mid-year report
the best six films of 2025 pt. 1 // the top 25 films of the 21st century, in real time
My goal with this newsletter is to write about new films as they reach general release and to feature seasonally appropriate commentary on other cinematic events and interests. This week we’re taking a break from normally scheduled content to indulge in some clickbaity mid-year/quarter-century listicles. This newsletter comes out every Wednesday, which this week means Thursday.
Happy extended Fourth of July weekend. I’ll get back to normal business next week with reviews of F1: The Movie and Jurassic World: Rebirth, but I wanted to take a break to acknowledge that we’re halfway through what’s turning out to be a not-so-bad year at the movies. At the start of March the critical apparatus was cuing up an end-of-year post-mortem cycle, but ever since Minecraft made $400k we’ve been riding a decent wave of commercial and critical success alike. Are movies back? Sure, why not.
If you've been tapped out for the past six months, don’t worry: plenty of the best stuff is still in theaters, and plenty more is coming to subscription streaming soon. If you need a place to start, here’s the *life is disappointing* top six of 2025, pt. 1.
Ryan Coogler, Sinners (streaming on demand, coming to HBO Go soon). Two months later, this is still the flagship film of the year. Inconsistent, overlarge, and hyped to undeath, it holds up as a life-affirming omnibus that garners nothing but good will. Sinners has something for everyone - and more importantly, it has something to pull everyone back when it goes too far in a direction they might not want to take. There’s probably some backlash out there somewhere, but no one has time for that. Sometimes you just have to meet the cultural moment and swing with it.
Steven Soderbergh, Black Bag (streaming on demand). Black Bag is the exact sort of early-year, perfect movie that’s bound to be forgotten by December. Soderbergh stays on post-retirement autopilot, but this time he lands it. Essentially the inverse spy thriller of Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Fassbender and Blanchett deliver a demonstration of how adults can have fun at the movies without giving gas to a franchise that exists to sell toys.
Wes Anderson, The Phoenician Scheme (still in theaters). At the moment the most underrated film of the year, and I doubt it will get the love it deserves by best-of season. In a few years I think we'll realize what we're missing, especially if Anderson continues to develop on the religious/materialist themes he introduces here. The Phoenician Scheme moves so fast that it’s easy to blink over what makes it work, but a second watch drove it home for me and I’d recommend trying again to anyone who wrote it off the first time.
Rungano Nyoni, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (streaming on demand; coming to HBO Go soon). The closest thing to a masterpiece of this year's first harvest. Guinea Fowl isn't awards-elligible (it technically came out in 2024) and won’t get an end-of-year prestige bump, which means it probably won’t get the audience it deserves. Do yourself a solid and watch it. I think Nyoni might be a generational talent, and I’m excited to stan her for years to come.
Andrew DeYoung, Friendship (still in theaters). It’s ripe for thinkpieces and conversations about contemporary masculinity, but what Friendship deserves is teenagers going to see it and quoting one-liners on repeat until the next generation of teenagers tells them it’s not funny anymore.
Danny Boyle, 28 Years Later (in theaters now). It's a mess, it's too much, there's something to frustrate/disgust everyone - and it's doing things in a way that I've never seen before. We've only had a couple weeks for it to sink in but right now 28 Years Later is feeling like a high-watermark of Boyle's career. It’s of a fascinating piece with Sinners, not just because they both feature undead horrors, cunnilingus, and Jack O'Connell. In their maximalism, in their breadth, in their meta-cinematography, in their structure, and in their groundedness in human experience - both films present something that’s not exactly new but nevertheless responds to a new moment. This is art that acknowledges a world that’s too much and asks, "what do you want to do with it?" The answer needs some editing yet, but we're working on it.
I started making my New York Crimes top ten of the 21st-century list but got crabby and bored (also, I don't have a NYCr subscription and couldn’t submit it anyway, so who cares). Instead of narrowing down my takes to an appropriately interesting list of ten, I had more fun thinking back on the past 25 years and remembering where I was in my relationship with cinema. 2001 was probably the year I first formed real opinions about culture, and it's interesting to think back about what I cared about through middle school, high school, college, drunk young adulthood, less drunk young adulthood, and whatever relatively steady pre-middle-age period I'm at now.
Do you care? Probably not a whole lot, but I did it so I might as well share it. Take it or leave it, these are my top movies of the past 25 years as I was living them, as best I can remember them from 2025.
2001. Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. We didn’t know how good we had it.
2002. Sam Raimi, Spider-Man. We really didn’t know how good we had it.
2003. Gore Verbinski, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. I have probably thought about this movie every day for the past 22 years.
2004. Brian Robbins, The Perfect Score. 2004 was defined by not being invited to this movie and therefore not kissing the girl I had a crush on.
2005. Judd Apatow, The 40-Year Old Virgin. 2005 was defined by being invited to this movie by some kids who were two years older than me. I did not kiss any of them.
2006. Christopher Nolan, The Prestige. For some reason I was wearing eyeliner when I saw this.
2007. Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood. By this point I was incapable of thinking my own thoughts and only listened to critics and year-end lists. They were right though, it's good.
2008. Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight. I was 17 and had no other choice.
2009. Quentin Tarantino, Inglorious Basterds. Holds up.
2010. Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan. I was depressed this year.
2011. Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive. I was angry this year.
2012. Harmony Korine, Spring Breakers. I'm not sure I actually saw this in 2012, but it was so aligned with my interests at the time that it has to be the one.
2013. Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street. I was drunk this year.
2014. David Fincher, Gone Girl. I distinctly remember speaking the sentence, "This is an important movie to come out right now because of Gamergate."
2015. George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road. Holds up.
2016. Martin Scorsese, Silence. I was pious this year.
2017. Martin McDonough, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Saw this with my future mother-in-law. She liked it and I was intimidated so I liked it too.
2018. Yorgos Lanthamos, The Favourite. Saw this with my future mother-in-law. She did not like it but I was less intimidated by this point and felt comfortable asserting my own opinion.
2019. Robert Eggers, The Lighthouse. Laughed the entire way through.
2020. Christopher Nolan, Tenet. I hated this movie but I don't think I saw anything else.
2021. Denis Villeneuve, Dune. Watched this at home but it felt like going back out into the world for the first time.
2022. Martin McDonough, Banshees of Inisherin. Stand by it.
2023. Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon. Stand by it.
2024. RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys. Stand by it.
Looking back, I realize I saw almost all of these movies at the two-screen Grandview in St. Paul, usually from the back row and usually with the same five or six people. It's silly to get sentimental, but cinema is a social art that has been a massive component of my growing up. I usually go to movies alone now and focus on getting the best seat with the best audiovisual experience, but there’s a lot to be said for the value of seeing good stuff in the crappy corners of crappy theaters with the people you love.
I suppose this is what they call nostalgia. Whatever. I am excited for the second half of 2025 and the next three quarters of the 21st-century. And for digging into F1 and Jurassic World next week. Spoiler alert, they blow chunks.
Thanks for reading *life is disappointing.* If you found this newsletter slightly less disappointing than the rest of your life, consider liking, commenting, pledging me money (thanks!), or subscribing. Subscribing will get you exactly what you get here but sent to your email inbox. I’ll be back next week with reviews of two of the hottest blockbusters of the summer.