2020s
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The Films of 2025, Ranked
It’s that time of year: It’s time to look back at and rank every 2025 film that I saw. Instead of doing a top 10 or bottom 10 or anything like that, I’m ranking absolutely everything. And this year, I saw a whole bunch. I’ll say up front that I don’t bother with movies that… Read more
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No Other Choice Finds Park Chan-wook at the Top of his Game
“No Other Choice” is South Korea’s submission to the best international feature film category at the 2026 Academy Awards, and I’ll tell you right now, it’s a lock for one of the five nomination spots. If you want my predictions, I’ll call it now that the real International Oscar category is a race between “The… Read more
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Ball x Pit brings the juice – review
“Ball x Pit” is a 2025 release published by Devolver Digital and developed by Kenny Sun, who spent the prior decade making mobile games. That background in the mobile space can be seen and felt in “Ball x Pit,” but it luckily comes without the shallow gameplay and sleazy monetization practices that are so often… Read more
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2025’s best fight scene could be hiding in this romcom – Splitsville review
2025’s “Splitsville” is a romantic comedy that takes aim at infidelity, polyamory, divorce and the intersection of the three in modern romantic relationships. The tangled-up quadruple at the broken-heart of the film is played by Kyle Marvin, Michael Angelo Covino, Dakota Johnson, and Adria Arjona. All four served as producers on the film, and you… Read more
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The Secret Agent is a triumph for brazil in more ways than one
If you had told me that “City of God” or “Elite Squad: The Enemy Within” took home Oscars for Brazil, I would have believed you. However, it wasn’t until last year’s “I’m Still Here” that Brazil won its first Academy award. But now, the country has a shot at taking down the best international feature… Read more
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Late Shift (2025) Review
“Late Shift,” written and directed by Petra Biondina Volpe, is a Swiss and German production that centers around an ongoing shortage of healthcare professionals. The film has a singular message and dramatizes it exceptionally well with a story that tracks a single shift in an understaffed hospital from beginning to end. The nurse that we… Read more
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Belén (2025) An important true story marred by Poor execution
Set in Tucumán, Argentina in the in the 2010s, “Belén” tells the important true story of a young woman (who ends being known by the pseudonym of Belén, played by relative newcomer Camila Plaate) who went to the hospital in pain and, instead of finding the help she was looking for, was arrested and sent… Read more
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Halloween Ends (Poorly) – Review
David Gordon Green’s modern “Halloween” trilogy started with major promise. Unfortunately, after a decent initial outing, it was all downhill from there. I covered his first two “Halloween” movies along with every other entry in the series in my big “Halloween” franchise retrospective, but “Halloween Ends” came out after I put that behemoth together, so… Read more
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Hedda (2025) Review
Even though the 2021 “Candyman” rebootquel had plenty of problems and was ultimately just okay, director and co-writer Nia DaCosta still made a good first impression with me—I have yet to see her debut feature “Little Woods” but it’s on my radar. I found myself hoping for a longer director’s cut of “Candyman” and planning… Read more
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Little Amelie or the Character of the Rain (2025) Review
Grey joined me for a review and discussion of the 2025 animated film Little Amélie or the Character of the Rain from co-directors Liane-Cho Han Jin Kuang & Maïlys Vallade, and adapted from the autobiographical novel written by Amélie Nothomb. The story of a Belgian child growing up in Japan who believes she’s God .… Read more
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