Best of 2025 — Movies
28 Years Later
My father passed away unexpectedly in December of 2024. Losing a loved one has a way of making you confront your own mortality and the time you have left. You look at your partner and children differently. How can I prepare them? What will they remember most about me? What do I want them to remember most about me? How can I make them feel loved, even when I’m gone? It’s extremely heavy stuff. And they aren’t the type of feelings I expected to confront in a fucking zombie movie, especially one that features a zombie with a distractingly large penis.
The third act of this film absolutely devastated me. Just uncontrollable, ugly crying in a packed theater. “There are many kinds of death. Some are better than others. The best are peaceful where we leave each other in love.” This film is more tender and open-hearted than the gore and full-frontal male nudity would suggest. It is far and away my favorite movie of 2025.
Secret Mall Apartment
If you’ve been on LinkedIn the past few years (or ever), you might have noticed that advertising professionals hold themselves in high esteem. “Thought Leaders” are constantly crowing about driving culture, engagement metrics, or the power of creativity. In advertising school, we were told that ads can—and do—change the world, a self-important mentality I brought to my first job. Thankfully, a humbling piece of feedback early on set me straight: “Even if there is some artistry in what we do, we do not actually make art.” It was meant as an admonishment, something to help me get over some quippy headline I felt was too pure and perfect to rejigger to fit a client’s feedback. I am not an artist. If you work for an ad agency, neither are you (sorry). And the people who are using AI to spit out Studio Ghibli pictures are definitely not.
Secret Mall Apartment is a documentary about a group of artists who built and occupied a communal living space in a disused nook of the biggest mall in Rhode Island. Displaced by the construction of the mall, the apartment became a way to rebel against the arrival of capitalism on their doorstep. But as the film digs a little deeper, it reveals a group of people who believe art is not something that is made, but lived.
It looks at a handful of the groups’ “outsider art” projects that they created during the four years they managed to keep the apartment a secret. It shows why “art for art’s sake” remains so important. We live in a society that has encouraged us to turn any creative hobby into a revenue-generating opportunity, so art that simply refuses to engage on those terms becomes even more valuable, particularly as it becomes more scarce.
Eephus
Round bat. Round ball. Hit square.
Much to the consternation of my college roommate (hi Mike!), who had to practically drag me to Braves games in Atlanta (the tickets were free, no less!), my appreciation of baseball has really only blossomed through my son. Even still, my appreciation has less to do with the game itself than the experience of a day at the ballpark with my kid. This event has barely changed over the decades: you scarf down a hot dog that’s been slapped onto a crumbling white bun with all the love of a cafeteria lady who’s just been denied her pension; you drink a runny soft serve out of a souvenir plastic helmet you always accidentally leave under your seat; you wait for something to happen, which only does the moment you look away. It’s wonderful.
Eephus chronicles the final rec league game on a ballfield somewhere in northern Massachusetts before its demolition to make way for a new middle school. Like the game itself, the movie moves at its own pace, luxuriating in empty moments as much as the ones where the ball is in play. This film unlocked a cherished memory of mine—for a handful of summers, my best friend’s older brother played in a college-age amateur league that held weekend night games down the street from my house. Our families would pack a picnic, lay out the lawn chairs, and sit on the hill along the left field line. The game was incidental to the evening, more background music to the horsing around long after bedtime we got away with while our parents cracked beers and shot the shit with the old timers who wouldn’t miss a game.
This film also captures the reality of being an adult in a small town. If you took part in any sport, chances were your team’s skill level varied wildly, and you often were on a team with people you didn’t actually like, but they were the only ones with a full set of catcher’s gear. Nothing makes you feel more alive than when your own dad starts hurling epithets at your seventh grade algebra teacher over a dangerous slide into second base.
To quote the last great baseball movie before Eephus: “How can you not be romantic about baseball?”
Splitsville
The first five minutes of this movie include a spontaneous act of road head, a death, and a divorce, kicking off one of the funniest movies of the year. To say more will only cheapen the fun, so give it a shot.
One Battle After Another
The moment your child is born, your allegiances inevitably shift. The energy you previously put into causes central to your character—volunteering your time, money & expertise—get redirected into protecting and nurturing this new life you brought into the world. But the battles you fought in your twenties were left unfinished, and as your children age, you realize the world you wanted to build—more equitable, more compassionate, more sustainable—is nothing more than exposed studs on a sinking foundation. The one mission we as parents have—leave the world a better place for your children—is in complete shambles.
One Battle After Another is phenomenal. It reminds us to keep up the fight so that when it’s time for our own children to pick up the torch with the wind at their backs. As my own kids age and learn about the world around them, it’s reignited a spark in me to rally and build community wherever, and however I can. Speaking out for trans rights, being a better steward of the environment, and just being a more available friend. In a year that’s left most of us worn down, this film made me feel hopeful for the first time in a while. The kids are alright, but we’ve still got work to do, as well.
Dishonorable Mention — A House of Dynamite
I normally don’t write much about the media I don’t like, but this film stirred such a strong reaction in me I can’t help but share my thoughts. I’ll start by saying that this movie—one that details the U.S. government’s reaction to a nuke launch aimed at Chicago—is worth watching. The first 20 minutes in particular are as dread-inducing as anything I’ve seen ever. So if you haven’t seen it and don’t want to be spoiled, come back later.
You’re still reading, aren’t you? Okay, well, that’s like, your prerogative.
The entire film revolves around just what, exactly, will the President (played by Idris Elba) do in response to this attack? Each vignette ends with “Mr. President, your orders,” before circling back to relive the past 20 minutes from a new character’s point of view. Though I actually enjoyed the repeating nature of the story, all roads led to this pivotal moment where the President needs to pick a retaliation from the nuclear football. “Mr President, your orders.” Then we inexplicably cut to a side character evacuating to a bunker. Fade to black. Roll credits. I thought I was going to wake up my family when I groaned, “Ohhh fuck you” at my TV.
This anger goes beyond the film simply ending on a cliffhanger. By refusing to show a decision—literally any decision—the movie refuses to say anything beyond “this decision would be hard.” It leaves an opening, however miniscule, that things still could work out. America, the best and most awesome country, could still win the day and we’d all wave flags with tears in our eyes. Given that Kathryn Bigelow has come under heat for plastering over some of the more unsavory aspects of our country’s actions abroad, I can see why she left the door open for us to imagine the most level-headed and virtuous among us swooping in to save the day.
The problem is that deciding how to respond to a nuclear attack is not an impossible decision. It’s an irrelevant decision. Everyone in the film was dead the moment the first missile launched. No protocol, no chain of command or selfless heroics could save them. This may seem like a nihilistic approach, but in reality if a nuke were to be launched, we’d all be dead before we even have time to freak out. All the hundreds of billions of dollars we’ve spent on radars, deterrence systems, and our own missiles amount to nothing more than steering wheels on a children's roller coaster. They offer the illusion of control while racing towards a predetermined outcome. This wouldn’t be as galling if the film had not insisted on its own realism. It was just so frustrating.