David Chen's Top 10 Films of 2025

There's a moment at the beginning of Jay Kelly in which George Clooney's titular character wistfully says, "I got to see the end before it ended."

Clooney isn't talking about the movie industry specifically in that moment but I can't stop thinking of that line as we head into 2026. This past year has seen the collapse of production in LA and the oncoming merger of Netflix and Warner Bros. Should the latter succeed, it will dramatically curtail the diversity of what we can see and experience in our entertainment and possibly accelerate the collapse of both the theatrical and physical media industries. It's bleak and there is not much hope for the future for those who love films as an art form and theatrical filmgoing as a ritual.

Despite all that, I have gratitude that no matter where the industry is headed, I got to be around when movies were a huge deal. When they still had the power to move people and shape the cultural conversation. I got to see the end before it ended.

And in 2025 specifically, I got to see another year in which our films reflected our anxieties, our hopes, and our predictions for what is to come. It's in that spirit that I'm sharing with you my top 10 films of 2025. No matter what 2026 brings, there were some pretty great movies this year.

Finally, I want to say thank you for subscribing to Decoding Everything in 2025. My output hasn't been what I've wanted it to be these past few months as I've navigated some massive life changes. But if you've subscribed, if you've read, if you've stuck around, then on some level you probably still care what I think. For that, I'm grateful. Here's hoping 2026 will have even more insights, interviews, and other fun adventures.

Here are my top 10 films of 2025.

10 - Companion

In 2014, a Pew research report predicted that in 2025 many of us would have robot lovers. And while humanoid mechanical partners aren’t yet a real thing, the forecast was eerily close. This year, we have seen people fall in love with AI chatbots, treat them as sentient, date them and even marry them. As our institutions fail and our social fabric decays, people are finding artificial companions more compelling than real ones.

Companion was obviously written and shot in years prior but feels perfectly pitched for where society has evolved in 2025. It turns the idea of AI lovers on its head by telling the story from the perspective of the AI companion. It’s also just a neatly executed sci-fi thriller, with clever surprises and even a little something to say about how we relate to each other and to the technology in our lives. Jack Quaid is particularly wonderful playing against type.

9 - Bugonia

Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest should be a satire: Red-pilled men fall into online rabbit holes, become convinced that the female CEO of a biotech company is an alien, and decide that kidnapping her is the only strategy to save the human race. 

What’s so terrifying about this film is how plausible it is. We’ve allowed the information environment to be controlled by people who have no concern what the truth is.  The question this movie asks is not whether people’s minds will be poisoned beyond repair; it’s whether humanity is even worth saving at this point. Darkly comedic and exceedingly bleak, this feels like another film that arrived like a prophecy from the past in 2025.

8 - Left-Handed Girl

Tsou Shih-Ching’s coming of age story about a single mother trying to raise her two daughters in Taipei really unlocked some things for me. I was born in Taiwan but brought to the U.S. as a baby; watching this movie, I understood more deeply the environment that my family, my mother, my father were probably marinating in for decades before I was even born. It helped me comprehend why things in my Taiwanese American home looked and felt the way they do, and it shed light on the often mysterious expectations that were being put upon me. It’s also an often bittersweet story about innocence, family, secrets, and shame that transcends cultures.

7 - Black Bag

This spy thriller by Steven Soderbergh gives the people what they want: sexy people doing sexy things. Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett star as a married couple who just so happen to be covert operatives with potentially competing assignments, leading to the world’s twistiest challenge in work-life balance. Regé-Jean Page leads a supporting cast that brings even more heat to the screen.

People like me complain they don’t really make this kind of movie anymore, so of course, it bombed at the box office. When we no longer have movie theaters, it will be because people weren’t willing to go out for movies like Black Bag – smaller movies without a franchise that are diverting and delightful.

6 - No Other Choice

Park Chan-wook labored for over a decade to get this movie made, and we should be glad he persevered. South Korea has produced some of the most pointed popular art of recent years about income inequality (Squid Game, Parasite), and this film perfectly encapsulates the moment of late-stage capitalism we are in right now. In a world where people are treated as disposable, and forced to sacrifice so much to claw so little for themselves, this movie resonates.

5 - Sentimental Value

Joachim Trier’s introspective latest film is about a movie director who re-emerges in his daughters’ lives after a tragedy. It’s also about how we use art to try to communicate with each other – indirectly, imperfectly, and at times sublimely. The cast, led by Renate Reinsve, Elle Fanning, and Stellan Skarsgård, deliver some of the year’s most complex and memorable performances, imbuing layers upon layers of meaning and subtlety that, taken together, overwhelmed me.

4 - Sinners

For the few of you who have not yet seen Sinners (or the many memes it has spawned), it is a work of true genius. Anchored in the Mississippi River delta in the Jim Crow era, this film is a love letter to the brilliance and resilience of Black Americans and the irrepressible art they forged in that crucible. The film has something pretty subversive to say about the Christian church: that it’s a tool of white oppression. Instead, it's only through music and art that one's full humanity can be unlocked. The movie is also an astonishing technical achievement, with Michael B. Jordan playing identical twins who you never question as two separate people.

I have never been as terrified of Riverdance as I was while watching this film.

3 - Weapons

Weapons centers on an irresistible mystery. At 2:17 a.m. one night, every child from Miss Gandy’s school classroom wakes up, gets out of bed, runs into the dark and never comes back. What actually happened? What could have caused this? And can anything be done to undo the damage that’s occurred?

What I love most about Weapons is how it’s structured. It’s a movie where the way and order that the information is revealed makes the story more effective. The result is a movie that keeps you guessing until its final moments, which makes the movie’s point in devastating fashion.

2 - One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film tracks a group of revolutionaries over several decades, but feels like it’s made for this specific moment. It captures the outlandish hopes, the dangerous machinations, the brutal violence, and the absurdism that are often found in revolutionary movements and the forces that seek to oppose them. It's not only a rollicking thriller but also a hilarious, madcap comedy.

The whole cast is excellent, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Inifniti. But it's Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro who really steal the show in their respective roles. Del Toro's Carlos is a character who shows that sometimes, you shouldn't judge (or underestimate) a book by its cover. And Penn's Lockjaw is a tragic summation of why America finds itself in this moment right now.

1 - It Was Just an Accident

Jafar Panahi’s film is about the trauma of repressive regimes and how even when the atrocities end and people try to move on, the effects don’t just go away. But it’s not at all didactic. Instead, it's a well-acted, riveting thriller that has an incredible economy in its script. The movie doesn’t lay out for you the histories of all these characters but allows you to figure them out for yourself. Its world feels much richer and more poignant as a result.

I want to throw a shout out to the film’s poster, which features an odd assortment of characters: a bride in a wedding dress, a man who may or may not be the groom, another man in jeans, all of whom seem to have broken down in a van in the desert. How did these people all get here and why are they together at all? The movie answers those questions in fascinating ways.

We are obviously living through challenging times, and I've often wondered what might come after this specific era is over. I felt like this film gave me a window into the future – one in which the the past casts a long shadow and in which efforts to grapple with it aren't clean or even particularly cathartic. Sadly, I think this film will become even more relevant with time. 

Other Stuff David Chen Has Made

• If you want to listen to a podcast episode that summarizes everything notable that happened in my lifethis year, head on over to my Patreon. These episodes are usually paywalled but I'm making this one available for free. Enjoy, and thanks to @joyofnapping and David Cho for joining me for this one.
• You can listen to the audio version of this countdown on The Filmcast. Check it out here.
• On Decoding TV, we covered the season 1 finale of Pluribus. Overall, a brilliant season of the show, but the pacing was a bit slow for my tastes and the wait for season 2 is going to be punishing.