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.
T.Z. Barry 