Man, sorry this got away from me. My 2025 favorite movie countdown. I had done my IRM round up. And my favorite books/comics. But movies sort of slipped passed me since I had several things going on in real life. But now, it’s here, baby! This is my 19th year of doing this list. Yeah, that means next year is my 20th year of the list. That’s insane! I might have to think of something special to do next year. We’ll see.
Anyway, as always, I’m keeping up with my movie watching throughout the year on my Letterboxd account. Check me out there to see more reviews! Rules are like my books, only movies new to me in 2025 are eligible. I’ve gone back and forth on these lists about watching new 2025 movies after January 1st until I’ve done this list. In previous years I’ve put a freeze on watching new to me 2025 movies, and I’ve also gone ahead and watched new 2025 movies right up until I create this list. It’s however I’m feeling at the time. This time I watched one or two new 2025 movies before writing this list. And new movies to me from any year are typically handled as honorable mentions in another article or one that I may tag on to this list. Or completely forget about and never do anything about.
So let’s see what my favorite things to watch in 2025 were. I normally do 5 spots, sometimes 7. It looks like I actually did a top 8 list this time. Wow, look at me! So, without further ado, here are my favorite movies of 2025. These are not NECESSARILY in order, but they are close.
I got most of my images and links from Wikipedia.
Superman – Soooo yeah. Superman. Man, I really wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about this movie. I don’t know, I was super curious what Gunn would do, but honestly I wasn’t necessarily excited. Maybe that was the key, managed expectations, because I wound up loving this movie. Cornswet was a GREAT Superman/Clark. Perfect mix of confidence and positivity. And I loved watching him fly, he totally looked like an excited little kid when he was flying around. And Brosnahan was a great Lois. Smart, confident, and I love the movie started with them in a relationship and her being “in the know”. Hoult’s Lex was different, but good. A lot more ruthless, maybe even a little bit more unhinged than previous iterations. And Mr Terrific was balls awesome. If I had any nitpicks, it’s that the story touches on a story we keep seeing over and over again; the world has to misunderstand Superman at one point and come to hate him for some reason. Not my favorite trope, and this doesn’t do anything interesting with it. Otherwise, I really really enjoyed this movie.
F1 – Unlike Superman, I was actually excited to see this movie. I’m not a car guy, but I do love racing movies. Days of Thunder, Ford v Ferrari, Gran Turismo, Stroker Ace. I love them. And this one was awesome. I really love late career Brad Pitt. He’s super funny and interesting in the roles he’s picking. He plays a veteran former F1 racer with a shaky past who is hired as a driver by one of his old driving buddies who now owns his own F1 racing team. The team is in last place and he needs a hail mary to win three races so his team isn’t taken away from him. Brad Pitt is great in this. I like the team he walks in to, along with the current young driver that thinks he’s the star of the show. I loved watching this all come together. The racing scenes were fun, and it was a lot funnier than I was expecting. I thought I’d really like this, but it surprised me that it’s one of my favorites of the year.
F4: First Steps – From F1, to F4. Yes, so Fantastic Four happened. And you know what, I really liked it. I’m a big fan of FF anyway, so seeing the parade of movies that have come out adapting this team has been…interesting to say the least. This is my favorite of all of them. I like that it’s set up in an alternate universe from the MCU. I love the realization of the Silver Surfer and Galactus. They nailed Galactus. And I love how the team defeated him. It’s a great start to what I hope will be more adventures with this team.
Predator: Badlands – I’m a big fan of The Predator. But for years I’ve only really loved the first movie. Then Trachtenberg dropped Prey and Killer of Killers, and all of a sudden the Predator is cool again. This was such a great Predator movie. Dek teams up with a damaged android in a quest to kill the unkillable monster on “Planet Death” to make his family proud. Lots of great action, lots of humor, lots of great predator fighting, and Elle Fanning is great playing two different roles. I love the planet they are all on, everything on that planet is trying to kill you at all times. This is how you make a great Predator movie.
Ballerina – I also wasn’t sure what to make of this movie. A John Wick side-quel? Well, I needn’t have worried. They nailed this one. Ana de Armas is bad ass and awesome and gorgeous in this. I love that this movie steps away from the High Table shenanigans which were getting a little much in the last John Wick. I like that this focuses on The Continental, and the Ruska Roma. Keep it simple, guys. And the John Wick cameo is handled pretty nicely as well. Very visually interesting, great fights and action. And how about that flame thrower fight? Yeah.
Thunderbolts* – The New Avengers. I really loved this rag tag collection of heroes. They all have issues, and don’t even want to hang out at first. But they wind up coming together and making a great team. Marvel was bold for bringing in Sentry. That was a tough character to do because he’s WAY too powerful. But I liked how they tried to handle him. He’s broken. He’s got these God-like powers. How do those manifest? And how do you battle against that? I like what they were trying to do, make mental health a part of the hero conversation. They did a good job. I really want to see this team together again.
K-Pop Demon Hunters – I kept hearing and hearing how awesome this was. And it was blowing up all over social media. So, yes, I of course had to give it a watch. And for me, it lives up to the hype. The songs are catchy AF. The demon hunting is pretty awesome. Lots of magical creatures. I love that the demons form an irresistible boy band to take over the world. Tons of fun. And my favorite Huntrix is, of course, Zoey.
Sinners – Michael B Jordan can do no wrong. He plays twin brothers here. This movie reminded me a lot of From Dusk till Dawn. A bit more of a low key, serious take on that story, and it’s really well done. Love the setting and the time period. The rickety club in the backwoods where this takes place is awesome. Very atmospheric.
Those are my personal favorite watches of 2025. Now, let’s take a look at some of my movie watching stats from my account over on Letterboxd.
Here’s a graph of the number of films I watched throughout the year broken down by week. My overall total was 250 movies watched, which is about 20 less movies than last year. That’s just under 5 movies per week. As usual the highest number of movies was watched in December. This is a combination of my Christmas watches and my family’s Christmas movie marathon. September-October also has a few high weeks where I was watching my Halloween movies for that year. Which involved werewolves.
Here is the list of actors that I watched the most movies of this year. Woody Harrelson got in the top spot due to being in the Now You See Me movies, and the ZombieLand movies, which I watched all of with the family last year. Same with Tony Todd, he was in all of the Final Destination movies which we watched last year. Jessie Eisenberg is there for the same reasons as Woody. I saw a bunch of Michael B Jordan movies last year with Sinners, the Black Panther movies, Creed, and the 2015 Fantastic Four. I love seeing all the disparate actors that show up in this list. Oh the last one, Keye Luke, showed up because I watched Gremlins with the family, and three old serials from the 40s in which he starred (Thanks Michael May).
How about all the director’s that I watched last year? Ruben Fleischer is there for many of the same reasons as Woody and Jesse; ZombieLand, Now You See Me, and Venom. Ryan Coogler for all of the Michael B Jordan movies I watched. Third and fourth place are both directors of the Prep & Landing franchise. Which I tend to watch every year. And there was a new one last year so we watched the whole franchise again. Always an interesting and eclectic group of directors in the movies I’ve watched over a calendar year.
Here are the milestones movies for 2025. My very first movie in 2025 was Smile 2. That’s interesting because my first movie in 2024 was also a sequel, Good Burger 2. My 50th movie was the 1930s version of Scarface starring Paul Muni. Which wasn’t great. My 100th movie was Empire Strikes Back, my son and I decided to rewatch the original SW trilogy last year. My 200th movie was my Halloween viewing of The Frighteners with the family. I love that movie. Watch it if you haven’t. It’s awesome. My final movie of 2025, which means it was also my 250th movie of the year, was the Stranger Things Season 5 finale.
Let’s take a look at a few of the more interesting stats on Letterboxd. Movies that I rated higher/lower than the average across the site. The top row of this graphic are all movies I rated higher than the average Letterboxd user. For several of those, that makes sense. Draft Day, Midnight Madness, Star Trek: Section 31. I get those. But Final Destination? Fletch? Wow. Those are classics.
The bottom row is rated lower than the average user. Two of those movies were Elvis movies. Two of his final three theatrical movies, and they are BAAAAAAAD. And yes, I don’t love Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. I do like Rosemary’s Baby, three stars is a respectable, “I like it”. I think I liked the book a little better though. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer surprised me. It wasn’t great. I remember liking it when seeing it in the theater, but when I rewatched the whole franchise with my daughter I didn’t like it.
Highs and Lows! So I guess these are movies I watched with the highest and lowest ratings. So Godfather Part II is the movie I saw with the highest average rating last year. And the 2015 Fantastic Four was the movie I watched with the lowest average rating. I get that. It’s not great, but I don’t think it’s as bad as everyone thinks. That Smiling’ Jack serial was my most obscure watch (Thanks Michael May). The longest was Dexter New Blood, which makes sense since that’s a series. The shortest I watched was the Prep & Landing mini.
Okay, I think that about does it for me. Those are all my favorite movies and movie stats for 2025. Another year down. For the most part it had been a good year, until the last month. But I hope you enjoyed my 2025 recaps! Can’t wait to see what happens this year!
Cavalcade of Awesome 