To have enjoyed your 2025, you must have lived under a rock – and by rock, I mean the rooftop of a cinema that has bad phone reception. In a year with fascist world leaders, escalating violence, and numerous ongoing wars on a planet being destroyed by manmade climate change, going to the movies is still the best way to escape the everyday horrors of the news, social media, and the soul-crushing grind of capitalist life.

Even so, many have complained that 2025 has been a lacklustre year for films. Pandemic aftershocks mean fewer risky, adult dramas are getting made, and the UK’s outdated release schedule means most of the year’s best films won’t arrive until 2026.

The truth is, 2025 has been an awful year, but not for movies. If you looked further than Marvel and Minecraft, cinemas have offered a plethora of exciting, thought-provoking releases that try to stand out from the norm. Although we’re in an age of digital, the likes of Josh Safdie, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Joachim Trier still insist on shooting on 35mm; divisive dramas like Die My Love, Alpha, and Eddington ensure that theatres are still the best place to love or despise a new release and also the person who dragged you to it; and with Sound of Falling and Sirat we have two revolutionary films attempting to rewrite cinematic grammar. And so, sticking to films that had their world premiere in 2025, here are our top picks for the best of the year.

20. TWINLESS (JAMES SWEENEY)

Already notorious for its sex scenes between Sweeney and Dylan O’Brien, Twinless is a snappy screwball romcom without the rom: after Dennis (Sweeney) has a one-night stand with Rocky (O’Brien) and accidentally causes his death, he semi-stalks his crush’s heterosexual twin brother, also played by O’Brien. The quips are fast and constant; by the end, it’s surprisingly moving.

Twinless is out in UK cinemas on February 6

19. ENZO (ROBIN CAMPILLO)

Credited as “a film by Laurent Cantet” but “directed by Robin Campillo”, Enzo is a moving, prickly coming-of-ager about a French teen who rebels against his middle-class parents: shunning academia, the 16-year-old boy becomes a builder and lusts after a man twice his age. Full of pathos, the drama is heightened by behind-the-scenes heartbreak: Cantet, the intended director, died just before the shoot.

Enzo is out in UK cinemas in 2026

18. ALPHA (JULIA DUCOURNAU)

Strange, shocking, and deeply divisive: Alpha is a time-jumping, mind-melting sci-fi about grief, family, and homophobia. Set in the 90s, Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to Titane establishes an AIDS-coded virus that turns the infected into marble. When a 13-year-old girl believes she’s contracted the disease, kids at school shun her and flashbacks reveal her unprocessed trauma. There’s nothing else like it.

Read our interview with Julia Ducournau here

17. THE MASTERMIND (KELLY REICHARDT)

Marketed as a heist-thriller but really a slow-burn drama about realising you’ve ruined your life, The Mastermind stars Josh O’Connor as an art thief who steals four Arthur Dove paintings and doesn’t know how to sell them. The crime’s motivation isn’t really money; it’s male arrogance from someone expecting a safety net. Kelly Reichardt, as usual, delights in the quiet details that other filmmakers ignore.

Read our interview with Kelly Reichardt and Josh O’Connor here

16. WEAPONS (ZACH CREGGER)

Like Jordan Peele, Cregger is proving that sketch comedians can also be talented horror auteurs. The premise is promisingly creepy: one night, 17 children all flee their homes at 2:17am and don’t return. But Weapons soars in the individual character moments, whether it’s Josh Brolin yelling at a wall, or Amy Madigan stealing the film as Aunt Gladys. Big on laughs and scares, it’s the kind of film that excels in a packed multiplex on a Saturday night.

15. BUGONIA (YORGOS LANTHIMOS)

With their third film in three years, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone are becoming a strangely underrated partnership that people take for granted: Bugonia is a tense, darkly hilarious sci-fi thriller that combines the Greek director’s esoteric camera choices (this time it’s VistaVision) with a committed cast that includes Jesse Plemons and newcomer Aidan Delbis. If it wasn’t such a faithful remake of an existing Korean film (Save the Green Planet!), perhaps it’d be at the top of our list.

Read our interview with Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Will Tracy here

14. THE SECRET AGENT (KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO)

It’s 1977 in Recife when Marcelo (Wagner Moura), a grieving widower, reckons with the celebrations of Carnaval amidst a Brazilian dictatorship. Mendonça Filho’s political thriller laments the bigotry, violence, and censorship of the era; in a fantastical sequence, a severed human leg with a mind of its own attacks gay men (a reference to coded newspaper articles from the time), while Marcelo is an innocent man whose life is in danger. Juggling numerous tones, the period-drama is gripping, funny, and moving – often at the same time.

The Secret Agent is out in UK cinemas on February 20, 2026.

13. IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU (MARY BRONSTEIN)

Perhaps the year’s most anxiety-inducing film, Bronstein’s second feature stars Rose Byrne as a mother whose life goes from worse to worse to worse. Her ceiling collapses; her screaming child (always off-screen) suffers an unsolvable ailment; further clashes arise with an unsympathetic therapist (Conan O’Brien) and a flirty frenemy (ASAP Rocky). With the camera often zooming in on her panicked face, Byrne has never been better.

 If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is out in UK cinemas on February 20, 2026

12. RESURRECTION (BI GAN)

Split into five chapters, Resurrection is a sci-fi epic that retells the history of cinema – I think. The head-spinning thriller starts off with a world where humans realise they can live forever if they stop dreaming. Those who choose to dream are Fantasmers, whom are hunted down by The Other Ones, such as Shi Qu. This is 10 minutes into a three-hour film: at some point, you have to surrender to Bi’s dazzling collection of genre experiments, including one neo-noir section that’s an unbroken shot lasting nearly an hour.

Resurrection is out in UK cinemas in 2026

11. THE KIDNAPPING OF ARABELLA (CAROLINA CAVALLI)

From the Italian writer-director of Amanda and co-writer of Fremont comes a striking, existential comedy: Holly (Benedetta Porcaroli from Amanda) stumbles upon a seven-year-old girl, Arabella, and is convinced that she’s meeting her younger self. It’s a laugh-out-loud road movie that fully commits to its bizarre premise, ensuring you’re never sure what will happen next. One example: Chris Pine’s supporting role as Arabella’s Italian-speaking father.

The Kidnapping of Arabella is seeking UK distribution

10. LEFT-HANDED GIRL (SHIH-CHING TSOU)

Shot on iPhones, Tsou’s kinetic comedy-drama follows three women navigating the night markets of Taipei. Of particular note is five-year-old I-jing, a left-handed kid who’s told by her grandfather that she’s using “the Devil’s hand” and must correct herself. Her response? Shoplifting with her left hand. Elsewhere, the layered storytelling is rich and surprising, all culminating in a shocking showdown worthy of Mike Leigh. If it reminds you of The Florida Project and Anora, it’s because it was co-written, co-produced, and edited by Sean Baker.

Read our interview with Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker here

9. URCHIN (HARRIS DICKINSON)

With Urchin, Harris Dickinson proves himself to be annoyingly talented: the actor has written and directed a London-based drama about homelessness that’s both searing and strange. Frank Dillane is superb as Mike, an addict who exits prison and must curb his anger issues to maintain a catering job. While the acting is grounded and poignant, the film excels when Dickinson reveals his arthouse sensibilities – with a French cinematographer, it has clear allusions to Leos Carax – and even a sci-fi detour.

Read our interview with Harris Dickinson here

8. SENTIMENTAL VALUE (JOACHIM TRIER)

A talky film about family members who don’t know how to talk, Trier’s follow-up to The Worst Person in the World is novelistic and cinematic: a depiction of what happens when a director (Stellan Skarsgård) prioritises his career over his children. A superb ensemble cast led by Renate Reinsve execute a sharp, probing drama that succeeds on all levels: it’s smart, funny, brilliantly acted, and once again showcasing Trier’s gift at composing beautiful images that don’t distract from the drama.

Sentimental Value is out in UK cinemas on December 26

7. MY FATHER’S SHADOW (AKINOLA DAVIES JR.)

My Father’s Shadow is such a gorgeous, accomplished drama, it’s hard to believe that Davies, who wrote the script with his brother, is a first-time feature filmmaker. Set in 1993 during the Nigerian presidential election, the lush memory piece follows Fola (a terrific Sope Dirisu) as he guides his two sons through Lagos. The viewer soaks up the drama through both perspectives: the often-absent father who’s hiding secrets from his children, and the two boys who are so astonished by the day’s events they’ll one day write a film about it.

My Father’s Shadow is out in UK cinemas on February 6, 2026

6. SINNERS (RYAN COOGLER)

A huge hit at the box office, Sinners proved that successful blockbusters could be bold, auteur-driven, not based on any IP. Above all, Coogler’s period-drama horror is pure popcorn fun, mixing Michael B. Jordan as twin vampire slayers with a musical sequence so trippy that it traverses through time. It also serves as a reminder to always stay through the credits – at the press screening, most critics missed the actual final scene.

5. SIRĀT (OLIVER LAXE)

In Oliver Laxe’s genre-bending, EDM-infused thriller, a bunch of ravers face their impending doom during World War Three, and respond by dancing in the desert to techno music. Set in Morocco’s dustiest landscapes, the apocalyptic road-trip movie depicts the transcendent power of catchy, repetitive electronica when you’re at your lowest. The challenge in a cinema is whether you can remain in your seat when the soundtrack blasts on the speakers.

Sirāt is out in UK cinemas on February 27, 2026

4. SOUND OF FALLING (MASCHA SCHILINSKI)

A mind-bending, decade-spanning coming-of-age drama about four suffering women in Germany, Sound of Falling is a truly radical piece of work: scenes start in one century and end with a different character in the next; when you think it can’t get any more esoteric, the plot turns supernatural. For two-and-a-half hours, Schilinski manipulates the film’s soundscape, camera placement, and chronology to further add confusion to her mischievous jigsaw puzzle. When it clicks, it clicks: Schilinski confirms that she’s a major filmmaker to watch.

Sound of Falling is out in UK cinemas in early 2026

3. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON)

Both epic in its jaw-dropping action and delightful in its goofy sense of humour, Paul Thomas Anderson’s loose Pynchon adaptation packs so much into its 161-minute running time that no one can agree on a highlight. Is it Leonardo DiCaprio yelling down a phone in his dressing gown? Chase Infiniti staring down Sean Penn? Or Benicio del Toro’s quip about “a few small beers”? Demonstrating the power of political activism and the messiness of family relationships, Anderson’s action-comedy is what happens when an auteur is granted creative freedom, a proper budget, and an eclectic cast willing to take risks.

Read our interview with Paul Thomas Anderson here

2. NO OTHER CHOICE (PARK CHAN-WOOK)

Sleek and hysterical, Park’s black comedy follows a Korean paper expert (Lee Byung-hun from Squid Game) who plans to murder his competitors to secure a dream job. After planning the film for 15 years, Park shoots the madcap thriller with exhilarating dynamism and many mind-boggling angles that feel like they’ve never been attempted in a film before.

Beneath the ostentatious cinematography, the knowingly absurd story is also a sly comment on gender roles and the worst-case scenario for a man refusing to ask his wife for help – he reluctantly becomes a serial killer. Whereas Lee is terrifying in Squid Game, his deadpan frustration in No Other Choice is oddly humanising. He’s such an incompetent assassin, you can’t help but cheer him on.

No Other Choice is out in UK cinemas on January 23, 2026

1. MARTY SUPREME (JOSH SAFDIE)

Timothée Chalamet is a comedic talent. We always sensed it from his media appearances, SNL, and that video of him as a school kid rapping about mathematics. However, in Josh Safdie’s globetrotting, 1950s-set period drama, Chalamet is an absolute riot as Marty Mauser, a ping pong show-off who’s driven by lust, greed, and a fiery passion for a ridiculous sport. A compulsive liar with a mean streak, Marty makes an enemy in every room he enters, and is lucky if he can exit without a black eye. For two and a half hours, it’s compelling and hilarious – and then the magic trick is when, towards the end, Chalamet breaks your heart.

Lensed by Darius Khondji, scored by Daniel Lopatin, and co-written with Ronald Bronstein, Safdie’s follow-up to Uncut Gems is simultaneously gorgeous and teeming with spontaneity in its zany screwball sequences. The eclectic cast includes Gwyneth Paltrow, Philippe Petit (the highwire artist from Man on Wire), and Tyler, the Creator. However, the other standout is Odessa A’zion as a secret lover whose raw emotions counter Marty’s denial about his destructive nature. Behold, a film that rewards repeat viewings with a large, laughing crowd.

Marty Supreme is out in UK cinemas on December 26