Steven Benedict
(in alphabetical order)
Ocean With David Attenborough
This National Geographic documentary is at once beautifully calming and terrifyingly ugly. I saw it at the Lighthouse cinema with an audience of schoolchildren, and their presence made the subject matter all the more urgent – their concerns and the belief that we still have time to save oceans were nothing more than electric.
One Battle After Another
More action in the opening twenty minutes of Paul Thomas Anderson's epic movie than in his entire oeuvre from the last 29 years. And then, the closing twenty minutes gave us a car chase worthy of Bullitt. Sean Penn's Lockjaw provides great comedy, but Anderson's real genius is to ensure his focus is not so narrow as to target only the extreme right wing. He mocks the loony left as well, with DiCaprio's dismal efforts to answer "what time is it?", showing how out of touch he is with the real world.
Sinners
Accidentally stumbling across the trailer for Ryan Coogler's movie, my first impression was a rehash of From Dusk Till Dawn, a film I have loathed ever since seeing it at a midnight screening at DIFF way back in 1996. But word of mouth suggested it was something more. And Lordy, was I delighted to be proven wrong. A gangster picture with music... and then comes the fangs! Oh, Lassie, I’m so glad you asked me to go. Only caveat... too many endings. I think the KKK should have shown up in the middle of the vampire mayhem only to be slaughtered as the dawn rose on the juke joint.
Testimony
Aoife Kelleher's documentary details the living hell visited upon the girls and young women who were effectively sentenced to incarceration in the Magdalene institutions. It is one thing to endure such horrors, but quite another to have your experiences refuted, ignored and systematically undermined by the very people in whose ward you were put, and then successive governments. At times, Testimony is nearly unbearable to watch, but it honours and respects those whom the state has continually neglected.
Weapons
Horror is not my preferred genre, so when I was encouraged to see Zach Creeger's new film, I was more than reluctant to do so. But the raves kept coming, and I eventually relented. A brilliantly conceived and then executed premise, Creeger really ratcheted up the bewildering terror and intrigue with a Rashomon-type structure, topped only by the arrival of Aunt Gladys. Sure, some complained about the implausibility of the plot and the contrivance of timelines, etc., but if the emotional pull is strong enough, you ditch logic and just enjoy the (terror) ride.
Turkey...
A certain one hundred and three-year-old vampire movie did not need remaking.
Conor Bryce
- Sinners
Rich, multi-layered and transcendent, Sinners is truly something special. Cooking with a diverse list of ingredients could’ve been disastrous, but director Ryan Coogler didn’t just keep it all together - he created an instant horror classic. A fascinating refresh of the vampire mythos and the best depiction of the power of music ever put to film; if you’ve ever given your soul to a song, Sinners sees you.
- One Battle After Another
A panic attack in movie form, One Battle After Another was the most fun I had in the cinema this year. Easily living up to its title, it rattles along at the breakneck speed of a Michael Bay blockbuster but still manages to deliver the measured, razor-sharp commentary on the American Dream we’ve come to expect from Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s the director’s biggest, bravest movie to date, and with his resume, that’s saying a lot. A messy, odd, and very funny thrill-ride. A chaotic masterpiece.
- Weapons
2025 was a great year for Horror fans - alongside blockbuster action hybrids like 28 Years Later and Sinners, we got eye-watering body horror with The Ugly Stepsister and Together, and more cerebral fare in Bring Her Back and The Shrouds. Weapons, director Zach Cregger’s hugely anticipated follow-up to the equally brilliant Barbarian, managed to give us a little bit of everything, neatly wrapped up with a blood-soaked bow and carried by an instantly iconic villain. An ingenious chaptered format and Rashomon-style narrative lead us a merry dance to a climax both cathartic and insane, the weirdest “punch the air” movie moment you’re ever likely to experience.
- KPop Demon Hunters
It broke all streaming records going and hijacked every parent’s Spotify Wrapped with its all killer, no filler soundtrack; KPop Demon Hunters was the movie moment of 2025. Look beyond a beautifully bonkers plot (generations of girl bands on double duty as ancient demon slayers), creative humour and kinetic animation, and you’ll find a refreshing celebration of female empowerment and a rallying cry to embrace your own identity. That’s how it’s done, done, done.
- The Long Walk
The Long Walk is a movie you’ll revisit years from now as a landmark for its excellent young cast - on this evidence, they’re all destined for greatness. Director Francis Lawrence turns the setup - a group of boys in a dystopian, alternate-reality America undertake an endurance competition where slowing down means dying on camera - into a brutal and soulful journey dripping with sweat, fear and uneasy camaraderie. The best Stephen King adaptation in years.
Turkey: Captain America: Brave New World
Clearly focus-grouped to death, Captain America: Brave New World buries what could have been a great leading performance by Anthony Mackie in a convoluted mess of a movie. Never before have reshoots and script reworks been more apparent - new characters are introduced then swiftly disappear, threads are started and abandoned, the climax is a rushed and unsatisfying CGI nightmare. It’s not hard to imagine that, in the future, Captain America: Brave New World will be remembered as the beginning of the end for the Marvel Cinematic Universe juggernaut. This is one full-on fanboy admitting that it’s maybe time for a break.
June Butler
Good One
A gorgeous coming-of-age film starring Lily Collias as Sam, who travels to the Catskills on a hiking weekend with her father, Chris, and his friend Matt. Sam, the youngest, is by far the most mature as both men battle it out in displays of misogyny that would make Andrew Tate eager to join them on the trip. Lily Collias acts her little heart out and she alone is the shining star in this film.
Turkey: Materialists
Trite, immature, silly, shallow; this film has absolutely nothing going for it. The characters are so completely without merit, I almost started to like them at the end because I felt sorry for them. Dakota Johnson’s endless, fey simpering made me want to relocate to a country with no cinema. Pedro Pascal should have bailed – he is a better actor than this rubbish.
Neil Cadieux
Dracula
I haven't stopped thinking about Radu Jude's Dracula since seeing it, and I'm unsure on when I'll ever stop. This three-hour-long pop cultural autopsy is wholly bleak, and pleasingly challenging. With egregious amounts of A.I. slop and shot on iPhone cinematography, Jude has created some of the starkest depictions of modernity screened thus far.
28 Years Later
Another excellent tackling of the present came in the form of 28 Years Later. Somehow, this statement on waning British identity was disguised as a multiplex -friendly legacy sequel. At one point, the film cuts to a scene from Laurence Olivier's Henry V. This moment felt revolutionary in of itself.
A Body To Live In
Screened by aemi at GAZE International LGBT Film Festival, this documentary details the life of Fakir Musafar, an influential body modifier and artist. The film's biographical narrative is well-told, and frequently moving. Madsen Minax's use of home video and archival footage made for contextual immersion, and moments of genuine beauty.
The Smashing Machine
Benny Safdie's latest effort chronicles the rise and fall of UFC fighter Mark Kerr. The film takes a detached and clinical peer at its subject, played with surprising understatement by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. This collage of documentary-styled realism, scene-stealing needle drops and lavish colour is unique and commendable.
Polina Cosgrave
Eddington
Another masterpiece by Ari Aster, it gets better with every watch. An unapologetic portrayal of our era, its bitterness, cowardice and corruption. A culture that doesn't deserve its title, heroes who have no heart. Astounding script, unparalleled camera work, pure talent seeping through every second of this film.
Sinners
The return of big cinema. A colossal idea and a marvellous execution. Truly the film of the year. I feel like a child again every time I see it. Ryan Coogler brings the magic back onto the screen. His story is truthful, his vision is unprecedented.
Anemone
Ronan Day-Lewis directorial debut is a promise of a young ambitious voice conquering new spaces of our imagination. A fresh sincere view on a theme that still bleeds into our everyday life, implemented with a deep knowledge of cinema classics and a daring sharp individuality.
Sarah Cullen
Look at that, this must be the first year where I haven’t had any horror on my list. Which might be a surprise considering it’s generally thought to be a strong year for horror, but I think I feel otherwise. What does this all mean for me? Personal growth? Unlikely. That I pushed the boat out more than usual? Hmm, maybe. That I’m a contrarian? Almost certainly.
The Long Walk
An extremely impressive adaptation of one of my favourite novels: a Stephen King dystopia in which teenage boys are forced to participate in a competition that ends only when they can no longer walk. And despite it all, The Long Walk becomes an aspirational story of positive masculinity in a bleak, unforgiving world.
Mountainhead
Finally! After a decade, the spiritual successor to my beloved horror The Invitation has arrived. Yes, it’s a very different genre, with Jesse Armstrong’s Mountainhead being a satire, but it’s another glorious case of a ludicrously over-the-top mansion as the setting of a very strange cult whose antics get more bizarre as the story unfolds. Hook it to my veins.
A Different Man
This was a very welcome surprise. Sure, Aaron Schimberg deals with a difficult topic but does so very deftly: not only is A Different Man’s wry examination of ableism spot on, it’s also laugh-out-loud hilarious. The performances are fantastic with Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson operating as excellent foils for each other.
Flow
A gorgeous animated feature from an independent Latvian/French collaboration with a wonderful pared-back aesthetic, bringing the carefully observed motions of its animal designs to the fore. There is also something so very wonderful about seeing a kids’ movie that isn’t packed full of cynical jokes and references to placate the parents. More movies like Flow, please!
Summer Beats
A joyous celebration of youthful antics, which never forgets the troubles that children and teenagers – especially those from disadvantaged areas – face. Escaping from the pressures of family in Paris, two best friends take jobs as summer camp councillors. Summer Beats gives its characters room to breathe, allowing the child actors to steal the show.
Seán Patrick Donlan
Best Irish Feature Film: Christy and Spilt Milk (tie)
These two stories, rich explorations of Dublin and Cork working class communities, past and present, mark the arrival of new talent behind and before the camera. Spilt Milk harks back to the neglected Ballymun films of Joe Lee and the late Frank Deasy.
Best Irish Feature Documentary: Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story
A solid documentary on a seminal writer, important not least because she felt obliged to leave the country. Follow up with Girl with Green Eyes (1964), an underrated adaptation, by O’Brien herself, from her The Lonely Girl (1962). It was only shown in Ireland in 1970.
Best Foreign Film: All That’s Left of You and Vermiglio (tie)
Each film, from female writer-directors, is a powerful portrayal of family and community, births and deaths, sacraments and seasons, pain and perseverance, in the shadow of war and displacement. Each is authentic, patient, and even forgiving.
Anora Award for Most Overrated Film: One Battle After Another
A well-orchestrated circus radically overrated, revealing more about us and our present authoritarian anxieties than its auteur. Despite obvious directorial perfidy, too many consciously project a constructive programme on to his comic-pathetic revolutionaries.
Richard Drumm
5. 28 Years Later
What a pleasant surprise to have a legacy sequel release at this point in time that actively ignores the impulse to nostalgia-bait and wallow in the past of the franchise. But then that is fitting for a film that has such, shall we say, unambiguous thoughts on Brexit and the national character that led to it. An unexpectedly quiet and contemplative film that largely replaced the previous films’ terror with awe, and their general intensity with a genuinely moving climax. The ending is deranged though, and really we’ll have to wait for the sequel to see how well or not it sits as a conclusion to this entry.
4. A House of Dynamite
A few decades ago, films like this were borderline filler releases. But now they’re a rare treat. The structure and ending really worked for me. Given the nature of the drama, the ending as presented is really the only way you could end it to leave the film as the pure cautionary tale and food-for-thought exercise in tension it’s aiming to be. If there’s one negative it’s that Rebecca Ferguson should be in every scene and when she’s not, all the other characters should be asking “Where’s Rebecca Ferguson?”.
3. Eddington
It’s very understandable why so many took against this. It is a “fun” film but it would be hard to describe it as “enjoyable”. But as a pretty unflinching look at where we’re at, especially in regards to modern America, it is a very compelling and hard to turn away from, gaze into the abyss of just how utterly screwed we are if things keep on as they are. A Robocop for the 21st century. Except you’ll less be laughing at it as an absurdity, and more so with bitter resignation.
2. One Battle After Another
An old-fashioned, unambiguous, rollicking good time at The Movies™. A nonsense epic full of memorable characters and set-pieces (the odyssey to escape the town and the climactic car chase are all-timers), that offers a slightly more hopeful other side of the coin to number 3 on this list. On top of that, this is maybe Leo’s best performance. He plays this shambles of a human being with an unexpected ease and offers a glimpse of the kinds of roles he may excel at as he gets older. A fine film to watch with “a few small beers”.
- Hallow Road
A unique set up, two (well, three) great performances, and a surprisingly effective but unexpected escalation that builds on an already tense movie and pushes it into actively stressful territory. It’s one of those films where going in as blind as possible is preferable, meaning my saying too much feels actively detrimental. But if you need a quick vibes-based descriptor; Rosamund Pike in a Silent Hill-style story, told in the same manner as Tom Hardy’s Locke. The perfect kind of film to be trapped in a cinema with so naturally it had a criminally brief run in cinemas.
Turkey: Four Letters of Love
For pure list symmetry it would be nice to say That Crap Magician Film so that Rosamund Pike could be in both the top and bottom of the list. But that film wasn’t even interesting enough in its smug awfulness to warrant that fetid crown. No, Four Letters of Love. Near unwatchable, tourist-board, “Yank-wank” to coin a phrase. Starring the well-meaning but useless loveable uncle of Irish cinema, Pierce Brosnan. In a film where no one can do an authentic-sounding Irish accent, Pierce absolutely can’t the most.
Lauren Gallagher
1. Bring Her Back
Sally Hawkins delivers one of the most devastating performances of her career in Bring Her Back. The film balances horror and grief with remarkable sensitivity, building dread not only through its gruesome violence, but also through its lingering unease. Brimming with nightmarish rituals, shadowy figures and warped reflections that haunt long after the credits roll.
2. It Was Just an Accident
One of Jafar Panahi’s most narratively complex and emotionally volatile works to date. The tension builds almost imperceptibly, through everyday interactions and layered meanings. A deceptively simple story that opens the door for much larger questions of agency, rebellion and life under authoritarian rule.
3. Twinless
Cheerful, endlessly surprising and bursting with heart, Twinless is a romcom-psychological drama hybrid that is as funny as it is moving. It straddles the line between comedy and quiet heartbreak with unusual grace, finding warmth in unlikely places and never taking the easy emotional route. A film that sneaks up on you, then stays with you far longer than you might expect.
4. Magazine Dreams
Despite the controversies surrounding its star and its long, uneasy road to release, Magazine Dreams remains a striking and unsettling character study. In a cinematic landscape recently inundated with examinations of masculinity and sportsmanship, the film avoids melodrama and delivers something far more intimate. Jonathan Majors gives a raw, fearless performance that anchors the film’s emotional weight. This is a film that deserved a far louder conversation than it received.
5. Pillion
A directorial debut of startling confidence, Pillion moves effortlessly between laugh-out-loud humour and quiet devastation. Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling share electric chemistry, grounding a story that is unapologetically sexy but also deeply vulnerable. To provoke laughter and tears within the same scene is no small feat, yet this film manages to do it repeatedly.
6. Sinners
Sinners proves what horror fans have always known; that genre cinema is just as deserving of critical acclaim as its prestige counterparts. Blending horror, period drama, action, romance and musical elements, it takes enormous swings and somehow sticks every landing. The film could easily have collapsed under the weight of its ambition, but instead delivers something remarkably assured. Sinners is one of the best films of the year, genre or not, and a true modern horror landmark.
Turkey: Death of a Unicorn
A rare misfire from A24, despite its excellent ensemble cast. While the performances are solid, the characters are frustratingly underused and the half-baked plot takes far too long to find its footing. For a film with a tight runtime, it feels oddly sluggish. Sadly, not even strong talent can always rescue a muddled idea.
Steven Galvin
Hard Truths
Mike Leigh still banging out magic films and here becomes the assistant to the real magician: Marianne Jean-Baptiste - an absolute cracking performance.
“Why can’t you be happy?”
“I don’t know.”
Gazer
Plays out like a misremembered grainy dream. A laser beam of noir-ish twists that hypnotises you and then pushes you off a cliff.
Christy
Inclusive, affirming, gentle, funny, moving, strong and big-hearted, Christy is a beautiful snapshot of life - helmed by Brendan Canty, an Irish filmmaker who lets the world shine.
Sorry, Baby
Eva Victor’s personal story of pain and living, and healing and friendship is a remarkable feature debut.
On Falling
Laura Carreira points a picker gun at the “gig economy". Her tightrope of systemic anger balancing along a human story brings us to a heartbreaking inevitability.
- One Battle After Another
Something this writer never thought he’d see – a crowd-pleasing blockbuster adapted from the pages of Thomas Pynchon. Paul Thomas Anderson is liberal with the text of Vineland, using it as a jumping-off point for his own ideas, some of which are more Pynchon than Pynchon. Perhaps the most admirable thing about the film is that, despite its mega-budget and a singular auteur at the helm, it perfectly captures the giddy, eccentric spirit of its source material.
- Sinners
As skilful an action horror as Carpenter’s The Thing and Rodriquez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, Ryan Coogler has crafted a period piece with rich thematic concerns around the legacy and evolution of music culture. The vampire trad band brings new meaning to being immortalised through song.
- Eddington
Ari Aster continues to make films that deliberately push buttons and test patience in equal measure. In a world where people with incoherent politics seem to be the only ones making any headway, this satire perfectly meets the moment.
4. Blue Moon
As no fan of musical theatre, I found myself unexpectedly enraptured with this slow chamber piece from Richard Linklater. Ethan Hawke gives a masterful performance, navigating the contradictions of ego, insecurity and shame.
5. Beat the Lotto
This snappy Irish documentary delivers plenty of laughs, a smorgasbord of compelling characters, and an extended sequence of Pat Kenny getting pedantic about statistics and probability. What’s not to like?
Liam Hanlon
Urchin
We know Harris Dickinson can act and he now demonstrates that he can direct with both panache and sincerity. With sprinkles of Loach/Arnold, Urchin freshly invigorates and features a fantastic Atomic Kitten needle drop.
28 Years Later
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland thankfully revisited the 28 franchise without descending into the clichéd territories surrounding the zombie genre. Young Fathers provide a pulsating soundtrack, and with the use of iPhones for cinematography, there is a cinema vérité aspect that succeeds in preventing franchise fatigue. That ending…
Plainclothes
‘90s-based drama about police entrapment of men cruising in bathrooms with an unforgivable absence of George Michael’s ‘Outside’ from its soundtrack. Despite this, Plainclothes is arresting and Tom Blyth is one burgeoning acting talent.
Anemone
Nepotism is bad. However, it can be briefly forgiven when you’re Ronan Day-Lewis, co-write a script with your father, direct the film with ease, and coax said father out of retirement to lead the film. Daniel Day-Lewis, complete with handlebar moustache, returns to the big screen with ease and delivers a monologue about defecation that only a seasoned thespian could deliver.
One Battle After Another
‘That’ car chase sequence is dizzily incredible. Wow.
Mick Jordan
(in release order)
The Extraordinary Miss Flower
When Geraldine Flower died her daughter Zoe found a suitcase filled with love letters from all over the world, revealing a life she’d never known about. Her friend the musician Emilíana Torrini turned these pages into an album Miss Flower and this film from Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard is a visual interpretation of that album. It also features reenactments from the life alongside readings of the letters, by people like Nick Cave and Richard Ayoade. It’s a wonderful dream of a film that appeals to all the senses and bears repeated watching, and listening.
Four Mothers
This is a very funny film from Darren Thornton that manages to tell a story about the elderly without being patronising. Edward is a young writer who has to postpone promoting his first novel to care for his mother following a stroke. His ‘friends’ take advantage of his situation by dumping their own mothers on him for a weekend so that they can go to a Pride festival in Spain. Inevitably the four women do not get on at first and equally inevitably they all join forces in the end to help Dan launch his book. But none of this is predictable, and all of it is hilarious.
Die My Love
Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) is a new mother who is going through a major mental health crisis. She is hallucinating all over the place and displaying some very extreme reactions. Luckily, so is the film. It is not at any point trying to explain what’s going on, it just bombards you with imagery, with sound – with feeling. You identify with Grace because you are experiencing all this with her, and when she lashes out – you’re with her too. It’s a film that is utterly visceral rather than just intellectual, though it’s that as well. Lynne Ramsey (and Lawrence) make sure you really experience this film. It’s about much more than what it’s about. It’s about how it feels.
Nuremberg
This was a solid proper big film, with a big star, for the big screen. Russell Crowe shows just how he can dominate the screen when given the chance. As Hermann Göring he manages to convey the absolute menace and danger behind the charming facade of a verifiable monster. He’s well matched by Rami Malek’s empathetic portrayal of Douglas Kelley, the psychiatrist sent to examine him before his trial. Director James Vanderbilt draws us into the story even if we know how it ends. It’s two and a half hours that feels like two and a half hours, and feels like time well spent.
Wake Up Dead Man
Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson fought hard to have this film properly released to cinemas and thank God they did. This is pure entertainment that is only fully enjoyed when shared with an audience. It needs the collective laughter, the gasps at the revelations and the murmurs of “I knew it!”. Plus it has the classic all-star cast in a pretty location trope that belongs on a big screen. It’s great fun and the cast are very clearly enjoying themselves ensuring that the audience is too.
Mutale Kampuni
1. Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story
A celebration of the life of a 'country girl' from rural Ireland, a trailblazer light years ahead of the time she lived in. Brave, bold as brass - O'Brien challenged the status quo and courted controversy to live life on her own terms. Filmmaker Sinéad O'Shea's documentary draws on material from O'Brien's personal journals (read by Jessie Buckley) and conversations with close associates, among them Anne Enright and Gay Byrne. In a final interview, courageous to the end, O'Brien shares reflections on her unashamedly illustrious and remarkable life.
2. Suncoast
Doris, a 17-year-old girl living with her mother Kristine and terminally ill brother Max, faces challenges in navigating not only the complexities of teenage life but also the responsibilities of caring for Max. Coming of age themes are interspersed with humour and do not detract from the impending sense of grief and loss faced by mother and daughter. Suncoast is based on director Laura Chinn's experience with her own brother dying from cancer.
3. Ernest Cole, Lost and Found
Independent photographer Ernest Cole's portrayal of life under apartheid South Africa laid bare its atrocities to the world in the1960s and 70s. The publication of his book 'House of Bondage' in 1967, marked the beginning of events that would take him into a life long exile as he fled to the US to avoid persecution. The documentary by Director Raoul Peck follows Ernest's journey with his pictures and imagery presented as a rallying cry to the United States of America and Europe to take action and bring pressure on the South African to end their inhuman regime. Cole's work was hindered as he learned, to his dismay, that there were still challenges and hindrances to his work even in the so called 'developed world.' He passed away in 1990, just as Nelson Mandela was being released to freedom. Most of his work remained unpublished until over 60,000 negatives were found in a bank safe in Sweden.
4. Peacock
In part a comedy, on the other hand serving as a study of human behaviour, Peacock offers plenty to digest and mull over. Working at a 'companion for hire' agency Matthias is a professional impersonator, an expert at being someone else - anyone except himself! Excelling in any role he undertakes, he eventually suffers a crisis of identity and is unsure who he is or his purpose in life. Peacock is inspired by writer-director Bern writer-director Bernhard Wenger’s real life encounters in the commonplace existence of rent-a-friend agencies during his travels in Japan.
5. Inside, The Valley Sings
IFTA nominated Irish filmmaker Nathan Fagan researches the subject of long-term solitary confinement in US prisons in this animated documentary with hand drawn, fluid, flowing images. The utter desolation and despair faced by three inmates he interviewed is palpable and not dissimilar to what is known in some religious faith traditions as ’Avicii’ - the hell of incessant suffering that affords not a single moment’s respite.
Turkey: Eight Postcards from Utopia
Described as a ‘found-footage documentary’ assembled exclusively out of post-socialist Romanian advertisements, it’s unclear how much sense can be made of this by audiences other than those in Romania. Perhaps one positive aspect is the creativity with the concept as well as the pace at which the dazzling images are thrown at the viewer to ensure engagement, if not enthralment.
James Phelan
5. A Little Prayer
A celebration of simplicity, this wholesome, heart warming and ultimately heartbreaking small film is the kind of project that gets drowned out by the fanfare of lesser and noisier commercial products at our cinemas. Focusing on a beautifully pure relationship between a father-in-law and his daughter by marriage, this is a cinematic balm designed to expose the extraordinary dignity and strength that ordinary life often demands of us. Not even the presence of David Strathairn could drag eyes to this modestly mounted underdog. However, it’s Jane Levy who delivers the devastating emotional peak in this wonderfully orchestrated piece.
4. I Swear
Tourette’s is often presented as funny on film. As a punchline or recurring gag. This moving insight doesn’t shy away from humour either but shows that dealing with the syndrome every day is no joke. It vividly evokes the havoc the involuntary condition can cause. In this fact-based case, a sufferer John becomes a campaigner to encourage and usher in more understanding across the UK. One early blurted outburst about the fate of a terminally ill mother of a friend sums up the blend of darkness and light that makes this ostensibly simple film a complex delight.
3. One Battle After Another
Or one great scene after another. I know I’ll be out on a lonely limb in picking this but from a frazzled Di Caprio to a churning gurning Penn to an unflappably serene Del Toro, this leisurely luxurious movie feels like a snapshot of the past, the present and the future all at once.
2. The Ballad of Wallis Island
Tim Key’s performance at the heart of this absolute charmer is perhaps the low-key performance of the year. Radiating a random air and tousled decency as an isolated lottery millionaire on the lonely island of the title, he yearns to repair a pair of estranged musicians in a well intentioned if ever so slightly underhand scheme. In another iteration, it could be the plot of a horror but instead we are treated to a little gem that works wonders with mainly one location and three actors.
1. Weapons
Hands down the most fun I had at the cinema this year, this freaky giddy horror found a hungry mainstream audience and then scared the bejasus out of them. I consciously swerved trailers for it. So going in cold, the film’s clockwork precise interlocking perspectives had me on the edge of my seat. It’s a quantum leap forward from Barbarian for writer/director Zach Cregger who weaves outrageous dark comedy into some profoundly chilling events. And Amy Madigan deserves an Oscar for her turn as the dark catalyst who arrives in town. With frail legs, soft spoken words and too much make up, she truly is the definition of something wicked this way comes…
Turkey: Mickey 17
Is it truly a turkey?? I’m not sure but this was definitely one of the major disappointments of the year. This film seemed set for success with a clever sci-fi premise, a visionary director and a cast stocked with stars. And unlike Weapons, I devoured every new trailer and clip in a bid to be ready to love it. And then the film just felt… dead on arrival. No pulse. No vital signs. Hell, it achieved the impossible and kinda made me dislike the perennially adorable Mark Ruffalo. The lead character dies a death repeatedly. This film felt like a thousand little deaths.
Pia Roycroft
1. Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc
Controversial I know putting an anime movie in first place, but I just genuinely loved this film so much. Of course, being a fan of the series will elevate your experience significantly, but even without it I honestly think it works as a film in itself. Other franchises can really learn from this and understand that even if something is "for the fans", it can be good quality and an entertaining film even for those that aren't diehard glazers...
2. Sinners
I mean what can I say really that hasn't already been said? The vibe of this film just sets it apart from every other one I've seen this year. It's so raw and unique and just beautiful to watch, listen to, and experience. Vampirism in its purest form; deliberate allegory.
3. Frankenstein
When people were saying that this one feels like an opera, they were exactly right. There really seems to be a Renaissance of 18th & 19th century set films lately, of course due to the old but gold horror novels being reimagined as of late, and honestly I love it. Each rendition of these well known stories that we have seen so far seems so fresh and done with a love and a level of creativity that justly deserves its flowers; this film is no different.
4. Snow Bear
As a shorts programmer myself, I have to of course throw in a short film somewhere. This film honestly made me cry, I don't know if it was just a combo of my feelings about how the world is today, the fact that AI is ruining the planet, or just sad about these poor polar bears, but either way this film made me feel so many different but connected emotions. It's up on YouTube for free, I recommend everyone watch it.
5. Praying Mantis
Another short film (because of course) and can I just say that this film absolutely gripped me from the beginning. The colours, the sound, the atmosphere, everything is just so in your face but in a really captivating and entertaining way. And I just love tasteful gore. It will be screened at DIFF (shoutout) so definitely go see it there!
Reggie Lawless
One Battle After Another
One Battle After Another may well be the best description of day to day life in 2025, but it is also, surely, a potential Oscar winning film. Hilarious in parts, Johnny Greenwood’s score makes you crawl up the cinema wall with tension, including one section, where it seems he hit the same piano key over and over for 20 minutes non stop. Ultimately, this was the one film in 2025 that made you tell people “you must go and see it”.
Turkey: Frankenstein
For all the money spent and the Danish ship and the beautiful shots, Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein fails because of the ridiculous, unfollowable dialogue of Victor Frankenstein that invokes Doc Brown going on about the flux capacitor in Back to the Future.
Olivia O'Ríada
1. 28 Years Later
After testy periods for both Danny Boyle and Alex Garland (I count Civil War and Men as two of the decade’s worst), the two filmmakers reunited here to completely reimagine the world of their 2002 camcorder zombie classic 28 Days Later. 28 Years takes the original film’s finger-on-the-pulse exploration of the new millennium’s culture of fear and anger and laments the idea that there are now grown adults in the world, some even raising their own children, who have never known anything else. The film looks and sounds unlike anything else. Anthony Dod Mantle’s iPhone cinematography and Scottish hip hop group Young Fathers have rattled around my head for the last 6 months. Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes, two of our finest performers working, get to put in shockingly sensitive work.
2. Blue Heron
The 2020s have been filled with sensitive, detail-oriented, semi-autobiographical examinations of childhood to the point where it’s become a bit of an arthouse cliché, but Blue Heron is the most legitimate claim to the throne since Aftersun. The narrative feature debut of short documentary filmmaker Sophy Romvari, who builds on her experience both as a child immigrating to Canada and as an adult documentarian examining that experience to make a phenomenally observational work about the desperate helplessness of replaying your young life in your head.
3. Avatar: Fire and Ash
The most huge-brained high concept sci-fi film of the decade. James Cameron brings the bravura technical showcase once again for a film where he gets to take your knowledge of the far-off moon of Pandora for granted, letting him really run wild on demented space opera dramatics. Clones, immaculate conception, whale court, Carmela Soprano in a mech suit, what more could you possibly want?
4. Sinners
Everything blockbuster filmmaking should be. Makes the small scale story of one night in the juke feel absolutely mammoth, the ‘I Lied To You’ musical number is one of the most astonishing things a major studio has released this millennium. And, not knowing much going in, the film’s exploration of a colonised Irish diaspora’s relationship to the concept of American whiteness and indeed white supremacist movements took me completely by surprise and was some of the most rewarding material to think about in a studio film this year.
5. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
We’ve not really come up with a good name for this genre yet but the recent wave of After Hours-inspired neurotic thrillers most notably purveyed by the Safdie Brothers has been pretty suffocatingly masculine. Safdie collaborator Mary Bronstein’s retooling of this nascent genre explores more mundane circumstances than those of Howie Ratner, Beau (who was afraid) or, I suspect, young Martin Supreme but Rose Byrne’s Linda makes the leak in her roof and getting her sick child to eat feel just as stressful if not more so than all of those films.
Turkey: Opus
Not sure I have ever felt as much like I chose a hobby that was a waste of life as I did watching Opus. Directed by the former style editor of GQ, this impossibly broad cult encampment thriller plays like a Scary Movie style parody of a Get Out or a Midsommar and yet never once becomes funny, thrilling, or insightful about any element of the human condition. More than that, John Malkovich’s fake pop star ‘Moretti’ (no relation) seems like he is not a good or interesting musician, and would never warrant a Jonestown style suicide cult despite original songs from Giorgio Moroder himself!
Oscar O'Sullivan
One Battle After Another
Who would have thought that the biggest “event movie” of 2025 would be Paul Thomas Anderson adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel? An action epic, political think-piece and gut-busting comedy all rolled up into one dizzying package. Another wonderful addition to DiCaprio’s recent habit of playing schlubby losers. That final car chase is right up there with The French Connection and Blues Brothers, not in style, but in sheer creativity and impact.
The Phoenician Scheme
So wait, you’re telling me there are two films this year directed by acclaimed auteurs with the surname Anderson, about troubled father-daughter relationships amid political intrigue, with a greater emphasis on action than their previous work, and they both star Benicio Del Toro? And they’re the two best films of the year? Well isn't that something.
28 Years Later
Having not seen Days or Weeks, and being generally uninterested in zombie fiction, this was certainly the surprise of the year for me. Transposing a fairy-tale-esque boy’s coming-of-age-story into zombified Britain results in a sincerely moving script, and Danny Boyle’s gonzo direction was an absolute thrill to witness. Bring on the Bone Temple.
Friendship
Tim Robinson’s signature lunatic performance feels out of place in the sleepy suburbia of this world - which is exactly the point, of course. An exaggerated yet truthful look at masculine insecurities in an increasingly isolated world, and the lengths some people will go to just to fit in. Feels like it could turn into a horror at any given moment, but the laughs just keep on coming. Favourite line - ‘AW MAN, I GOT STUFF ON ME!!!’
Brian Ó Tiomáin
1. Christy
An engaging and authentic story set in a working class Cork sub-urb. The film contains some very funny scenes despite a very serious theme - what happens to troubled children in foster care families when they come of age to leave care? The film was full of really good performances. In particular Danny Power in the title role as well as Emma Willis in a magnetic performance as the partner of Christy's brother. We also had a top notch group of kids who as well as being brilliant rappers were very credible in their individual roles. A very auspicious debut feature from Brendan Canty.
2. It Was Just an Accident
A deserving winner of The Palme d'Or. Wonderfully shot, the film deals with the desire for revenge related to the political situation in Iran. Shot discreetly, it was a courageous and risky enterprise given that the Director has spent time in prison in the past on account of his political views and actions.
3. The Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story
An absorbing and entertaining documentary. The film covers the life of a groundbreaking writer who came of age in another Ireland and helped challenge the values of a deeply conservative and judgemental society - values which also became manifest within her marriage.
4. Train Dreams
A meditative and haunting film dealing with grief. It made for compelling viewing.
5. Riefenstahl
A documentary about a filmmaker who had close links to Hitler and the upper echelons of the Nazi regime. Riefenstahl deals with a manipulative and arguably psychopathic character who was extremely skilled in deception and the denial of her own actions.
Turke: Black Bag
Pretentious and hugely overrated.
Ronan Power
Companion
A quirky black comedy about a female robot companion and her scheming boyfriend. Packed with twists, dark humour, and bursts of gore, it feels like a 90-minute Twilight Zone episode on acid. An early shocking reveal instantly has the audience rooting for the protagonist, and the film never lets up, constantly subverting expectations in clever and often disturbing ways.
Marching Powder
A fitting wrap-up to the lager-lout football hooligan roles Nick Love excels at. Danny Dyer is on top form as a man on the brink, torn between addiction, fading hooligan glory, and the struggle to be a working husband and father. Raw, energetic, and very much in Dyer’s wheelhouse, it captures a lifestyle crashing into reality.
The Surfer
Not just a movie, but an experience. Nicolas Cage goes all-out as a man who simply wants to surf his childhood beach, only to spiral toward madness battling everyone around him. Stunning cinematography, bold colours, and immersive sound design perfectly reflect his unravelling mind. Cage commands the screen every second mesmerizing, intense, and impossible to look away from.
Weapons
A genuinely freaky and refreshingly original horror film. It blends a mystery about missing children with relentless jump scares and mounting dread. From dark, claustrophobic basements to wide open-air panic. The tension never drops. Best of all, it features one of the creepiest witches ever put on screen. The shock of red hair and dodgy lipstick leaves a lasting and chilling impression.
The Long Walk
A brutal adaptation of Stephen King’s haunting story. At the start of the story we get early Hunger Games vibes, teenage boys are forced to walk a lonely road until only one survives. It’s violent, savage, and often hard to watch. Mark Hamill is unrecognizable and outstanding here, showcasing an impressive range and delivering one of the film’s most unsettling performances.
David Turpin
1. April
A completely uncompromised confrontation with something that concerns anybody with a body and soul. Extraordinarily forthright and mesmerisingly cryptic at the same time. Life-altering.
2. Flow
A valediction to the magic of all living things, paradoxically conjured with technologies that mean nothing to them. Like a 21st-century Franz Marc, Gints Zilbalodis is fully attuned to the psychological and spiritual lives of non-human animals.
3. The Ice Tower
Another exquisite film from Lucile Hadžihalilović. There's only one lady who can cry, smoke and inscrutably scheme while looking out a snow-swept window at this rarefied level. Fortunately they called just that lady. Marion Cotillard reminds us who the f*** we're dealing with, and it's a beautiful thing.
4. On Falling
A very powerful social realist film of genuine import, but one that is as invested in the intangible inner life of its subject as it is to her external circumstances. It's not Nomadland, that's for sure.
5. Maria
Not the fifth best film of the year (the script is a hash), but damned if it isn't just the most ravishing thing. Camp so high it touches heaven. The apotheosis of Saint Angelina. Praise be.