All 36 movies i saw in 2025 - ranked
i didn't know tier lists were this fun to make!
Hello there! I got some nice discussions out of last week’s round up of all my favorite books, so I thought I’d do the same for movies. Except this time I’ll talk about all of them, since I haven’t seen that many, and there’s lots of kinda nice but not favorites that i still want to highlight.
I added way too many pictures, so this won’t fit in your email! Please click on the title to see the full thing in your browser/app, thank you :)
Before we start, a note on ratings: they’re half emotion, half enjoyment, half depth and half perceived skill. This means the funny movie without a single original thought filmed on a potato will still get a 10 even if it’s obviously shit. Or the weird art movie I didn’t get, but found interesting after I read a few reviews that explained it, with great care taken to the aesthetic of it all, is also a 10.
On the other hand of the spectrum: the big budget movie that is quite good and decent entertainment, but doesn’t deliver what it promised me, is a 0/10 (yes, this is foreshadowing, can you guess the title?).
In general:
More than 9: i fully recommend
More than 7: you should go if it sounds like your stuff
More than 5: good enough
Less than 5: don’t waste your time
Animated movies
I had a very good year when it comes to animated movies! I saw a total of 6, with 2 rewatches. From least favorite to most favorite:
Memoir of a snail. Starting with the disappointment, this was kinda shit. I’d put it in the “misery porn” category: everything goes wrong, all the time, in the worst, most clickbaity way possible, and the narrator has a whiny voice to make you empathize. The animation itself wasn’t to my taste either (i usually love clay animation!). 3/10 imdb
Zootopia 1. I hadn’t seen it 10 years ago so I caught up when number 2 came out, and I had a blast! I see now why it’s a crowd favorite: the animation is very dynamic, with a ton of hidden puns and fun visual ideas. The plot is basic, but well put together, and overall I had a great time! 10/10 imdb
Zootopia 2. A little less good than the first, but it was still fun. I didn’t find quite as many visual finds, and I found the “will they won’t they” fan service annoying. I wish they’d kept Judy and Nick as pure friends and actually explored that relationship instead of making all the innuendo. Still a very entertaining time! (i love Shakira). 8/10 imdb
Arco. French scifi animation of the year, and it was great! You can see the lack of budget on some backgrounds, and I really really hate how this style of faces look. That’s the exact description of buttface for me! Apart from that, the story was delightful, with friendship, climate disasters, and sentient robots. I 100% recommend it to younger children and teens, and even as a parent you won’t have a bad time! 7/10 imdb
A Castle in the Sky. My Miyazaki rewatch of the year. This was my favorite as a child, and it still is! Arco isn’t in the top category because it doesn’t compare to this in terms of quality of the animation (especially in the backgrounds) and layers of meaning (although it’s not too far). 10/10 imdb
Les Triplettes de Belleville. (The Triplets of Belleville) Another rewatch, I hadn’t seen that since it gave me nightmares as a child. This was a misguided attempt to introduce my foreign colleagues to the best of French animation. I stand by my point that it’s the best, I just forgot it was from 20031, and therefore extremely mocking of the American way of life (but like, a lot!).
The animation is perfect, the visual ideas are surprising in a great way, and the caricature – of the French and the American both – is hilarious. Not the first movie I’d show a freshly immigrated Midwest woman though :/ 10/10 imdb
Big budget movies (except French)
Well, I say except French, but there’s only one that fit the bill anyways, and it was Chien 51 as I said above. I hope its box office success means we’ll get more soon, I’m sure we could do marvels with just a bit more money in the bank!
In no particular order (because i found everything disappointing):
Downtown Abbey 3. In a way, this was the least disappointing movie of the bunch. It was advertised as a fan-service tear-jerker end-of-an-era movie, and it delivered. Mediocre writing, incoherent characters, everyone turns out to be nice and not at all bigoted about anything, and happiness for all!
I don’t love how far up in time we’ve gotten because I don’t like the fashion of the 20s as much, and some of those wigs were horrendous. My favorite thing coming from this movie is the reels series from @aya.in.the.air on instagram! She knows her stuff and is both funny and informative. 6/10 imdb
Superman. You can’t convince me there’s a good story to tell about Superman. When the dude is the incarnation of good, there’s just no narrative tension. Here James Gunn made him a freaking loser – which is the opposite of what Superman is supposed to be – and gave him the power of… influencing people to do bad shit! Yay but no thank you. We don’t need more reboots, please give us some original and interesting superheroes already! 3/10 imdb (also i liked Cavill better)
Jurassic World Rebirth. I like dinosaurs, I don’t love weird GMO dinosaurs that don’t even look good. It was a decent action movie, I guess? But I have nothing more to say (I did not go see that of my own volition, my colleagues made me).2 6/10 imdb
Mickey 17. One of the only movies in this section I can truly say I enjoyed. Lots of great comedic moments, interesting visual effects, and some satire of real-life politicians. The pacing was fast and overall it was fun! Haven’t read the book because Goodreads said the plot never goes past the premise, and I think that’s also rather true of the movie: there’s no real exploration of the theme (capitalism’s exploitation of workers) which is a shame coming from the guy who made Parasite. 6/10 imdb
House of Dynamite. This one gets a deduction automatically for forcing me to watch it at home on a shitty macbook screen – that’s just not how I want to watch cinema! Then it had the gall of being repeating itself, which, for a political thriller, is the worse of sin. 4/10 imdb
Predator:Badlands. I spoke at length about all the stuff that was wrong in this movie, BUT, after a while, i let go of the idea that this was a Predator movie and decided to treat it like a standalone fun buddy movie in space, and things were much better. The creature design was excellent, especially in terms of background fauna, and i had fun all along! It’s not an actual Predator though, so if you’re a fan, don’t go. 7/10 imdb
Avatar, Avatar 2. I rewatched the first two in prevision for the third. Avatar 1 still hits, but i think it’s mostly nostalgia. Watching them both in such close proximity showed me how much Avatar 2 is a mere reheat of the first one. Quite disappointing, but I was making excuses for Cameron: it’s been 20 years, he needs to reboot the whole franchise for new people, he’s saving the new plotlines for the next movie… 7/10 and 2/10 imdb
Avatar 3. A huge disappointment. I’m getting extremely annoyed at directors promising me the world in the trailers and delivering none of it. There was supposed to be an interrogation of faith in hard times, whether a burnt village or the death of a child, life in a mixed family (because Sully still doesn’t believe in shit no matter how many times he repeats that he Sees), being a messiah/blessed/whatever with Kiri, …
Not only was I not witness to a single original thought, Cameron also dared reuse the exact same plot once more. At this point, I’m done and I won’t go see the next movie. 0/10 imdb
Wicked 2. (dis)honorable mention, and which won’t get a picture because i forgot about it until i pressed post on this! Awful awful movie, nowhere near as good as the first one (which i’d rate a “good enough” 6/10), boring af, with shitty songs. I definitely didn’t want to spend 2 hours looking at malnourished actresses going through a surface level revolution. 3/10
What’s your favorite movie of 2025?
I of course eluded this question by making a tier-list, but what are your favorites of the year? I’m not making you choose just one, but i’d love some recs! If you saw anything that you think I’d like please tell me in the comments.
I know in terms of animation, I missed Amelie or the Character of Rain, and I need Frankenstein (does that count as an author movie or big budget? Probably both!) but what else should I catch up on?
I haven’t spoken about TV shows much, because I didn’t see that many. EDIT: in the end, I count 16, so I might do a similar post to this if you’re interested!
Come back tomorrow for reviews of French and indie movies in general!
Love,
it was right after the Iraq war when the French refused to join the USA invasion because we didn’t trust the “chemical weapons” intel (lies). Let’s just say there wasn’t much love between our nations, and even less from the leftist-pacifist types who make up animation studios.
i’d say fuck teambuilding activities but my manager paid for popcorn so i’ll take it!