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Movies: Your personal year in review for 2025
This is your place to share any and all thoughts on your movie viewing for 2025.
Movies you talk about do NOT have to be limited to this year’s releases.
Feel free to share:
- Favorites
- Disappointments
- Surprises
- Memorable moments
- Self-reflections
- Anything else!
Let us know how your movie watching for 2025 went.
I did terrible this year. Only 215 movies. I'll do a top 10 of movies I watched for the first time this year (no 2025 releases) Link to the previous year post.
Really disappointed in myself that I couldn't sit through movies this year. I don't know what happened to my attention span.
... that is a lot. :)
If you looked through my diary you’d see it’s a mostly stuff from 2015 onwards and like easy watches that you’d only put on in the background. A lot of Netflix romcoms, stuff like The Perfect Date, Sierra Bourgeois is a Loser, and The Kissing Booth. Stuff I only watched because of their male leads and my interest in their careers. Not a lot of worthwhile stuff.
oh, not too bad then. Back around 2014 or so I crossed 200 but it was all japanese, russian, and french stuff... and I was completely burned out on cinema for a few months until a double of Yojimbo and Sanjuro was in an art-house theatre. Without that double, I think it would have been ages until I saw anything with a subtitle.
I probably do 80 per year these days.. maybe more if I watch new stuff.
I could use some recommendations for Japanese or French movies :) Not too big on all the samurai stuff, but I know Japan has more to offer than that. More by Naruse and Ozu are on my watchlist.
definitely go through Ozu, Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, Masaki Kobayashi, Takeshi Kitano, etc -- the big names are big for a reason. For Ozu and Kurosawa, I also did commentary tracks. For Kurosawa, Stephen Prince (author of The Warrior's Camera) teaches Kurosawa or something and... well, he knows everything about everything.
I love Samurai films, so I did a lot of those... I had an extended period of Shaw Brothers films (etc), too. Not to mention Zatoichi, Lone Wolf and Cub etc, too.
For french films, Three Colors Trilogy, Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis), Rififi (Du rififi chez les hommes), Le Trou, Amour, Jules and Jim (Jules et Jim), The Wages of Fear (Le salaire de la peur, also watch Sorcerer), La Haine, Le Samouraï, L'Atalante etc. A top-list will cover the standards like Breathless, Jeanne Dielman etc --- so many perfect films.
If you do do a list, don't go in order of the rating, though. I did that with kung fu and was so excited at first then it became a bit of a slog.
Amazing list. The French also do comedies...
Le Dîner de Cons/ The Dinner Game, was good enough for Hollywood to do a terrible remake.
Also Le placard/ The Closet, Ridicule, Delicatessen...
I love bad hollywood remakes as validation. Its true, too.
Thank you! Kenji Mizoguchi and Takeshi Kitano were new names to me. I have seen Sorcerer, so The Wages of Fear hasn't been a top priority, but I am sure it will be an interesting comparison.
I prefer Sorcerer, but each has their strengths. nobody sweats like Roy Scheider.
If you haven’t already, There are some really great korean films like Memories of Murder (2003), The Handmaiden (2016), and so much more.
Have you seen Ozu’s Floating Weeds yet? I think that is my favorite of his… but it changes :)
I have seen a handful Korean films, including those. I liked Memories of Murder, but on average Korean films haven't really lived up to their hype for me, like Burning, Decision to Leave and The Handmaiden. Oldboy is an all time classic, and Parasite is great, though not the best film ever as it sometimes is labelled. I do have some Kim Ki-duk films on my watchlist though.
nice! Oldboy / the Vengeance trilogy was great --- but Oldboy itself is one of the few 'oh jesus christ.. what the fuck' movies. so good.
Outside of specific directors, I really liked How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (2024). Just a nice movie.
Re: Japan, I'd also highly recommend Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman In The Dunes. If you're open to anime (and I wouldn't blame you if you aren't, at least not without strong qualifiers), Satoshi Kon simply did not miss, and Isao Takahata made two of Studio Ghibli's three masterpieces, Grave of the Fireflies and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.
On the topic of Netflix romcoms, give A Copenhagen Love Story a try. I am not sure how well it translates to viewers outside Denmark, but I think it is an interesting twist on the romcom genre. Starts as one, ends more in tragedy.
It's not a race. The fewer movies you watch this year, the more good movies you have still yet to see.
I've averaged about 200 movies a year over the last two decades, which means I have watched over 4,000 movies. Based on your reviews, I would guess you have watched about 1000-2000 movies. At about 3,000 movies, it becomes much harder to find good movies.
I’m almost at 4k movies total on my Letterboxd lol. There’s tons of good movies! You’d never be able to watch them all in one life time
:)
Does this mean they didn't make the cut, or did you not see anything from 2025? I assume its the former since you're the big movie buff around here. If so, do you have a top-10 for 2025 releases?
I just don’t like including them in these lists. I have a top 10 forming but there’s still some movies I need to see from the year (mostly just waiting for Marty Supreme). I’ll post it on the midweek chat sometime next month
I gotta say, reading through these year in review threads (and also the weekly what are you reading/watching/playing threads), I seriously wonder where the hell you all find the time!
I watched ~30 movies this year, a huge leap up from my usual tally of 3-5, and that was with deliberate effort to broaden my film horizons. Considering how many and the kinds of movies I've added to my PTW list, what I actually ended up watching didn't follow much rhyme or reason beyond what I was in the mood for at the time.
Highlights
12 Angry Men - Excellently shot and acted.
A Fistful of Dollars - I thought I would have made it through the Dollars trilogy but I only got to this one. I'd seen it in parts many times before but this is the first I can remember watching it all in one go. Surprise surprise, it's still great.
The Breakfast Club - Can anyone watch a John Hughes movie and not want to go back to the 80s? Can it be that it was all so simple then?
In much the same way that Hayao Miyazaki is a master at capturing children's sense of wonder, I think Hughes had a knack for distilling a somewhat-mischievous, somewhat-rebellious aspect of youth that I can't find the words to properly describe right now... even when his actors are plainly in their 20s.
Broker - Last year I came across trailers of around 6 films that I'd take note of and plan to watch 'one day' before realizing Kore-eda was behind all of them. This is the first I've actually watched, and I will make my way through the rest next year.
In The Mood For Love - Hoo boy, I think my computer's still smoldering from playing this. I need some more Wong Kar-Wai.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence - I first learned of Ryuichi Sakamoto in the early aughts by randomly downloading the main theme of this film's score, and the haunting, bittersweet melody instantly intrigued me. I took forever to get around to watching the movie it was meant for, but it was absolutely worth the wait, and so fitting besides.
Piece By Piece - I knew many of the stories beforehand, and I'm probably a bit of a sucker for Lego. Still, I quite liked how they represented Pharrell's creativity.
The Last Samurai and The Twilight Samurai - I knew Hiroyuki Sanada by reputation more than résumé when he wowed everyone with his decades of experience with samurai portrayals in 2024's Shogun series, so this year I vowed to watch some more of his work in that vein. The battles and the theme of honor in The Last Samurai made it a favorite of mine upon release, and with a more mature perspective today I can say that it still is, while recognizing that the performances of the Japanese cast were probably the ones really carrying the film. I really enjoyed finding Sanada in the main role of an almost diametrically-opposed jidaigeki film in The Twilight Samurai. It's quite understated throughout, but when it bursts into life you realize you were in skilled hands all along. It may well have two of the most realistic, best-performed, and perhaps best-filmed sword duels in cinema.
Disappointments/lowlights
Tokyo Story - not bad per se, but I was underwhelmed. I was sold it as a potential greatest-movie-of-all-time candidate, but I much prefer Kurosawa's Ikiru which hits similar notes.
Idiocracy and Office Space - Not for me I guess.
Also Watched
2 Days in New York
Abigail's Party
Airplane!
Bazodee
Coonskin
Good Hair
Lupin the Third: Jigen's Gravestone
Lupin the Third: Goemon's Blood Spray
Lupin the Third: Fujiko's Lie
Mid-August Lunch
Nemuri Kyōshirō 3: The Man with No Tomorrow
Police Story
The Phoenix: Karma Chapter
The Raft
Senna
Take the Ball, Pass the Ball
War Game
I also finished making my way through all of the ESPN 30 For 30 docs that I was interested in (about 1/3 of them all), having started in mid-2024. I'm not sure how much I should consider them films though, despite what Letterboxd says. I could go on and on about how many of them I'd recommend even if you aren't invested in the featured sport (26 Years: The Dewey Bozella Story, Once Brothers, Maradona '86, Into The Wind, No Más, Hillsborough, Bad Boys, Ali: The Mission, Ceasefire Massacre, What Carter Lost, Believeland, Year of the Scab...) but O.J. Made in America is the absolute must-see.
I can highly recommend Chungking Express. In terms of romantic attraction depicted in a convincing manner, that is one of the best in my opinion.
Oh yeah. I've got at least four more of his movies lined up and Chungking is at the front of the queue.
if you haven't already, track down the made for TV 12 Angry Men with Tony Danza. Its an interesting comparison
I also didn’t care for Tokyo Story. I preferred Make Way For Tomorrow, which TS is a remake of.
Huh, I didn't know anything about that. I'll check it out, thanks.
If you like 12 Angry Men, you might also like The Ox-Bow Incident
Sorry for the necrobump, but I wanted to wait until the year was actually over. I'm not usually articulate enough or enough of a film buff to make meaningful points about any of them, but I do enjoy talking about them in the weekly threads when others are smart enough to kick off the conversation.
First, my list comes out to 136 total viewings in 2025, including repeats. I started using Letterboxd in late 2024, which has made it much easier to look back at the year. Unfortunately Letterboxd doesn't seem to have an easy way to export your diary, so I still had to copy the list by hand into a spreadsheet for the purpose of this post. :P Diary tags helped me dig up stats like: 60 of these viewings were in the theater, 26 viewings were movies I had seen before, only 5 were DVDs, 2 (Wicked and Zootopia) just happened to be on TV before their sequels came out, so I kinda paid attention in between the commercials, and I tagged 6 as "I am too dumb to understand this movie."
In the list, a few movies are given 0 stars. That just means that I didn't enter a Letterboxd rating for some unknown reason despite logging the film.
Big list
I saw 19 new releases in 2025, with a few notables in these categories:
Unpopular movies that I didn't think were that bad
Last Breath
A Working Man
Mission Impossible 8 - Final Reckoning
Well-received movies that didn't land for me
The Phoenician Scheme
The Naked Gun
One Battle After Another
Hamnet
My highest-rated 2025 release was Warfare. Maybe that says something about me, but I also just liked the fly-on-the-wall-as-action-happens style. Standouts of old-but-new-to-me movies include Interstellar, Grave of the Fireflies, The Apartment, Parasite, Spirited Away, The Social Network, and Top Gun Maverick.
On the other side of the coin, a list of notable movies that didn't live up to their reputations (at least in my experience) include There Will Be Blood, The Substance, Lady Bird, The Boy and the Heron, and Anora (to be fair, I didn't see it until after it won Best Picture, so maybe I had unfair expectations).
The oldest movie I saw was City Lights (1931) by Charlie Chaplin. I also watched two more pre-code movies, Scarface and Grand Hotel (both 1932). I watched an additional 23 movies from the Hays code era.
One thing I'll try to do more this year is to use the whole scale. Almost two-thirds of my ratings this year were between three and four stars, so I'll try a bit harder to distinguish between 2 and 3-star movies, and maybe be a bit less stingy with 5-star ratings.
Ah, I missed this! A few of your scores have made me genuinely curious.
2.5 for Paprika and Howl's Moving Castle?
A 3 for The Godfather?
Why did you rewatch The Breakfast Club?
And what did you think of Anora? (I haven't seen it but since it got so much acclaim)
Also, do you think you have any trouble translating your personal three-star system to the five-star scale?
I think I tagged Paprika something like "I'm too much of an idiot to understand what's going on." I had heard that it was a super creative animated movie, but I think it was too creative for me to the point where I was just confused. I have had a few movies like that. Without looking it up, I can't remember what the premise of the plot even was, and the movie just didn't leave much of an impression on me in general.
For Howl's Moving Castle, I think it was two things. First, it's the highest-rated Ghibli film on Letterboxd, even over Spirited Away (which was great) and Princess Mononoke (which I really need to get around to watching). But it's kinda like Paprika in that it didn't leave much of an impression on me, so maybe part of my low score was just missing on high expectations. I think my other issue with it is that I never understood how the magic worked, so I was playing catch-up trying to understand the plot of a kids' movie. It never feels good to have trouble understanding a kids' movie.
I don't remember a lot about The Godfather. I think it's another one where I had super-high expectations that weren't met. I remember it being too long so I had to run to the bathroom halfway through. I also tend not to like movies that cast "bad guys" in a positive light, so I didn't always like the portrayal of the mobsters. There's a line near the end like "Pay very close attention to which character does X action" that I really needed in order to follow the ending.
I think I first watched The Breakfast Club on a thrift store DVD and gave it another shot after finding it on blu-ray. Of course, had I known that Criterion was going to release a 4K version right in the middle of their fall sale, I probably would have just waited for that.
I didn't like Anora. Since you haven't seen it, I'll be try to be vague. I did like the comedic bits in the middle, but the dramatic bookends didn't work for me. I didn't like the characters, so I wasn't emotionally invested in the outcome. The story was predictable, so there wasn't a particularly interesting twist. And then the ending was "I see what they're trying is trying to do here, but meh." Also, I was put off by the sheer amount of explicit sexual material in the movie. The first 20 minutes or so in particular are very "uhhh, am I in the right theater?"
I don't remember what I wrote about these movies in the weekly threads, but the stuff above is what comes to mind now as I jog my memory.
EDIT: I forgot about your last question. I kinda feel like the Letterboxd scale and mine are basically two separate things. On Letterboxd, I try to give a rating anchored mostly on "how good is the movie?" with some leeway based on my personal experience. My three-star system is entirely on my gut feeling after the movie and basically breaks down as:
★ : Of all the stuff I could have watched, I wish I had picked something else.
★★ : Worth watching
★★★ : This belongs in the priority rewatch list
Sometimes I'll use a half-star when I can't decide which group to put a movie in, but three stars and two tweeners is "Why not just use a five-star scale at that point?" so I'm trying to avoid that moreso now than I have in the past.
Actually, I now remember that the first time I came across your three-star system was when you explained your experience with Howl's. Not sure when last you checked, but HMC isn't Ghibli's highest ranked film on Letterboxd. I'm not sure it ever was - Grave of the Fireflies is, and while Spirited Away is their most popular and most celebrated work, Grave is generally regarded as a slight notch above (although nowhere near as enjoyable). IMO Ghiblii's most popular films, the three that you mentioned, really don't have that much between them, so it could conceivably just come down to taste. For me, the only two films that truly stand a cut above the rest in the Ghibli catalog are Grave and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya - both from Takahata, not Miyazaki.
Paprika is indeed a little oblique in its explanation of its premise. If you don't make sense of the scene immediately after the opening credits, about the technology allowing them to enter people's dreams, it can be a fairly confusing ride. Still, visually, what a ride it is!
I don't have much desire to watch Anora myself. The theater I worked at carried it for months, and everyone came out with glowing reviews having seen it, so you're the first person I've come across with a negative opinion.
It sounds like preconceived expectations might have tainted your viewing experiences a bit last year.
That is a solid year of good movies! You sure like Interstellar :D
There is an export your data feature under advanced settings that should include a CSV of your diary.
Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with mostly giving high ratings. 89% of my ratings are 3 or above. That just means you are watching good stuff, and movie watching doesn't need to follow an even distributed bell curve.
*facepalm*
I agree that you expect to see a selection bias toward higher ratings because each person will have a tendency to pick movies they're likely to enjoy. My concern is that 65% of my ratings fall into only 20% of the range. It may was well be a thumbs up or thumbs down system if I can't tell the difference between 1, 2, and 3, or between 4 and 5.
I look at this way, that I see more value in having several degrees of good, than a fine tuned scale for bad. A 1 or 2 star film is basically something I wouldn't recommend, and I will need a really good reason to watch a movie that has an average rating substantially below 3, so that becomes the default starting point for a movie worth watching and then there can be different degrees of greatness from there. I am sure it possible to watch a bunch bad movies, and have some fun with deciding whether it is 2 star level bad or only 1, but then again why bother.
I think it's more useful in that case to lower your 'midpoint' to 2 than to skew the curve right, because the vast majority of people are already going to skew the curve rightward. Just my opinion though.
I'm going to stick to 2025 releases because I don't remember or keep track of what I watch. But it's easy enough to scroll through a list of 2025 releases and jot down what I've seen. Mine is very front-loaded with kids movies and I really don't watch a lot of movies, but...
KPop Demon Hunter -- I really like this movie. It's simple, but animation's nice and the songs are great. I'm past the point of paying attention to the movie when my kids watch it, but I still enjoy it from time to time.
Minecraft Movie -- This movie is all over the damn place. A decent half of it is just straight lifted from the plot of the Warcraft movie / Warcraft 1, even down to Malgosha basically being a female pig version of Gul'dan. Which is honestly kind of enjoyed because that's as close as I'll ever get to seeing another Warcraft movie. I also enjoyed some of the jokes...the bit with Malgosha trying and failing to stab Steve at the end was pretty funny.
Plankton: The Movie -- I refuse to recognize any Spongebob that isn't the first 4 seasons. I mean not really, but this movie wasn't great.
Thunderbolts -- The first MCU movie I've seen in a few years and I really enjoyed it. And not like "it's a mediocre movie, but it's MCU and I can live with it" enjoyed. Like actually enjoyed it.
Happy Gilmore 2 & The Naked Gun -- Grouping these together because they're basically the same idea. Take a beloved comedy and do a sequel 30+ years later. And the result for both was about what I expected -- the same kind of humor as the originals, a lot of in-jokes and nods to the previous film(s), and a pretty forgettable plot. Like I literally do not remember what the plot of The Naked Gun was at all and it really wasn't that long ago that I watched it. All that being said, both are all I want out of comedy films.
I pretty much agree with everything you said and would like to throw in 2 more 2025 releases I saw, both in theaters even:
Tron: Ares (in 3D) - I was a teenager when Tron: Legacy came out, and it was also the first 3D movie I had ever seen. That's pretty much the only reason I went to see Ares in the theater, that and the original soundtrack by Trent Reznor. The audio and the visuals were great, but overall I found it to be extremely forgettable. And I think 3D is still just a gimmick and I expect it will be another 20 years before I see another 3D movie.
Zootopia 2 - Fantastic animation. Insanely detailed scenes. I think you could watch this a dozen times and notice different things in the background each time. Unfortunately it's pretty much the exact same movie as the first one plot-wise. Super safe, but still entertaining.
I think I only watched a dozen or two dozen new to me movies in 2025. That's pretty low for me, but I was watching a ton of television and youtube. I only just started using letterboxd this year, so it's hard for me to tell how many I truly watched in 2025, as I spent a ton of time going and marking anything I watched in the past as watched (so my 2025 has hundreds of movies in my watched list).
I don't think this is a complete list, but here's a list of all of the movies I remember watching in 2025, in no particular order.
Citizen Kane, F1, Ballerina, Aliens, Alien Romulus, Predator 2, Drive, Rocky, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Sonic the Hedgehog, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Fast Five, You Only Live Twice, Imitation Game, and Arrival.
I feel like I'm missing a few, but I think I also watched some movies I've seen before (like my yearly LotR watches, of course) and I watched a ton of TV this year, so I'm maybe just thinking I watched more movies than I did. I also only went to the theater three times this year and that was for the Revenge of the Sith special event, F1, and Ballerina. I intend to go to the theater more this year now that I'm getting back into movies a bit again!
I don't often rate movies as I usually find some enjoyment in most things I watch, but I at least have some musings about some of the movies I watched.
Citizen Kane: Surprisingly watchable, modern feeling, and well paced for having watched it in 2025. It kept my attention the entire time and I kind of want to watch it again now.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?: I regrettably didn't enjoy this much. The jokes didn't land for me. I thought it was just okay. It's weird, because this should be a movie that I love, but I just didn't.
Imitation Game: dud of the year, for me. There was so much hype around this movie when it came out, but it just fell flat for me. There were a couple of great scenes, but I mostly didn't like this one.
Rocky: surprise of the year for me. I'm not sure if it was my favorite or best movie I watched this year, but it was nothing like I expected and the pacing was so wildly different from what I usually watch that it was an utterly unique experience for it to almost just be a slice of life movie.
Arrival: this was probably my movie of the year. It was just so utterly unique and provocative. Denis does it again. I was so emotionally invested in this one as the movie does a fantastic job of framing the story from Louise's point of view and having many of the story beats hit you just as hard as they hit her.
So I watched some bangers in 2025 and some great dumb action movies, too. I've finally been feeling more up to watching movies lately, instead of just TV and youtube, so hopefully I'll have a good list to watch going into 2026!
Here is everything I watched this year
everything.. I think
pretty tame year. How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, Anora, Islands, and Nouvelle Vague were all standouts for newer films.
Any thoughts on La Bête? I never got around to watching it.
oh man! it isn’t a perfect film, but it’s pretty neat and worth the watch. it almost feels like something from Nolan. The pace and rhythm is also interesting. definitely worth a watch.
The year isn't over yet, but I will probably land at about 300 movies, which is more reasonable levels compared to 362 last year. My stats have the complete picture.
One of my goals was to have a greater percentage of non-English language films and about 60% were, so I am satisfied with that. The majority of those were Italian films which has been a big thing for me this year. In addition to even more spaghetti westerns (highlights being And God Said To Cain and I Am Sartana Your Angel of Death), I also explored related genres with giallo (with Deep Red and The Suspicious Death of a Minor being highlights) and poliziotteschi (The Big Racket being the outright insane one and Revolver as a film with more political depth) as they have great deal of overlap in actors, directors, styles and themes.
I am not up to speed with many 2025 releases, as I will usually catch up on those next year, but it has been a real strong year for Danish cinema. I liked A Copenhagen Love Story, Second Victims and Home Sweet Home. There is a generational shift going at the moment with film makers in Denmark, and I am really excited for what we will see in the coming years.
American films of 2025 have mostly been a disappointment, or just decent. Warfare, Weapons and Bugonia was worth watching, but didn't live up to their hype. Minecraft was terrible.
Some 2024 films that impressed me was Parthenope, Bird, Peacock and Conclave.
No concrete goals for 2026 as such. Will continue to watch broadly across periods, countries and genres. Maybe I will dedicate a bit more to rewatch stuff, some more classics from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, and perhaps some more Japanese.
My favorite fictional movie was The Roses (2025), it's not for everyone, but I loved the fact that it wasn't a straight remake of The War of the Roses, plus that it subverts all normal preconceptions in a deliciously weird way.
My favorite non-fictional movie was Prime Minister (2025), a recount of ex prime minister of NZ Jacinda Ardern. There is no narration. No explanation. They simply interweave footage of Jacinda being interviewed, alongside historical footage both professional and personal.
My favorite watch overall was Sholay (1975)... This is not your typical musical melodrama from Bollywood. It was recommended to me by an Indian co-worker as one of the best movies India has ever produced, and I fully concur. It has more in common with Quintin Tarantino than with Bollywood.
Biggest disappointment to me was Frankenstein (2025)... the beginning and middle were almost perfect. The ending was ruined for me. Del Toro had a character quote the ham fisted cliche almost verbatim... "Frankenstein was the true monster." No, del Toro, in this case, the true abomination was actually the ending of your movie.
As someone who does not get Tarantino at all, is this a compliment? :P
Also, Prime Minister seems to be ratings-bombed on IMDB, almost 70% of the ratings are 1/10. Even half of the NZ votes are 1/10. Any ideas why?
Sholay is a blend of many genres. It mixes stylized violence with comedy, romance and westerns. It has iconic dialogue from an iconic bad guy. It also utilizes flashbacks. The point is that it is unlike most Bollywood hits from the 70's.
I'm honestly not sure who the Prime Minister documentary is targeted towards. It doesn't explain things to anyone unfamiliar with the events in NZ (the mosque shooting, the COVID lockdowns.) It doesn't have a lot of new things to say. Perhaps folks dislike this style of documentary. Perhaps a lot of folks are still upset by the lockdowns and ensuing global inflation.
One Battle After Another was the highlight for me. I saw it in theaters three times and loved it every time. Easily one of my favorite movies of all time.
Other movies that I enjoyed (in no particular order):
I was lucky enough to see just about all of them in the theater. There were also two movies from 2024 that I didn't see until this year that are worthy of a mention:
I watched ~30 movies this year, both in theaters and on my Jellyfin server. This year was fairly hectic for me but I still managed to make time to watch a fair number of movies. I made posts about most movies I watched this year, but I know there's a decent number that slipped through.
Highlights of the year were (in no particular order):
Lowlights I'd say were:
Overall, a really solid year. I was kinda surprised how much I enjoyed the movies that did release this year. I feel like I'd heard about a million different movies but only got excited for a tiny portion of them. Curious to see how the next year will play out!
Wow, I can't believe Mickey 17 came out this year. I feel like I saw it in theaters two years ago, which just goes to show how quickly it left my mind. It wasn't bad bad, just disappointing.
Yeah I had to quickly Google it when I was writing the post haha. I think I had expectations for this movie that were just too high for it. I watched Mickey 17 after watching Memories of Murder and Parasite again so I was fresh off Bong Joon-ho's peak films.
That was my experience as well. Great username, btw! I can't remember for sure, but I think I tried to make that (or something very similar) my reddit username ~15 years ago. Ended up going with something Cosmo related instead.
Thanks! I was in the middle of a Seinfeld re-watch when I signed up for Tildes so I was happy to see this username was available
2025 was a poor year for new movies, at least for me.
I tried to watch One Battle after Another. I dislike DiCaprio so much that I have a hard time even starting a movie with him in it, but I gave it a shot. I made it through ten minutes before I had to turn it off and do something else, anything else.
The Lost Bus was ok, Dead of Winter was fine, just not outstanding in any way. Warfare seemed like an earnest attempt by people who knew the subject well, but it didn't really work as a movie. K-Pop Demon Hunters was mediocre at best.
F1 the Movie was disappointing. I kept comparing it to Ford vs Ferrari in my mind and F1 came up very short.
I did watch Prey for the first time this year, and I'm not sure how I missed it when it came out. One of the better Predator movies, I think.
One of the best surprises for me was a B grade movie that I had little expectations from. You know, one of those low budget, shoot-em up popcorn movies. It is called Osiris, and I was far more entertained than I expected to be.
Since this thread has been revived, I'll add a couple of movies that I've watched in the mean time.
Marty Supreme is a difficult one for me to rate. Overall, a good movie, but I dislike the main character so much, I don't think I'll ever watch it again, and I rewatch movies quite often. A one and done deal for me.
It was Just an Accident is a much better film that hits with more authenticity. I'd say this is easily the best movie I watched in 2025.