It was a strange and wonderful year for movies and television shows according to faculty in the Department of Film and Media. Choices for the best onscreen delights of 2025 include thought-provoking drama, genre-bending satire and not a small amount of the unexpected.
Tanine Allison, associate professor and Arthur Blank NEH Chair in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences
“Sinners” (Director: Ryan Coogler)
In an era of sequels and comic-book adaptations, “Sinners” director Ryan Coogler broke the mold. He wrote an original story, remixed different genres (horror, period drama, supernatural thriller) and drew from cinematic and personal history. The result is extraordinary: a critics’ favorite and pop-culture phenomenon that has broken box office records. “Sinners” is a heady mix of vampires, blues music, racial violence and sensuality — all filmed in gorgeous 65mm and IMAX. This is Coogler’s fifth collaboration with Michael B. Jordan, who delivers a remarkable performance as a set of twins attempting to open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi. It’s a genre movie and prestige picture all in one.
“Freaky Tales” (Directors: Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden)
For a movie with such a silly title, I was surprised to find “Freaky Tales” so entertaining. A pastiche of different genres, the film features a series of interconnected stories: punk rockers joining forces to run racist skinheads out of town, a new father trying to leave the mob, an epic rap battle, a corrupt cop and an NBA player with mystical powers. As Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s love letter to late-1980s Oakland, California, the film fuses supernaturally tinged storytelling with references to real-world events and figures like rapper Too Short and former Golden State Warrior Sleepy Floyd (who also appears in a cameo).
“Severance,” season two (Showrunner: Dan Erickson)
“Severance” is a remarkable and refreshingly eccentric show which inspires strong feelings for or against — and it only gets more bizarre in its second season. The show follows Mark S. (Adam Scott), a man whose mind has been biologically “severed,” so that his work self (or “innie”) is unaware of his outside self, and vice versa.
While this season includes a lot of back story, it also turns up the weirdness with an “outdoor” retreat for innies, an amazing “choreography-and-merriment” celebration with a full marching band and secrets revealed about the mysterious “goat room.” The ensemble cast is stellar overall (John Turturro and Christopher Walken are personal favorites), but this season, Milchick (Tramell Tillman) and Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) steal the show as the strangest corporate managers one could imagine.
Matthew Bernstein, Goodrich C. White Professor
“It Was Just an Accident” (Director: Jafar Panahi)
A Tehran car mechanic believes he has found his former prison torturer, but he can’t be sure because he was blindfolded the entire time. So, he abducts him, keeps him in a box in his van and drives around the city asking fellow victims for verification, which no one can provide definitively. Panahi and his collaborators expertly unfold this meticulously crafted thriller, which was inspired by pro-democracy protesters Panahi met in an Iranian prison. The story is punctuated with unexpected scenes of absurd, laugh-aloud humor.
Ultimately, however, “Accident” is a profoundly anti-authoritarian film as it dramatizes the damage Iran’s repressive regime has done to its citizens and questions what constitutes justice. Entertaining and thought provoking, it gets my vote for best film of the year. Unsurprisingly, but appallingly, the Iranian government has just sentenced Panahi in absentia to a year in prison for “propaganda activities against the system.”
“Bugonia” (Director: Yorgos Lanthimos)
Not everyone loves Yorgos Lanthimos’ films starring Emma Stone. But I find “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” to be exhilarating, fearless filmmaking. With their absurdist social satire, these are movies that regard human nature with a cool clinical eye.
This year, we can add Lanthimos’ remake of a low-budget 2003 South Korean film to this list. In “Bugonia,” two conspiracy theorists kidnap and torture Michelle Fuller, the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, convinced she is actually an alien invader. Emma Stone is outstanding as the victim — but the true revelation here is Jesse Plemons playing Teddy Gatz, the lead conspiracist who wishes to be beamed up to the mothership. Teddy has everything figured out and planned out. Unlike the picaresque “Poor Things,” this film unfolds in a tight, linear manner.
“Bugonia” is not a subtle movie; the characterizations are completely over the top, as is some of the action. Overall, it is a wild ride, visually striking, enormously inventive and entertaining.
Jennifer Porst, associate professor and co-director of the film and media management concentration
“Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” (Director: Christopher McQuarrie)
This installment is the eighth and final film in the “Mission: Impossible” film series, which began almost 30 years ago (!) and stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt. Its roots run even deeper though, because the film series is based on a 1960s TV series that aired for seven seasons. Very few franchises run as long or are as successful. But the team behind this one wrapped up this story in a way that was fun and satisfying — especially for longtime fans.
“Mission: Impossible” really embodies the unique potential of film as a medium. As a major spectacle, it uses awe-inspiring action sequences to transport audiences, allowing us to go through things most of us will never experience. Dangling off an 80-year-old biplane flying at high altitude while fist-fighting your longtime nemesis? Pulling off an underwater heist in a sunken Russian submarine in frigid waters without enough oxygen? This film let us get as close as possible, and the fun of that is well worth the price of admission.
“The Pitt,” season one (Showrunner: R. Scott Gemmill)
Each episode of this medical drama depicts a real hour in the life of Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) and his fellow doctors, nurses and patients in a hospital emergency room. The season’s 15 episodes take the audience through the course of one full night’s shift in the ER. While gory at times — I may have had to avert my eyes more than once — the show feels like a warm and cozy throwback to classic television, where each episode was satisfying by itself. The only challenge in watching this show is that once you start, you might have a tough time stopping!
Daniel Reynolds, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies
“One Battle After Another” (Director: Paul Thomas Anderson)
Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s film borrows only the broad strokes of Pynchon’s satirical story and updates its themes for the present day.
Teenager Willa Ferguson (Chase Infiniti) and her father Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) have been in hiding since Willa was a young child, following the dissolution of a revolutionary group of which Bob was a member. Their lives are upended by a deranged and obsessive military officer (Sean Penn) with connections to their past. This is an abundant film, with far too much going on to describe in a single paragraph. It simply has to be seen, and it’s worth rewatching. Long, complex, funny and distressing, “One Battle After Another” showcases stunning performances from Infiniti, DiCaprio, Penn, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall and many others.
“Caught by the Tides” (Director: Jia Zhangke)
Using footage captured over more than two decades, Zhangke creates an original fictional narrative out of fragments from his own life and art. “Caught by the Tides” weaves together newly shot film, material originally shot for earlier movies and footage from home movies to tell the tale of a relationship over years and across distances.
In a series of impressionistic vignettes, the story of singer Qiaoqao (Zhao Tao) and her onetime manager Bin (Li Zhubin) unfolds against the backdrop of China’s transformations from the turn of the new millennium through the COVID-19 era. The film invites us to reflect on the passage of time as it registers in culture, landscape, characters and the actors themselves. Among its many other virtues, “Caught by the Tides” is a profound testament to the world-shaping wonder that is film editing.