Favourite New Films of 2025
Earlier this month it was announced Netflix wants to buy Warner Bros. - a company that does not care about cinemas or theatrical release, unless its for Oscarn nominations.
Even Rian Johnson is ‘frustrated’ because Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, a Netflix film isn’t in enough cinemas.
I’m afraid of the worst case scenario if this deal goes ahead and its domino effect outside America. I also wonder if it become difficult to program classics from WB’s catalogue.
Here in Dubai, we now have a new “Films and Games Commission”, established last December, and a forum was held in May. Last month, it was announced that two new film and gaming committees were formed “dedicated to advancing the emirate’s film and gaming industries,”
I’ve been following this from afar and curious to see what kind of films will be supported and funded.
The Vile / Hoba (Majid Al Ansari), a new horror film from the UAE was released during Halloween week. It was at several genre film festivals before that and has won Best Horror Feature at Fantastic Fest 2025. It’s about polygamy and how it disrupts a family, a topic that I’ve not seen handled this openly in a film. I liked it, and will try to write about it more another time.
I’ve been doing my usual cinema outings here, and keeping up to date with new releases by checking all the listings on the cinema’s websites - the only reliable way to not miss anything. Some films get listed last minute, some months in advance. Some disappear a few days after getting released.
Besides catching up on new releases during my travels, I also attended IFFR, Venice Film Fest, Viennale to catch up on the new titles.
Lots of films from the big festivals this year didn’t live up to the hype, and I found myself responding more to non-festival films, general releases mostly watched in a multiplex.
My list consists of my top 30 of 2025, starting with a ranked top 10 favourites, and the rest is in alphabetical order. I wrote a few words for some of them. Might add more later.
Note:
Films I really wanted to watch this year but didn’t get a chance:
Blue Heron, The Christophers, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Martin Supreme
1. Silent Friend (Ildikó Enyedi)
Biennale Cinema 2025 - The 82nd Venice International Film
I don’t know many people who watched this and I hope more will see it in 2026. A film about connecting and communicating with nature and people, science and curiosity. Told in a three non-linear timelines - 2020, 1972, 1908 with a gingko tree in a university botanical garden as the common thread for the characters from these three periods. At a time when there’s so much being done to divide people, and political agendas undermining and effecting the health, education and culture sectors, it was the uplifting film I needed to see.
2. One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Bioskop Sutjeska, Cacak Serbia
Cinemaxx Galerija (IMAX), Belgrade
VOX Cinemas - Festival City (IMAX), Dubai
BFI IMAX 70mm, London
This film is an absolute treat, darkly funny, and completely rewatchable. I’m so happy I got to see it four times, each time it got more and more rewarding. The only format that I’ve not been able to see it in is in VistaVision 35 / 70mm.
One film still isn’t enough, also because Benecio Del Torro is an absolute darling in this.
3. Kontinental ‘25 (Radu Jude)
Viennale 2025
A scathing film about the housing crisis, homelessness, greedy property developers and social status. Only Radu Jude can make a dark film that includes suicide utterly hilarious. The writing (based on the subtitles) is sharp and brutal.
4. Sinners (Ryan Coogler)
BFI IMAX 70mm, London (watched it twice there)
5. Nuestra Tierra (Lucrecia Martel)
Biennale Cinema 2025 - The 82nd Venice International Film
6. The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Viennale 2025
7. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
Viennale 2025
8. Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh)
Vue Leicester Square
9. Homebound (Neeraj Ghaywan)
VOX Cinemas - Grand Hyatt, Dubai
10. Better Man (Michael Gracey)
VOX Cinemas - Wafi, Dubai
Pathe Tuschinski, Amsterdam
Emirates In-flight
I first watched this film on Dec 30 and liked it a lot. But I watched it three more times this year and it has to go on my list. And if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you would’ve noticed the amount of posts I wrote about Robbie Williams this year.
11. 28 Years Later (Danny Boyle)
VOX Cinemas - Wafi, Dubai
12. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Michael Morris)
VOX Cinemas - Festival City, Dubai
Did not expect this film to be about coping with grief, parenting, getting older and a reliable community of long-term friends who've always been there.
13. The Currents (Milagros Mumenthaler)
Viennale 2025
14. Den of Thieves 2: Pantera (Christian Gudegast)
Reel Cinemas - Dubai Mall
VOX Cinemas - Wafi, Dubai
15. Do You Love Me (Lana Daher)
Giornate degli Autori - The 82nd Venice International Film
16. The Flowers Stand Silently Witnessing (Theo Panagopoulos)
Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai
17. The Love That Remains (Hlynur Pálmason)
Viennale 2025
18. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
VOX Cinemas - Festival City (IMAX), Dubai (watched it twice there)
19. The Naked Gun (Akiva Schaffer)
VOX Cinemas - Festival City, Dubai
So silly and funny.
Favourite line, Liam Neeson after looking at an electric car, “I remember when the only things that were electric were eels, chairs, and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago."
20. No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)
Biennale Cinema 2025 - The 82nd Venice International Film
21. Presence (Steven Soderbergh)
VOX Cinemas - Wafi, Dubai
22. Relay (David Mackenzie)
VOX Cinemas - Wafi, Dubai
23. Roofman (Derek Cianfrance)
VOX Cinemas - Wafi, Dubai
Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst are so good in this, but apparently their names alone wasn’t enough to get more people to watch it.
24. A Sad and Beautiful World (Cyril Aris)
Giornate degli Autori - The 82nd Venice International Film
25. Sharp Corner (Jason Buxton)
VOX Cinemas - Festival City, Dubai
An eerie film about male insecurity caused by not getting the job promotion, not feeling needed or effective at home, and finding a new obsession to save lives of car accidents that regularly happen outside his house caused by a sharp corner that often gets overlooked.
26. She Rides Shotgun (Nick Rowland)
VOX Cinemas - Festival City, Dubai
The final scene crushed me.
27. Sirāt (Óliver Laxe)
Burg Kino, Vienna
This film could easily belong in my top 20, but I am still trying to grapple with parts of this film - particularly the disconnect between the western foreign ravers and the natives. I will try to come back to elaborate more another time, here or in a separate piece. But out of his previous films I’ve seen, this is my favourite and I love some of the desert scenes, especially at night and the cross fades. Good music too.
But it’s also a film I don’t think I can ever watch again because of one certain scene with a kid and a dog that made me hide myself and say no when it happened.
28. Splitsville (Michael Angelo Covino)
Bioskop Sutjeska, Cacak, Serbia
The better film starring Dakota Johnson this year. And hilarious.
29. Two Seasons, Two Strangers (Sho Miyake)
Viennale 2025
Weapons (Zach Cregger)
VOX Cinemas - Festival City (IMAX), Dubai
VOX Cinemas - Wafi, Dubai
Honorable mention because it was also my favourite theatre experience:
Pillion (Harry Lighton)
BFI, London
Sharing what I wrote on Letterboxd the night I watched it:
This is a perfect Friday night film. Also, wasn't expecting it to be a Christmas film.
Watched in an almost full NFT1 at BFI. Felt a lovely energy in the room, a crowd that laughed, cheered, gasped at the right moments.
Special shout out to
- the lady who gasped out loud "Oh my god" when Alexander Skarsgård took of his leather jacket in the Christmas night hook up behind Primark scene (I think everyone in the room felt the same, one of the hottest bodies in films this year)
- the lady with the loudest laugh in the room, it was so infectious, made everyone laugh even more
- the man who shouted a loud thank you at the end of the film and said (if I heard/understood correctly) something to the effect of thank you for being a good audiencePossible spoiler:
During the 'off day' scene, I told myself I hope they go to the cinema. Almost clapped when it happened.
Other ‘film festival’ films I liked that fall just outside my top 30:
Blue Moon (Richard Linklater), Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze), Cotton Queen (Suzannah Mirghani), Eddington (Ari Aster) - only had a chance to see this on Emirates In-flight, A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow), It Was Just An Accident (Jafar Panahi), Jay Kelly (Noah Baumbach), John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office (Michael Almereyda, Courtney Stephens), La Grazia (Paolo Sorrentino), Remake (Ross McElwee), Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
Long live cinema, forever and ever.