First, a few apologies. You will have seen little mention in these pages of arguably the most significant cinematic phenomenon of 2025. Ne Zha 2, a Chinese animated epic, did open (very quietly) in Irish cinemas, with a PG certificate. But, with no press show and little other publicity, it was barely noticed outside the Chinese community.
It has so far grossed $1.9 billion worldwide, all except about $20 million of it in China. No other title comes close for the year’s worldwide number one. It lands just behind Titanic as the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time. Avatar: Fire and Ash, which is released on December 19th, could pass it out, but, given the simultaneous global success of K-Pop Demon Hunters, a Korean production, on Netflix, nobody can question the rising power of East Asian animation.
We also issue the usual apology for including films that premiered at festivals in 2024. But readers would rightly complain if we listed films – Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, say, or Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee – that they hadn’t yet had a chance to see.
Away from Asian animation, cinema was going through one of its periodic nervous breakdowns about declining box-office figures. Disney hit a poor artistic and financial patch with flops such as Snow White and Captain America: Brave New World, but its live-action Lilo & Stitch was behind only Ne Zha 2 as highest grosser, and it still has Avatar to come. So nobody is sobbing at the Magic Kingdom’s gates.
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Warner Bros had an extraordinary run with hits such as A Minecraft Movie (not bad), Superman (awful), Sinners (transcendent), Weapons (strong) and F1 (so-so).
Our imagined asterisk beside Warner’s One Battle After Another is by way of noting that, although Paul Thomas Anderson’s superb film made an unexpectedly robust $202 million, it cost so much to make that it might still barely be in profit.
No matter. There were some hopeful signs in 2025 that Hollywood could make money out of good films that did not spring from established franchises. Sinners, which was directed by Ryan Coogler, surprised everyone with its epic combination of racial politics, applied musicology and high-end vampirism. Weapons, from Zach Cregger, put a hugely original spin on themes mined in Stephen King’s work.
Elsewhere, a quiet, intelligent film again prompted us to ask why Hollywood killed off one of its most fecund genres (or dispatched it to streaming, anyway). Celine Song’s hugely intelligent Materialists, the follow-up to her Oscar-nominated Past Lives, opened to positive-leaning reviews and only modestly encouraging box office, but, after a few weeks, thanks to good word, it racked up more than $100 million. The moral: if you make decent, well-crafted romantic comedies, audiences will still reward your efforts.
For all the talk of commercial films gaining aesthetic strength, our list again leans strongly on the cultural cinema that emerged from big festivals such as Cannes and Venice. Eight of the top 10 played those European festivals in 2023 or 2024. The industry shifts and stutters, but some things remain largely the same.
50. House of Dynamite
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Bigelow, genius of action, retreats inside for a nail-biting study, from several perspectives, of an apparent nuclear-missile attack on the United States. A reminder of terrors we’ve spent decades ignoring. Full review
49. Good Boy
Directed by Ben Leonberg. Ingenious low‑budget supernatural horror film, starring a dog named Indy, that mines the idea animals can see things we cannot. The exceptional star is clearly a student of the Keanu school of tabula-rasa acting. Full review
48. A Real Pain
Directed by Jesse Eisenberg. Kieran Culkin walked the best-supporting-actor Oscar for his turn as a sarcastic waster who, on a tour of Europe with his intense brother (Eisenberg), reveals the roots of his unease. Full review
47. Train Dreams
Directed by Clint Bentley. Prestige frontier epic, based on Denis Johnson’s novella, in which Joel Edgerton’s grieving homesteader drifts between harsh reality and American myth. The film traces a life across fires, visions and vanished worlds. Full review
46. Riefenstahl
Directed by Andres Veiel. What more is there to be said about Hitler’s most renowned propagandist? Well, Veiel’s documentary manages some astonishing revelations about the extent to which she deceived herself. Full review
45. Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story
Directed by Sinéad O’Shea. O’Shea’s documentary traces the turbulent life of a legendary writer, from banned books to global literary stardom, blending diary readings, archive footage and raw final interviews into a compelling portrait of defiance, art and resilience. Full review
44. Weapons
Directed by Zach Cregger. The director overreached a little by comparing his film to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia. It’s not that, but it brings new energies to the small-town ensemble horror. MVP: Amy Madigan. Full review
43. Kenny Dalglish
Directed by Asif Kapadia. Kapadia, the Oscar-winning whizz behind Amy, does his archival thing with a Liverpool FC legend. The director’s signature emotional propulsion jollies along a tale of Anfield glory, Hillsborough tragedy and family values that celebrates King Kenny’s adopted home city. Full review
42. Born That Way
Directed by Éamon Little. Superb documentary about Patrick Lydon, an Irish-American who, resident in the old country since the 1970s, helped set up a unique community for people with learning difficulties. Full review
41. Bob Trevino Likes It
Directed by Tracie Laymon. After a painful estrangement from her father, a woman reaches out on Facebook and befriends a different man with the same name, forging an unlikely second family. Heartfelt, quirkily told story about loneliness, connection and healing.
40. Predator: Badlands
Directed by Dan Trachtenberg. Trachtenberg follows up Prey, his brilliant 2022 Predator flick, with a comparably fine adventure that places the alien alongside two versions of an android Elle Fanning.
39. Dying
Directed by Matthias Glasner. In this German‑language family drama, two ageing parents with severe health problems and their estranged children confront mortality, grief and neglect in a darkly comic, deeply human portrait of familial breakdown and bad dentistry. Full review
38. 28 Years Later
Directed by Danny Boyle. Do you want your 28 Days Later threequel to be a folk horror mixed with Brexit satire mixed with nods to recent British media scandals? Well, that’s what you’re getting. Full review
37. Oslo Stories: Dreams (Sex Love)
Directed by Dag Johan Haugerud. Poetic, deeply intimate coming-of-age drama following 17-year-old Johanne as she falls for her teacher and pours her first love into a raw manuscript. Three generations converge in the strongest entry in Haugerud’s remarkable film trilogy. Full review
36. Black Bag
Directed by Steven Soderbergh. The versatile director’s fine spy flick, apparently much indebted to Len Deighton, casts Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as married operatives on the hunt for a traitor. Suave! Full review
35. Pavements
Directed by Alex Ross Perry. Genre-blending film about the eponymous 1990s indie band that combines documentary footage, musical performance and metanarrative in a wild, self-aware odyssey that presupposes Pavement were once the biggest band in the world. Full review
34. Sentimental Value
Directed by Joachim Trier. Trier risks invoking Ingmar Bergman with his tale – out on St Stephen’s Day – of a film director (Stellan Skarsgard) attempting an autobiographical work. The Norwegian auteur just about gets away with it.
33. Misericordia
Directed by Alain Guiraudie. A man returns home for a funeral and stays with the widow, much to the chagrin of her jealous adult son. Hang tight for an inept and unpremeditated murder and a mushroom-picking priest, who offers absolution in exchange for affection. Full review
32. Gazer
Directed by Ryan J Sloan. A single mother, with a condition that distorts her perception of time, struggles to regain control in a highly original psychological thriller. Ariella Mastroianni is bewitching in the lead. Full review
31. Armand
Directed by Halfdan Ullmann Tondel. Renate Reinsve’s single mother is summoned to an unbearably tense meeting with school staff where truth, guilt and institutional power blur in a claustrophobic psychological drama that tips into surrealism and choreography. Full review
