Monthly Archives: December 2025

Column, Reel Views

My Top 10 Films of 2025

As with the past few years, 2025 found studios scrambling to figure out what will get increasingly selective moviegoers back out to theaters opening weekend. Fortunately, some of the top earners — 2 on this list were also in the top 10 for domestic box office — happened to be excellent movies too. As is often the case, there were plenty of other titles that didn’t make much money but are absolutely worth seeking out. Here are my 10 favorites from another strong year of film:

  1. Sinners (streaming on HBO Max and available to rent/buy)
    The most compelling horror release of the year, Ryan Coogler’s marriage of monsters and music synthesizes his strengths as both a storyteller and a stylist. In a dual role, Michael B. Jordan leads an exceptional ensemble as a pair of twins trying to turn over a new leaf by opening a juke joint, before uninvited guests show and want a bite of the action. Set mostly during a sweltering autumn evening in the Mississippi Delta, Sinners moves with an infectious rhythm that gets in your veins and doesn’t leave until after the post-credit epilogue.
  2. Splitsville (available to rent/buy)
    There were plenty of excellent comedic choices from Friendship to The Naked Gun but none had quite as many hard-earned laughs as this raucous relationship romp. Writer-director Michael Angelo Covino also co-stars as a real estate wheeler-dealer who feels secure in his open marriage with his wife (played by Dakota Johnson), until his newly divorced best friend soon takes interest. Knock-down drag-out fights are had, songs by The Fray are desperately sung and mentalist tricks for an ill-suited crowd are performed.
  3. Predators (streaming on Paramount+)
    Unrelated to the pair of Predator movies that were released in 2025, this provocative and incisive look at the Dateline spin-off To Catch A Predator is as stirring and unpredictable as documentaries get. Both an indictment of the artifice behind reality television and the carnivorous culture that ceaselessly consumes it, director David Osit’s exposé tackles taboo subject material with laudable focus and conviction. The film’s final moments and closing line have reverberated in my head and stayed with me longer than I could’ve expected.
  4. Wake Up Dead Man (streaming on Netflix)
    Rian Johnson’s magnificent murder mystery franchise maintains its high-water mark for quality with a whodunnit set in a rural Catholic church that has plenty of secrets for Daniel Craig’s detective to uncover. In one of his four starring roles of 2025, Josh O’Connor plays a young priest who’s the main suspect when a senior member of the parish is found stabbed to death in a storage closet. A supporting cast that includes Glenn Close and Josh Brolin — among many other familiar faces — bolster another engrossing cinematic page-turner.
  5. A House Of Dynamite (streaming on Netflix)
    An American nightmare in three chapters, Kathryn Bigelow’s apocalyptic thriller buzzes with a trademark intensity she’s developed after decades of superlative filmmaking. It’s a fly-on-the-wall depiction of how high-ranking officials in the government and military react when a ballistic missile of unknown origin is launched with its sights on a major US city. Written with believable precision by Noah Oppenheim and edited ruthlessly by Kirk Baxter, the movie is thematically taut and almost unbearably suspenseful.
  6. Superman (streaming on HBO Max and available to rent/buy)
    It feels like it’s been a bit since a superhero saga actually felt like it was pushing the genre onward and upward but James Gunn’s inaugural entry in his DC Universe does just that. Digging deeper into the comic book lore and forgoing the Man Of Steel story beats we’ve seen on-screen too many times before, Gunn also carefully considers how a symbol of hope and optimism would fare in 2025. Superman’s tights are never easy to fill but David Corenswet makes the iconic role his own with a self-deprecation and vulnerability that don’t come at the expense of heroism.
  7. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (available to rent/buy and streaming on HBO Max starting January 30th)
    Rose Byrne gives the year’s finest performance as a psychotherapist ironically disobeying the “oxygen mask” principle of self-care as she’s stretched beyond her emotional limits. With inspired casting choices like rapper A$AP Rocky and Conan O’Brien as an unindulgent colleague, this psychological drama is a raw depiction of motherhood as a black hole of perpetual pressure. Steeped in autobiographical details from writer-director Mary Bronstein’s personal life, this is ferociously honest storytelling of the highest order.
  8. No Other Choice (coming to theaters this month)
    Korean maestro Park Chan-wook follows up his romantic mystery Decision To Leave with a pitch-black comedy ripped right from the headlines. Squid Game standout Lee Byung-hun stars as a recently unemployed executive in the paper industry who decides to off his competition for a potentially lucrative job offering. With loads of tongue-in-cheek digs at caustic corporate culture and organizational indifference, Chan-wook takes a darkly funny conceit and goes to surprisingly profound places.
  9. The Testament Of Ann Lee (coming to theaters this month)
    I certainly didn’t have “musical about the founder of a religious sect” on my bingo card at the start of the year but Mona Fastvold’s ephemeral and audacious period piece is an immediate triumph. Amanda Seyfried puts everything she has into her portrayal of the titular Shaker who overcomes persecution and personal tragedy to lead a movement of community and equality. Co-written by Fastvold’s partner Brady Corbet of last year’s The Brutalist, with unforgettable music from that film’s composer Daniel Blumberg, The Testament Of Ann Lee is a stunning achievement.
  10. One Battle After Another (streaming on HBO Max and available to rent/buy)
    Paul Thomas Anderson’s tenth feature finds the master painting on his most grandiose canvas yet, shooting in VistaVision with his cinematographer Michael Bauman to jaw-dropping effect. In a career filled with stellar work, Leonardo DiCaprio delivers his best performance to date as an ex-revolutionary forced back into action when his daughter is kidnapped. Anderson has made several masterpieces already in his career but there’s a centeredness and worldly wisdom that makes One Battle After Another a particularly remarkable statement.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Marty Supreme

The second Safdie brother sports drama coming out this quarter — following the release of Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine a couple months ago — Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme takes the gold among the two efforts. It’s the one that most mirrors jittery character studies like Uncut Gems and Good Time that the brothers crafted together before forging separate paths for themselves. While both Machine and Supreme are technically both based on true stories, the former is much more slavishly devoted to an accurate depiction of events than the latter. Loosely inspired by the life and career of table tennis champion Marty “The Needle” Reisman, the propulsive and brash tale is one of American exceptionalism post-World War II through a very specific prism of ping pong competition. Happy Gilmore meets Once Upon A Time In America certainly isn’t a concoction that should work but through sheer force of will, it does.

Set in early 1950s New York City, Marty Supreme focuses on young shoe salesman Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), whose life moves at such a relentlessly ramshackle pace, it’s like a high-wire act on a taut shoestring above the abyss. In line to move up to a manager position, the path for ordinary schnookdom is lain clearly before him, but Marty has no shortage of confidence that he’s in line for much greater things. In his downtime, he’s become something of a ping pong prodigy, so talented that he’s been invited to compete in table tennis on America’s behalf at the international level. After putting together the cash through characteristically underhanded tactics, he books a ticket to London, where the International Table Tennis Federation is holding the championships for the up-and-coming sport.

While being interviewed in the lobby of his hotel, Marty’s eye catches movie star Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is there traveling with her pen magnate husband Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary). Her marital status does little to deter Marty’s freight-train guile, barely wasting any time to rush back up to his room so he can call her and invite the both of them to watch him play ping pong. Oblivious to Marty’s interest in his wife, Rockwell offers an all-expenses-paid opportunity to face off against Japanese champion Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) in an exhibition match before the next tournament. But when Marty discovers he’s to throw the match in the interest of entertainment and spectacle, he refuses the offer with colorful enough remarks to draw Rockwell’s permanent ire. Unwavering in his desire to go after what he wants, Marty pursues an affair with Kay, despite his girlfriend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) being pregnant back home.

Bookended by two fantastic Tears For Fears cuts and supported by a sublime, synth-heavy music score by Daniel Lopatin, Marty Supreme may start in 1952 but its ears and grindset are more reminiscent of 1987. It’s a stout 149 minutes but it flies by like a ping pong ball whizzing from an ace serve; this movie has more happening in the first 5 minutes before the title card hits than some have in their whole runtime. Like Uncut Gems, which found Adam Sandler hocking diamonds and hustling breathlessly, this film is similarly built around the magnetic determination of both its central character and respective performer. With the way Timothée Chalamet has been promoting Marty Supreme the past couple months, it’s hard to tell exactly where he ends and where Marty begins, but I suspect that’s the point. Whether he’s a real genius or not, Chalamet is crucial to making this epic fly and if you still don’t “get” the actor’s appeal, this film would be the one to potentially win over the unconverted.

The Oscars are introducing a new Academy Award for Achievement In Casting next March and absent a clear frontrunner, members should absolutely consider Marty Supreme as a top choice. In addition to selecting a Shark Tank judge for a main role, Josh Safdie and casting director Jennifer Venditti make a myriad of calculated bets in terms of actor selection that pay off big time across the board. Controversial director Abel Ferrara creeps in as a shady figure whose path crosses with Marty and rapper Tyler The Creator appears as Marty’s partner-in-crime, helping him hustle chumps in the darkened ping pong clubs. Even Ted Williams, whose radio-friendly voice caused him to go viral as The Man With The Golden Voice years ago, pops up as a pool hall doorman. Safdie and his cinematographer Darius Khondji shoot them often in urgent close-up, reminding us that movie theaters were purpose-built to show us gigantic faces illuminated in the darkness.

Score – 4/5

More new movies coming to theaters this holiday season:
Avatar: Fire And Ash, starring Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña, continues the epic sci-fi saga of the Na’vi on Pandora as they encounter a new, aggressive tribe headed up by a fiery leader.
The Housemaid, starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, is a psychological thriller which finds a young woman with a troubled past as she becomes the live-in housemaid for a wealthy family.
Anaconda, starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black, tells the tale of a background actor and wedding videographer as they travel to the Amazon to film an amateur remake of the 1997 film Anaconda.
Song Sung Blue, starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, adapts the 2008 documentary of the same name about a married Milwaukee couple who performed as the Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning And Thunder.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Wake Up Dead Man

Writer/director Rian Johnson is officially 3 for 3 with his Knives Out mysteries, as Wake Up Dead Man becomes the latest addition to the wonderful whodunnit cinematic collection. The brilliant and suave gumshoe Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is back on the case again, traveling to a Catholic church in upstate New York, where its fiery leader Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) is found fatally stabbed in the storage closet. As police begin to investigate, the young Reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), recently transferred to Our Lady Of Perpetual Fortitude due to a physical altercation, initially becomes the primary suspect. But police chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis) has a hunch that this murder isn’t as simple as it seems and once Blanc arrives, he agrees there are many more factors that make this crime anything but open-and-shut.

In addition to Jud, Blanc proverbially makes his way up and down the pews to investigate core members of the church with which Wicks spent the most amount of his time. Among them are the town doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), the lawyer Vera Draven, Esq. (Kerry Washington) and her politician son Cy (Daryl McCormack), concert cellist Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny) and prolific author Lee Ross (Andrew Scott). There are also those employed at Our Lady Of Perpetual Fortitude, including Wicks’ right-hand woman Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close) and groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church). All seem to have been accounted for in the congregation during the Good Friday service when Msgr. Wicks is discovered with a knife in his back but no one’s alibi is as airtight as it seems.

As with 2019’s Knives Out and 2022’s Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man uses its twisty narrative and beguiling mystery to explore themes of division and polarization that have seemed to define our current era. In this chapter, Johnson investigates faith, religion and what passes for being considered a “good person” in the year of our Lord 2025. A former boxer with a checkered path to penitence, Rev. Jud seems like an obvious choice upon whom to pin the murder of the monsignor but it doesn’t take many flashbacks to see that Wicks didn’t have trouble making enemies. From a literal bully pulpit, he would tailor homilies to specifically call out newer members he suspected of trying to “poison the flock” merely with their presence. Johnson ties this brand of public shaming to the daily digital pile-ons that occur on social media and argues that whether it’s under a cassock or behind a keyboard, it’s easier to dish it than it is to take it.

These films routinely benefit from a bevy of acting talent and the ensemble this time around is aces as always. Daniel Craig is absent for the majority of the first act, allowing Josh O’Connor to cement himself as the film’s lead as Ana De Armas and Janelle Monáe did in the previous two Knives Out installments. Despite Jud’s position in the church, he’s still human after all: he lets loose the occasional curse word, he has a temper that he works hard to keep at bay and he isn’t above casting judgments of his own. But despite this, it’s clear that the reverend is honorable and his empathy for others is anything but performative. With his stellar breakout in Challengers last year and lead roles in three indies outside of Wake Up Dead Man in 2025, O’Connor should be well on his way to becoming a household name.

Rian Johnson once again spins up a superlative script full of playful misdirects, convincing red herrings and testy exchanges that make for whodunnits that you can revisit numerous times even after you know, well, who done it. Teaming again with cinematographer Steve Yedlin and editor Bob Ducsay, Johnson crafts a puzzle box that is slick in its execution and inviting in its aesthetic without broadcasting how proud it is of itself. He’s as consistent as ever with the branding of his franchise too, once again adopting a title from a rock song that cheekily applies to the narrative too. I also appreciate that Johnson has considered the seasonality of these movies too; the sweater weather autumnal Knives Out and suns-out-guns-out summer flare of Glass Onion find a companion in the promise of redemption and spring awakening of Wake Up Dead Man. Whether it’s on Netflix or through another studio, my hope is that Johnson has one more winter-set Knives Out mystery in him.

Score – 4.5/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Opening in theaters is Ella McCay, a political dramedy starring Emma Mackey and Jamie Lee Curtis, following an idealistic lieutenant governor who juggles familial issues and a challenging work life while preparing to take over her mentor’s gubernatorial position.
Also coming to theaters is Silent Night, Deadly Night, a slasher remake starring Rohan Campbell and Ruby Modine, involving a Santa-costumed killer who embarks on a violent quest for retribution against those responsible for a traumatic event from his childhood.
Streaming on Amazon Prime is Merv, a romantic comedy starring Charlie Cox and Zooey Deschanel, which finds an estranged couple awkwardly reconciling over the holidays when they learn that the dog they share is suffering from depression following their break-up.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

100 Nights Of Hero

As niche holiday releases go, 100 Nights Of Hero is proudly about as niche as it gets. Based on the New York Times Bestselling graphic novel The One Hundred Nights Of Hero, itself a reworking of the timeless One Thousand And One Nights folktale, the film feels like it was made exclusively for those who already find themselves enamored with the text. It has the pomp and theatricality of a costume drama mixed with the romanticism and whimsy of a lovelorn fantasy; if Emerald Fennell was told she needed to tone it down and spin up a PG-13 period piece, this might be what she’d come up with. As such, the movie comes up with a few empowering moments and poignant exchanges but at 91 minutes, it feels curiously attenuated for something that’s derived from a retelling of an epic tale. When each of your Nights is less than a minute of average, it may be a sign that you don’t have enough for a feature-length project.

Taking place in the far-off land of Migal Bavel, 100 Nights Of Hero stars Maika Monroe as Lady Cherry, the waifish bride living in an opulent castle with the uncaring Lord Jerome (Amir El-Masry) and a bevy of armed guards. The only kindness in the kingdom afforded to Cherry comes from her loyal maid Hero (Emma Corrin), who carries a flame for her highness that she hides carefully. Feeling pressure from religious followers known as the Beak Brothers and their leader Birdman (Richard E. Grant), the wedded couple is to produce an heir but Jerome stubbornly refuses the obligation. In a gentleman’s wager with his best chap Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine), Jerome bets that he won’t be able to seduce Cherry, if given 100 nights of Jerome’s absence from the castle to do so. Manfred’s attempts to woo the fair lady come to a head when Hero attempts a seduction of her own in telling a seemingly endless story that keeps Cherry and Manfred waiting with bated breath.

In fashioning herself a Scheherazade, Hero weaves a convoluted and cliffhanger-ridden tale that Cherry and Manfred think they recognize as a fable of one of Jerome’s ex-wives, but Hero throws in enough specificities to differentiate it. The story involves three sisters, who have been learning to read and write in secret, which is forbidden in the patriarchal and oppressive Migal Bavel. One of the sisters is Rosa, played by Brat pop sensation Charli XCX in her film debut, who is pursued by a wealthy merchant that discovers her impropriety and endeavors to conceal it from the townspeople that would deem her a witch if they found out. Both the setting of 100 Nights Of Hero and the intentionally meandering allegory that Hero weaves within it point to the themes of female liberation and queer self-discovery that will ultimately serve as the movie’s raison d’être. It just all feels like window dressing for a room we’ve been invited into before.

Writer-director Julia Jackman lends some fun flourishes along the way, as with a droll recapping of Cherry’s hobbies of chess and falconry that would make Wes Anderson doff his beret. Similarly, a montage early on — with voiceover by Felicity Jones — details Jerome’s past doomed marriages with stained glass portraits captioned harshly, e.g. Janet The Barren and Sara The Unfaithful. But despite the nods to Migal Bavel as a place where women are either demonized and commodified, this doesn’t feel like a tangible place we can actually get lost in. Perhaps it’s a small budget or the limited scope of the story but we never truly get a sense of how this village actually runs and why things got to this place where revolution feels inevitable. It whiffs of a medieval mishmash of stately repression and rigid caste structures but the mythology here needed some fine tuning to feel less embryonic.

The direction of the acting is another aspect of 100 Nights Of Hero that felt underdeveloped, as most of the performers feel like they’re playing in separate projects. Emma Corrin and Nicholas Galitzine are both speaking in their native English tongue, which we’ve come to expect as “standard” for tales of lords and ladies, but California-born Maika Monroe isn’t even trying to deviate from her American accent. Following her brilliant breakthrough in It Follows ten years ago, she’s mostly stuck to horror projects that, frankly, don’t ask too much but when Monroe stars in elevated material like this, her blasé disposition sticks out like a sore thumb. She and Corrin have one scene that smolders but the rest never kindle into a romance that catches fire and is worth investing in.

Score – 2.5/5

More new movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Five Nights At Freddy’s 2, a horror sequel starring Josh Hutcherson and Elizabeth Lail, which reunites a security guard and his younger sister with the possessed animatronic cadre that haunts the defunct entertainment center Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
Streaming on Netflix is Jay Kelly, a dramedy starring George Clooney and Adam Sandler, following a friendship between a famous movie star and his manager as they travel through Europe and reflect on their life choices, relationships, and legacies.
Premiering on Amazon Prime is Oh. What. Fun., a Christmas comedy starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Felicity Jones, involving a beleaguered matriarch who makes the Christmas magic happen every year for her family but they don’t realize the effort it takes until she goes missing.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup