The Best Movies of 2025 Without a Single Oscar Nomination

Always appreciative that the fine folks at RogerEbert.com let me pay tribute to the forgotten films of Oscar season. Here's my annual rundown of 10 great movies that you won't hear mentioned during the Academy Awards on March 15.

Best of 2025: The Top 10 Movies of the Year

It has become a nearly annual tradition that, over the holidays, Susan and I go on a road trip. If it's an even-numbered year, we rent a car and drive to and from Texas, where her family lives. But this year for the first time, we decided to drive home from Illinois, where my family lives. We first flew to Cleveland to visit a friend for a couple of days, then drove to Chicago for a one-day getaway, then spent Christmas week with my parents, my uncle, my sister and her family. And then for four days, we drove across America until we reached Los Angeles last night.

There are two types of people: the ones who get very excited when Susan and I share our road-trip plans and then those who think we're nuts. The two types distinguish themselves very quickly, and you can't persuade either type to see the other's perspective. But I will say that, before Susan, I was not a fan of road trips. To me, they were relationship-killers, swiftly and often awkwardly revealing in real time why my then-girlfriend and I were not well-suited for one another. But Susan loves them, and I soon came to love them, too. The arrangement is almost always the same: She drives, and I DJ. You'll know when we have a road trip coming up because, for weeks in advance, I will not shut up about the playlist I'm working on. (Because this question comes up: The playlist is not thematically organized or meant to be played in any particular order. It is merely a collection of songs spanning many styles, genres and eras that I think she will enjoy hearing — and that I will enjoy hearing as well.)

The argument against a road trip is that it takes a whole lot longer to get where you're going than if you flew there. This is also the argument for a road trip. I've never been a "Not all who wander are lost" kind of person — I emphatically always know where I'm going, thank you very much — but what I discovered about our lengthy road trips is that they have a way of stretching time and distance in a way that more traditional travel does not. When we hit the road over the holidays, our strategy is not to drive more than eight hours a day. We stop somewhere for lunch — probably for fast food, a greasy, salty, unhealthy indulgence we only allow ourselves on these trips — and we stay at a cute hotel/motel in the city where we'll be spending the night. (Also, we eat at a local place we've read good things about.) In other words, each day has its own destination that we are trying to get to. We're not pulling over every hour or so to check out this national park or that adorable-looking pawn shop. Mostly, we are zooming down the highway, soaking in the landscape and listening to music or podcasts. And, of course, we're also talking. People ask what we talk about. Honestly, everything, depending on whatever the views or the tunes are inspiring in us. Each day of our road trip, I exist in this reality outside of my normal existence. I usually don't have anything to write or review. To quote a line from Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria that I think about a lot, "In here, time stops."

In some ways, I am describing the benefits of any good vacation: You mentally unplug, you leave behind the day-to-day, you reconnect with what matters. But as someone who has long been vacation-averse, always fearful that I'd be missing something important work-wise by being away, the road trips have been an opportunity to put aside my usual self and be someone else for a while. Granted, a holiday-season road trip is a little easier because it's a quiet time for most everyone — I'm not really risking missing writing assignments — but it's been good practice in learning how to actively enjoy one's life. Don't get me wrong: I love my life and love the work that I do. But turning off work mode and just being? That has been harder. The road trips teach me how to get better at it.

But even so, my brain doesn't switch off entirely. And this year during our trip — through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and finally California — I spent considerable time looking out the window at the gorgeous, changing landscape. And both Susan and I had the same reaction constantly, blurting out randomly, "God, this country is beautiful" before reflexively adding, "Well, except for ____." You can fill in the blank yourself: Donald Trump, MAGA supporters, anyone who's transphobic, etc. A big part of our love of road trips is seeing one knockout view after another. (Pictures never do the vistas justice.) And these past four days did not disappoint. But we sometimes caught ourselves mid-revelry. It's such a rich, incredible country as you drive through it. And yet.

We traveled through red states — not to mention the red areas of blue states — so we were constantly pondering the political tensions within America. The contrasts were striking. We saw endless amounts of farms, no shortage of small towns, but also big cities and baseball stadiums and mountains and cacti and truck drivers. You would not believe how many billboards there are promoting injury and accident attorneys — as well as cannabis dispensaries and guns and fudge. (Seriously, fudge is apparently a huge selling point for weary, hungry travelers.) Jesus is advertised a ton. Some places wanted you not to have an abortion. Some places wanted you to know that there was help out there if you did want one. And all the while we were listening to our favorite music — often, by American artists — and quietly noting those juxtapositions. Everywhere we went, we met friendly people at cool hotels and hip coffee shops and lonely gas stations and stunningly efficient, reliable McDonald's restaurants. But I never stopped thinking about the potential invisible divisions between me and some of the folks I interacted with. (Although I tried not to stereotype based on location: We all know lefties in red parts of the United States and Trumpers in blue parts.) 

The longer we drove, the more I thought about my work. I often quote a line from the late film critic James Rocchi: "I write about movies. Which means, really, I get to write about everything." That's very much how I look at my job, and while I write about all types of films from across the globe, it is impossible for me not to think about America when I'm writing about American films and culture. It would be foolish not to: If you believe that all movies (and music and television and...) are inherently political, then the entertainment we make says something about us — just like Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident says so much about Iran or Jia Zhangke's Caught by the Tides expresses the reality of China. So it's probably no surprise that I wrestle with what America means all the time. 

But this year's road trip made me ponder the country in a different, more expansive and intimate way. It's one thing to think about America as an abstract concept — it's a very different experience when you're logging hundreds of miles of actual road each day as the nation passes across your windshield. I'd look out the window and marvel at the beauty — both the big, empty expanses and the bustling cities — and I'd realize all over again how lucky I am to have been born here, to do work that means so much to me, to be sitting by this woman I love so intensely, to have family and friends I care about. Those things are gifts. But they don't fully compensate for what this year has been like politically — just how mean, cruel and stupid so much of our daily lives has become. And then I'd think about my fellow Americans who seem completely cool with all of it — who may actually be actively cheering on that cruelty. I tried to stay off social media as much as possible over the two weeks we were out of town, but news still seeped in, and it made me mad all over again. Such a beautiful country with so much ugliness inside. 

Parts of me didn't want to go back to Los Angeles — not because I hate L.A. (quite the contrary), but because I didn't want to go back to reality. But the truth was, I had never fully left reality, even as I was awed by all that scenery. I'm home now, and I'm still trying to reconcile the wonders of our road trip with the nagging discontent I feel about the country. I wanted the break from real life, and I got it, but not entirely. 

It's pretty common for me to feel down after a vacation: You have all that fun time off, but then you have to return to the grind. So what I try to do is savor that holiday period and maximize its value. And I try to hold onto the electric emotions that a vacation stirred up. This year, though, those feelings seem a bit more pointed and urgent. I'm vowing to retain the sense of the vastness, grandeur and complexity of America as a physical space. And I want to remember that this is a country worth fighting for, even more so in the new year when there will be midterm elections and inevitably even more things to protest and condemn. Time stops during a road trip, giving you the chance to recharge. But then we're back on the clock, and we have to make the most of it.

* * * * *   

With all that said, let's now talk about movies. This was a great film year, even better than last year. Starting with a superb Sundance and then continuing with an all-timer Cannes before concluding with a fairly strong Venice/Telluride/Toronto, 2025 had no shortage of excellent movies. Here's my Top 10:

1. My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow 
2. Sound of Falling  
3. The Mastermind  
4. Grand Tour  
5. Sorry, Baby  
6. Sirat  
7. Below the Clouds 
8. Resurrection  
9. One Battle After Another  
10. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You   

This year for my list, I decided to do something different: The links lead to information regarding how to see each movie. I know how frustrating it can be to hear about potentially fantastic movies and then be unable to track them down. Hopefully those links will help. (And when in doubt, JustWatch is an excellent resource.) 

There were several films I felt sure would make the Top 10. Alas, there simply wasn't enough room for all of my favorites, including Caught by the Tides (No. 11), Peter Hujar’s Day (No. 12), A Little Prayer (No. 13), Marty Supreme (No. 14), and Blue Moon (No. 15). 

I'm dying to name more movies, but I'll stop there. However, if you'd like to see another take on this year, check out my ballot for Screen International, which only includes films that premiered in 2025. (In other words, My Undesirable Friends, which played at the New York Film Festival last year, is nowhere to be seen, but Sergei Loznitsa's fantastic Two Prosecutors, which was unveiled at Cannes this summer, is.)

And, as always, you can hear my extensive thoughts about my Top 10 on the end-of-the-year Grierson & Leitch podcast episode right here. 

* * * * *    

I'd like to thank everyone who read, watched or listened to me this past year. It is always nice to be in-demand, and I never take my good fortune for granted, especially when I reflect on everything I did in 2025. 

To start with, I have to acknowledge a professional milestone: In 2025, I celebrated my 20th anniversary of writing for Screen International. (My first review for the publication: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. My most recent: the Jack Black/Paul Rudd Anaconda.) I can't say enough good things about our team, and I remain immensely proud to be Screen's Senior U.S. Critic. 

It was also a busy year for me over at the Los Angeles Times, where I got to review films I had seen previously at festivals but hadn't the chance to sink my teeth into yet. Those include No Other Land, Grand Tour, It Was Just an Accident, Blue Moon, Resurrection, Caught by the Tides and April. I did some fun features for the paper as well. I talked to the folks at Neon who put together the company's coveted annual FYC box set. I interviewed the marketing teams behind Longlegs, Anora and Conclave to learn how they made those indies box-office hits. I chatted with RaMell Ross about the Nickel Boys screenplay. I profiled Embeth Davidtz and Naomi Watts. I spent time interviewing every major actor in Severance to see how they survived the show's terrific second season. I answered the question, "What exactly makes an HBO Documentary Film an HBO Documentary Film?" I got the inside scoop on the making of three of my favorite movie posters from 2025. I hung out with Marty Supreme breakout star Odessa A'zion. And I got to write about two Charles Burnett classics: The Annihilation of Fish and Killer of Sheep. But the two highlights were spending part of a day in April talking to cinephiles at the Criterion Mobile Closet and spending part of a morning in July interviewing Spinal Tap. (As a separate interview for the piece, I also talked to Marty DiBergi. Rest in peace, Rob Reiner.)

As you saw above, my favorite film of the year was My Undesirable Friends, which I went to the mat for as much as possible in 2025. This started in August, when I interviewed director Julia Loktev for Rolling Stone in connection to the film's New York opening. Then in November, I reviewed the documentary for its Los Angeles release. (In between, I moderated a Q&A for the film with Loktev and subject Ksenia Mironova. My thanks to the folks at the American Cinematheque for making that screening happen.) Now if the Academy's documentary branch will just have the wisdom to nominate My Undesirable Friends for the Oscar.

Also at Rolling Stone, I said goodbye to some luminaries, including Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Rob Reiner (co-written with Althea Legaspi) and Brigitte Bardot. Those pieces are never easy to write, but I take great pride in being handed the responsibility of paying tribute to artists who made a difference.

I've been a member of the Gotham Awards nominating committee for several years now, but in 2025 I was asked to be part of a new category: Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. What a blast Carlos Aguilar, Monica Castillo, Jon Frosch, Esther Zuckerman and I had coming up with our choices. In February, after our annual LAFCA awards dinner had to be postponed because of the horrible fires, I presented our prize for Best Cinematography to Nickel Boys' Jomo Fray. (I was quite pleased with my speech, although it was easily outclassed by Fray's sharp outfit.)

It was another great year over at KCRW's Press Play, where I frequently appeared to talk to Madeleine Brand about movies. I'm always tickled when Christy Lemire asks me to guest on Breakfast All Day. And is there anything better than the Grierson & Leitch podcast? No, there is not. We will be celebrating our 10th anniversary in 2026. It is a pleasure, week in and week out. 

In 2025, I also moderated a bunch of Q&As. As I look back through the list, a series of happy memories come to mind. There was RaMell Ross good-naturedly teasing someone for walking out of the theater in the middle of the Q&A. I met Bing, the massive dog in Naomi Watts' The Friend, who was the hit of the Q&A I moderated with filmmakers Scott McGehee and David Siegel. (Also, Bing's owner Bev Klingensmith is the best.) Homebound director Neeraj Ghaywan was a delight, not least because (as I learned) he's a Grierson & Leitch listener. There were the Q&As I did with director Shoshannah Stern and star Marlee Matlin for the documentary Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore: It was the second time in my career that I had moderated an interview with deaf subjects. (The first time was almost exactly 10 years earlier for The Tribe.) I spoke with Ethan Hawke as part of a double feature of Blue Moon and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which I love as much as he does. There was the conversation with Errol Morris for The Thin Blue Line, which mostly consisted of Morris (who sat through the movie for the first time in forever) simply processing all his memories and feelings. I got to share Miller's Crossing with Gabriel Byrne, who couldn't believe the movie was 35 years old. (He told so many great stories.) I got to meet director Mascha Schilinski and cinematographer Fabian Gamper, who have been promoting Sound of Falling all year while raising a newborn. I spoke with director Geeta Gandbhir and producers Alisa Payne and Nikon Kwantu for The Perfect Neighbor (my No. 19 movie of the year) and director David Osit and producer Jamie Goncalves for Predators (No. 20). I was asked to moderate a special one-night-only event with OK Go. And I got to spend a very fun Saturday evening moderating two Q&As with Kelly Reichardt for The Mastermind. She didn't want people recording the conversations on their phones, and because people love her so much, they obliged her request. It was very gratifying to see so many in the audience come up to her afterward to just express their affection for her and her movies. I could go on — Oliver Laxe, Bi Gan, Gianfranco Rosi, Benny Safdie, Akinola Davies Jr., Jafar Panahi, Rose Byrne and Mary Bronstein — but that's more than enough.

It's been a treat to start writing reviews for the A.V. Club, which allowed me to stick up for underrated movies such as La Grazia and tear apart bad ones like Eleanor the Great. For InsideHook, I wrote about seeing Paul Simon in concert, perhaps for the last time. For Cracked, I talked to comedians who intrigued me, like Roy Wood Jr., George Wallace, Riki Lindhome, Tom Green and Cheech & Chong. And for Paste, I interviewed Jonathan Gould about his exhaustive Talking Heads book.

Were there plenty of terrible and sad things that happened in 2025? Absolutely. For a moment, though, I am not going to dwell on that. Instead, I choose to be hopeful for a new year. Susan and I will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary in April. We haven't decided where we're going yet. I defer to her spirit of adventurousness. My job is providing the soundtrack.

(Photo by Susan Stoebner, taken in Heber, Arizona, December 29, 2025.) 

Your Guide to the Must-See Awards Season Movies

I helped Screen International with its roundup of 50 essentials films of this Oscar season. Individual bylines aren't indicated, but I wrote about Bugonia, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, The Life of Chuck, Marty Surpreme, The Mastermind, The Smashing Machine, Sorry, Baby and Sound of Falling. (I also sung the praises of Dylan O’Brien in Twinless.) Check the whole list out here. 

2025 Gotham Awards Nominees

It's always a delight to be asked to be part of the Gotham nominating committees, but this year I took part in the deliberations for two brand-new categories: adapted and original screenplay. Just as fun was the fact that my fellow committee members were all friends: Carlos Aguilar, Monica Castillo, Jon Frosch and Esther Zuckerman. I'm pretty darn pleased with our picks, which included Eva Victor for her fine script for Sorry, Baby. You can see our nominations here, along with those for all the other categories.

The Grierson & Leitch Podcast: Ari Aster, Eva Victor and 'The Muppet Movie'

Will was in town but we did not record this episode in person. We talked about that, as well as reviewed two A24 films: Eddington and Sorry, Baby. Then, in our Reboot segment, we looked back at 1979's The Muppet Movie. Check it out down below.

'Press Play With Madeleine Brand': Raving About 'Sorry, Baby' and 'Familiar Touch'

Christy Lemire and I were on KCRW this week to talk about new movies. We reviewed F1 and M3GAN 2.0, but the more interesting conversations regard the Sundance hit Sorry, Baby and the touching drama Familiar Touch. You can hear our segment down below.

Sundance 2025: Ranking the Best and Worst of the Festival

There's a temptation among film critics when they don't attend a particular festival to look askance at those who do, especially if those attendees rave about a lot of the movies there. The cynical assumption is that, amidst the prestige and excitement (and privilege) of being at a festival, these critics lose their ability to be discerning. Those feelings are only amplified when glowing reviews come out of Sundance, the theory being that, because of Utah's higher elevation, critics are susceptible to become more forgiving of mediocre movies than they would at sea level.

But a funny thing happened this year in Park City: Just about everyone I saw at the festival was similarly glum about the films they were watching on the ground, grousing that there were no big breakthroughs, no major discoveries, no instant classics. Actually, much of the talk at Sundance wasn't about the movies but, rather, where the festival was headed. And I don't mean philosophically; this was a more literal question, with Sundance moving to Salt Lake City, Boulder or Cincinnati in 2027. The festival's team made it clear that they didn't have any answers about that yet, so don't ask, but nonetheless that uncertainty also contributed to creating a feeling that something was ending, that the glory days were over. Add to that Trump's return to the White House and the fires in Los Angeles, and it was easy to see why many downbeat Park City attendees wrote off this year's edition as a disappointment.

For once, it was actually the people not at the festival who were more positive. Those who stayed home, using the festival's online platform to see certain films, were generally a lot happier with Sundance's 2025 installment. Partly, that was because they only watched movies we on the ground had already determined were good. But I also think not being at Sundance, which didn't feel as packed or lively as in previous years, helped keep one's focus on the films as opposed to the lack of electricity in Park City. 

As I put together my rankings of everything I saw at the festival, it became clear that this actually was a pretty great Sundance, especially in terms of documentaries. My top two films at this year's festival, The Perfect Neighbor and Predators, both of which screened in the U.S. Documentary Competition, feel like films we'll be talking about all year, their thematic connections so self-evident and fascinating that Film Comment ran a panel with their filmmakers (as well as the director of Zodiac Killer Project) to discuss them. Right behind were two features, Sorry, Baby and If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, which took very different approaches to examine an imperiled woman trying to keep her head above water. I count 12 films I would classify as, at least, very good, and that's keeping in mind that there were several more movies I would have liked to have caught but just didn't have the time.

During Sundance, I met a veteran filmmaker who was screening a movie there. "So, what's the vibe of the festival this year?" she asked me. Gloomy, for lots of obvious reasons. But the films compensated if we just let ourselves be open to them.

Below are my rankings, with links leading to individual reviews:

28. Opus
27. By Design
26. Ricky
25. The Ugly Stepsister
24. Rabbit Trap
23. Kiss of the Spider Woman
22. The Legend of Ochi
21. Together
20. The Thing With Feathers
19. The Wedding Banquet
18. Move Ya Body: The Birth of House
17. Folktales
16. Magic Farm
15. Jimpa
14. Omaha
13. Rebuilding
12. Zodiac Killer Project
11. The Alabama Solution
10. Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)
9. 2000 Meters to Andriivka
8. Train Dreams
7. Peter Hujar's Day
6. BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
5. Twinless
4. Sorry, Baby
3. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
2. Predators
1. The Perfect Neighbor 

See you all at the next festival. And thanks again to Devika Girish for having me on The Film Comment Podcast to discuss Twinless, By Design and Rabbit Trap.

Sundance 2025: 'Sorry, Baby' Review

Eva Victor's remarkable Sorry, Baby, in which they star, is about a twentysomething writer who goes through something terrible. (I won't say what.) How do people cope with trauma? How does it change them on a molecular level? This delicate film offers some answers. I reviewed the movie for Screen International.