F1 2025
Opened to about $57M, Warner Bros.' fifth straight movie they marketed hard and got people to show up for. Brad Pitt's third big-June hit of a decade after Mr. & Mrs. Smith and World War Z.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Roundtable
The 10 Best Movies of the Year ... So Far
July 1, 2025/ 124 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
The end-of-June halftime check-in. Sean and Amanda work through a rotating cast of Ringer colleagues, and each one makes the case for a single 2025 movie they've loved most so far. The running bit: Rob Mahoney answers the group text fastest and keeps sniping everyone's number one.
17 films across 2 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
The state of the movie yearbox office, trailers, and grading the mid-year predictions game
Project Hail Mary 2026
The Lord and Miller / Drew Goddard adaptation of Andy Weir; their first directed feature since 22 Jump Street. The trailer that lit up the group chat 14 months out.
Thunderbolts* 2025
The predictions game's easy one: they were close on both counts, ~$190M and a 68 Metacritic.
Final Destination Bloodlines 2025
The bust that beat them both ways, $136M and a 73, well over their box-office and score guesses.
Lilo & Stitch 2025
The one Sean whiffed on hardest, guessing ~$180M against a $395M actual.
Superman 2025
The second-half wild card they're nervous about, tracking high on the strength of one word.
The picks one critic, one film
Picked by Rob Mahoney
Sinners 2025
Grabbed first before anyone else could. Ryan Coogler's Delta-blues vampire movie, which Mahoney says changes what you look for in every other movie. A newcomer who transforms into a Mississippi bluesman on screen.
Picked by Van Lathan
Companion 2025
His pick once Sinners was off the board. Drew Hancock's twisty sci-fi with a villain turn from Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher holding it down. Van's read: a lean, smartly directable first script to actually shoot.
Picked by Chris Ryan
Materialists 2025
The great mid-year freakout. Chris makes the case for Celine Song's divisive love-triangle movie as an idea movie worth arguing about, closer to Whit Stillman than Nancy Meyers, with the New York background noise zeroed out.
Picked by Joanna Robinson
Black Bag 2025
Soderbergh's 90-minute spy-marriage movie: Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, wigs and turtlenecks. Joanna's lament is that it should have felt like an event and audiences didn't show. Sniped from her, again, by Mahoney.
Picked by Charles Holmes
Friendship 2025
Tim Robinson as a middle-aged man who doesn't know the rules. Charles reads it as a sociological text on how hard it is to make friends past 30, the dark version of I Love You, Man.
Picked by Mallory Rubin
28 Years Later 2025
Boyle and Garland reunited. Mallory on Alfie Williams as Spike, Ralph Fiennes in the Bone Temple, and a movie whose real horror is the rest of the world quarantining Britain and walking away.
Picked by Adam Nayman
Caught by the Tides 2025
The arthouse pick. Jia Zhangke remixing 20 years of his own footage into a near-silent chronicle of a changing China. Adam's other favorites (The Shrouds, 28 Years Later, Friendship) were already taken.
Picked by Grace Fennessey
Thunderbolts* 2025
Sean's sister and resident MCU watcher calls it a return to form, a found-family team-up that fixes Marvel's habit of introducing characters and dropping them. Lewis Pullman's Sentry the standout.
Picked by Jack Sanders
F1 2025
Producer Jack's defense: a lesser Brad Pitt performance, a $350M commercial, formulaic, and none of it matters because the racing is hypnotic. Kosinski building set pieces up there with Nolan and Villeneuve.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
The Phoenician Scheme 2025
Amanda would have taken Black Bag, and instead banged the table for Wes Anderson, arguing the diorama complaints undersell the ideas. Benicio del Toro as the undersung performance of the year.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Warfare 2025
Garland and ex-soldier Ray Mendoza co-directing a punishing real-time combat film. Sean's angle: two collaborators who see war differently, making something out of the friction.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Runners-up and other 2025 releases PresenceNovocaineHereticThe Woman in the YardMickey 17Jurassic World RebirthThe ShroudsFamiliar TouchOne of Them DaysA DesertM3GAN 2.0EddingtonOne Battle After Another
Knives Out and coming attractions Knives OutGlass Onion: A Knives Out MysteryWake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out MysteryFantastic Four: First StepsThe Last of Sheila
Comps and touchstones in passing From Dusk Till DawnCreedBlack PantherBlack Panther: Wakanda ForeverEx MachinaPast LivesMr. & Mrs. SmithLogan LuckyThe KillerBack to BlackWho's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?The Thin ManI Love You, ManStep BrothersSuperbadDeadpool & Wolverine28 Days Later28 Weeks LaterSunshineAsh Is Purest WhiteA Touch of SinMountains May DepartStill LifeThe WorldUnknown PleasuresBoyhoodWALL-EOrphanRed RoomsHereditaryCarry-OnCliffhangerThe MartianSolo: A Star Wars Story22 Jump StreetUncut GemsWorld War ZA Minecraft MovieMan of SteelThe Kissing BoothTop Gun: MaverickAvengers: EndgameAvengers: Infinity WarSpider-Man: No Way HomeRushmoreThe Royal TenenbaumsAsteroid CityThe French DispatchThe Grand Budapest HotelNotting Hill
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The BearSquid GameThe Last of UsThe StudioThe RehearsalDetroitersI Think You Should LeaveThe AgencyLe BureauThe MandalorianWheel of Time
Ads The Zach Lowe ShowT-Mobile Home Run Derby (Netflix)