Top 10 Movies of 2025 

by Clara Dicks

(in no particular order)

1. Sinners

Part vampire horror movie, part period piece, part musical, completely amazing. Phenomenal acting and one of the best film soundtracks of the entire year. Modern vampire media is taking so many interesting directions and I’m so excited to see what people come up with next. 

2. Weapons

Horror had an incredible year this year and Weapons is one of the best of the year. Amazing acting, an incredibly unique premise, and it takes a lot of 180s. It’s a lot of fun. And its narrative structure is fascinating. And I won’t talk about the ending much, but I will say it’s just a surprising amount of fun. But this is a truly terrifying movie, so not for the faint of heart

• Superman

I think the modern superhero movie is starting and this is going to be the first of a franchise. It feels a lot like what everyone wants from a Superman movie and even though I know this doesn’t make sense, it shows the character themself versus the idea of themselves. Not Zack Snyder’s god-mimick. It sounds philosophical, but if you watch this Superman and Man of Steel back to back, you can see what I mean.

• Thunderbolts*

The MCU had an interesting year, that’s for sure. And this is another example of my philosophical character themself versus the idea concept. The acting is phenomenal, especially from Florence Pugh and Lewis Pullman. The mental health subject matter is handled respectfully and without judgement, which you don’t see as often as you should. And the writing just feels real and raw, not wooden, like a lot of recent MCU projects.

• Frankenstein

What can I say about Frankenstein that hasn’t already been said? The cinematography is gorgeous, the set design is breathtaking, the score and costumes are insane, the makeup is unbelievable, the performances don’t even feel like acting sometimes (and what is it with Mia Goth in dual roles? I love it). Guillermo del Toro is one of the best directors working right now and the excitement I had about this movie before it came out was palpable.

• Mickey 17

Another amazing outing for Bong Joon Ho about the dangers of classism and how humanity can destroy itself from the inside. He directed Parasite and you can tell in an amazing way. Robert Pattison is a great dramatic actor and I really hope people see that more. The villain is so awful, he has no redeeming qualities. It’s great. I love interesting thought provoking sci fi.

• One Battle After Another

Starting with a bang and ending with one of the best car chases I’ve seen in years, this movie is absolute perfection in every sense of the word. I mean, 13 Oscar nominations and 9 Golden Globe nominations prove I’m not the only one who thinks that. It’s a lot of fun, pretty intense, and has some surprisingly great humor in among the tense scenes. Every performance is perfect.  The villain is so interesting and I think he’s very relevant to today.

• Wake Up Dead Man

The Knives Out franchise has been particularly intriguing to me for a long time and I have rewatched Knives Out and Glass Onion about a thousand times. So now here’s a new one. And it rules.  Benoit Blanc is one of the best detectives and all the characters and suspects are so interesting. Having a murder mystery set in a church is a really interesting choice.

• Marty Supreme

Did I know much about ping-pong before watching this movie? No. Do I know too much about it now? No. But I don’t think that’s the point. Every performance is amazing, every subplot is extremely interesting. And I loved how anachronistic the soundtrack is. This movie is set in the 1950s. The music is not from the 1950s. I love it.

• Fantastic 4: First Steps

This movie is so so so much fun. I love the cast, I love the effects, I love the characters, I love everything about it. The retro-futuristic aesthetic is really fun and I love how the characters are celebrities as well as superheroes as well as just being a regular family with each other. It’s so cool. And I love how they don’t just choose one character to focus on because when it comes to the Fantastic Four, they all have their role and they all need to play it. 

Honorable mentions: KPop Demon Hunters, The Thursday Murder Club, Ballad of a Small Player, Heads of State, Wicked: For Good, F1, The Running Man, Black Bag, The Naked Gun

On November 21, 2025, the much-anticipated sequel to the film "Wicked" was released, and many controversial opinions have been voiced regarding the film. 

Wicked is a movie following our main character, Elphaba, who is a green-skinned witch. Due to her skin color, she is hated in her community; her father treats her like garbage, her sister is embarrassed to be seen with her, and she is seen as evil and disgusting. When her sister begins attending a new school, Shiz Academy, Elphaba is invited to join after showing her incredible skills in magic and witchcraft. The film ends with Elphaba being seen as evil after the actions in the first film, leading her to run away from her closest friends and family because of lies spread by the Wizard of Oz. 

The second film, Wicked For Good (2025), is very polarizing. It starts off where the first one ends, beginning with an intense opening track. The music in this film is praised, especially for the amazing performances by Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, who play Elphaba and Glinda in the films. Many love the songs in the films, saying they are well-produced and impactful. However, some songs made for this film have not been well praised and have been seen as unnecessary and dull. Another strong aspect of the film was its cinematography. Many praise the beautiful, bright colors and lighting choices, as well as the camera work and angles. The movie's plot was very emotional and intense, including commentary on the way society depicts people who look different, and showing different aspects of friendship and love.

I personally enjoyed the film, but not nearly as much as the first movie, Wicked (2024). The movie had great music, but the acting fell short for me. I thought some of the casting choices were not as strong as they should have been for the story, like Madame Morrible, played by Michelle Yeoh, or Jeff Goldblum's Wizard. I also thought the pacing of the movie was pretty off. Some parts flew by that I felt could use more attention, like the Tin Man and Scarecrow characters, and some parts felt very slow, like the fights between Elphaba and Glinda, or the arc of Elphaba versus the Wizard. I enjoyed the music and story, but it felt dragged out. This movie was clearly targeted for lovers of the Wicked world before the films came out, as well as fans of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, but as someone who wasn’t a huge fan before the movies and was also not a huge fan of either main actor, I felt that overall the movie fell flat.