TOP 10 FILMS of 2025 (…so far)

We are roughly halfway through 2025, which means that it is time to have a look at some of the best films of the year so far.

Eligibility is straightforward: a film must have reached North American audiences outside festival walls or have a concrete release date set for later this year. A couple of late-2024 premieres qualify under that rule, but a few of my favourite festival titles without a formal distribution announcement don’t.

Stay tuned for some of the most anticipated releases for the rest of 2025, and check out the Top 24 Films of 2024 to make sure that you’ve checked off all the films from last year’s watchlist.

10. Vulcanizadora

Logline: Two friends take a trip through a Michigan forest, intent on carrying out a disturbing pact.
Directed by: Joel Potrykus
Starring: Joel Potrykus, Joshua Burge, Solo Potrykus

My Thoughts:
A “spiritual sequel” to Joel Potrykus’ 2015 film Buzzard, Vulcanizadora feels more like a reckoning than anything else. Derek and Marty tramp deeper into the Michigan backwoods on a mission that stays teasingly vague, while the soundtrack bounces from grand opera to guttural metal. Fatherhood shapes everything here – Potrykus started writing once he had a kid, and young Solo Potrykus shows up on screen – so the film’s usual grime is tempered with real introspection about what we leave behind for the next generation. Vulcanizadora keeps that raw, punk indie spirit yet pauses long enough to ask what carrying on the family line actually means.

Release Information: Available to rent online.

Full Review of Vulcanizadora and Interview with Director Joel Potrykus

9. Eephus

Logline: As an imminent construction project looms over their beloved small-town baseball field, a pair of New England rec-league teams face off for the last time.
Directed by: Carson Lund
Starring: Keith William Richards, Frederick Wiseman, Cliff Blake, Ray Hryb, Bill “Spaceman” Lee

My Thoughts:
Like its namesake pitch, Eephus feels almost suspended in mid-air – slow, looping, a touch magical. Carson Lund, writing with Nate Fisher and Michael Basta, focuses on mood rather than plot. Two rec-league teams suit up for their final game before developers claim the field, and you sense something larger than baseball is ending. These men connect only because someone else organised the ritual for them; once the scoreboard goes dark, their plans to grab beers together evaporate. Glimpses of honesty – about lost jobs, shaky marriages, fading bodies – flash through, but they’re quickly tucked back under bravado. The film resonates as a subtle plea for holding on to whatever version of community you can muster.

Release Information: Available to rent online.

8. Bring Her Back

Logline: Following the death of their father, a brother and sister are introduced to their new sibling by their foster mother, only to learn that she has a terrifying secret.
Directed by: Danny Philippou & Michael Philippou
Starring: Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally Hawkins

My Thoughts:
Two features in, and Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou already feel like genre fixtures. Bring Her Back pushes their craft forward by layering buzzing grief onto classic foster-home dread. Sally Hawkins’ shape-shifting Laura cues unease from her first appearance, yet toggles to nurturing warmth in a heartbeat – no wonder her performance is the standout. Even some of the production décor is hers: second-hand knick-knacks she curated to deepen character. Sound work amplifies every dread-beat, peaking with that tooth-scraping moment that’s brutal precisely because it was recorded for real. Ultimately, though, the film asks what lengths people will go to avoid honest mourning, suggesting that the brothers can mix emotional heft with crowd-pleasing horror.

Release Information: Finishing its theatrical run and digital rental starts July 1 st.

Full Review of Bring Her Back

7. Warfare

Logline: A platoon of American Navy SEALs on a surveillance mission gone wrong in insurgent territory… told in real time and based on the memory of the people who lived it.
Directed by: Ray Mendoza & Alex Garland
Starring: D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Joseph Quinn

My Thoughts:
Warfare was born when Alex Garland met former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza on the set of Civil War; the pair decided to film Mendoza’s memories without dressing them up. That means no hero’s journey, no soaring speeches – just boots, dust, and decisions made in the moment. The real-time pacing traps you alongside soldiers who barely have time to think, let alone monologue. I appreciate that it sidesteps propaganda by showing civilians as more than background debris. Whether you find that neutral stance cathartic or troubling will depend on the baggage you bring in, but the film’s commitment to immediacy is undeniable.

Release Information: Streaming on Prime Video.

6. Friendship

Logline: A suburban dad falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor.
Directed by: Andrew DeYoung
Starring: Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer

My Thoughts:
Andrew DeYoung’s feature debut lets Tim Robinson loose on a full-length canvas, and the result is ninety minutes of laugh-out-loud cringe that still sneaks in real ache. Robinson’s neighbour is desperate – borderline feral – for Paul Rudd’s approval, even as his marriage to Kate Mara frays. DeYoung and cinematographer Andy Rydzewski frame the absurdity like a drama, letting shadows and close-ups underline how male loneliness festers beneath the gags. The blend of painful embarrassment and quick-switch tenderness stays true to Robinson’s sketch roots while proving he can carry a whole arc.

Release Information: Available to rent online.

Full Review of Friendship

5. Hallow Road

Logline: Two parents enter a race against time when they receive a distressing late-night phone call from their daughter after she caused a tragic car accident.
Directed by: Babak Anvari
Starring: Rosamund Pike, Matthew Rhys, Megan McDonnell

My Thoughts:
Babak Anvari’s trim real-time thriller never eases off the figurative gas. The camera sits almost entirely inside a single car with Matthew Rhys, a frazzled corporate fixer, and his paramedic wife, Rosamund Pike, racing toward the forest track that lends the film its title. Their daughter Alice, who stormed off after a brutal argument, crackles over the speakerphone, stranded on a woodland stretch teens use for late-night smoke sessions. Anvari splits formats: the road outside is grainy 16 mm; the interior is razor-sharp digital, turning the car into a psychological prison for parents and viewers alike. Pike and Rhys shoulder every beat, and a sly end-credits Easter egg rewards those who stick around.

Release Information: Wrapping its UK theatrical run, with a North American release this fall.

4. Together

Logline: With a move to the countryside already testing the limits of a couple’s relationship, a supernatural encounter begins an extreme transformation of their love, their lives, and their flesh.
Directed by: Michael Shanks
Starring: Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Damon Herriman, Mia Morrissey

My Thoughts:
Together was my sleeper hit of SXSW. Lawsuit chatter aside, Michael Shanks’ first feature nails the dread of codependency through full-tilt body horror. Alison Brie and Dave Franco – married off-screen – relocate to a rural idyll that curdles fast, their bond twisting into something both loving and parasitic. Shanks keeps flipping the dial: a laugh, a shriek, then back again. Visually, Shanks pits tight, murky interiors against bright, open fields, mirroring Tim’s tug-of-war between freedom and fusion. By the end, the movie lands on a bittersweet note: loving someone completely is beautiful, but handing over your sense of self is nightmare fuel.

Release Information: Hits theatres August 1 st.

Full Review of Together

3. I’m Still Here

Logline: A woman married to a former politician during the 1971 military dictatorship in Brazil is forced to reinvent herself and chart a new course for her family after a violent and arbitrary act.
Directed by: Walter Salles
Starring: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Selton Mello, Valentina Herszage, Guilherme Silveira

My Thoughts:
I’m Still Here is pure push-and-pull cinema. Waves lap softly around Fernanda Torres; seconds later, helicopter blades shred the soundscape. Walter Salles keeps that tension alive by alternating Super 16 mm grit with lush 35 mm textures: the former for a daughter chasing freedom, the latter for the fragile comfort of home. Colour, grain, and shadow work together to show how love can shelter and endanger in the same breath. The film is more important than ever, as certain fringe groups in Brazil continue their attempt to silence the very real history of their country. And, as we all know by now, Fernanda Torres is beyond brilliant.

Release Information: Available to rent online.

Full Review of I’m Still Here

2. Sorry, Baby

Logline: Something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on… for everyone around her, at least.
Directed by: Eva Victor
Starring: Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges

My Thoughts:
Eva Victor wears three hats – writer, director, star – and balances them with unnerving poise. Sorry, Baby tracks Agnes across five years that loop back to their starting point, mirroring how trauma can feel circular. The tone swings from deadpan crack-ups to throat-tight dread, a rhythm that matches Agnes’ own defence mechanism of joking through pain. Long, locked-off shots force us to sit with the difficult silences, and Victor’s supporting cast, led by Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges, understand the assignment. Pastel (the Barry Jenkins outfit behind Aftersun and All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt) clearly knows how to spot first-feature talent.

Release Information: Currently in theatres.

Full Review of Sorry, Baby

Interview with Cinematographer Mia Cioffi Henry

The Top Film of 2025 (…so far)

1. Sinners

Logline: Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
Directed by: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell

My Thoughts:
Who knew a $90-million genre blender could feel this personal? Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack, back home in Mississippi after years up in Chicago, cash in hand and a dream of opening a juke joint. The plan derails – old lovers, plus vampires, naturally – but the movie’s pulse is music: raw Delta blues braided with Irish folk, two traditions born from trauma and bent into resilience. One four-minute sequence inside the club is already my scene of the year, a blues performance that folds past, present, and future into one transcendental sweep. If studios want proof that original, big-budget stories can thrive, look right here.

Release Information: Streaming on major VOD platforms.

Full Review of Sinners