One of the many things that struck me at the peak of COVID (aside from at least one bout of the thing itself) was how unwilling mainstream cinema was to grapple with it. The pandemic was an inconvenience, a frustrating aside, one that didn’t align with the stories Hollywood wanted to tell. The few films that did mention it were explicitly About Covid, and exceptions to the rule. Which is strange when you consider how many films made during WWII that were not been explicitly about WWII still accepted WWII as a fact of modern life. Maybe because there was no TV, no physical media, and few rep theatres, films only really existed in the moment, so felt more obliged to reflect current events. Worrying about the longevity of a film was, in those days, as sensical as worrying about the longevity of a theatre production.

Maybe we’re shifting back to that WWII mindset. In, worryingly, more ways than one. Instead of cordoning off our escapist fantasies from the threat of societal, political, environmental, technological breakdown, cinema may have finally waved the white flag. You simply can’t ignore all this stuff any longer.

Perhaps it was the shocking-but-inevitable return of something (or someone) that was once dismissed as a one-off blip that made it all too inescapable. Or maybe the specific threat of AI was the last straw, and a more cinematically sexy straw, because it allows you to show murderous sexbots and robots with guns. After all, everyone still wants that Terminator 2 money. It’s why they made so many Terminator 3s.

So while every single work of art ever reflects the time in which it is made, whether it wants to or not, I can’t remember a single year in which films have been so inescapably, so overtly about the time we’re in. Your mileage may vary, and I’m prepared for a little blowback on this take. After all, “fighting creeping authoritarianism” is a perennial plot device, and, hell, so is “sentient robot wants to kill us”, but truly, the particular flavour of this slate feels more of-the-moment than I can remember it ever being. Something has shifted.

So, I watched quite a lot this year. Possibly too much. Definitely too much. My favourite first-time vintage watches (see below) were greatly impacted by a seemingly-innocuous game in which a group of us ranked and debated the best films from 1960. A game that my obsessive personality translated to “I must watch every single available film from 1960”. I won’t tell you how many I saw (225) but it was a lot of fun and reaching the end felt like blessed relief. Very much worth it, though. Of the 16 best first-time vintage watches of the year, 14 of them were from 1960. Were time was infinite, I think I’d try to do this for every calendar year. I swear, the gems you unearth.

That obsessive personality trait also meant that, upon discovering 1960 possessed three different films called Red Lips (two from Italy, one from Spain), I obviously had to watch them all in succession. A similar thing happened with new releases. In late December, I came across three 2025 films that were either named or translated to Last Breath, and I think you know what happened next. Tell me, what’s it like to learn this fact but not feel compelled to marathon these films? I bet it’s nice. I bet it’s calm.

Speaking of new releases, the Dada-esque Australian release date patterns continue to complicate and confuse, so as always I adhere to a very simple rule: a film qualifies if it premiered in 2025 (like Weapons), unless it doesn’t come out until 2026 (like Marty Supreme), but if I did manage to catch one of those delayed releases ahead of time (like Blue Moon) it definitely qualifies, which naturally means that 2024 films that didn’t release in Australia until 2025 qualify (like A Complete Unknown), but not if I caught them in 2024 (like The Shrouds). It’s easy, just remember this simple key: AFQIIPI25UIDCOU26BIIDMTCOOTDRAOTIDQWNMT24FTDRIAU25QBNIICTI24.

Last year, some complained that the key was too difficult to remember, so I’ve taken that feedback on board and simplified it further with a memorable mnemonic device.

Would Marty Supreme have made my list? Would Hamnet? Would Farkham Hall? We’ll find out in 2026! I’ve gone with a Top 14 this year, because why not. It was pretty interesting seeing what shook out in the end. Like Best Of lists, I find star ratings frustratingly reductive, but also frustratingly useful, though sometimes you find 4 star films lapping 4.5 star films. You just gotta go with your gut.

And you also gotta draw the arbitrary line somewhere. But had my list instead comprised of close calls like Kleber Mendonça Filho’s extraordinary The Secret Agent, Tracie Laymon’s funny and sob-inducing Bob Trevino Likes It, Greg Kwedar’s outstanding prison drama Sing Sing, Yorgos Lanthimos’s insane Bugonia, Andrea Arnold’s gripping Bird, Mohammad Rasoulof’s revolutionary The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Payal Kapadia’s beautiful All We Imagine As Light, Sergey Loznitsa’s understated but devastating Two Prosecutors, Hasan Hadi’s gloriously bittersweet The President’s Cake, Mike Flanagan’s affirming The Life of Chuck, and Dan Trachtenberg’s kickass Predator: Badlands (no, seriously), I’d have called this a pretty great year.

In fact, typing those out, I’m starting to agonise over it all again. But no. Stick with your instincts. Which are as follows:

14. FLOW

In a landscape both alien and familiar, a small dark grey cat tries to survive in a world devoid of humans (either recently or perhaps forever), a world that may vanish within hours if rising flood waters do not abate. The water is not the only threat, as the cat has to navigate other animals hunting in packs or wandering aimlessly, inadvertently creating a crew of friendly allies from different species. Despite the computer animation, this feels like proper, classical filmmaking: no dialogue, just a sympathetic protagonist wordlessly navigating and communicating with the world around them. This created world is beautiful, fantastical enough to seem utopian despite the danger, its hyperreal video game quality giving it a feeling of immediacy. Silent cinema is so rare, but maybe we’re in the midst of a renaissance with the likes of this and Robot Dreams and Hundreds of Beavers. I sure hope so.

13. THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND

An eccentric millionaire has brought a musician to his remote island to play a concert… but the musician soon learns that almost nothing about this situation is what it seems. This is obviously a perfect setup for a horror film, but instead it serves as the basis of the most aggressively nice film in living memory. Nice is an underappreciated quality, and despite what I assume without evidence is popular opinion, it’s no barrier to greatness. The film is written by its leads, Tim Key and Tom Basden, based on a short film they made way back in 2007 (which, like this feature, was directed by James Griffiths). Carey Mulligan also stars, playing a role so crucial, I’m amazed her character wasn’t in the short. So many of the great films I saw this year are tension-ratcheting, anxiety-inducing efforts, and bless them all, but god it was a balm just to have a nice time with one. Heartfelt and funny in a way that seems so effortless.

12. MOUNTAINHEAD

If One Battle After Another depicts 2025 as it is on the ground, Mountainhead is what it looks like from the ivory tower. Jesse Armstrong’s film may seem like it’s playing everything over-the-top, but given what we currently know of the world, I’d suggest he’s soft-pedalling in order to make it palatable. Four of the world’s richest tech bros gather in a remote chalet, watching the world disintegrate thanks to what they’ve put out into it. Their inability (or unwillingness) to distinguish fantasy from reality at every turn is terrifyingly recognisable, fantasists discussing the new world order and the future of humanity like they’re planning a weekend, casually plotting coups over brews. Armstrong’s dialogue is so packed with perfectly insufferable execu-tech-slang, but the economics of scale is what makes it funny: he fires off so many brilliantly lines per minute that it’s like trying to listen to Shakespeare for the first time and interpret it in real time. I’d often start laughing, then have to pull back because it meant missing the next line. The film has been widely maligned, but for my money it’s a work of acerbic genius. This is what James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter would look like in 2025, if it was a knowing self-parody disgusted by its own venality. I loved it.

11. I’M STILL HERE

I know everyone’s going to be talking about that other Brazilian dictatorship film-of-the-year The Secret Agent, and rightly so, but for me it’s the images from I’m Still Here that have persisted 10 months on: the family on the beach, Vera’s 8mm films from London, Eunice’s arrest, the celluloid-bleaching sunlight that feels like it was beamed directly from the past. On top of his superb command of suspense, Walter Salles also takes the time to root us in 1970s Rio de Janeiro, making us feel deep in our bones why life in this particular time and place is worth preserving, why fleeing is a last resort. So many films tell us why resistance is crucial, but few make us feel it like this one.

10. TRAIN DREAMS

A few years ago, my cousin told me he was ordering a copy of his current obsession to my house. It was a novella called Train Dreams, and I didn’t really think he was actually doing it until it arrived in the mail. It was so compelling I read it in one sitting, though I later regretted doing it that way because the failure to pause and contemplate passages meant I would later remember so little of it. But those passages and moments returned to me as I watched the film, fragments reappearing in much the same way Robert’s memories come back to him, a sensation so strange and disconcerting, but that fit perfectly the mood of the work. This is the first honest successor to The Assassination of Jesse James, and if Clint Bentley is trying to be Terrence Malick for the streaming era, more power to him. May this be the first of many. Impressively for 2025, and almost unconscionably for a streamer, it’s unafraid to spend most of its time lingering in those pauses between action. I’m not sure I’ve seen a film devote as much time to the act of recollection as with the memories themselves.

9. IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT

Vahid, an Azerbaijani mechanic living in Iran, is working a garage when a man arrives, his car in need of repair. Vahid seems to recognise the man and follows him, an inscrutable but determined look on his face. This all happens in the first few minutes, and to even hint at where the plot goes from there feels like a form of critical terrorism. The thrill is in the journey, but then, isn’t it always? Part of the joy of Jafar Panahi’s films in particular is a lack of GPS. Every possible outcome seems equally likely. In fact, I suspect you could lop the credits off this and still identify it as a Panahi film within the first ten minutes: messy, three-dimensional characters dealing with themes of oppression, interspersed with massive belly laughs that pierce the trauma when you least expect it. It’s practically a trademark at this point. There are few filmmakers who can claim to be bolder and braver than Panahi, a man who persistently makes films about the state of Iranian leadership despite being arrested over and over again. Sometimes I wonder if the fact that his films are always so counterintuitively entertaining is what gets him in the most trouble.

8. SEPTEMBER 5

During the 1972 Munich Olympics, a US sports crew suddenly finds itself covering a hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes. The first ever live sporting broadcast has turned into the first real-time global news event, in what is in too many ways an origin story for the modern world. On the face of it, September 5 works because it’s a process story. We’re captivated by every feat of pre-digital technical wizardry: how a phone is deconstructed and hooked into an audio board, how a piece of text can be place onscreen before computers, how film can be physically snuck in and out of a location, how information can be verified. The film owes a debt to Schrödinger’s cat, because this is ultimately a story about how observing something changes it. There’s no quantum mechanics involved here as much as literal mechanics: even those who are working at the forefront of this new technology are not yet steeped in it enough to realise that the people they are covering are viewing the broadcast itself. And that is the heart of the question that this film asks: did the world change on 5 September 1972 because of this terrorism, or because we were suddenly able to witness events around the world as they happened, all from the comfort of our homes? How did the news transforming into entertainment change us? It’s a question that, unlike Spielberg’s frustratingly-literal and myopic ending of Munich, truly forces us to look inward. We are, unwittingly, part of the problem.

7. SINNERS

1996’s From Dusk Till Dawn is a film that lurches suddenly – and, if you were lucky enough to go in without any foreknowledge, unexpectedly – into a vampire film somewhere around the halfway mark. But the ending features another twist of sorts: the strip club/bar that’s home to all these vampires turns out to be a front for an ancient an Aztec Temple. This ancient bloodsucking evil belongs to an inscrutably-ritualistic indigenous culture, a danger lying in wait for unsuspecting travellers – criminals and the holy alike. Sinners has a different take. This time, our protagonists are the ones running the bar, and (unlike Dusk) rather than simply treating criminals and the holy as indiscriminately equal-opportunity victims, Sinners takes the time to examine both sin and devoutness, and concludes that they are two sides of the same coin. The devil may be chasing guitar prodigy Sammie, but the instrument of sin is also his instrument of salvation. It’s the same kind of ambiguity that colours the threat itself: are the vampires the oppressors or the oppressed? Are they selling their subjugated neighbours on a life of conformity that requires you to give up little more you’re your identity in exchange for wealth and eternal life? All this is what makes Sinners completely different from its predecessors: there’s never been a vampire film like this, and when the Irish immigrant vampire Rennick talks about his own freedom from oppression, we’re seduced by it. We’re supposed to be. It’s not like Twilight, where vampirism is all superpowered eternal life with no downside; there is a heavy cost here, but still we feel like the cost might just be worth it. The stakes – in more ways than one cos, y’know, vampires – cannot be clearer. Not only does director Ryan Coogler spend a good hour making sure we know who everyone is and the nature of their relationships, but he sells us on the cultural threat in what is undoubtedly the most groundbreaking sequence of the year: Sammie’s guitar connects him and those in the room to the past and the future, the ghosts of countless cultures permeating the music and dance, the soundscape ricocheting through the influences and influenced into a cacophonous and beautiful medley. This is also a landmark in sound design: the discordant score fighting against itself, changing tempo and careening into impact sound effects. Just when you think all takes on vampirism have been well-covered, Coogler delivered a perspective so fresh, it feels like he just invented the idea.

6. BUT ALSO JOHN CLARKE

About 16-and-a-half years ago, I was shuffling into cinema 6 in the Greater Union on Russell Street (a cinema often derided when it was open, now sorely missed). I was there to see the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Closing Night session of Aussie comedy musical Bran Nue Dae, when I looked to my side and spotted John Clarke – probably the greatest legend of Australian and New Zealand comedy – right there next to me. I introduced myself, shook his hand, and thanked him for our recent correspondence, one in which I’d inquired about one of his lesser-known works, and he responded by sending me the published script. He was warm, lovely, and had a twinkle in his eye that I’ll never forget. So it seems fitting that I should then see the documentary of his life at MIFF, a very appropriate closing of a loop. The film is directed by Clarke’s daughter Lorin. It’s often a bad idea for a close relative to make this kind of documentary, because they usually bring too much baggage to be objective, a desire to protect the image and smooth over the bad parts. But this is John Clarke, there are no bad parts to smooth over, and the only controversies tended to make the other party look bad. So her role became something more traditional: a generational storyteller passing on family legends, her perspective all the more valuable for being close to the subject. It was all so beautifully compelling, I was a little upset that it came to an end. Had it gone for a few more hours, included a few more interviews, more archival audio of Clarke talking about his life, more clips of Fred Dagg and Clarke & Dawe, I wouldn’t have been unhappy. There was so much I didn’t know about Clarke’s biography; his whole career seemed to co-exist when I was growing up, but here it’s planted on timeline so I could finally see how one part had given way to another. More than anything, I don’t think I’ve laughed this hard in a film in years, if ever. John Clarke was one of the greatest comedy minds of all time; he exemplified a particular kind of wit and wisdom that’s unique to the Antipodes, and I’m not even sure how his style would translate to anyone not from either side of the Tasman. Wit and wisdom are in increasingly short supply these days, so it’s like a shock of icy water to the face to be exposed to such a concentrated dose of it over the course of less than two hours. I can’t wait to watch it again.

5. WAKE UP DEAD MAN

The push-pull of knowledge vs faith is often dealt with in a very cosmetic sense, particularly in cinema, and especially in murder mysteries. A moment of divine inspiration will hit our secular crime-solving hero at a crucial juncture, making them question their own beliefs in an inevitable capitulation not to gods of religion, but to the gods of character. There must be doubt! There must be change! And when an agnostic or atheist who deals only in facts, so sure of themselves, when they are forced to confront the concept of faith, the only place to take them is to a place of doubt, a momentary glimpse of a power higher than themselves. Even when this is done well, it’s very familiar, and too often, it’s not done well. That might be what makes Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man so remarkable. Swaddled in the blanket of one of the cosiest of genres is a complex film that manages to explore faith from every angle: the lusty power, the transactional nature, the commitment to tradition over ideal, the cult lure, and then – in Father Jud – virtuous idealism. Jud is far from a pure being, himself a reformed killer struggling to keep his anger under control. But in that struggle emerges his morality: he is a man constantly striving for the truth of what he believes in. So much so, that – in what might be the film’s best scene – during a phone call to uncover evidence that might prove his innocence, he ends up forging a real and profound connection with the woman on the other end of the line. This encounter realigns his priorities, and he no longer need to continue trying to prove his innocence in the realm of man. His calling is greater. That this scene should play with total authenticity – instead of frustrating implausibility – is a testament to what Johnson has done with the film writ large. This more than a murder mystery: this is a work that wrestles with fundamental questions of faith and service, examines our current moment in time, and creates a compelling mystery whose resolution actually lives up to its impossible setup. It is, by a long shot, the best of the Benoit Blanc movies. And it looks truly stunning. If I have one complaint, it’s that Andrew Scott – an actor who has worked with writer Steven Moffat – clearly did not point out to his American that naming his character Lee Ross will distract every elder millennial and gen x-er from the UK and Australia with memories of Moffat’sPress Gang. Kenny Phillips forever!

4. IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU

There is a tension in cinema that simply does not exist in the vast majority of television: the unknown. I think it’s this tension that has driven so many people away from film in the era of binge watching. You don’t comfort-watch a film you’ve never seen before, but you can comfort watch new episodes of a TV series you’re familiar with because you know the rules. You know where the boundaries lie, and with that comes relative safety. So much of the tension of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You stems from the unknown: what type of film is this? Is this a film where the daughter might die? Is this a film where a side character might turn murderous? Is this a film where something supernatural might manifest in the final moments? There is simply no way of knowing where the guard rails sit until the credits roll, and that’s a key part of the success of Mary Bronstein’s film. Linda (Rose Byrne) is struggling with – and there’s no way to not sound like Rainier Wolfcastle here – holes. The hole in her ceiling, the hole in her daughter’s stomach, and the hole in herself, the one that truly seems insurmountable. In the film’s funniest reveal, Linda leaves her therapist’s office after a session in which she seemed defiantly unaware of both time or propriety, and walks down the corridor to her office where her own client is waiting. It’s very funny, but also very revealing. Like her daughter, like her contractor, she technically has the tools to fix the problem, but that’s simply not enough. She’s overwhelmed, in much the same way I am when I try to identify the element that made me realise this was one of my favourite films of the year. The sequence that tilts towards magical realism as Linda gazes into the hole in the roof? The bold and successful choice to not show certain faces throughout? The eclectic casting that does not work on paper but soars in practice? Rose Byrne? Yes to all.

3. BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER

I find this moment of culture very strange, and very contradictory. It’s one in which subtext and irony have no place, where everything must be explained with accompanying emojis so we know which emotional reaction to prepare. But it’s also one of extreme meta-awareness and hyper-cynicism, where overtness is dismissed and earnestness mocked. I can’t imagine how a filmmaker like Edward Berger can survive let alone thrive in these conditions, but here he is doing the Lord’s work, much like he did with last year’s Conclave: big bright colours and unabashed close-ups with heightened sound effects, and Brechtian camera movements designed to draw attention to themselves. He makes films that are so deeply present that even if the things happening on screen are not particularly fun, the film itself is having so much fun simply being a film. And I find that pretty infectious. Colin Farrell’s Lord Doyle is living on his last pennies in Macau, having exhausted both his fortune and the good will of those who would extend credit to a nobleman. He is still chasing that one big score, the one he is due, the one that will put him back on top. We all know where this story goes. Or, at least, we think we do. Doyle soon encounters another lost soul, and what feels like a modern update of the kind of tragic dreamer story someone like Cassavetes or Schlesinger might once have told then spins off into wildly unpredictable realms. It’s no coincidence that a self-styled relic of English aristocracy is living on the edge in Macau, gazing across the bay at the island Britain lost to China (don’t correct my framing of that event, I’m going for a gambling analogy). Nor is it an accident that in a world where nobody appears to be quite what they seem – not Farrell’s Lord Doyle, not Tilda Swinton’s dotty English tourist, not Fala Chen’s mysterious stranger, not Alex Jennings’s compromised expat – the world around them is also fake. Like Las Vegas, Macau is awash with counterfeit landmarks: an uncanny Eiffel Tower, a facsimile of Venice’s Rialto Bridge, right down to the empty food court with its artificial blue sky. The world is fake until it’s not, and it’s Berger’s heightened style that leaves us wondering whether or not Doyle is pursued by figurative demons or literal ones. I know this was not a work that charmed many, but I’m very happy living in a world where Edward Berger keeps makes films like this.

2. THE LONG WALK

Stephen King’s dystopian tale of boys who compete for a life-changing cash prize by walking until only one’s left standing is universal in its specificity. On publication, it was seen as an allegory for Vietnam. Now, as a film, it feels like it’s furiously about today: the powerful pitting the powerless against one another, bread and circuses distracting from the inequitable society. JT Mollner’s adaptation strikes the perfect balance with its characters, knowing exactly when to push them and when to pull them back, when to empathise and when to damn. It’s an extraordinary balancing act that is all the more impressive for how effortless it feels. Every death is shocking, there is no numbing or desensitisation going on. This feels like a crucial text for our times, a film that is so blisteringly now, and perhaps the most pertinent 2025 work to explain our current condition. Except for maybe one.

1. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

While the capital-U Underground conducts its business out in the open – so brazenly, in fact, that a bank robber insists everyone look at her face – other groups must conduct their operations in more literal undergrounds: Bob’s escape route, Sensei’s tunnels, the Christmas Adventurers’ bunker. Punishment comes to those who express their beliefs above ground, whether it’s Perfidia’s revolutionary ideals or Lockjaw’s white supremacy. You simply cannot live out loud in this world.

One Battle continues a trend that only the best filmmakers seem able to pull off: a film that sustains the propulsion of a high-energy montage for its entire 2+ hour running time. That’s what Oppenheimer felt like to me, and One Battle is similarly relentless, throwing us into the action without explanation so that have to run to keep up. Are we witnessing a near-future reality, or parallel times, or is this literally our world? Those questions fade into irrelevancy as the film progresses, its message infinitely (and Infiniti-ly) more pertinent at time of release that it could have possibly been when written or produced.

I’ll come back to something I said at the very top of this thing: many themes we think are unique to our times, are, in fact, timeless, and we tend to marvel at the prognostication abilities of authors who write about, say, absolute power corrupting absolutely. But even taking that into account, I’m adamant that this commentary is so specific it’s as if PTA was writing expressly about 2025. That the white supremacists are not hidden in any kind of metaphor, that their “Hail Saint Nick” hews comically close to “Hail Satan”, finds its way to the absurdity of a recognisable reality from a totally different route to the one we’re accustomed to.

This is really unlike any Paul Thomas Anderson film to date. On top of everything else, it’s his funniest film, his most nakedly entertaining since Boogie Nights. Sean Penn perfectly captures the bubbling anger of the current grievance-based authoritarian to a terrifying degree, and there’s little question that this is the performance of DiCaprio’s career. There’s no weak spot, from Benicio Del Toro’s sensei to Chase Infini’s beleaguered daughter. But all its grand themes, I honestly left the cinema just wanting to talk about that incredible car chase sequence, the boldest reinvention of the form since Spielberg’s Duel. Cinematographer Michael Bauman, clear your mantlepiece.

This is, in more ways than one, the film of 2025.

New Releases Watched in 2025

A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist, Presence, Queer, Maria, Widow Clicquot, Dâne-ye anjîr-e ma’âbed (The Seed of the Sacred Fig), Babygirl, Flow, Nightbitch, All We Imagine As Light, September 5, Sing Sing, Hard Truths, Bird, The Last Showgirl, Nickel Boys, I’m Still Here, Black Bag, Sinners, Captain America: Brave New World, The Phoenician Scheme, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, The Unholy Trinity, Superman, The Fantastic 4: First Steps, F1, From Darkness To Light, Zwei Staatsanwälte (Two Prosecutors), TWST / Things We Said Today, O Agente Secreto (The Secret Agent), Zodiac Killer Project, Reflet dans un diamant mort (Reflections in a Dead Diamond), But Also John Clarke, Weapons, Yek tasadef sadeh (It Was Just An Accident), Black Ox, Mamlaket al-qasab (The President’s Cake) (1960), 1000 Women In Horror, The Rivals of Amziah King, Pee chai dai ka (A Useful Ghost), Miroirs No. 3 (Mirrors No. 3), In die Sonne schauen (Sound of Falling), The Ballad of Wallis Island, The Monkey, Eenie Meanie, Companion, Thunderbolts*, Oh Canada, The Alto Knights, The Naked Gun, The Thursday Murder Club, Drop, Jurassic World: Rebirth, M3gan 2.0, Materialists, Heart Eyes, Novocaine, G20, Heads of State, A Minecraft Movie, War of the Worlds, Eddington, Karate Kid: Legends, Fountain of Youth, Borderline, Highest 2 Lowest, Mickey 17, The End, Guns Up, Lilo & Stitch, Elio, Death of a Unicorn, One Battle After Another, The Accountant 2, Another Simple Favour, Play Dirty, Bring Her Back, Together, The Life of Chuck, KPop Demon Hunters, Dracula: A Love Story, The Beast Within, Werewolves, Wolf Man, The Ritual, Mountainhead, Warfare, The Legend of Ochi, The Lost Bus, One of Them Days, Him, 28 Years Later, The Toxic Avenger (Unrated), Happy Gilmore 2, Hurry Up Tomorrow, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, The Astronaut, Echo Valley, Havoc, The Roses, One More Shot, Blue Moon, Good Boy, The Long Walk, The Electric State, Eden, The Woman in the Yard, The Friend, Friendship, Bugonia, Roofman, Predator: Killer of Killers, Predator: Badlands, Until Dawn, Frankenstein, Caught Stealing, The Running Man, Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided To Write About a Serial Killer, Riefenstahl, Die My Love, Hedda, Thank You Very Much, John Candy: I Like Me, Bad Shabbos, Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, Oh, Hi!, Honey Don’t, Sorry Baby, Good Fortune, The Amateur, The Woman in Cabin 10, Anniversary, Train Dreams, After the Hunt, A House of Dynamite, Holland, Tron: Ares, Twinless, Eojjeolsuga eobsda (No Other Choice), Jay Kelly, Anemone, Lesbian Space Princess, Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues, Shelby Oaks, Opus, Black Phone 2, Wake Up Dead Man, The Mastermind, Bob Trevino Likes It, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Ballad of a Small Player, Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Gorge, The Perfect Neighbour, Space/Time, The Ugly Stepsister, Nouvelle Vague, The Smashing Machine, Oh. What. Fun., Kiss of the Spider Woman, Dead of Winter, Le Dernier souffle (Last Breath, aka Before What Comes After), The Last Breath, Last Breath, Please Don’t Feed the Children, Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5, Nuremberg, Workmates, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, The History of Sound, Urchin, Sentimental Value, Goodbye June, Eternity

Past Releases Watched in 2025

The Godfather Part II (1974), The Conversation (1974), Apocalypse Now (Theatrical Cut) (1979), One From the Heart (1982), The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Gardens of Stone (1987), Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), The Godfather Part III (1990), The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (2020), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), The Rainmaker(1997), Jack (1996), Youth Without Youth (2007), Tetro (2009), Twixt (2011), Kraven the Hunter (2024), Cuckoo (2024), El-Fanoos el-Sihiri (The Magical Lantern) (1960), Eshaet hub (Rumour of Love) (1960), Nahr el hub (The River of Love) (1960), Lawet el hub (Agony of Love) (1960), Bidaya wa nihaya (The Beginning and the End) (1960), Hanyeo (The Housemaid) (1960), Ye mei gui zhi lian (The Wild, Wild Rose) (1960), Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (The Bad Sleep Well) (1960), Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs) (1960), Yoro no nagare (The Lovelorn Geisha, aka Evening Stream) (1960), Musume tsuma haha (Daughters, Wives and a Mother) (1960), Aki tachinu (The Approach of Autumn, aka Autumn Has Already Started) (1960), Akibiyori (Late Autumn) (1960), Jokyô (A Woman’s Testament, aka Woman’s Scroll) (1960), Bonchi (1960), Otôto (Her Brother) (1960), Hadaka no shima (The Naked Island) (1960), Seishun zankoku monogatari (Naked Youth, aka Cruel Story of Youth) (1960), Nihon no yoru to kiri (Night and Fog in Japan) (1960), Taiyô no hakaba (The Sun’s Burial) (1960), ‘Jûsangô taihisen’ yori: Sono gosôsha o nerae (Take Aim at the Police Van) (1960), Aru kyôhaku (Intimidation) (1960), Kyônetsu no kisetsu (The Warped Ones) (1960), Kawaita mizuumi (Youth In Fury, aka Dry Lake) (1960), Ruten no ôhi (The Wandering Princess)(1960), Jigoku (The Sinners of Hell) (1960), Onna shikeishû no datsugoku (Death Row Woman) (1960), Daisogen no wataridori (The Rambler Rides Again, aka Rider With a Guitar) (1960), Better Man (2024), The Outrun (2024), Zielona granica (Green Border) (2023), Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), The Invisible Man (1933), Touch (2024), The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Wicked Little Letters (2023), Invisible Woman (1940), Invisible Agent (1942), The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1953), Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955), Hold That Ghost (1941), Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949), Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), Man About Town(1939), Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929), Charley’s Aunt (1941), To Be Or Not To Be (1942), George Washington Slept Here (1942), The Horn Blows At Midnight (1945), Man About Town (1939), The Magician (2005), Neotpravlennoye pismo (Letter Never Sent) (1960), Dama s sobachkoy (Lady with the Dog) (1960), Seryozha (Splendid Days, aka A Summer To Remember) (1960), Niewinni czarodzieje (Innocent Sorcerers)(1960), Krzyzacy (Knights of the Teutonic Order) (1960), Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star) (1960), Devi (The Goddess) (1960), Man About Town (1939), Mughal-e-Azam (1960), Holubice (The White Dove) (1960), Romeo, Julie a tma (Romeo and Juliet and Darkness) (1960), Pote tin Kyriaki (Never On Sunday) (1960), El Cochecito (The Wheelchair) (1960), Die 1000 Augen des Dr Mabuse (The 1000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse)(1960), Journey to the Lost City (1960), Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring) (1960), Oväder (Storm) (1960), Djävulens öga (The Devil’s Eye) (1960), Aniara (1960), La Dolce Vita (1960), La ciociara (Two Women) (1960), Kapo (1960), Il bell’Antonio (Handsome Antonio) (1960), Classe tous risques (The Big Risk) (1960), Urlatori Alla Sbarra (Howlers of the Dock) (1960), La maschera del demonio (Black Sunday) (1960), Tutti a casa (Everybody Go Home!) (1960), L’Avventura (1960), La reina del Tabarin (Queen of the Tabarin Club) (1960), Labios rojos (Red Lips) (1960), Labbra rosse (Red Lips) (1960), Il rossetto (Lipstick, aka Red Lips) (1960), Dobermann (1997), Era notte a Roma (Escape By Night) (1960), Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers) (1960), Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face) (1960), Moderato cantabile (Seven Days… Seven Nights) (1960), Dobermann (1997), À bout de souffle (Breathless) (1960), Les Bonnes Femmes (The Good Girls) (1960), Le Trou (The Hole) (1960), Zazie dans le métro (Zazie in the Metro) (1960), Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) (1960), Plein soleil (Purple Noon) (1960), Le Testament d’Orphée (The Testament of Orpheus) (1960), Et mourir de plaisir (Blood and Roses) (1960), La vérité (The Truth) (1960), Macario (1960), El Esqueleto de la señora Morales (Skeleton of Mrs Morales) (1960), City of the Dead (1960), Brides of Dracula (1960), The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll (1960), Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), The Flesh and the Fiends (1960), The Challenge (1960), Foxhole in Cairo (1960), The Sundowners (1960), The Entertainer (1960), Tunes of Glory (1960), Beat Girl (aka Wild For Kicks) (1960), Never Take Sweets From a Stranger (1960), Sons and Lovers (1960), The Savage Innocents (1960), The Criminal (aka The Concrete Jungle) (1960), Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), Hell is a City (1960), The Angry Silence(1960), The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (1960), Dead Lucky (1960), The Price of Silence (1960), The House in Marsh Road (aka Invisible Creature) (1960), The Man Who Was Nobody (1960), Jackpot (1960), Piccadilly Third Stop (1960), Village of the Damned (1960), Cone of Silence (1960), A Terrible Beauty (aka The Night Fighters), Never Let Go (1960), The Millionnairess (1960), Two Way Stretch (1960), The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Battle of the Sexes (1960), The Boy Who Stole a Million (1960), School For Scoundrels (1960), Carry On Constable (1960), The Pure Hell of St Trinian’s (1960), Make Mine Mink (1960), Doctor In Love (1960), Conspiracy of Hearts (1960), And the Same To You (1960), The Bulldog Breed (1960), There Was a Crooked Man (1960), Once More With Feeling (1960), Surprise Package (1960), The Grass Is Greener (1960), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), House of Usher (1960), The Last Woman on Earth (1960), Ski Troop Attack (1960), 13 Ghosts (1960), The Fugitive Kind (1960), The Dybbuk (1960), The Iceman Cometh(1960), A Breath of Scandal (1960), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1960), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), Pollyanna (1960), Kidnapped (1960), The Alamo (1960), Comanche Station (1960), Sergeant Rutledge (1960), The Unforgiven (1960), Flaming Star (1960), North To Alaska (1960), Cimarron (1960), Heller in Pink Tights (1960), The Gallant Hours (1960), The Mountain Road (1960), All the Young Men (1960), Primary (1960), The Lost World (1960), Beyond the Time Barrier (1960), The Amazing Transparent Man (1960), La nave de los monstruous (Ship of Monsters) (1960), Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960), Can-Can (1960), The Bellboy (1960), Cinderfella (1960), Visit To a Small Planet (1960), Let’s Make Love (1960), It Started In Naples(1960), Tall Story (1960), The Facts of Life (1960), Who Was That Lady? (1960), The Rat Race (1960), High Time (1960), The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1960), The Great Imposter (1960), The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960), Midnight Lace (1960), Private Property (1960), The Sinister Urge (1960), Seven Thieves (1960), Portrait In Black (1960), Holiday In Spain (aka Scent of Mystery) (2h05m), Wild River (1960), BUtterfield 8 (1960), The Young One (1960), Home From the Hill (1960), Strangers When We Meet (1960), The Time Machine (1960), Murder Inc (1960), Bells Are Ringing (1960), Oscar Wilde (1960), The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960), A Touch of Larceny (1960), Song Without End (1960), Elmer Gantry (1960), The Wild Ride (1960), Exodus (1960), All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), Youth (2015), Cash McCall (1960), Man on a String (1960), Saturday Night (1960), Recours en grace (Recourse in Grace) (1960), Spartacus (1960), The Angel Wore Red (1960), From the Terrace (1960), Crack in the Mirror (1960), Liu san jie (Third Sister Liu) (1960), Deveti krug (The Ninth Circle) (1960), Os Bandeirantes (The Pioneers) (1960), Pretty Boy Floyd(1960), Il mulino delle donne di pietra (Mill of the Stone Women) (1960), No Kidding (aka Beware of Children) (1960), El espejo de la bruja (The Witch’s Mirror) (1960), Inn For Trouble (1960), Watch Your Stern (1960), La giornata balorda (From a Roman Balcony) (1960), The Magnificent Seven (1960), Kuroi gashû: Aru sarariman no shôgen (The Lost Alibi, aka The Black Book) (1960), Rokudenashi (Good-for-Nothing) (1960), Nvagakhmbi tghanere (Guys From the Army Band) (1960), Schachnovelle (Brainwashed) (1960), The Crowning Experience (1960), Le Dialogue des Carmélites (The Dialogue of the Carmelites) (1960), Jazz Boat (1960), Raymie (1960), Too Hot To Handle (1960), Peeping Tom (1960), In the Nick (1960), Smyk (Skid) (1960), The 3rd Voice(1960), Risate di gioia (The Passionate Thief) (1960), Komisario Palmun erehdys (Inspector Palmu’s Error) (1960), A Story of David (1960), Esther and the King (1960), Inherit the Wind (1960), Black Widow (2021), Man in the Moon (1960), Psycho (1960), The Apartment (1960), The Candidate (1972), New Rose Hotel (1998), Lilo & Stitch (2002), Sneakers (1992), This Is Spinal Tap (1984), The Rage in Placid Lake (2003), 28 Days Later (2002), 28 Weeks Later (2007), The Correspondent (2024), The Prisoner of Zenda (1979), The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), The Running Man (1987), The Prisoner of Zenda (1979), The Prisoner of Zenda (1979), The Great Outdoors (1988), The Rage in Placid Lake(2003), The Black Phone (2021), Ring of Fear (1954), Posse (1975), Flame of the Islands (1955), Something Big (1971), The Revengers (1972), The Sword of Ali Baba (1965), Naked Alibi (1954), Will Penny (1967), Sudan (1945), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Short Films Watched in 2025

Captain EO (1986), Billy Blazes, Esq. (1919), Three Sisters (2024), Jitterbug Follies (1939), Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1993)