The best movies of 2025

The cinema of 2025 has been the confirmation of the new perspectives of Spanish cinema. For the first time in years there were two Spanish films in the official Cannes section and another third (the wonderful City without sleep) in Critics’ Week. It is a triumph and a paradigm shift that is reflected in this top of the best of the year that takes into account films released from January 1 to December 31 and that has a winner as predictable as it is logical.

All in a year that experienced, in its final stages, a movement that could shake the entire industry. The possible purchase of Warner by Netflix can change everything in a few months. Although there are ten titles here, there are many more that deserved to be: The turtles, A house full of dynamite, Valor SentimentalThe light we imagine, Madrid EXT, Kontinental ’25 or the wonderful Superman that James Gunn did. Or the short by Elena López Riera, The brides of the south, and the risk of the distributor Atalante bringing and discovering the cinema of Maurice Pialat. Being able to see Naked childhood in a movie theater is one of the great cinematographic experiences of the year.

Jafar Panahi won his first Palme d’Or for this film filmed clandestinely in Iran, which allowed him to leave the country for the first time in years. He now faces a new prison sentence when he returns to the country. They are extra-cinematic reasons, but important to see the talent of the Iranian filmmaker to, with all possible impediments, create a thriller full of black humor that talks about how to break the cycle of violence and if revenge is the best way to achieve it. Its final shot, with that out of frame and the sound that threatens again, is one of the best of the year.

What a personal, complex and interesting adaptation that the almost debutante Ramel Ross came up with, who solved the problems of Colson Whitehead’s novel with a solution that underlined how the point of view of a film is fundamental. The viewer saw the film through the eyes, literally, of these two kids who were known in a reformatory where young black men were murdered and buried without giving news to their families. Without resorting to easy drama, with an excellent staging, Ross confirmed himself as a great director to follow.

Yeah, Alpha It is an irregular film, but as its own director, Julia Ducournau, said when she received the Palme d’Or for Titanium, She is aware that her films are far from perfect, and that is why they are so unique, they feel so different and personal. How easy it would have been for the French filmmaker to settle in and make something big in the US, and yet, with her stark and intense style, she addresses the wounds left by AIDS in a film that is always committed to offering something new. It goes so hard that it often crashes, but when it works it is better than most of the films that are released.

Kelly Reichardt is so good. Without making noise, without fuss, she has become one of the fundamental filmmakers of US independent cinema in recent decades. To an impeccable filmography with titles like First Cow y Old Joy join now this film that explodes the clichés of robbery cinema. It takes away the glamour, it imprints it with the gray of everyday lives, and in the background the protests against the Vietnam War in a moment that could have been a change, but ended in an illusion. All with a full Josh O’Connor.

Many times adjectives like ‘necessary’ or ‘important’ are used too easily to talk about a film. With Hind’s voice They can be said without being afraid, because what Kaouther Ben Hania has done with this film is an urgent cinema, a punch on the table to raise people’s awareness about the genocide in Gaza. He has done so with a film that avoids emotional pornography and remains faithful to its ethical and aesthetic proposal: using the real voice of Hind Rajab, the girl shot dead by the Israeli army, to recreate the work of the Red Crescent that tried to rescue her. A countdown thriller where one knows the end and which is one of the films that mark this year, without a doubt.

And we went rave thanks to Oliver Laxe. His most popular proposal, without giving up his hallmarks already noted in his previous work, has become an international phenomenon. At Cannes everyone was talking about her and she won the Jury Prize. Now in Hollywood they are clapping their hands with this sensory, immersive and even physical proposal. It has made the cut in five Oscar categories and has confirmed Laxe as one of the great Spanish directors. A film that also has a strong political message: even those who want to leave the system end up affected by what is happening in the world. Its first hour is one of the best of 2025 cinema.

Albert Serra blew up the 2024 San Sebastián Festival with this documentary about bullfighting which, as we expected from him, meant looking through the lock of what was forbidden, of what we do not want to look at. He got everyone to discuss his images and got the debate back to the center. In its staging, because it is a documentary where there is clear directing work, there is a portrait of the cruelty of the bulls, and also of that masculinity that prevails in the gangs. Images like Roca Rey being dressed as if he were a drag queen are something to remember. Free, risky cinema, from one of the most unique minds in Spanish cinema. Now we just have to wait to see what he has done with his English debut in what seems to be a comedy about the political relations between Russia and the US.

What a year for Spanish cinema. Cannes saw the consecration of a generation of filmmakers who are changing the norms of the industry. Laxe and Carla Simón appeared at the most important festival in the world with their new works and made everyone fall in love with them. Pilgrimage It is a beautiful film, which confirms the great sensitivity of the director, her ability to be political and poetic at the same time, without unnecessary dialogues, giving power to the image. He has complete control of his film and it shows. But if there is something that moves you in this film that tells the story of his parents, who died from AIDS and heroin, it is his defense of cinema as a reconstructive agent of memory, even invented, as shown in that dreamlike final half hour, one of the most exciting of the year and that also points to new directions in the career of Simón, who with only three films is already one of the most important figures in Spanish cinema.

One of those rare inclusions, because it is clearly a film from 2024, but it was released in Spain in January 2025, and therefore it should be almost at the top of this list, because Brady Corbet’s historical epic left us all speechless. A blow to the American dream, to the most brutal capitalism, that restores faith in an aesthetically and thematically ambitious cinema. Filmed in Vistavisión, with a hypnotic soundtrack, with Adrien Brody who deservedly won the Oscar… all in The brutalist It is first class cinema.

Rarely is there such a consensus with a work, but Paul Thomas Anderson’s new work is a masterpiece. It is also one of the films that best defines the current moment. A very free adaptation of the Vineland by Thomas Pynchon that mixes genres, styles, tones, and always comes out victorious. He is capable of playing absurd humor The Big Lebowski and then deliver one of the best action scenes seen in years (that chase along the highways). Everything flows, everything seems about to overflow and always ends up finding its place. A film that teaches us that revolutions must be transmitted from generation to generation so as not to regret what may come. It’s the movie of the year.