Publication Date: 01-03-2026

Steve Pulaski’s Top 10 Films of 2025

Building my annual “top 10” list of favorite films for 2025 was more difficult than in years past. The highs this year were stratospherically high, and I am omitting a couple movies I would’ve bet ended up making the list just a few months back. This was a tremendous year for variety, and for the first time since perhaps the late aughts, it felt like some of the biggest movies of the year didn’t exclusively belong to franchise tentpoles.

Even more enjoyably, those aforementioned movies (two of which included at the top of this list) ended up being two of the best movies of the year. What a time to be alive!

I answer this question a lot. I am indeed an AMC Stubs A-List member. Better yet, some of my closest friends in the city in which I reside work at the movie theater. Moreover, some of the only math I like doing comes during this time of the year. Thanks to my Stubs membership, I paid approximately $3.15/ticket, having seen 80 movies in the theater. FULL DISCLOSURE: That number is based on new movies (those released theatrically for the first time ever in 2025). I did not count older films I watched in theaters, such as the 25th anniversary re-release of Dogma nor the Halloween-week screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Those films are not eligible for AMC Stubs reservations either.

That’s amazing value, and if you’re someone who goes to the movies at least two or three times a month (or could see yourself going at that rate, for that matter), and have an AMC Theaters near you, you need to become a member.

Without further adieu, here are my favorite films of 2025. Also included are streaming platforms where you can watch said movies.

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1. Weapons: When a script is so good, it makes Jordan Peele incensed that he couldn’t get his hands on it, you can’t help but be intrigued. As difficult as it was, I actively avoided every nugget of news, rumors, spoilers, and even trailers for Weapons once the bidding war concluded. This is a sprawling horror epic with divine character work and a plot structure that builds to something harmonious.

Weapons earns a place alongside other contemporary works like Hereditary and Longlegs because, from the jump, it compels you with a mystery that has stumped authorities and left townspeople an uneasy mess of emotions. That kind of hook brings out the murder mystery junkie in all of us, who believe we can solve any cold case after a couple of reddit threads and a podcast or two. What Cregger executes in only his second horror feature is a film that’s horror lingers. There might be a supernatural element, but the themes on which it draws are broad enough to represent real, lasting societal fears. While it’s not an impressionistic work by nature, it’s a modern movie that stokes modern fears. If you don’t want to confront those, there is plenty of surface-level entertainment here to rivet. Just don’t be surprised when Weapons sticks in your mind longer than anything you choose to stream after a long day of work.

Where to watch: HBO Max
My review of Weapons

2. Sinners: Flirting with a nine-figure budget and an elite cast that functions both individually and as an ensemble, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a Southern Gothic gangster vampire movie, in a class of its own despite an overcrowded genre. Coogler has established himself as a filmmaker of great confidence and bravery.

Sinners becomes a film about resistance to a homogenized culture, as well as survival. If you’re someone who fears politics in your entertainment like a vampire fears garlic, rest assured that there’s more than enough to appreciate on a base level. Coogler doesn’t skimp on stakings, neck-biting, and flame-throwing. Alongside his immensely talented, frequent collaborating composter Ludwig Göransson, the two fashion Sinners as a lovely ode to Chicago blues. Multiple extended sequences permit the stylings of these talented individuals to breathe. The vampire cult does a lovely Irish song-and-jig to “Rocky Road to Dublin” that I immediately wanted to rewind once it concluded. It’s hauntingly invigorating, underscored by vampires crip-walking, intense Dutch angles, disorienting camera-spinning, and some delightful Irish harmoines. There’s also the repeated use of the ditty “Pick Poor Robin Clean,” employed to disquieting effect.

Where to watch: HBO Max
My review of Sinners

3. Magazine Dreams: Following its premiere at Sundance in 2023, and the ensuing shitstorm that was the subsequent SAG-AFTRA strike coupled with the assault allegations against Jonathan Majors. What was primed to be an awards contender for the 96th Academy Awards instead found itself in purgatory after Searchlight Pictures dropped the film from the release calendar all together. In October 2024, Briarcliff Entertainment acquired the domestic distribution rights to the film, and it finally saw a low-key release in March 2025. It was so low-key that I wasn’t aware it was even released until I found the DVD on a Walmart shelf.

Magazine Dreams has something to say about the epidemic of male loneliness in our culture. So many young, single men have adopted the internet as their only outlet in the modern day. These men are socially inept, bitterly unloved, and angry all the more. In their vulnerable states, they become obsessed with something, be it violence, video games, pornography, or in the case of Majors’ Killian, bodybuilding. Killian is aware that he’s unwell, most notably after a fateful doctor’s visit where a potential surgery throws everything he’s worked for into flux. Elijah Bynum’s examination of this troubled character is one of empathy to the extent that Killian doesn’t seem capable of committing to what his best for him.

Where to watch: Fandango at Home
My review of Magazine Dreams

4. Eephus: Carson Lund’s Eephus — named after the rare, high-arching, low velocity pitch geared to throw off a batter’s sense of timing and rhythm — is an auspicious directorial debut, and one of the year’s most affecting movies. The film follows the final pickup baseball game to be played by the employees of two rival businesses. The next day, the field will become a construction site for a new school. Lund’s focus, combined with Michael Basta and Nate Fisher’s script, favors the collective. Eephus feels very natural insofar that it’s basically presented as a long baseball game, with Lund’s camera drifting and rifting to every point of the diamond, the dugout, the bleachers, a food truck operator, and the occasional passerby.

The result is an easygoing, languid dramedy with laughs big and small coupled with poignant emotional moments about male camaraderie and a shared sense of loss.

Where to watch: Fandango at Home
My review of Eephus

5. Friendship: If I ever am so fortunate to meet Tim Robinson, the interaction will probably go something like this.

Top-shelf cringe comedy has two paths it can take. It’ll either be uncomfortably hilarious or annoyingly unfunny. I never “got” the humor of Tim and Eric, but admired their creativity and constant desire to subvert expectations. I’m willing to bet Tim Robinson is a fan of their work. However, where Heidecker and Wareheim went broad and surreal with their comedy, Robinson strives for something more grounded; a style that results in painfully awkward relatability.

Andrew DeYoung’s Friendship is the perfect star vehicle for the I Think You Should Leave comedian. Its premise will undoubtedly resonate with many a male who lacks the alpha qualities that make fellow males naturally gravitate to them. This is a movie for the loner at a party, who doesn’t know why he’s at the party, but hopes someone will strike up a conversation with him while he tries desperately to act natural and normal. At its essence, it’s about a guy who just wants to have his neighbor as a friend and be one of the guys.

Where to watch: Hulu
My review of Friendship

6. The Baltimorons: Just as I found myself gravitating to the works of brothers Jay and Mark Duplass, the pair ceased directing movies. The Baltimorons marks Jay Duplass’ first feature directorial effort since the brothers’ The Do-Deca-Pentathlon in 2012. During this time, Jay has been an actor, a producer, and even behind-the-camera for a few TV shows. Seeing him slip back behind the camera for a long-form work was a treat in itself.

Like most Duplass movies, The Baltimorons succeeds in large part due to the characters’ personalities. Michael Strassner has a genial presence to him, even when he’s talking too much or seems overwhelmingly consumed by his own prankster ways. Liz Larsen is every bit as good, though perhaps conveying the look of pained and weary in her eyes. Complementing its lead/cowriter Strassner, The Baltimorons feels like a work of improv in itself. But like improv, you can tell the talent behind it worked diligently at their craft to make a simple story this funny, multilayered, and moving.

Where to watch: AMC+
My review of The Baltimorons

7. Strange Harvest: Capitalizing on the masses’ insatiable appetite for true crime podcasts, deep-dives, and dissections, Stuart Ortiz’s Strange Harvest ends up being a believable recreation of the documentary genre while also serving up an engrossing serial killer story. This is a story that would make for a gripping novel, or even an interactive website the likes of which Longlegs received. Strange Harvest is the best horror mockumentary I’ve seen since The Poughkeepsie Tapes, but thankfully it wasn’t subjected to the bullshit bait-and-switch release that film had to endure.

Where to watch: Hulu
My review of Strange Harvest

8. Marty Supreme: Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme is a jittery, anxious thrill-ride inspired by the life of table tennis hustler Marty Reisen. Although not working with his brother, Benny (the two made Uncut Gems), the hallmarks of the Safdies are very much on display here. Their films are visceral experiences predicated on wild, scattershot unpredictability. They’re caustically funny, mercilessly violent, liberally vulgar, and revolve around narcissistic antagonists that challenge your perception of how to respond to a primary character. The fun therein is the way in which they gobsmack you with shocking situational happenstance, and the rapidly paced build-up of how causes lead to effects, sometimes two-or-three in any given minute. Seeing Marty Supreme and Uncut Gems in a well-attended auditorium is a treat as well, for once you’re past your initial guffaws, you want to look around and witness the reactions of others.

Where to watch: In theaters
My review of Marty Supreme

9. The Luckiest Man in America: I have a deep love and lore for Press Your Luck, so this inclusion might be the most “me” movie on this list. The Luckiest Man in America is not only a fitting dramatization of the 1984 Press Your Luck scandal, but it also is true to its subject matter insofar that it provides a strange snapshot in TV history. Its staying power will likely be minimal with most. Much like the story of Michael Larson, the film is an oddity to be brought up in casual conversation, or a gab and chatter at the bar. It succeeds in being a snapshot of a time when game shows were simple and unglamorous, and further proof that the camaraderie behind the cameras can sometimes be just as entertaining.

Where to watch: AMC+
My review of The Luckiest Man in America

10. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere: Sparse in its production values, which in turn makes it uncommonly bleak lyricism rise to the forefront, Nebraska might not be my favorite Bruce Springsteen album, but it’s one of the most important in his catalog. I’d surmise the making of anyone of his 21 studio albums could be the basis for a good movie, but Nebraska might be atop the list of the best, for the artist synonymous with rock and roll balked at the pressure of labels and associates who encouraged him to follow-up his hit-generating double-album The River with something decisively more commercial. Instead, Bruce, a victim of his own depression and ennui, retreated back to his Colts Neck home, and recorded several dark, ominous ballads about the lives of blue collar workers, boozers, and bad men.

The production of Nebraska is the basis for Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, a standout music biopic at at time when the genre is overcrowded and malnourished. Directed by Scott Cooper — no stranger to both movies about troubled musicians (Crazy Heart) and grim introspective stories (Out of the Furnace) — and based on Warren Zanes’ book of the same name, we follow the Boss for about a yearlong span as he penetrates his psyche and puts himself through the ringer to release his most somber, experimental record yet.

Where to watch: Apple TV+
My review of Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

Steve’s Top 10 Worst Films of 2025