Every year The New York Times’s critics put out a list of their Top 10 movies of the year. But there are a lot of film experts in the newsroom, and in a terrific year for the big screen, we wanted to get a sense of what stuck with them the most. So we polled the 16 staffers who play important roles in shaping our movie coverage. Here are our 25 most notable films of 2025, in alphabetical order.
(After you’ve looked over our choices, you can check out a refresher of the movies released this year and vote for your own favorites in our reader poll.)
‘28 Years Later’
Stream it on Netflix; rent or buy on other major platforms.
Danny Boyle resurrected his zombie-riddled Britain of “28 Days Later” (2002) for this tale of a boy desperate to save his mother. Plenty of now-evolved monsters abound on screens, but the deference with which death is confronted sets this apart. Read the review.
‘Black Bag’
Stream it on Amazon Prime. Rent or buy on other major platforms.
Steven Soderbergh delivers a lethal dose of sexy, slick espionage in this thriller starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as married spies who are so chic and sophisticated, it’s impossible not to fall for their tricks. Read the review.
‘Blue Moon’
Rent or buy on major platforms.
Ethan Hawke astounds as the lyricist Lorenz Hart, drinking his woes away as he is unable to deal with the new Broadway or his old self. Read the review.
‘Bugonia’
Rent or buy on major platforms.
Some might call Teddy (Jesse Plemons) a conspiracy nut, but he’s done his research and he knows that the local company’s C.E.O. (Emma Stone) is an alien. Then again, this is a Yorgos Lanthimos film, so buckle up. Read the review.
‘Come See Me in the Good Light’
Stream it on Apple TV.
This documentary about the poet Andrea Gibson’s battle with cancer is as piercing as it is profound. And it lets Gibson, who died in July, deliver an urgent reminder: Our time to find joy is now. Read the review.
‘Eddington’
Stream it on HBO Max. Rent or buy on other major platforms.
Ari Aster, a master of fright, swerved with this pandemic-era farce about a conservative sheriff and a liberal mayor facing off to shocking ends. While not exactly horror, the film’s exploration of toxic masculinity and political radicalization is plenty haunting. Read the review.
‘Frankenstein’
Stream it on Netflix.
Guillermo del Toro finally reached his North Star with this saga, and though he deviated often from Mary Shelley’s novel, he captured the heart of its Gothic splendor and anguish, while offering glimmers of hope that don’t feel cloying. Read the review.
‘Friendship’
Rent or buy on other major platforms.
This comedy — call it cringe or black, both apply — starring Tim Robinson as an annoying dude whose obsession with his neighbor (Paul Rudd) crosses the line is just surreal enough to discombobulate and just real enough to disconcert. Read the review. Stream it on HBO Max.
‘Hamnet’
In theaters.
This deeply moving meditation on art, life and especially death may be named after the son of Shakespeare who died at just 11, but it’s Agnes, the Bard’s wife played by Jessie Buckley, who left us shattered. Read the review.
‘Hedda’
Stream it on Amazon Prime.
Ibsen’s classic play “Hedda Gabler” feels bracingly fresh in the director Nia DaCosta’s update, which sets the tale of a trapped wife, her husband and her lover in a more diverse 1950s Britain. The beating heart is Tessa Thompson’s biting performance. Read the review.
‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’
Rent or buy on major platforms.
Mary Bronstein’s drama of a mother barely coping with her daughter’s mysterious illness has divided audiences. But if there’s one thing they agree on, it’s Rose Byrne’s bravura performance as the stressed-out mom. Read the review.
‘It Was Just an Accident’
Buy it on major platforms.
Former prisoners of the Iranian regime spot a man they think was the guard who tortured them. The operative word being “think.” Read the review.
‘KPop Demon Hunters’
Stream it on Netflix.
This delightful animated musical about a K-pop girl band saving the world from demons not only conquered evil but also the pop-culture universe, spawning a rabid cross-generational fandom we could get behind. Read the review.
‘Lurker’
Stream it on Mubi. Rent or buy on other major platforms.
A fandom we can’t get behind is what this not-quite-a-thriller explores when a pop star on the rise (Archie Madekwe) adds a seeming rando (Théodore Pellerin) to the entourage. Read the review.
‘Marty Supreme’
In theaters Dec. 25.
It sounds like satire — a sports drama about table tennis? But the director Josh Safdie brings the edgy energy of “Uncut Gems” (which he made with his brother, Benny) to give Timothée Chalamet his best showcase yet.
‘One Battle After Another’
Rent or buy on major platforms.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s politically charged American epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed-up revolutionary plunged back into the fight, now for his daughter’s life too, balances white-knuckle action with dark humor, and is already being heralded as a masterpiece. Read the review.
‘The Perfect Neighbor’
Stream it on Netflix.
Constructed almost entirely of footage from police body-cams, home security cameras, interrogation rooms and news reports, this documentary about the 2023 killing of a Florida woman by her neighbor epitomized the evolution of the true-crime genre. Read the review.
‘Roofman’
Rent or buy on major platforms.
Remember the movie star? Channing Tatum clearly does, giving soul and charm to this tale of a career criminal who winds up living in a Toys ‘R’ Us after he escapes prison. Read the review.
‘The Secret Agent’
In theaters.
In sun-drenched Recife, Brazil, in the 1970s, a widower is hiding out from the dictatorship’s enforcers. Go for the brilliant performance by Wagner Moura, stay for Udo Kier’s indelible scene as a Holocaust survivor. Read the review.
‘Sentimental Value’
In theaters.
When their mother dies, a famous stage actress (Renate Reinsve) and her sister must deal with the even more famous director father (Stellan Skarsgard) they were estranged from in Joachim Trier’s wonderfully humane drama. Read the review.
‘Sinners’
Stream it on HBO Max. Rent or buy on other major platforms.
Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster vampire extravaganza, starring Michael B. Jordan as twins who open a juke joint in Jim Crow-era Mississippi, also triumphs as a meditation on the tethers of the past and the mystical, immortal nature of music. Read the review.
‘Sirat’
Returning to theaters in 2026.
A father searching for his missing daughter in Morocco learns she might be at another concert, across the Sahara. That’s all you should know going into this Oliver Laxe action drama that still has us shaken.
‘Sorry, Baby’
Stream it on HBO Max. Rent or buy on other major platforms.
This isn’t the kind of indie film where people can’t verbalize their problems. But naming them and coming to terms with them are quite different things in this beautiful drama from the writer-director-star Eva Victor. Read the review.
‘Train Dreams’
Stream it on Netflix.
In this adaptation of Denis Johnson’s much-loved novella, the arc of one unremarkable life proves epic as we follow Joel Edgerton’s laborer from the early 20th century to the space age. Read the review.
‘Weapons’
Stream it on HBO Max. Rent or buy on other major platforms.
In this horror hit about the dark arts, the director Zach Cregger unleashed a torrent of twists, turns, broken twigs and bashed-in faces — and conjured up one of year’s biggest pop-culture icons out of a lipstick-smeared, red-wigged villain. Read the review.
Written by Maya Salam and Stephanie Goodman. Staff voters: Salam, Goodman, Sarah Bahr, Brooks Barnes, Kyle Buchanan, Barbara Chai, Joe Coscarelli, Tanner Curtis, Leah Greenblatt, Sia Michel, Kellina Moore, Mekado Murphy, Nicole Sperling, Rumsey Taylor, Reggie Ugwu and Amanda Webster.
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