There was great film in 2025, but I’m not certain if we’ll remember it as a great year for cinema. All of the societal and business sturm und drang seems to be coming to a head, and nobody seems to know what comes next. Certainly the studios don’t, as they keep trying the same thing over and over again and failing to meet with much success. We’ve seen this in the film industry before, and while I hold out hope of a 70’s style “New Hollywood” renaissance, I’m also not holding my breath.
You’d think with the theatrical and box office success of films like SINNERS and WEAPONS, the studios would take the hint and focus on original ideas. But instead they seem to be doubling down on sequels, remakes, and streaming blandness. THE LIFE OF CHUCK was wonderful and deserved much more attention. And COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT is finally available for everyone to see.
I really hope we continue having original movies succeed over the crap, and that the studios finally realize they are barking up the wrong tree.
Oh, and since I posted last year I completely overhauled my movie tracking charts. They no longer appear here inline, but they are far more powerful and the list itself easier to read. No more reviews buried in tooltips (except on mobile, but there’s a little icon you can tap to see them).
You can find the charts for 2025 here. Once you are there you can use the filter controls at the top to slice and dice the data as you see fit.
(If you are interested in the technical guts of these graphs, you can find the source code here)