2026 is almost here, which means it is time for our annual list of the best movies of the year.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — 2026 is almost here, which means it is time for our annual list of the best movies of the year.

Check out our year-end recap, featuring 25 of the greatest flicks of 2025. How many have you seen?

The best movies of 2025

25. “NOUVELLE VAGUE”

24. “ZOOTOPIA 2” – Review

23. “HAMNET”

22. “WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY” – Review

(Courtesy: Netflix) Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc in “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery).

21. “BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY” – Review

20. “FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES” – Review

19. “PRESENCE” – Review / “BLACK BAG” – Review

(Courtesy: Focus Features) Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender star as married spies in “Black Bag.”

18. “HIGHEST 2 LOWEST”

17. “SENTIMENTAL VALUE” – Review

16. “BUGONIA” – Review

(Courtesy: Focus Features) Left to right: Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in “Bugonia.”

15. “IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU”

14. “THE LIFE OF CHUCK” – Review

13. “THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME” – Review

(Courtesy: Focus Features) Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton in “The Phoenician Scheme.”

12. “EDDINGTON” – Review

11. “RESURRECTION” – Review

10. “SUPERMAN“ (2025, 130 min., directed by James Gunn)

(Courtesy: Warner Bros. Pictures) David Corenswet is a picture-perfect Man of Steel in “Superman.”

After over a decade and a half of cinematic dominance, the superhero genre seemed to be dying off, both at the box office and the court of public opinion. Then, last summer, “Superman” showed superheroics can still surprise us.

James Gunn’s revamp of the iconic hero was a bright breath of fresh air in a noxious year of American culture. The film, which stars David Corenswet as the titular character, is a rallying cry for love, tolerance and justice clothed in comic book spectacle. It struck a chord– I’m not sure whether I cried harder during a movie all year long, and this is a movie featuring a flying dog, inter-dimensional portals and Nathan Fillion in a ginger bowl cut. Whether or not comic book movies ultimately go up, up and away, I’m happy to have had one so truly super.

Read our full review here.

9. “THE MASTERMIND” (2025, 110 min., directed by Kelly Reichardt)

(Courtesy: Mubi) Josh O’Connor plays a bumbling art thief in Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind.”

Josh O’Connor has been everywhere lately. The English actor played the internet’s new favorite “hot priest” in the third “Knives Out,” hosted “Saturday Night Live” and was recently featured in the trailer for “Disclosure Day,” Steven Spielberg’s next movie.

My favorite 2025 O’Connor, however, was his performance as a mediocre art thief in Kelly Reichardt’s downtempo heist movie, “The Mastermind.” There’s a wry sarcasm to the title, considering the movie is actually about an idiot’s hubris.

Reichardt is renowned for her methodical pacing, which can verge on sleepy in “The Mastermind,” especially paired with a faded, 70s palette and fuzzy film aesthetic. But, if you can get on the auteur’s wavelength, “The Mastermind” will steal your breath away. This movie is masterfully made.

8. “IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT” (2025, 103 min., directed by Jafar Panahi)

(Courtesy: Neon) Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr, Majid Panahi and Hadis Pakbaten in “It Was Just an Accident.”

“It Was Just an Accident” has rarely been far from mind since I first watched it earlier this year. While the story is a fairly straightforward revenge tale, its emotional core is achingly complex, begging for continual analysis, recapitulation and examination.

Anchored by an ensemble of great performances and enhanced by director Jafar Panahi’s real-life struggle against his authoritarian government, “It Was Just an Accident” is a profound look at the ways trauma ensnares and defines us. The movie has a quick, frantic energy, but its best moments are the still ones. That is when the movie forces its characters – and the audience – to reckon with the feelings they have been attempting to outpace. The film’s final scene, for instance, is brilliantly, wrenchingly terrifying, which Panahi accomplishes with nothing but a single sound and the memories it wreaks.

Read our full review here.

7. “THE SECRET AGENT” (2025, 161 min., directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho)

(Courtesy: Neon) Wagner Moura stars in “The Secret Agent.”

When “The Secret Agent” topped our list of the best international movies of the year, I wrote that “watching Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film feels exactly like living in 1977 Brazil.” I’d like to amend that: “The Secret Agent” feels like living through 1977 Brazil. The movie is a gripping depiction of survival, following a fantastic Wagner Moura as he navigates the ins, outs and oddities of life under a brutal military regime.

Though the runtime, language and period setting may look daunting on paper, “The Secret Agent” is far from the monotonous tedium of a history book. The film is colorful, dynamic, and best of all, incredibly weird. The offbeat sense of humor inside of “The Secret Agent” is its secret weapon.

6. “MARTY SUPREME” (2025, 150 min., directed by Josh Safdie)

(Courtesy: A24) Timothée Chalamet stars as a hustling ping pong champion in “Marty Supreme.”

“Marty Supreme” is a movie set in the 1950s, scored to the 1980s, grappling with the 1940s and indebted to the 1970s. Nonetheless, it could only have been made right here, right now.

Its star is a big reason why. Timothée Chalamet is a generational talent. The actor shatters the confines of the silver screen with a larger-than-life performance as Marty Mauser, a hustling, arrogant table tennis star.

That’s right! “Marty Supreme” is a movie about ping pong. Simultaneously, it’s one of the most exciting, sexy and thoughtful films of the year. It came out on Christmas for a reason: this flick is a gift.

5. “WEAPONS” (2025, 129 min., directed by Zach Cregger)

(Courtesy: Warner Bros. Pictures) 2:17 a.m. is pivotal to the plot of “Weapons.”

Horror movies have long been used as a Trojan horse for social critique, and “Weapons,” Zach Cregger’s sprawling nightmare of a second film, is no exception. The movie tackles school shootings, substance abuse and police brutality, all inside the framework of a gory, ghoulish mystery. The result is what we called “very smart” and “very scary” and the best horror movie of the year.

There is an incredible delight in seeing “Weapons” for the first time, so I won’t spoil it here, but if there’s any justice in the world, Amy Madigan will be picking up an Oscar nomination next year for her terrifying turn as “Aunt Gladys.”

Read our full review here.

4. “BLUE MOON” (2025, 100 min., directed by Richard Linklater)

(Courtesy: Sony Pictures Classics) Margaret Qualley and Ethan Hawke star in “Blue Moon.”

As a recovering theater kid – if you like 828reviewsNOW, try our theater reviews, too – and a lifelong fan of Richard Linklater movies, “Blue Moon” may as well have been preordained for me as the greatest movie of all time. It isn’t that, but it is a complete and utter delight, which counts for a lot.

The film stars a career-best Ethan Hawke as famed Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, the songwriter behind standards like “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is a Tramp” and the titular “Blue Moon.” In Hawke’s hands, Hart is a handful, alternately oozing charisma and bleeding insecurity. The movie is dialogue-heavy, but Hawke and Linklater’s elegy to the eclipsed showbiz legend is fierce, funny and light on its feet.

Read our full review here.

3. “SINNERS” (2025, 138 min., directed by Ryan Coogler)

(Courtesy: Warner Bros.) Michael B. Jordan, left, and Miles Caton, right, star in “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s brilliant vampire film.

Has a movie made more of a cultural impact in 2025 than “Sinners”? Ryan Coogler’s vampire epic became a classic almost upon release, buoyed by its endlessly quotable dialogue and killer original soundtrack. Rarely has a movie this bloody, bold and audacious been so crowd-pleasing.

Coogler directs the hell out of “Sinners,” but its true revelation are the performances from Michael B. Jordan and Miles Caton. The former delivers a movie star tour-de-force as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, each distinctive from the other, while the latter makes his screen debut with guitar-slinging gravitas. Turns out, these two are real good pitted against the forces of evil.

Read our full review here.

2. “ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER” (2025, 162 min., directed by Paul Thomas Anderson)

(Courtesy: Warner Bros. Pictures) Teyana Taylor as Perfidia Beverly Hills in “One Battle After Another.”

Paul Thomas Anderson’s portrait of modern revolution is moviemaking at its highest level. It feels thrilling to witness the cultural baton pushed forward in real time, and that’s exactly what “One Battle After Another” – in lockstep with “Sinners” – has accomplished. PTA’s latest has set a new standard for tackling modernity at the movies.

So far, “OBAA” has picked up one Best Picture award after another, as well as accolades for Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti and Leonardo DiCaprio’s dynamite performances. Despite that veneer of awards prestige, “OBAA” couldn’t be more unpretentious. The movie is vastly entertaining, perversely hilarious and an uncompromising exercise in real talk.

Read our full review here.

1. “SORRY, BABY” (2025, 103 min., directed by Eva Victor)

(Courtesy: A24) Eva Victor wrote, directed and starred in “Sorry, Baby.”

I love when a film feels like a discovery, and Eva Victor, the writer, director and star of “Sorry, Baby,” is a true blue discovery. Victor’s voice, communicated through a sharp script and their tender, touching performance, is the sound of a major new talent arriving.

Victor’s dramedy follows a college English professor dealing with a “bad thing” that happened to her in grad school. “Sorry, Baby” has a simple story, but its narrative arc is slowly unspooled through a series of poignant vignettes, each filled to the brim with insights on, say, jury duty impartiality, or the restorative benefits of adopting a kitten.

This is not a “big” movie. There are few flashy scenes or dramatic plot twists. It’s set in a small New England town and features no major stars. Yet, the climax of “Sorry, Baby,” staged in lowkey monologue, managed to rip my heart out in the biggest way possible. Victor is our victor of 2025 movies.