) who are convinced she’s an alien intent on ruining the planet. What follows is unpredictable, unnerving and singularly strange, even by Lanthimos standards.
KPop Demon Hunters
Netflix
No one could have predicted just how much the lyric “We’re going up, up, up, it’s our moment” would apply to KPop Demon Hunters, a movie whose zany premise — right there in the title — could have made it a niche oddity. Instead, it broke Netflix streaming records, solidified Korean culture’s global takeover, and had half the kids on your neighborhood block dressing as Huntrix for Halloween.
The Naked Gun
Frank Masi/Paramount Pictures
There are a million reasons why The Naked Gun — a reboot of the 1988 slapstick comedy starring Leslie Nielsen as a bumbling L.A. detective — could have been a disaster. For starters, the original is considered a classic — would viewers be receptive to a new take? The answer was an overwhelming yes. Liam Neeson (playing Nielsen’s character’s son) and Pamela Anderson (as a femme fatale) proved to be the year’s unlikeliest comedy duo, earning laughs in every silly scene they’re in (including an NSFW moment with a snowman). The LOL moments continue all the way to the credits, when Neeson sings an ode to Anderson’s character, rhyming “Beth” with “breasts.”
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
John Wilson/Netflix
In Writer-director Rian Johnson’s excellent third Knives Out tale, intrepid detective Benoit Blanc (a smooth Daniel Craig) returns to solve another seemingly unsolvable murder: A church’s fearsome monsignor (Josh Brolin) is stabbed, and the obvious suspect is young priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor). But Benoit Blanc doesn’t go for obvious suspects — so he looks to the eclectic parishioners, including devout Martha (Glenn Close, channeling Dana Carvey’s Church Lady in the best possible way), attorney Vera (Kerry Washington), town doctor Nat (Jeremy Renner) and sci-fi writer Lee (Andrew Scott).
Wicked: For Good
Universal Pictures
The thrillifying conclusion to the splashy Wizard of Oz prequel was a treat on several levels. After last year’s Wicked set up the backstories of the future Wicked Witch, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Good Witch, Glinda (Ariana Grande), the visually sumptuous sequel — essentially Act II of the Broadway musical on which it’s based — provided the payoff as the worlds of Wicked and Wizard came together. And with the heartbreaking final number, “For Good,” both Erivo and Grande got to showcase their powerful pipes in a song about the complexities of friendship.
Honorable Mention: Materialists
Atsushi Nishijima/A24
No, Materialists was not quite the bubbly rom-com it was marketed to be, but what it was instead — an insightful and modern story about love and how we fight our better instincts to feel it — puts Celine Song’s film immediately in the canon of movies we’ll watch over and over again. (A love triangle between Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal doesn’t hurt either.)
Honorable Mention: Splitsville
NEON
Splitsville, an anti-romantic comedy if there ever was one, opens with Adria Arjona’s character confessing to her husband (Kyle Marvin) in a car ride that she’s cheated on him and wants a divorce. He stops the car and runs into a field because, why not? What follows is an unpredictable, eye-opening and hilarious examination of non-monogamy, with some wild fight sequences and a raw, revealing performance from Dakota Johnson in a supporting role.
Honorable Mention: The Secret Agent
NEON
Brazil’s 1964–1985 military dictatorship has provided rich dramatic material as recently as last year’s International Feature Film Oscar winner I’m Still Here. How exactly did writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho take such grim history and add so many other genres and tones, from slapstick humor to Hitchcockian thrills to gentle family melodrama, into something this cohesive, timely — and funny? The Secret Agent, grounded by a tremendous lead performance from Narcos star Wagner Moura, is among the best of this year’s foreign films.
Honorable Mention: Twinless
Roadside Attractions
Writer-director-star James Sweeney’s Twinless is all the proof we need that bold new voices in indie filmmaking are alive and well. As cringe-worthy as it is dark, this Sundance Film Festival hit is a tale that begins at a support group for twinless twins and devolves into bro-comedy mayhem. Dylan O’Brien is a revelation as two different twins, showcasing his dramatic bona fides — and enough handsome charm to justify the disturbing yet hilarious obsession Sweeney’s character develops for him.
