It’s dark times out there and during dark times, illuminated silver screens can offer us the greatest of hope. Here are the five movies that gave light to a dark first half of the year followed by five more movies which seek to continue the trend.
Top 5 Movies – First Half of 2025
5 | The Phoenician Scheme
He’s done it again. Again and again. Wes Anderson has done it. May he never stop. Remember those insulting memes about how AI Slop could conceivably match the precise symmetry of Wes Anderson? The best protest to criticism the film world has witnessed is Wes Anderson doubling down on style and folks collectively realizing the value of the authentic article. Yes, the framing of Wes Anderson follows a very specific artistic lens, but watching his films, we realize that it’s not just the lines of symmetry that inspire us, but the striking humanity of what those compositions make us feel. Yes, you can make a symmetrical frame in an AI. But no, it will never evoke ingenuity and the human element of design, which is why only Wes Anderson makes Wes Anderson movies. Machine learning generations can’t do it and even human imitation would never give us what we want. Only Wes Anderson does. Only Wes Anderson can.
4 | Eephus
Sure, Eephus is a remarkable eulogy to the communal ballpark, but it’s significantly more than that, too. It’s a nostalgic ode to shared public spaces and the sense of community fostered in those spaces. Like the fabled “Eephus pitch,” which moves slow and with a curve, making the batter lose track of time, that’s how the movie plays, too: a communal reverie that is not really about sports at all, but is very much about how our hobbies connect us and how that connection gives us deep meaning.
3 | Black Bag
A Steven Soderbergh movie like Black Bag ought to set movie critic hearts on fire. This is for us. For the cineastes who respect classically astute, well-devised cinema, built at a structural level to tell a good story in a good way. Written by Soderbergh and David Koepp (who also wrote the most successful movie (going by the box office) of the last six months), the team bring verve and class back to the cinema. That Black Bag was not immediately successful shows the ever-increasing gulf between the best movies and what is made for audiences but is also likely a result of Soderbergh releasing a lot of movies since COVID. This one could’ve been an event. It’s a top-tier spy film in a year where the biggest one of those, the new Mission Impossible, flew way below expectations. This one is more classically assured, jazzy, and performed by a remarkable ensemble.
2 | BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions begins by telling us ‘this is not a documentary.’ Which is the first subversion Khalil Joseph makes in his experimental docufiction, which is both surely a documentary and just as surely functions as a movie by way of art instillation. You may not know Khalil Joseph yet, but the experimental and academic filmmaker from Seattle needs to be known. BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions explores the dense themes of time and consciousness through the lens of our collected history of the Black diaspora. The film follows a curator of West African art and culture (Shaunette Renée Wilson), as her new work, “The Resonance Field” outlines a history of Blackness, and we travel through space and time. Truly innovative arthouse work made outside the system. Exactly the kind of abstract cinema we ought to be celebrating.
1 | Sinners
Believe the hype. Full stop. For once, we all agreed on one thing: And it’s that Sinners is awesome. Awesome, in the full meaning of that word, Sinners is instantly canonized. Ryan Coogler was already floating around this space but at release, became our most important director of the year. That rare example of cohesion wherein all the working parts aren’t merely good, they coalesce into one of the most brilliant exploration of social horror motifs we’ve ever witnessed. So richly rooted in Black music and storytelling, Sinners is revelatory, and that doesn’t feel at all like hyperbole this time. Superlative comments are deeply earned by superlative cinema.
Coming Attractions – Second Half of 2025
5 | Avatar: Fire and Ash
Does it feel like a new Avatar is coming out this year? Does it even feel like Disney has a solid handle on the release strategies for any of their massive franchises? To both questions: It really doesn’t. Which means we have seen neither hide nor hair of James Cameron’s third entry in the franchise. What has happened is that the new Jurassic World movie might’ve eaten Avatar’s lunch. The new dinosaur movie spanned land, air, and sea all at once to wild success (it’s currently the most successful film of the year). “Never bet against James Cameron,” has remained a useful motto. We’ve dubbed him King of the Sequel for very good reason… on account of the quality of his sequels.
4 | A House of Dynamite
It’s been a long time since Kathryn Bigelow’s last film, Detroit (2017), a movie about a citizen uprising in the face of a fascist occupying police force which we may all want to reconsider… Her filmography remains high-quality and represents something pretty special: Not only a woman working in war films but a woman winning the first ever Best Director award by a woman, for her work on The Hurt Locker (2010). A House of Dynamite is, unfortunately for me, not a Spaghetti Western despite the title (imagine: A Houseful of Dynamite!) but is a paranoid military thriller, about a missile attack on the United States and the accompanying crisis that unfolds at the White House as the United States rush to intercept it.
3 | Frankenstein
A fit is a fit. Guillermo del Toro, across his strong filmography, has always been making movies like what you can imagine he will make for Netflix’s Frankenstein. His work celebrates monsters, having fully internalized the purpose of this story, wherein we must always note, Frankenstein is the villain (and Frankenstein’s monster is the hero). Our movies have also shifted since Guillermo del Toro began making movies and has met his perspective in the middle. We all love the Monster Hero. That might be the only kind of Hero most of us can stomach right now. Ideally, we’d love to see Frankenstein return the auteur director to the awards conversation, which may sound trivial, but we want filmmakers like him at the center of the conversation about movies, at a time like this.
2 | Bugonia
Off to the side of the industry, Yorgos Lanthimos has cultivated just about the most interesting filmography of any working director. His works have expanded from metaphorical expressions into deep dives into human psychology, always artfully and thoughtfully composed, seemingly with his finger on the pulse of what’s valued in aesthetic expression right now. An English-language remake of the South Korean film Save the Green Planet! (2003) about some conspiracy-obsessed young men who capture the CEO of a major pharma company. Dark Comedy is a productive lane for Lanthimos and the film is sure to generate some interesting discourse later this year.
1 | One Battle After Another
Movie critics want one thing and it’s the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland (1990), the film surrounds the activities of a paramilitary group of ex-revolutionaries who reunite to save one of their member’s lost daughter, who is kidnapped by their long-time enemy. The first Anderson film to be made for IMAX, we’re itching to see the director work with an expanded budget. Meanwhile, the starry cast (Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, etc., etc.) and promise of a new Johnny Greenwood score align this film at the very top of our list.
Now it's your turn, dear reader. What's your favorite film for the first half of 2025 and most anticipated film for the remainder of the year?