All right, here's the idea: rather than a "ten best" or "ten worst" list, I'm ranking every new piece of visual media - movies, seasons of TV shows, specials - I watched this year from my least favorite to my most favorite. For the rules lawyers out there, I'm only ranking media I finished, and TV show season dates will be based on when the last episode dropped or aired.
To be clear, this isn't remotely everything I watched, only everything I watched that was released in 2025. I saw 246 movies this year, but most of them were more than a decade old - I won't be subjecting you to that kind of a list, nor will I be subjecting myself to the torture of attempting to rank a silent film from the 1920s against a made-for-TV Christmas movie from the '00s.
At least not this year. God, that sounds like an interesting exercise and an opportunity to explore the underlying meaning of "favorite," as well as what preference means when considering a piece of media's academic interest compared with its entertainment value in a--
NO! STOP! GET BACK ON TRACK!
Wait, there's a track here? Ah, whatever. Look, the point is I'll only be looking at movies released in 2025. Well, released in the U.S. in 2025. See, release dates are kind of nebulous things in today's interconnected world, so I'll be making some arbitrary judgement calls, which will be called out in write-ups, and...
You already stopped reading and skipped to the ranked list, didn't you? If not, why not? I never read these intro bits on end-of-year lists. We all understand the concept of a ranked list, and we mostly just skim them to see where we agree with the writer or to see if the madness that was 2025 caused them to lose their goddamn mind and include multiple Star Wars things in their top five.
But if you are still reading this intro for some weird reason, I'll warn you upfront there are MANY movies and shows I didn't get around to. Predator: Badlands, One Battle After Another, and the new season of Only Murders in the Building stand out as potentially significant. I also only saw the first few episodes of the new season of Phineas and Ferb, which I thought lived up to the originals (which I love), so it's weird I never found time to stream the rest. Bet that would have ranked pretty high!
The point being, these lists are never complete. There's a strong possibility this will change as I catch up on more movies and shows released this year or just as I mull this over. But a deadline's a deadline, so let's get started.
This clearly wanted to recapture the magic of Spielberg's AI, but instead it winds up reminding me of numerous SF movies whose names I've ironically forgotten. That gets at the heart of the matter: The Electric State isn't so much awful as completely forgettable. It's the shell of a movie going through the motions of a template we've seen a hundreds times before, and the emotional beats ring hollow. There are some cool visuals, as you'd expect from a movie costing 320 million dollars (that's eight Glass Onions, for those of you wondering where your Netflix subscription dollars have been going). Whether that's enough to justify a watch comes down to your genre preferences and how much time you have on your hands. For what it's worth, I used to sit through worse back when I was younger and sci-fi movies were scarce. But contrary to what this movie would have you believe, this is no longer the mid-90s: we've got better options now.
56. Captain America: Brave New World
This isn't quite my least favorite MCU movie - that remains Multiverse of Madness, which just leaves a rotten taste in my mouth due to its lazy treatment of female characters. But I'd be lying if I said there was anything in Brave New World a tenth as interesting as the visuals in Multiverse of Madness, so it's not like the ranking is clear cut.
At any rate, at the time I'm writing this, Brave New World is resting in the coveted spot for my second least favorite MCU movie. For those interested, that still places it ahead of Black Adam, Wonder Woman 1984, and The Flash, when comparing this with DCEU installments. And everything I just mentions outranks Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but that should go without saying. I'd rank Brace New World below Suicide Squad and Justice League (either cut).
So, bad. It's a bad movie. Which means the MCU is over, and has failed as an experiment.
No, wait, it doesn't mean either of those things. It just means this movie didn't work artistically or commercially. And that's fine. Hell, it'll be fine if the MCU actually ends up dying - we got more out of this franchise than we ever had a right to expect. I'm still hoping for the best, but if that's not in the cards, it's hardly the end of the world.
Back to Brave New World. There are things to like here, starting with Anthony Mackie's performance. He sells both the iconography and Sam's feelings of inadequacy in the face of that iconography extremely well. Giancarlo Esposito is likewise great here and everywhere else. He deserves so much better than being in this and The Electric State in the same year, and yet... he manages to walk away from both with nothing to feel embarrassed about. That's a hell of a feat.
There are also a handful of decent moments and set pieces here, but frankly the ratio of cool action sequences to dull, poorly staged fights isn't great. Still, I liked the Falcon/Sidewinder fight quite a bit, and I appreciate the movie pitting one of the franchise's lowest powered heroes against a Hulk. I'm a believer one of the core aspects of the superhero genre is that power levels, while defined, aren't what determine outcomes. I'm not saying that fight was well shot (it wasn't), but I actually like how it was written.
Unfortunately, that's more or less the only thing in the movie I thought was written well. The dialogue throughout was awkward and contrived, the jokes were missing any energy, and the drama lacked tension.
Again, bad movie. Fingers crossed for the next Avengers, though - I haven't given up on these characters yet.
55. Prep & Landing: The Snowball Protocol
After a fourteen-year hiatus, you'd think Disney would put together something more interesting than a couple shorts masquerading as a special. The larger issue is those shorts are somewhat inexplicably not in the right style, tone, or genre for the property, and this isn't a case where a new direction makes sense. The gimmick behind Prep & Landing was to treat Christmas elves like secret agents and tell an action-packed adventure story that's also a heartwarming holiday special. The original pulled that off, as did the "Secret Santa" short. Depending on who you ask, you might hear a favorable opinion of "Naughty vs. Nice" as well.
But even those of us who weren't entirely smitten with "Naughty vs. Nice" (it's a decent if underwhelming installment) can't deny it was at least in the same ballpark in terms of premise. "The Snowball Protocol" just drops the secret agent stuff entirely and uses the characters as fodder for generic cartoons that are, at best, fine.
54. A Chuck E. Cheese Christmas
This benefits a bit from low expectations, but it also conversely takes a hit just for being... well... an exercise in IP management. As I said in my review, I couldn't engage with this on any meaningful level simply because I couldn't get over the knowledge I was watching a Chuck E. Cheese special. I've seen others who had an easier time with that speed bump, and some of their reactions were much more favorable. That doesn't surprise me - this was an unusual case where I could tell on an intellectual level that some of the jokes were funny objectively (to the very limited extent that term makes any sense in the context of a review). I think there's a very real possibility I'd have had a different reaction to the same humor if the characters weren't brand mascots.
I still wouldn't have thought much of the animation, however. And, more to the point, I'm not trying to make an objective list here, anyway, so... here's where it lands. But for the record I liked it better than the new Prep and Landing because I expected more from that and even less from this.
53. In the Lost Lands
For all the Post-apocalyptic/ Western/ fantasy/ horror/ romance/ melodrama/ superhero/ whatever-other-genres-I'm-forgetting this is playing at, it's ultimately just a Paul W. S. Anderson movie, which is another way of saying it's full of characters saying really stupid dialogue in front of green screens surrounded by cheesy visual effects that feel lifeless. A knockoff World of Darkness movie should be cooler than this. Alternatively, an unofficial Resident Evil sequel set centuries later should also be cooler than this (I couldn't settle on just one synopsis - it's actually kind of weird how well either works).
That said, a couple sequences are kind of neat as mini music videos, and Milla Jovovich is always fun in stuff like this, so it's not a complete loss. Close, though. Really close.
52. Wolf Man
This feels incomplete. The movie is ostensibly based on relationships, but it fails to develop those relationships before shifting into the usual genre stuff. The emotion lacks weight, so we're ultimately left with the effects and action to carry the movie, and that stuff...
Some of it's pretty good. The "wolf-vision" sequences are cool and creative, and several of the horror sequences succeed in selling the danger. But the creature design looks a bit ridiculous - I respect the attempt to do something a little different, but the end result looks like an extra from the Lord of the Rings movies walked on set with their makeup halfway done.
This wasn't awful, but it just didn't work for me.
51. Death of a Unicorn
A great concept that really needed somewhere - anywhere - interesting to go... and just couldn't find its way. That's a shame: the cast is great and I like the creature design, but the script meanders too much, the characters are underdeveloped, and not enough of the jokes land. Add in a nonsensical ending, and this mostly just leaves you feeling disappointed.
That said, there's a sequence where Richard E. Grant seems to be channeling Darwin Mayflower, and I'm not going to pretend I didn't love that. But this is one of those movies that pales in comparison to its own trailer.
50. Play Dirty
Well, it's better than The Predator, but still another miss from Shane Black. In addition to the uneven tone, this needed someone other than Mark Wahlberg in the lead. His Parker feels like an empty, unlikeable, unintimidating void.
49. Paddington in Peru
It's hard not to compare this unfavorably to its two superior predecessors, particularly since those have Sally Hawkins and this (with all due respect to Emily Mortimer, who does good work despite having an impossible task) does not.
To its credit, Paddington in Peru manages to be a solid, enjoyable kid's film. It's got several good jokes and enough of the heart parts one and two had to feel like a genuine installment in the franchise, rather than an imitation.
But at the same time, this is coming on the heels of two improbable masterpieces. Paddington in Peru is good, but it's not in the same league.
48. Eyes of Wakanda, Season 1
The last episode is buying this A LOT of goodwill. It's not that the first three were bad - they were fine - but the decision to effectively have Wakandan technology and culture static for the last three thousand years kind of dulled the fun you'd expect from showcasing these kinds of adventures through history.
On top of that, well... Marvel feels kind of stale to me these days. Yeah, yeah, I'm late to the party, though for what it's worth I'd rather be later - it's more fun to enjoy things.
The last episode was an improvement, thanks to its more outlandish time-travel premise. Sure, it was a bit reminiscent of the "what happened to Darth Vader's lightsaber" era of Star Wars novels, but silly lore or not, it was entertaining.
47. Daredevil: Born Again, Season 1
This had some ups and downs, but it deserves credit for ending on a high note. Everything about the last episode was a blast, particularly the Punisher stuff. Frank battling police coopting his symbol is something I think the world needs right now. It's probably naive to even hope any real-world cops using that icon get the message and rethink some things, but I still appreciate the attempt.
I liked most of the early stuff, too - it was mostly the middle where things got uneven. The two Muse episodes felt underdeveloped and badly constructed to me, like the parts of the Netflix shows that failed to come together. I also kept wanting more with the city's other vigilantes, but maybe that's coming in season 2.
If you're going to get one thing right in a heist movie (or even a romcom cosplaying as a heist movie) make it the soundtrack. Set the right mood with music, and viewers will forgive quite a bit. Though, to be fair, this gets more than just one thing right: it's a quirky, fun little romantic adventure. If they'd taken the time to stage the planning sequences in ways that don't constantly feel like there are a dozen extras listening in, I'd probably have ranked this higher. Granted, that's not an unforgiveable sin, but it grated on me throughout and served as a reminder that the genre elements were mostly surface level, despite a handful of solid payoffs. Likewise, the late addition of a benevolent mastermind who solved the hard problems and reduced the suspense didn't do this any favors. Still, I had fun with this one.
45. Novocaine
A solid action/comedy hiding a bit of a holiday romcom beneath the surface. The catch is if any of those genres don't interest you (or if brutal violence is a deal-breaker) this isn't likely to work for you: it really is a package deal. But if you're open to its particular blend of styles, the end result is worthwhile. Not spectacular, mind you, but enjoyable.
44. Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie
There's a lot about this movie that's weird: Kristen Wiig basically reprising her role as Cheetah, the movie taking a cue from Spider-Verse and animating some characters at different rates, the fact this is clearly set in a universe with a cat-based economy....
But my only real issue is this has the wrong ending for its story. This is building towards a House at Pooh Corner reckoning, and instead it takes the easy way out. I'm not saying this needed a tragic ending, but it ended without a price. Kid's entertainment or not, that's kind of weak.
Aside from that, this is about as cute and fun as you can reasonably expect from a toy commercial masquerading as a movie. It's colorful, sparkly, and funny. I enjoyed it, and I'm not exactly the target demographic.
43. Murderbot, Season 1
I feel like this would be better if I hadn't read the books.
It's still good, mind you, and I love several choices made, starting with committing to cast Sanctuary Moon like a standard streaming sci-fi show and give it a completely different color palette than the rest of the series. I also thought the cast was fantastic - I started out skeptical of Alexander Skarsgård, but damned if I didn't come around.
The issue is the show didn't deliver a lot of surprises, given it mostly (though not entirely) followed the plot of the first book. The twists, characters, and even dialogue were either taken directly or deviated in immediately evident ways, to the point it didn't have much more to offer beyond being a well executed adaptation of a really fun book.
That's not at all a bad thing, obviously. But in a sea of seemingly endless options, it's not enough to make it into the top tier of my list.
Though, for what it's worth, it is enough I'm planning to watch the next season - again: this was still good!
I wish I connected with the show as completely as a lot of its online fans do, rather than landing in the like-but-don't-love bucket, but that's a better description of where I'm at. I also disagree with the consensus the show was wise to mimic a 30-minute sitcom in terms of length, rather than the more typical hour long template popular for genre fare. I'll admit a lot of this is likely conditioning: I'm used to shows like this lasting twice as long, so I found the end credits jarring again and again. But I do think there's a reason for this: 30 minutes just doesn't give us time to get fully invested in this kind of setting. I really think half as many episodes that were twice as long would have been a better overall experience.
Though, for like the tenth time, the experience this offered was still good.
42. In Your Dreams
This was a solid, if unremarkable, animated movie, the rare animated movie that goes right to Netflix without it seemingly like a mistake. This isn't another Nimona or K-Pop Demon Hunters where you're left thinking the studio (usually Sony, which also handled the animation here) flushed hundreds of millions of dollars down the toilet because they're incapable of comprehending the possibility they actually made a really good movie. At the same time, this isn't at all bad for what it is. There's some clever design, a few gorgeous sequences, and the fact it's playing with difficult family dynamics without offering easy answers is admirable, but....
Here's the thing: there's just so much of this now. Honestly, it doesn't matter what aspect of the movie I'm referring to: serious emotional journeys rendered through a prism of CG animated wonder? There's so much of that coming out these days Pixar doesn't even have a monopoly on it anymore. Cartoon movies about dreams with beautiful, occasionally sad twists? I think we've gotten one or more of these premiering on Netflix alone annually for the last three or four years (my favorite was the criminally underrated Orion and the Dark). The point is, this is a crowded sub-subgenre, so you either need to stand out or....
Or you can just go to Netflix. Which, again, this did. And it's pretty good there if you're looking to kill 90 minutes. Probably even better if you're watching it with preteens. If your family is going through a rough patch, maybe it's even perfect.
But overall it's just kind of passable, which (let's face it) is more or less Netflix's operating model.
41. The Gorge
An enjoyable creature-feature with a side of romance and some notably cool designs. I like the barrage of visual surprises, though some of the story reveals were a bit underwhelming. When the nature of the threat is explained, it seems like they're trying too hard to differentiate it from what I assume were the movie's influences (Stephen King, right?), which is understandable, but... well... dimensional portal or evil fairies or something would have been more fun. Likewise, the ending feels backed into a corner where there's no great way to wrap this up. They land in a pretty good place, but I'm not sure anything would have been 100% satisfying.
Still, it's impossible to be upset with a genre entry this packed with weird monsters and gorgeous cinematography reminiscent of '80s horror/adventure. This is good stuff.
40. Conan O'Brien Must Go, Season 2
Calling this a "season" is somewhat misleading: at three episodes, this is really more a collection of specials or arguably a miniseries. It might be more accurate to say it's Conan getting HBO Max to pick up the tab for him to go visit fans who called into his podcast, and also do a bunch of country-specific comedic bits while he's there.
That's not a criticism - I like Conan a hell of a lot more than I like Discovery (or whatever corporate umbrella they're under these days), so I'm more than happy to see them covering his expenses. I'm also more than happy to just watch more Conan. I was in middle school when his first late-night show was taking off: I thought he was hilarious then, and I still think so now. While aspects of his personality are of course amplified on air, I absolutely believe he's obsessed with making people around him laugh. More than that, he does so in a deceptively ethical manner, framing every interaction to ensure he's the punchline while the person he's interacting with - regardless of whether that's a celebrity, a fan, or a random passer-by - either comes off seeming clever or reasonably annoyed by foolish antics. That style hides a depth of kindness beneath an illusion of immature arrogance.
The downside to having enjoyed this stuff for most of my life is even the surprises aren't exactly surprising anymore. But I'm still consistently entertained and impressed.
39. Love Death + Robots, Vol 4
Like any anthology, weighing the good from bad installments is a bit exhausting. I'm dropping this here, but keep in mind its placement is essentially an average: there are absolutely episodes far better, just as there are some I'd rank lower.
As a whole, I like that the series seems to be backing away from requiring sex and violence present in every episode. I'm perfectly happy to see that stuff when it's appropriate, but the first few volumes felt like there was some sort of quota being imposed. Here, the content seems calibrated to the story and art style, which is a major step up.
The downside is that it feels as though the creators are running low on stories to adapt that fit the parameters of the show. A lot of these felt rushed or underdeveloped, or perhaps based on ideas that don't translate well to the screen. Still, enough of these delivered something special - be it story, animation, humor, or all of the above - to make it worth watching.
Normally, this is where I'd stop and move on, but for some weird reason I took notes this time. So here's a ranking within a ranking of every short in this volume, from the one I liked least to most:
Close Encounters of the Mini Kind: Am I misremembering, or did they do something in a similar style in an earlier volume? It's an undeniably cool animation style, though the humor really doesn't land for me. Still, this is a case where style over substance is partly redeemed by exceptional style.
Can't Stop: A few things jump out at me about this. First, it's weird seeing what's ultimately a music video presented as a short film, all the more so because the band featured in said video - The Red Hot Chili Peppers - is from the era when music videos were an actual thing. Second, the faux puppetry makes for an odd choice - actual marionettes would be more fun than CG ones. That said, it's an impressive music video, and I appreciated the visual gags around the strings (particularly the mishap with the lighter). It's a neat little video, but ultimately it left me asking, "Is that it?"
Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners: A series of shorts (so basically an anthology within an anthology - and NO, I will not be ranking those individually) connected by the same idea: it's a clever concept, though even at 8 minutes it overstays its welcome. Apparently, this is digital animation mimicking stop-motion - for what it's worth, I was fooled.
Spider Rose: Decent little story elevated with some gorgeous computer animation. Feels a bit rote, but it's more than pretty enough and well directed enough to stay interesting. Still could have used more of a point.
The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur: Not entirely sure how I feel about this one. On one hand, it's kind of rad and metal, in an absolutely ridiculous sort of way. But the absurdity of the thing, coupled with its self-serious tone and juvenile fixation on nudity and gore, makes the whole experience a tad embarrassing. But then that's the series in a nutshell: an updated Heavy Metal, for both good and bad. I'm dropping this around the middle, because - despite my reservations - it's still extremely cool.
Golgotha: Hey! Live action! Nice little short film. Nothing groundbreaking, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.
400 Boys: Stylish and emotionally charged. I'm not sure it managed to convey much of a theme (mostly due to the time constraints), but GOD what a ride.
How Zeke Got Religion: Despite the seemingly whimsical title, this is the creepiest installment in the volume so far. Good stuff.
The Other Large Thing: Ridiculously enjoyable dark comedy in the vein of Pinky and the Brain. This is one of the better uses of the format I've seen to date.
For He Can Creep: Easily the best of the season, and one of the best installments in the series to date. The story is a perfect blend of off-beat dark comedy, fantasy-adventure, and just a pinch of horror. On top of all that, the animation style is gorgeous, recreating the look of antiquated charcoal sketches in a 3D environment, similar to the way the Spider-Verse movies reference their sources in every frame. Someone should greenlight an adaptation of A Christmas Carol in the same style.
38. Black Bag
Like most movies I've seen directed by Soderbergh, Black Bag was quite good. The film was intricately crafted, with a distinct style and an incredible attention to tone. Soderbergh is able to assemble a phenomenal cast, who are naturally able to deliver phenomenal performances. Like I said: good.
Where things get complicated is substance. Note the word I used was "complicated," not "bad." I realize the former is often used as a euphemism for the latter, but this time I mean it. There are a few ways you can look at this movie; some lead to a positive impression, while others are a tad disappointing.
Let's start on an optimistic note. Black Bag is a romantic thriller disguised as a spy thriller disguised as a romantic thriller disguised as a spy thriller. Honestly, the spiral may go a layer or two deeper. It's not merely a mashup, but rather walking a tightrope between subgenres in order to leave the viewer in the dark as far as where it's ultimately going to fall. All of that's really neat, really compelling, and really... well... good.
But ultimately it does need to choose a side, and the place it falls is... well... not so much bad as inherently Soderberghian. To put it plainly, once everything was revealed, I wasn't at all surprised.
Which isn't to say these things need to be surprising, but an interesting twist makes me more forgiving of underwhelming characters. That's admittedly a slightly unfair summation - the characters in Black Bag are intentionally difficult to read (they are spies, after all). And there are thematic reasons for having them come off as unlikeable most of the movie, though that raises an additional question.
Are the themes here any good?
The movie is primarily about relationships and trust, and taken on its surface the main theme seems to be a straightforward (and surprisingly aggressive) endorsement of monogamy. Part of me finds that a bit old fashioned as a thesis. On the other hand, there's something refreshing about a spy movie incorporating that theme, all the more so because it includes a former Bond actor in the cast. Context matters, after all. But depending on how you look at it, Black Bag either feels like regressive moralizing or a clever indictment of a childish genre.
Either way, it's still a tense, compelling drama, but the difference in how you interpret its subtext mean the difference between a cool, forgettable thriller and a modern classic.
37. Thunderbolts/New Avengers
Which title are we sticking with? And does it really even matter? As soon as I saw the asterisk, I had a pretty good idea where they going with that (though I thought "Dark Avengers" was more likely). Good thing, too, since it was spoiled for me months before I got to the movie.
I mostly enjoyed this one. I really liked the third act and how it deviated from the usual superhero beat 'em up. And I had fun with the comedy throughout.
I was a bit disappointed to see the movie execute [redacted] right off the bat. It's not that I particularly liked the character, but I'd hoped they'd find a way to make them interesting, rather than just eliminate them unceremoniously.
Maybe that left a bad taste in my mouth, because while I enjoyed the rest of the film, I never felt like I was watching a new favorite or anything. It doesn't help that I'm extremely skeptical we'll be getting more than a few brief moments with this team in the future. Even if this had made enough money to justify a sequel (which it didn't), it's hard to imagine Marvel fitting it in with whatever's going on post Avengers 5 and 6 (which will most likely pivot into a reboot, anyway). That doesn't mean this is any less good as a standalone, but it does mean it's less exciting as a springboard into new stories. I'm still enjoying these as episodic installments, but - even when they manage to do something novel, as Thunderbolts to its credit pulls off - the novelty of the brand wore off a while back.
It's still possible for these to surprise and delight me (this isn't the highest ranking MCU thing on here), but it takes a lot more than it used to. And the declining box-office receipts on these suggest I'm not alone in that respect.
36. Havoc
I said more about this over at the Christmas site than I'm going to here, but to sum up I thought this was good as a highly stylized action flick with an abnormally strong cast (at least as far as Netflix releases are concerned). Clearly, this is copying off John Wick's homework, but as long as you don't hold that against it, it's a fun, weird little genre entry.
35. Dog Man
Taking a step back, I really like the degree to which the current philosophy governing CG animated movies is to create the aesthetic, setting, and physical reality of the film based on the material. Spider-Verse is (accurately) regarded as the turning point for the industry embracing this approach, but it's worth noting that The Peanuts Movie deserves credit for proving it would work (artistically, if not financially). The Peanuts Movie is particularly significant here, as Dog Man borrows quite a bit of its approach from that project, designing 3D characters but (mostly) committing to filming them from angles matching their original designs.
It's effective here, creating a sense of comical whimsy that keeps the movie's surprisingly dark and mature themes from becoming too dismal. This is a movie about loneliness, depression, and abandonment, and - for all the wacky hijinks and cartoon mayhem - it takes those themes and emotions seriously.
The reason I'm not ranking this is even higher is that while the movie's funny, it's not quite as funny as I want it to be. Several side characters, in particular, are fairly one-note and outstay their welcome. If the humor had been punched up, I feel like this could have been an instant classic.
As it is, it's still a very good family movie, well worth watching with or even without kids.
34. Frankenstein
The second best Guillermo del Toro movie released this year after that video of him saying, "Fuck AI," Frankenstein is something of a double-edged sword: an achievement in visual design and cinematography that lacks the subtlety to form a fully satisfying experience.
I'd argue this dichotomy between visual storytelling and writing has defined virtually all of del Toro's work, though his first few films managed to turn this into a positive in ways his later Hollywood productions generally haven't. Even movies like The Shape of Water (which I love) struggle to construct characters with more than two dimensions. His worlds are rich and evocative, but the people inhabiting them and the stories set within them... not so much. It's long been a trade-off, but Frankenstein is the rare del Toro film where the flaws start to rival the merits. I don't think they quite overtake them - or even equal them - but they're harder to disregard than usual.
I still liked this one, incidentally. The movie looks gorgeous, and that's enough. But between the fact he keeps returning to the same themes and archetypes without adding depth would constitute a problem even if this weren't one of his weaker scripts.
33. The Bad Guys 2
It's a little weird just how fast and how completely this franchise pivots into an animated Fast & Furious pastiche, but that's not necessarily a bad direction. I enjoyed the Moonraker stuff, too (quite a bit more than I ever enjoyed Moonraker, incidentally).
Still, this is all good stuff, not great. It's fun, the third act is gorgeous, and the characters are enjoyable... but there's not all that much more here. There were a few moments when the movie felt like it had something more meaningful to say, but I didn't feel like they were fleshed out enough to elevate the movie above standard kid's fare. But, hey, it's still pretty good kid's fare, so that's something.
32. Troll 2
This was a worthy successor to the 2022 film, Troll, a solid little Norwegian kaiju/folk adventure film that feels closer to the recent Monsterverse movies than the Japanese originals. This is all in good fun, despite the rather heavy themes of sacrifice and the consequences of environmental destruction (maybe there's a touch of the Japanese movies in the mix, after all). Still, for all the heavy dramatic moments, the selling point is the sheer joy of watching a two-hundred-foot troll run amok.
I won't pretend I'm above enjoying such pleasures. Actually, if I'm being completely honest, they got me with some of the Spock and Superman stuff, too, as transparent as it all was. What can I say? I'm a nerd and a dad - I'm not immune to this.
But the need to consolidate effects means a lot of low-rent Indiana Jonesing, which gets old pretty fast in these things. They did a better job than many monster movies in terms of distracting you during the sequences they can't afford to have the monster onscreen, but some of these sequences still outstay their welcome.
On the whole, I had fun with this.
31. Good Boy
Good Boy is something of a contradiction, in that the thing that makes it fascinating and worth watching is also what keeps it from connecting as a horror movie. The entire premise of the movie is centered around its POV character, a dog. And, as media outlets covering the film were quick to point out, this is a real dog being filmed by his owners over the course of three years. He doesn't know he's in a horror movie, and while director Ben Leonberg finds ways of creating frightening images on film, it's pretty plain to see Indy is really just displaying normal dog behavior.
That's reassuring to those of us watching. Leonberg isn't tormenting his star to get a "realistic" performance - he's playing with his dog and finding shots he can recontextualize to create the effect he's going for. And it's all incredibly impressive.
But the movie can't overcome the hurdle of making you forget that you're seeing footage of a very real, perfectly content dog looking a little confused, as opposed to experiencing a terrifying supernatural ordeal. Because Indy's still wagging his tail. He's not cowering or shaking. He's having a good time.
Again, that's a good thing. If Leonberg had actually traumatized that animal, my tone would be much harsher (assuming I'd even finished the film). Likewise, if this had been accomplished with a CG dog, it wouldn't have been worth watching at all. The value in Good Boy is that it was made this way, that it's a well constructed film, and that the handful of effects shots featuring supernatural elements look fantastic (as does the whole movie, really).
But for better or worse, you wind up feeling like you're watching a feature-length experiment in filmmaking centered on editing, more than a traditional movie. And that's certainly neat - the point of this is to exist as a piece of art exploring the boundaries of the medium and highlighting the Kuleshov effect (my guess is this is about to go on syllabuses in a thousand film studies courses). And, watched in that context, it makes for a fascinating study of how movies are edited to convey meaning. It's also just fun to look at an adorable dog for an hour and change. But what it can't quite do is pull you into the reality of the story, because as good a boy as Indy is and as much meaning they're able to imply through editing, Indy isn't an actor (no matter how many awards he's given playfully).
You never really forget you're seeing a dog edited into the lead role of a horror movie. Again, this isn't a bad thing, but it does place a cap on how engrossing the experience can become. Still, "impressive" counts for a lot (and even more when you consider its budget). This is fascinating to watch and think about from a technical standpoint, but it doesn't pull you in the way something like Flow does.
It isn't easy to rank documentaries - usually I don't bother trying, but I liked this enough to want to include it.
I'm not sure what else there is to say about this. Really good Christmas documentaries aren't actually all that rare, but this one's absolutely worth seeing if you're a holiday nerd.
28. Bugonia
This movie would seem unimaginably weird if it had been made by any other director. From Yorgos Lanthimos, it almost seems restrained.
I enjoyed it. Quite a bit, in fact, particularly when it became more and more unhinged in the last act and... well... I don't want to spoil anything, even if where it went wasn't that surprising, it was still cool to see it all play out in a modern movie. The ways the movie toyed with tone were fascinating - it's a "dark comedy" rather than straight horror mainly because of its soundtrack, and even then only because we know we're supposed to be conscious that soundtrack is too anachronistic to be taken remotely seriously. But - excluding some character beats and a few design choices near the end - this succeeds in feeling like a throwback to the 1960s or '70s. Impressively, it's enjoyable simply on that level, as well: you can watch this as a sci-fi thriller rather than a dark comedy, and it still works. The joke at the movie's core is a decidedly disturbing one, after all, a fact the ending exploits to its full potential.
As good as all that is, there's kind of ceiling on how enjoyable the movie can be. This is ultimately fairly one-note (well, maybe two notes), so - as much as I appreciate it - this is where it lands on my list.
26. Better Man
Counting this as a 2025 release is a stretch - this technically had a limited US release late last year, but it wasn't expanded nationwide until January (not that the expansion helped it much - the movie still bombed). The early release qualified it for awards (it was up for visual effects last year), but virtually no one saw it until January (or after, unfortunately). Regardless, I'm going to bend my definition for release to justify considering it here (it's my list, so I can do what I want).
A bizarre and somewhat ingenious musical biopic in which the subject of the film - British popstar Robbie Williams - is portrayed by a CG chimpanzee, Better Man fascinated me from the moment I saw the trailer. Even more fascinating is that the actual movie is nothing like I expected. It's no surprise that the central gimmick is a metaphor, but I'd assumed it would also be a joke, or at least treated as funny. For the most part, that's not the case - the movie doesn't generally treat the depiction of Williams as weird or silly, and the film as a whole is more drama than comedy, exploring serious topics connected to fame, suicide, and imposter syndrome.
For most of the runtime, I felt like I was watching something incredible. But that's actually kind of the issue here (not the "incredible" part; the runtime). What made the movie work was its energy, but that eventually wore thin, particularly when we reached a resolution that didn't quite click. I suspect the movie prioritized Williams' actual life story (or at least his version of it) over narrative. If so, that's an understandable choice, but it does hold this back a hair.
Still, this thing is somewhat miraculous. The movie would work without the chimpanzee gimmick at all, and moreover the use of those effects don't muscle out the emotional performance of the character. Having either of those be the case in something like this would be impressive; both simultaneously is astonishing.
23. Creature Commandos, Season 1
I wasn't sure about this one early on - the animation, while decent, kind of feels like a variation on the pseudo-anime look a lot DC has been using in their direct-to-dvd/streaming projects for the past couple decades, and while I thought the writing was solid from the start, there wasn't anything in the first few episodes that signaled this would be anything special. I gave it a chance in the hopes Gunn would deliver, and....
Of course he did. I've really got to stop doubting this guy.
Once the characters are established, you're reminded why team adventures built around flawed, emotionally scarred antiheroes are Gunn's bread and butter. By the last episode, you're also reminded that Gunn doesn't always pull his punches: the resolution is pitch perfect, but it's heart-wrenching stuff.
Speaking of pitch, I felt like Gunn raided my music collection for this show, between numerous tracks from Gogol Bordello, as well as one from Juke Baritone to close things off. I'm not saying I bumped this a few spots for the soundtrack, but... well... I can't say that hurt its ranking.
15. K-Pop Demon Hunters
On one hand, I had a good time watching this, thanks to the inventive fantasy designs and tone, which together felt a little like a Lisa Frank-esque setting updated for this millennium fueled by pop music that incredibly never sounds like it was written for a kid's adventure flick. This is fantasy for today's teenagers (particularly girls), and in that respect it's incredibly successful. Likewise, the characters were fun, the animation looked good (particularly the fight scenes), and the voice actors were great. This was, simply put, a good animated movie.
But obviously there's a "but" coming. Well, two buts if you count the one that opened this paragraph, or three with the one in this sentence, but the one that matters is:
BUT the subtext here makes me really uncomfortable. I realize this wasn't intentional, but the movie works disturbingly well as a sort of anti-immigrant propaganda by virtue of trying to use demons simultaneously as an "invading" army sneaking into our world, a metaphor for anxiety, and... well... sometimes just characters. You can see the movie struggling not to paint them in overly simplistic terms, but it stumbles in the execution, ultimately ending on the message, "they're people, but we need to keep them out to protect ourselves, so we need an impenetrable wall."
Again, I really don't think any of this was what they were trying to do, but rather an unfortunate side effect of juggling a pop-music aesthetic with Korean mythology and modern fantasy/superhero tropes. The objective here was to create art based in representation, but when the dust settles, you're left with something that reads like right-wing scare mongering at a time in history where it's really hard to ignore that.
Setting that aside, the movie also struggles a bit with tone, oscillating between kid-friendly and bizarrely dark (a lot of innocent people sure had their souls devoured). I'm not sure this was as much an issue for me, but I do think it's a bit of an issue for the movie.
Despite my reservations, there's enough good stuff here (particularly in the third act) for me to have enjoyed it quite a bit. But I also spent a lot of the movie flinching at some of the implications, and even more afterwards as I considered them in more depth.
That said, I watched this a second time and... God, it's effective as a modern day operatic fantasy rooted in Korean mythology. If this had been able to fix the subtext, I think it'd be in the #1 spot.
2. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, Season 1
But starting with Return of the Jedi the franchise started to draw the bulk of its inspiration from itself, rather than from new sources. The prequels tried expanding their field of inspiration to different classic serials and war movies than those referenced by the original series, but Lucas rarely wandered far and stuck with the same underlying ideas concerning myths.
The sequel series was a better set of movies than the prequels, but that was in spite of its choice of references, now almost exclusively drawn from the original films. Most of the TV shows (including some fantastic examples) generally stuck with the same sources, though there was some variation, particularly on the animated side.
Andor and The Acolyte were a bit more interesting and were eager to explore their galaxy from new perspectives. Andor, in particular, is fantastic TV, though I had a hard time connecting with it as Star Wars - it sacrifices the adventurous aspect of the franchise in order to tell a grounded story about resistance. There's nothing wrong with that (in fact, there's a lot right!), but it didn't scratch the same itch for me.
What Skeleton Crew does is return to the drawing board and rebuild the franchise from the ground up. If Star Wars had never been more than moderately popular and had never gotten a sequel, this is what I'd imagine a reboot might feel like. It takes a completely different underlying story (basically Treasure Island instead of Campbell's writings), then superimposes a new series of pulpy pop-culture over it. Instead of recycling Kurosawa and Flash Gordon, Skeleton Crew brings in the media that inspired its creators as children. I caught homages to countless '80s movies, including some surprising ones (anyone else think those pirate skiffs were a nod to the Masters of the Universe movie?).
That, to me, is how you keep this franchise fresh: keep the pulpy, adventurous feel coupled with classic archetypes, but pull in new references and elements.
None of that matters, of course, if the show isn't good. Fortunately, Skeleton Crew is great. It's ridiculous, lighthearted adventure. A well-executed series with likeable characters, incredible production values, and awesome effects. I had a blast with this.
1. Train Dreams
This was the last movie I saw before finalizing this list. I watched it the evening of December 30th, and I don't expect to see anything new tonight, so... this is it.
That complicates things, because it means I don't have time to digest this. Sometimes something floors me when I watch it, but over the following days or weeks my opinion of it wanes. That absolutely could happen here. Likewise, this is just one of several critically acclaimed projects I hadn't gotten around to - I wound watching this over several options because it happened to be on a streaming service I'm subscribed to. There's a very strong chance I'll like one of the others even more when I eventually catch them.
But the year's ending, and I've got a tradition of posting these on the 31st. So I have to make a call. And this movie hit me emotionally in a way no other really did this year. Part folktale, part history, part existential treatise, it was beautiful, evocative, haunting and cathartic. It portrayed America as being comprised of equal parts wonder and shame, embodying that dichotomy as well as any movie I can think of.
I can't promise I'll feel this way a year, a month, or even a day from now, but - for the moment at least - this is my favorite piece of new media this year.
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