2025 Young Critic Awards

We come to the end of another year; thirteen since Young Critic first began. It has been a journey marked by various milestones: graduating high school, college, jobs, relationships, and, most recently, moving to a new country and continent. Yet through it all, film and cinema have always been there to welcome me. Theaters have been a temple of safety, where the common language of cinema never fails to provide a sense of home.

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Given the changes in location, however, I’ve had less access to films this year, particularly end-of-year awards contenders, than I usually would. As such, titles like Marty Supreme, The Secret Agent, Peter Hujar’s Day, Is This Thing On?, No Other Choice, or The Testament of Ann Lee were not available to view where I am, meaning they could not be considered for this year’s list. Nevertheless, there remains an ample selection from which to choose. It was a wobbly year for cinema in terms of box office performance and industry consolidation, yet the quality of films continues to stand out. Even if the future looks bleak for cinemas in the short term, the present is still delivering truly delicious work.

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Before starting with our list and the awards below, I want to thank everyone who has read a review this past year, whether for the first time or as a longtime reader. Here’s to a wonderful new year full of great movies.

 

Honorable Mentions

 

2000 Meters to Andriivka
Black Bag
Blue Moon
Frankenstein
The Naked Gun
The Perfect Neighbor
Presence
Warfare

 

10. The Life of Chuck

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Mike Flanagan is best known as an auteur of modern horror, delivering acclaimed adaptations such as The Haunting of Hill House (2018), Doctor Sleep (2019), and The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), among others. Yet it is in this sentimental adaptation of a Stephen King short story that Flanagan delivers his most touching and affecting film. Largely ignored by theatergoers and met with indifference from many critics, The Life of Chuck won me over completely, its hypnotic balance of emotion and drama proving quietly devastating. The second-act opening scene, where accountant Chuck encounters a street musician, is the year’s most surprising and joyous moment, capable of forcing a smile even from the most cynical moviegoer.

 

9. Romería

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Carla Simón’s latest film is a brilliant exploration of the healing yet unreliable nature of memory, both individual and collective. When a young woman returns to Galicia for the summer to uncover the truth about her maligned father, she encounters conflicting narratives about her parents’ past. Romería becomes a meditation on the slipperiness of family memory, the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of identity, and, by extension, the narratives of a nation. Anchored by a remarkable first-time performance from Llúcia Garcia, Simón delivers a nuanced exploration of remembering as a necessary, if imperfect, act.

 

8. Hamnet

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Chloé Zhao’s follow-up to her ill-advised foray into Marvel filmmaking is an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s historical fiction novel about the origins of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Centered on Agnes Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, Zhao and O’Farrell, who adapts her own novel, offer a fresh reinterpretation of one of the most performed plays in the English language. Approached through grief and catharsis, Hamnet reframes the familiar from an intimate, human perspective. Zhao draws two of the year’s finest performances from Paul Mescal as Shakespeare and a career-best Jessie Buckley as Agnes, indomitable and unforgettable.

 

7. Train Dreams

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Reuniting the creative team behind Sing Sing (2023), Train Dreams places Clint Bentley in the director’s chair, with Greg Kwedar co-writing (the inverse of their previous collaboration). This adaptation of Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella offers a gentle portrait of frontier life and its gradual disappearance at the dawn of the twentieth century, as America’s western railroads near completion. Evoking a Terrence Malick sensibility while borrowing from First Cow (2019) and Jeremiah Johnson (1972), Train Dreams is the year’s most nature-attuned film. Its restraint and undramatic approach render life’s tragedies and joys as fleeting moments of reflection—small additions to the existence of a seeming nobody whose world nonetheless becomes impossible not to love. The result is a quietly transcendental work for modern times.

 

6. Sentimental Value

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Joachim Trier’s latest reunites him with muse and collaborator Renate Reinsve for a finely calibrated family drama. Exploring the toll that families and the physical spaces they inhabit can carry across generations, the film recalls the best of Ingmar Bergman. Through layered meta-commentary on filmmaking and intergenerational longing, with art at the center proving the key to healing such calcified personal rifts, Trier crafts the year’s most compelling domestic drama. Reinsve delivers another powerhouse performance, while Stellan Skarsgård reaches a career high, anchoring the film with devastating precision.

 

5. One Battle After Another

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Adapting Thomas Pynchon’s unwieldy Vineland, Paul Thomas Anderson delivers one of the year’s most relentless and electrifying films. Despite its near three-hour runtime, One Battle After Another moves at a blistering pace, fueled by revolutionary fervor and a sharp examination of the virtues and follies of moral resistance against authoritarianism. Balancing humor and drama with near perfection, the film stands as both a vital political text and one of the year’s most entertaining cinematic experiences. Led by an irresistible Leonardo DiCaprio and featuring Sean Penn in a deliciously unforgettable villainous turn, it never loosens its grip.

 

4. Sirat

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Olivier Laxe’s latest is the year’s most hypnotic cinematic trip, boasting both one of the finest soundtracks and the most mesmerizing visuals of 2025. Set in the Moroccan desert, the film follows a father searching for his missing daughter among sprawling techno raves. What begins as a grounded quest soon descends into a biblical allegory of spiritual journeys, human kindness, and nature’s merciless indifference—where one misstep can mean the difference between hope and hell. Sirat delivers some of the most unforgettable scenes and visuals of the year, burned into your retinas and lingering within your soul months after your last viewing of this transporting piece.

 

3. The Voice of Hind

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One of the year’s most emotionally devastating films, The Voice of Hind blends documentary and dramatization under the careful direction of Kaouther Ben Hania. Incorporating the real emergency call of a Palestinian child as her family is bombed by Israeli Defense Forces, the film transcends political debate to confront the raw human cost of war. The undertaking is fraught with ethical peril, risking exploitation or melodrama, but Ben Hania navigates it with remarkable restraint and balance. Never tipping its cast into overacting, The Voice of Hind lays out both the impossible and inhuman Kafkaesque bureaucracy preventing the swift rescue of a child with a gentle hand, illustrating the utter helplessness one can feel in war. The result is not only one of the year’s finest cinematic works, but also one of its most necessary.

 

2. It Was Just an Accident

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If One Battle After Another depicts revolutionary action, It Was Just an Accident embodies revolution through its very existence. Jafar Panahi, who has been exiled, imprisoned, and once again sentenced to jail for his art, continues to turn filmmaking into defiance. The film follows former political prisoners who believe they have captured their former torturer, only to be consumed by doubt: Is this truly the man? Is vengeance justified? What is the cost of revenge? Panahi delivers a haunting meditation on collective trauma, guilt, and the impossibility of clean moral resolution. Its power lies equally in its artistry and the courage of its creation.

 

1. Sorry, Baby

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When I first saw Sorry, Baby, I admired it as a confident debut from actress-turned-writer-director Eva Victor. Yet as I finalized this list, I kept returning to its flawless craftsmanship, enduring emotional resonance, and refreshingly mature handling of sexual assault, especially in contrast to other films tackling similar themes this year (ahem After the Hunt (2025)). Blending humor, tact, drama, sharp dialogue, inventive structure (beginning at the end and working backward), and restrained yet unforgettable performances, Sorry, Baby remains grounded in an appeal to simple humanity and kindness. Victor excels across the board: writing, directing, and leading a cast in perfect harmony. Every element, from pacing and editing to music and character chemistry, works in concert. It is the best film I saw in 2025.

 

Don’t forget to check out our awards categories and winners below.

Happy New Year!