I previously posted the best movies at least ten years old I watched this past year, so now it is time for the best new(ish) movies (released within the past few years) that I watched in 2025. The films are sorted into five tiers and listed alphabetically within each tier. In case you missed it, I made a separate list for the best horror movies I watched in 2025.

Tier 1: Cinematic Masterpieces

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) directed by Justine Triet
A man dies after falling from his house in the French Alps, but afterward his wife is suspected of having been involved. What follows is an investigation and trial attempting to discover what really happened. But this is not a typical crime story or whodunit mystery. It is about uncertainty and the nature of truth, how difficult it is to know exactly what happened about anything. It is similar to Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon in that respect. The writing and acting are phenomenal, especially the wife and her young son, who is the key witness in the trial. Though it makes the French legal system seem like a Kafkaesque nightmare.

The Northman (2022) directed by Robert Eggers
A historically accurate Viking epic about revenge with fantastic visuals and elements of horror. It’s like a more realistic Game of Thrones. Far too many historical movies map our modern morality and ideology onto the characters, but this film doesn’t do that at all. You get a sense of what life might have actually been like for people at that time. As a result, the characters and their culture seem alien to us because of how different they think and act. Pre-Christianity, the pagan world was quite different. The film assumes the Norse gods and magic are real, which made for a more interesting story. It’s a shame this film didn’t do better at the box office because I would much rather Eggers make original movies like this than a remake like Nosferatu, which performed much better financially.

Under the Silver Lake (2018) directed by David Robert Mitchell
I was really looking forward to this movie when it first came out because I was a fan of the director’s previous movie, It Follows, and I am a fan of the neo-noir and conspiracy genres, but Under the Silver Lake didn’t quite meet my high expectations when I first saw it back in 2018. I thought the pacing was slow, the plot was overly confusing, with many threads left unexplained, and the tone was disjointed, veering from satirically absurd to disturbingly serious. When the credits rolled, I was like, “Wait, that’s it?” It left me with more questions than answers. However, upon re-watching the film this year, I realized all those things I originally thought about it are still true, but I actually found them to be positives, not negatives. I enjoyed the deliberate pace, as opposed to TikTok era quick-cuts. The plot is complicated, and not everything is explained, but it is deeply fascinating and rich in symbolism, with themes about subliminal messaging in entertainment, and the dark underbelly of Hollywood. Rather than explaining everything, it lets viewers interpret and try to put the pieces together. It is worth re-watching because you’ll get more out of it each time, which is the mark of a great film. I also enjoyed the movie as a nostalgic return to my time living in Los Angeles, as many of the locations looked familiar (such as the Silver Lake reservoir, Echo Park paddle boats, and Griffith Park observatory). Under the Silver Lake felt like the surreal LA neo-noirs of David Lynch (Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway), and with Lynch gone, hopefully Mitchell can pick up the mantle to continue making films of that type.

Tier 2: Great Films

Anora (2024) directed by Sean Baker
This movie, about a stripper from Brooklyn who falls in love with the playboy son of a Russian oligarch, won the Oscar for best picture in 2024. While I haven’t seen all the other nominees, this was great enough to be deserving of the win. It is gritty and realistic like the type of movies Hollywood made in the 1970s. The first half was a romcom similar to Pretty Woman, while the second half was a frenetic crime thriller like Uncut Gems. It had a similar blend of drama with dark comedy as White Lotus, with great writing, acting, and rich 3-dimensional characters that felt like real people. In recent years, much of culture became political, but great art transcends politics. Political interpretations can be taken from art, but Anora is not didactic, trying to deliver a particular message to viewers. Good art is a mirror. Surveying the discourse after Anora, the interpretations were wide and varied, which is a sign of good art. Hopefully more directors follow Baker’s lead to return to making movies that are art, not propaganda.

BlackBerry (2023) directed by Matt Johnson
I never had a BlackBerry phone or knew anything about its backstory, but I found this movie about its founders fascinating. It is based on a true story, but also a satire of tech culture like the Mike Judge show Silicon Valley. The story is similar to Citizen Kane, in that it follows the rise and fall of BlackBerry from a small fun Canadian startup to a global bureaucratic mega-corporation producing the “best phone in the world”, to being completely replaced and forgotten by the iPhone. I also loved director Matt Johnson’s previous film, Operation Avalanche, about the CIA faking the moon landing. He has this unique style of making fictional movies about real events that are serious while also comedic.

The Fall Guy (2024) directed by David Leitch
A fun action comedy about a Hollywood stuntman, featuring a smart script and amazing action scenes. Ryan Gosling might be my favorite actor working today. He chooses interesting projects and always gives great performances.

A Real Pain (2024) directed by Jesse Eisenberg
A drama/comedy about two cousins (Eisenberg as an extreme introvert and Kieran Culkin as an extreme extrovert) who go on a history tour of Poland after their grandmother died (who was originally from there). It has superb writing and acting by both leads. Eisenberg could be the next Woody Allen—as in a great writer/director/actor of comedic dramas, not the problematic stuff.

Slingshot (2024) directed by Mikael Håfström
A sci-fi thriller about a crew of astronauts on a multi-year space mission to Titan, a moon of Saturn, as they slowly begin to lose their minds due to prolonged isolation and a side effect of the hibernation drugs. There are some great twists, one of which I predicted. I wasn’t sure if they were going to do it, but I thought that would make for a great twist and jotted down a note to write a story of my own about that—but then they did do the twist, so I guess I won’t write that story. Then there was another twist, which is an idea for a different story I had years ago but never wrote. Regardless, the twists worked really well in this film, which was one of the best space thrillers I’ve seen in years.

The Surfer (2024) directed by Lorcan Finnegan
Nicolas Cage plays a crazy old man who takes on a surfer gang cult that terrorizes a beach in Australia. The premise sounds like a cheesy action movie, but it’s actually a surreal arthouse film.

Triple Frontier (2019) directed by J.C. Chandor
A unique take on the heist genre, about five ex-military guys attempting to rob a South American drug lord. Getting the money is only half the problem—getting the dozens of duffel bags of cash out of the country is the much more difficult part.

Tier 3: Just Good

Alien Code (2018) directed by Michael G. Cooney
A sci-fi thriller about a slacker hacker who gets recruited by the NSA to decipher a message on a satellite found orbiting Earth. Then Men in Black show up who aren’t with the NSA and don’t appear to be human. It’s kinda low-budget but pretty good for what it is. It reminded me of the TV show Fringe.

Dumb Money (2023) directed by Craig Gillespie
This is about the short squeeze of the GameStop (GME) stock in 2021 orchestrated by Reddit users on WallStreetBets. I enjoyed the movie, having followed the events in real life, though I regrettably didn’t invest in GME at the time. However, Dumb Money encapsulates my issue with movies that are based on a true story. It would have been so much better as a documentary featuring the actual people involved, which can easily be done because the events are so recent. Even if certain people refused to be interviewed for the documentary, there’s plenty of archival footage to use (some of which they actually use in the movie). Instead, this dramatization of the story with actors seems unnecessary. It adds drama that didn’t happen and composite characters that don’t exist. It would be much more interesting to see the actual people involved in a documentary—or else a completely fictionalized story about similar themes (such as the movie Wall Street).

Funny Pages (2022) directed by Owen Kline
A sort of coming-of-age story about a rebellious teenage boy who drops out of high school to become a comic book artist. But living on his own in the slums of Trenton, New Jersey is not quite what he envisioned. I say “sort of” coming of age because he doesn’t really come of age, remaining immature and naive throughout, which gets him into all sorts of trouble.

Jungle (2017) directed by Greg McLean
Based on a true story, three young men looking for adventure in South America follow a guide into the jungle. After a rafting accident, one of them gets lost and stranded in the wilderness for weeks, where he struggles to survive alone.

Marlowe (2022) directed by Neil Jordan
This is a film noir starring private detective Philip Marlowe on a case involving the Hollywood movie industry, but it is not based on a book written by Raymond Chandler. It features some witty dialogue and plot twists, but the ultimate story is not as good as the books written by Chandler or the movies based on those books, like The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Though it is still worth watching for fans of Chandler.

Monolith (2022) directed by Matt Vesely
A sci-fi mystery with cosmic horror elements about a podcaster who investigates people who received mysterious black bricks with alien properties. The plot was interesting, but visually it felt boring, as too much of the movie was just watching the podcaster talking on the phone and editing audio on her computer. It might have worked better as an audio drama podcast rather than a movie.

Mountainhead (2025)
From the creator of Succession, four Silicon Valley tech billionaires spend a weekend alone together at one of their mountain houses in Aspen. I don’t want to spoil any of the plot, but like Succession, it is smart and funny with fantastic dialogue. It’s more of an absurdist satire of tech billionaires rather than a serious depiction of them, as they are all caricatures, but it was still hilarious. (While some people truly believe tech billionaires to be this dumb, they are obviously not.)

Red One (2024) directed by Jake Kasdan
This was an entertaining Christmas action/heist/fantasy movie with some creatively inventive worldbuilding.

Sasquatch Sunset (2024)
A unique film following a family of Bigfoots, except there is no dialogue. The Sasquatches cannot speak and only communicate through grunts, sounds, and gestures. It’s an odd mix of comedy and drama, interesting for its creativity and originality, but it gets kind of boring after a while. The concept would have worked better as a short film.

Screwdriver (2023) directed by Cairo Smith
I’ve been a fan a Cairo Smith since hearing him on a podcast and reading his great Substack “Futurist Letters“, so I was eager to see this film he wrote and directed. It’s a low-budget contained psychological thriller about a couple who take a woman into their home, and everything is… just a bit off. It was unnerving, though I can’t say I fully understand what was happening. It reminded me of Darren Aronofsky’s film, mother!

Vulcanizadora (2024) directed by Joel Potrykus
I liked this a lot more than the previous film by this director and actor duo (see below). It’s about two friends who go hiking deep into the woods with mysterious motives (which I won’t spoil). Potrykus (who also co-stars in the movie) is a true underground filmmaker, making idiosyncratic indie movies completely outside the Hollywood system. Even when I don’t enjoy the film (like Relaxer), I applaud the effort.

Tier 4: Flawed But Entertaining

Cold Skin (2017) directed by Xavier Gens
A Lovecraft-inspired thriller about two men at a lighthouse on a remote island who get attacked by fish people monsters that rise from the sea. It is more “Lovecraft-inspired” than “Lovecraftian” because it does not share Lovecraft’s cosmic horror tone and message, instead getting melodramatic at times. It was also slow-moving and too long for the minimal amount of plot. As for “two men alone in a lighthouse” movies featuring horrific mermaids, Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse is far better.

Dave Made a Maze (2017) directed by Bill Watterson
A surreal comedy about a guy who builds a maze out of cardboard boxes in his apartment, but it is magically much larger inside, with dangerous death traps—and a Minotaur. After he gets trapped inside the maze, his friends enter to try to rescue him. It’s a great premise with some inventive special effects featuring cardboard, but the film as a whole was mid.

Happy Gilmore 2 (2025)
The original Happy Gilmore was one of my favorite movies as a kid, but I had low hopes for this sequel almost 30 years later. There were some genuinely funny moments, but funny moments do not make a good film—especially when it is 2 hours long. The length was due to them setting the record for most random celebrity cameos.

The Thicket (2024) directed by Elliott Lester
A mediocre western featuring Peter Dinklage as a bounty hunter and Juliette Lewis as a ruthless outlaw.

Tier 5: Disappointing (Don’t Bother)

Relaxer (2018) directed by Joel Potrykus
I kept waiting for this bizarre movie to go somewhere, but it never did—literally. It’s about a guy sitting on his couch the entire time, as he tries to break a Pac-Man record, but various things prevent him from ever playing the video game.