The Film Stage's editor-in-chief @jpraup shares his favorite films of 2025:
10. Black Bag (Steven Soderbergh)
9. The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
8. Eephus (Carson Lund)
7. Who by Fire (Philippe Lesage)
6. BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (Kahlil Joseph)
5. Sirāt (Oliver Laxe)
4. The Shrouds (David Cronenberg)
3. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
2. Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
1. One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Honorable Mentions: My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, Familiar Touch, Cloud, Sorry, Baby, Magellan, Resurrection, Afternoons of Solitude, The Perfect Neighbor, It Was Just an Accident, and Father Mother Sister Brother
Favorite First-Time Watches of 2025: Hatari!, Belfast, Maine, Pulse, La Région Centrale, Punishment Park, Abraham’s Valley, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, D’Est, Choose Me, Christian F., Southern Comfort, Godard’s Passion, Daddy Longlegs, and Subarnarekha
Read his thoughts on every film in the top 10 and discover more year-end lists from our contributors at the link in bio.
Thanks for reading all year long!
Second viewing of the movie of the year/decade at work today, with some very special guests. Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is a blisteringly intense, unnervingly hilarious thrill ride through the rot of America’s tyrannical, xenophobic underbelly. PTA barely lifts a sentence from Vineland to create a world all his own, both frighteningly recognizable and surprisingly tender.
My 10 favorite films of 2023:
10. All of Us Strangers (Andrew Haigh)
9. The Holdovers (Alexander Payne)
8. Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros (Frederick Wiseman)
7. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
6. May December (Todd Haynes)
5. Priscilla (Sofia Coppola)
4. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)
3. The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki)
2. Pacifiction (Albert Serra)
1. Afire (Christian Petzold)
Two films that would’ve topped this list had they had a U.S. release in 2023: Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast and Víctor Erice’s still-undistributed Close Your Eyes.
Honorable mentions: Showing Up, The Killer, R.M.N., Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., A Still Small Voice
10 favorite first-time watches of 2023: Blissfully Yours, Lost in America, Trust, The Terrorizers, The Puppetmaster, A Confucian Confusion, Mahjong, Bug, One Way Passage, and My Little Loves.
See my write-ups for the top 10 at the link in bio.
Still can't believe this one happened. I sat down with Michael Mann (!) at @thenyff to discuss his Closing Night selection Ferrari, which opens wide on Christmas Day. 🏎️ Watch at filmlinc.org/mann
📸: @photojuice #NYFF61 #michaelmann #ferrari
That’s a wrap! Grateful to our incredible team for making this the most successful and smoothest @thenyff yet. Thanks to everyone from NYC and beyond who packed the houses at @filmlinc every day. Cinema is alive and well. 💜
Some personal favs out of the 72 (!) films I saw in the 🔥🔥 lineup: The Beast, The Boy and the Heron, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, The Dupes, All of Us Strangers, Close Your Eyes, Priscilla, Evil Does Not Exist, May December, The Killer, Household Saints, Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, Last Summer, Fallen Leaves, The Human Surge 3, Janet Planet, Here, Hit Man, and The Feeling That the Time For Doing Something Has Passed.
📸: @seandiserio
