Favorite Films of 2025 (so far)
Wait, we're halfway through the year already?!
2025 has been a very weird year so far for cinema. Actually, it’s been a very weird year period (one could say disastrously dystopian) from a societal and global standpoint. Maybe that’s why keeping up with films has felt especially cathartic; as both a much-needed distraction from the chaos as well as reminder that art can still provide meaning if we are open to it. However, as much as I enjoy going to the theater, the lack of diversity in what’s actually available has been disheartening (sorry, there’s no A Minecraft Movie or Jurassic World Rebirth represented here), relegating the majority of my list to the realm of indie arthouse fare often viewed from the comfort of my laptop (the horror!) The good news is that if you dig around long enough, a plethora of new releases worth your time and energy can be unearthed. The following unranked selection is simply a taste.
Universal Language
Writer-director Matthew Rankin’s wonderfully postmodern rendering of Canadian history filtered through the lens of filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami, Roy Andersson, Aki Kaurismäki and Guy Maddin that uses its offbeat tone to create a moving depiction of what it means to belong. A strange/funny/sincere/deadpan delight.
*Universal Language is currently available on VOD
Invention
Director Courtney Stephens and writer-actor Callie Hernandez have crafted a deeply fascinating lo-fi curio (shot on grainy 16mm) that blends fictional elements with autobiography in a way not dissimilar to the work of hybrid doc filmmaker Robert Greene. It’s a film about loss, aimlessness, and the sadness lurking under the guise of normality that also happens to crackle with an off-beat sense of humor.
*Invention is currently available on MUBI
Viet and Nam
A queer slow cinema love story that might initially appear to be riding purely on atmospheric vibes until you realize that filmmaker That Truong Minh Quy is actually commenting on specific humanitarian/socio-political issues throughout. The results are a gentle polemic which contrasts the moving plight of its central lovers with a nation reeling from collective emptiness.
*Viet and Nam is currently available on VOD & MUBI
The Shrouds
Another late career masterwork from David Cronenberg. Relaxed, talky, inquisitive, haunting, and intentionally funny in its dissection of grief, the limits of technology, conspiracy theories, and our obsession/connection with the physical body. A provocatively absurdist jab to the ribs from one of our great filmmakers!
*The Shrouds is currently available on VOD & The Criterion Channel
The Gullspang Miracle
A seemingly life-affirming tale of two sisters discovering a possible lost member of their family turns strange and sinister in Maria Fredriksson’s riveting documentary which highlights the lies we tell ourselves in order to live with the past. Unpredictable, wryly humorous, and surprisingly moving.
*The Gullspang Miracle is currently available on VOD
April
This portrait of a lonely obstetrician secretly performing abortions in her rural eastern Georgian town is a haunting mix of chamber drama, slow cinema naturalism, and stark surrealism. Be warned, though: there’s one early prolonged sequence of a botched delivery which underlines director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s absolutely unflinching mode of witnessing without cutting away. Not an easy watch, but an essential one.
*April is not currently available to rent or stream
Concrete Valley
*Concrete Valley is currently available on VOD
Caught by the Tides
There seems to be a common theme in my favorite films so far this year where fictional and nonfictional elements are seamlessly integrated, and Jia Zhang-ke’s latest opus, Caught by the Tides, is no exception. Recycling unused footage from older material with new sequences, Jia weaves an experimental collage of memory and temporal states using spouse and longtime collaborator, actress Zhao Tao, as the film’s bleeding heart.
*Caught by the Tides is not currently available to rent or stream
The Heirloom
A self-reflexive collaboration between writer-director-star Ben Petrie and his longtime partner Grace Glowicki in which a couple decides to adopt a rescue dog while the COVID lockdown looms on the horizon. There’s a sleight film-within-a-film construct, but Petrie never makes the autobiographical elements obvious; instead crafting a humorously perceptive two-hander about domestic relationship struggles that also happens to feature a great movie dog. Take that Snoop from Anatomy of a Fall!
*The Heirloom is currently available on VOD
Vulcanizadora
Writer-director Joel Potrykus returns to the characters from his 2014 indie breakthrough, Buzzard, by catching up with them in middle-age. If the film’s first half recalls a more antagonistic version of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy with our two central weirdos wandering aimlessly through the forest on a camping trip, the final third shifts into something stranger and sadder; giving us a clear-eyed vision of what happens when Gen X slackerdom exists far beyond its sell by date.