Zootopia 2 2025
$570 million opening weekend, $220 million-plus of it in China. Overt Shining and Silence of the Lambs references, and a decade of Judy-and-Nick shipping the film seems to know about.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Top Five · Roundtable
The Top Five Movies of 2025
December 5, 2025/ 129 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins · Chris Ryan
The year-end lists. Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, and Chris Ryan bring in Adam Nayman for four ranked top fives, revealed five to one, then a long run of honorable mentions. First the news: the Warner Bros. sale, Leonardo DiCaprio all but confirming Heat 2 with Michael Mann, and where awards season stands with One Battle After Another out front.
47 films across 7 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 newsthe Warner Bros. sale, Heat 2, awards season
Zootopia 2016
The original, which Sean argues did something new for a wide-release animated film: animals running a whole society, jobs and all. The sloth at the DMV.
Rango 2011
Chris's tangent: a frog-sheriff retelling of Chinatown, stuffed with movie references.
Heat 1995
DiCaprio confirms to Deadline that he's doing Heat 2 with Michael Mann. The group games out whether he's the De Niro part and who could play against him.
Was 2025 a good year at the movies?Adam joins; high ceiling, low floor
A Minecraft Movie 2025
The year's one 'rocket ship,' and the ticket Sean bought on April 18th that turned a bleak year around. Everyone agrees the top of the year is bright and the middle is hazy.
Adam Nayman's top five
No. 1
It Was Just an Accident 2025
Jafar Panahi's Palme d'Or winner, shot unofficially in Iran. A mistaken-identity revenge thriller that's slapstick and brutal at once, with the best last two scenes of the year.
No. 2
The Shrouds 2024
Cronenberg's grief film about a widower who builds a way to watch his wife's body decay. Adam's watched it three or four times and loves how close it comes to seeming like a terrible movie.
No. 3
One Battle After Another 2025
Has it third and admits he's already tired of the discourse. More interested in the negative reactions, and in finding the weird, ambiguous PTA inside a huge movie.
No. 4
Cloud 2024
Kiyoshi Kurosawa. An online reseller angers his customers into hunting him down; a moody thriller that turns into a full warehouse shootout. Sean's shorthand: Heat for fuck-ups.
No. 5
The Secret Agent 2025
Kleber Mendonça Filho's Brazilian thriller under the late-'70s dictatorship. Wagner Moura as a functionary forging passports while hitmen close in, all of it a love letter to movie-palace culture and shadowed by Jaws.
Amanda Dobbins's top fivethe theme: everyone going for it
No. 1
One Battle After Another 2025
An instant five-star masterpiece for her. Parenthood, scale, and all of film history rooted in the current moment.
No. 2
Marty Supreme 2025
Josh Safdie's ping-pong movie, and the clearest case of her theme: a cast and crew going as big as they can.
No. 3
Die My Love 2025
Lynne Ramsay, with Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. Postpartum psychosis played feral and physical, and the most she laughed in a theater. She started 2025 three months postpartum, then left home in the LA fires.
No. 4
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You 2024
Mary Bronstein; Rose Byrne alone with a sick kid. The most nauseous she's been in a theater all year, meant as a compliment, and a systemic critique of how everything fails a mother.
No. 5
Train Dreams 2025
Familiar indie moves, the voiceover and the flashbacks and the trees, that add up to far more than their parts. Grief and guilt shown, not told, right to the last line.
Chris Ryan's top five
No. 1
28 Years Later 2025
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, with Alfie Williams and a Ralph Fiennes performance he'll never forget. He saw it as his mother was dying, and it never left him.
No. 2
One Battle After Another 2025
Number two by the thinnest personal margin. The cinematic experience of the year, and an adaptation of Vineland he can't stop taking apart.
No. 3
Weapons 2025
Three viewings in. What he thinks it's about: why we need horror at all, and the monsters we invent to explain the tragedies that befall a community. The kids running with their arms out.
No. 4
Sinners 2025
On a second viewing he finds it almost underrated. The musicality, the ecstatic sweat of it, the most physically engaged he felt in a theater outside F1.
No. 5
Eephus 2024
Carson Lund's monument to hanging out: two rec-league teams playing the last game on a field about to be paved into a school. Made him feel 17 watching a Jarmusch movie.
Sean Fennessey's top fivethwarted male ambition and parenthood
No. 1
One Battle After Another 2025
Obviously his number one. Thwarted ambition, parenthood, and a film he finds almost fake for how connected to it he feels.
No. 2
Eddington 2025
Ari Aster's best, he argues: docudrama and satire at once. People dislike it because it makes them feel bad about specific things that happened, and about that final shot.
No. 3
No Other Choice 2025
Park Chan-wook's Westlake adaptation. A laid-off paper-company man schemes to eliminate his rivals for the few jobs left. Elaborate and absurd, with a showy formal streak.
No. 4
Marty Supreme 2025
Safdie's film on how a lot of men are in their 20s: fast-talking and gifted, in a way that wears you out. Seen once, months ago, and the cherry on top of the movie year for him.
No. 5
Sinners 2025
Popped in the 4K and got pulled back by the score. His prime example of Hollywood filmmaking: someone through the system making something at scale that stays deeply personal.
Honorable mentions the long lists, and one they each nearly picked
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Blue Moon 2025
Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart; the second Linklater movie of the year, and high on his list.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Sentimental Value 2025
Still defending it as the tide turns among the film literati.
Picked by Sean Fennessey
Pillion 2025
Harry Lighton's BDSM rom-com with Alexander Skarsgård. Considered it for his five; one of the two funniest movies of the year to him.
Picked by Adam Nayman
The Testament of Ann Lee 2025
Mona Fastvold. A double A-side with The Brutalist about building something in America from the ground up.
Picked by Adam Nayman
Dracula 2025
Radu Jude's three-hour, AI-stuffed prank. The most productively annoying movie he saw all year.
Picked by Adam Nayman
Predators 2025
David Osit's documentary on the To Catch a Predator phenomenon.
Picked by Adam Nayman
Cover Up 2025
Laura Poitras's portrait of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, headed to Netflix.
Picked by Amanda Dobbins
Materialists 2025
One of three rom-com genre experiments she was glad someone tried.
Picked by Chris Ryan
F1 2025
The movie-going experience of the year, where he swore he was watching real sports.
Picked by Chris Ryan
Final Destination Bloodlines 2025
Pure theater fun, and a John Waters pick too.
Also mentioned raised along the way
The news: awards season and the studio saga Avatar: Fire and AshWicked: For GoodFrankensteinJay KellyRental FamilyWake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out MysteryHamnetKnives OutCaught by the Tides
Zootopia's animal-society comps The Secret Life of PetsThe Secret of NIMHMadagascarIce AgeOne-Eyed JacksChinatown
The Leo slate and Michael Mann The AviatorGangs of New YorkKillers of the Flower MoonFerrariVertigoThe ShiningShutter Island
State-of-cinema name-checks The Super Mario Bros. MovieBarbieJurassic World RebirthThe Smashing MachineKeeperThe MonkeyCaptain America: Brave New WorldWolf ManThe GorgeBallerina
Avatar and the canon AvatarAvatar: The Way of WaterTárThe SearchersCasablancaTerminator 2: Judgment DayOnce Upon a Time in Hollywood25th Hour
Cronenberg, Kurosawa and Panahi touchstones To Die ForNightbreedThis Is Not a FilmTaste of CherryCrimson Gold3 FacesNo BearsBacurauBlack God, White DevilPixoteThe OmenJawsBuried
PTA and horror-trend touchstones Licorice PizzaMagnoliaInherent ViceLonglegsBarbarianShelby OaksThe BrutalistSirat
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV The BearSeveranceThe Chair Company1883Big LoveDrunk HistoryTo Catch a PredatorTrue Detective
Web Criterion Closet
Games Call of Duty
In development Heat 2What Happens at Night
Ads Netflix (T-Mobile Home Run Derby)Amazon PrimeState Farm