- The Great Craft of 2025 (December 22, 2025)
On Friday, the writers of this site lauded some of their favorite performances of 2025. Today, we go behind the camera to pick some of the great craft of the year in film, including excellence in cinematography, editing, original score, casting, and more. Again, this shouldn’t be seen as comprehensive as much as a way to highlight some of the people who made us love movies this year. Enjoy.
Cinematography, Anthony Dod Mantle, “28 Years Later”
It was always going to be impossible to match the visual audacity of “28 Days Later,” which memorably shot its doomsday outbreak in the haunting fuzz of early digital. Photographed by the legendary Anthony Dod Mantle, it wasn’t just that Danny Boyle’s zombie-adjacent thriller almost looked like found footage, it was that the images themselves seemed tainted, forever on the brink of self-deletion. So it’s all the more remarkable that “28 Years Later,” a legacy sequel with unexpected beauty and terror, comes so close. The style may be less brazenly iconoclastic, but Boyle, reunited with Mantle, discovered a new language of digital horror yet again. Swapping the Canon XL1 for an iPhone 15 on an assortment of how-did-they-do-that camera rigs, anywhere Boyle wants to put the wide-lensed cameras, he does; the shoulders of new burly infected, the back of drones zooming at head-twisting angles around our protagonists Spike and Jamie, and below the ground as infected bloodily smash their faces into the lens.
More singular is the horseshoe shaped rig outfitted with 20 iPhones, which lets the visual frame jump through multiple angles with disorienting, time-blurring speed, highlighting kill-shots with frenetic rapture. Despite the carnage, there’s jaw-dropping beauty, too. Few scenes this year matched the mythic awe of the mid-film footchase under a canopy of aurora borealis, a crescendo to the way Mantle reminds us that horror needn’t be frightened of color. All these flourishes may seem gearheaded and extreme, but they only ever bring you closer to young Spike’s harrowing journey. In a year full of visual achievements, 28 Years Later is among the very best. –Brendan Hodges
Stunts, Wade Eastwood, “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning“
The stunts in the Mission: Impossible movies — especially ones by Tom Cruise himself—were always the best reason to check out new entries in the series, even more so after Cruise partnered with writer-director Christopher Quarrie and morphed into a spiritual descendant of Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton. Thethird point in the creative triangle that gave the last four films a distinctly different flavor was Wade Eastwood, stunt supervisor from “Rogue Nation” onwards. “The Final Reckoning” might’ve gone overboard with super-specific callbacks to all the earlier films, in a forced attempt to tie them all together retroactively; nobody goes to action movies for plot! But the movie was aces in the ‘let’s see how close we can get to killing our leading man” department.
The long sequence in which the US Navy gives Ethan permission to use a Virginia-class submarine to reach the sunken Russian submarine Sevastopol is so precisely calibrated, each new thrill bigger than the last, that it almost feels like a movie-within-the-movie. Ethan’s encounter with a Russian sailor who turns out to be a minion of The Entity –the Borg-like sentient A.I. that wants to absorb everything and everyone —is classically simple, just two guys trying to kill each other in a tight space. The horror movie lighting and camera angles prepare you for the most shockingly primal violence in the entire series, less spectacular than the three-way bathroom slugfest in “Fallout” but more disturbing for how vulnerable Ethan seems, fighting a deranged, fully uniformed adversary with a huge knife while clad only in shorts and . That it’s intercut with a close quarters shootout between commandos and the rest of Ethan’s team in a burning house raises it to the level of the sublime. And that’s just a warmup to Ethan trying to escape the Russian sub as his oxygen is running out AND the craft is flooding AND tipping over the edge of a cliff. The payoff is one of the most eerily beautiful “Oh, no, is he really dead?” scenes in the series: Ethan, nearly naked and in freezing water, makes it to the surface through sheer will, only to run out of air just as he’s about to reach a thick sheet of ice that would’ve prevented him from surviving anyway.
Cruise, McQuarrie and their army of collaborators send us off with a shoutout to the earliest years of action cinema, the silent period right after World War I, where propeller planes were the latest high tech war machine, and the very idea of taking flight was frightening in itself. You’ve seen a few aerial dogfights in your time, but never one that makes you think about how speed, wind resistance, and a limited fuel supply factor into the tactics of biplane pilots dueling to the death. Those lucky enough to see it in IMAX with bone-rattling subwoofers will testify that watching the final act was like being on a ridiculous and terrifying roller coaster that went full speed for an hour straight and sent viewers stumbling into the lobby, dazed and happy.–Matt Zoller Seitz
Original Score, Nine Inch Nails, “Tron: Ares”
Despite our very own Matt Zoller Seitz’s adulation, some have quipped that the best way to enjoy “Tron: Ares” is to view it as a 119-minute music video for a new Nine Inch Nails album. I’m warmer on the film than most, but I also find the score to be the film’s standout. It’s fittingly heartwarming to be reminded that even when corporate thinking means that a franchise like “Tron” is to be milked, true art can emerge from such cash grab-fueled madmen.
Indeed, the propulsive and gritty score for “Tron: Ares” courses with too much personality to fully convince me this was created via commission. Then again, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross–even when they’re not releasing music under the band name’s moniker–were never ones for subtlety. Vociferous may be par for the course for this duo, who famously turned the tennis courts in New Rochelle and NYC sewers into dance floors, but there’s something distinctly soulful and human in the duo’s compositions for Joachim Rønning’s film that makes this all feel more than just noise. It feels as if they tried to make a score that the film would have to bend around to accommodate, rather than the other way around.
Take the darkwave track “Target Identified,” whose sinister synths make the feeling of being targeted by evil AI programs feel exhilarating. The opening track “Innit” feels less arranged and more haphazardly thrown into the film like an identity disc; it makes sense for it to play over the film’s opening credits because words are the only thing that can keep up with its momentum. There’s also “Infiltrator,” which feels as though it belongs as much in the club as it does in the cinema, hilarious given that the scene it plays over is that of an antagonist AI trying to stealthily–well, infiltrate–a database. The score is definitely raucous and in contrast with the scene, as if Reznor and Ross are challenging the film’s creative team to warp their idea of a clandestine heist into something much more operatic and epic.
For a film that interrogates the artifice of identity and the virtual worlds we create to absolve ourselves of the pain of living in the real one, it’s befitting that “Tron: Ares” feels so enveloping, as if it’s trying to capture you and bring you into its artificial world. As the world tragically embraces the inadequate artistic facsimile created by algorithms, ironically, within a story that tries to proselytize about embracing AI, Nine Inch Nails have crafted a soundtrack that speaks to the enduring unpredictability and singularity of the human spirit. It’s as if the duo predicted the hellscape we might find ourselves in 2025 and decided that if democracy were to fall, at least it could be heralded with thunderous bass. –Zachary Lee
Choreography, Celia Rowlson-Hall, “The Testament of Ann Lee”
“The Testament of Ann Lee” highlights the expressive, integral nature of choreography. A thrill, considering the work of choreographer and filmmaker Celia Rowlson-Hall, which is so stunning in its execution. For a film that traverses the life of a woman who seeks a higher calling, the choreography makes sure to tether itself to the earth. The movements start low before going aloft, a visual echo of Ann and her followers. The act of prayer is a physical one, from the bruising way Ann thumps on her chest, to the hunched shoulders and pounding fists on ship decks.
There’s also an unexpected playfulness to Rowlson-Hall’s work. Take, for instance, the carnal energy of the group prayer, as the followers move together in a physical expression of intimacy, even as they choose abstinence to prove themselves wholly devout. But it’s how the bodies contort themselves throughout each number that spells brilliance, demonstrative of the convergence of prayer and dance. Be it the intimacy of “Hunger and Thirst,” which simply follows Ann in one of her lowest moments, awakening to a new day through repetitive gestures, to the early waltz through the woods, and the human wave of the Shakers as their bodies pulsate with unmitigated zeal, moving in one long, thrumming motion, the dancing is mesmerizing. We, like the dancers, lose ourselves in it. Rowlson-Hall doesn’t waste any gesture, each step, each flex of the hand, brimming with intent. –Ally Johnson
Original Score, “One Battle After Another”
A central tenet of Paul Thomas Anderson’s paean to preposterous radicalism is the notion of ocean waves. They appear in the mantra-like sentiments of Benicio Del Toro’s sensei figure, are visually exemplified by the stunning long-lens look at a ribbon of highway bisecting the desert sands, and they are heard through the vertiginous soundscape that Johnny Greenwood has assembled.
It’s hardly a surprise that Radiohead’s guitarist would provide a blend of symphonic lushness with percussively kinetic soundscape to a PTA vehicle, but this collaboration may prove both the most sophisticated and satisfying to date. While RogerEbert.com’s esteemed editor Brian Tallerico playfully described the compositions in “One Battle After Another” as being “bonkers,” there’s method to this compositional madness, with the flurry of pianistic notes and drone-like asides, acoustic and synthetic alike, sweeping in and out like waves crashing ashore. The result is a mix of power, chaos and bouts of repetition, the latter that lulls one into a daze whilst an almost subliminal growing anticipation bubbles below, as we tense up for the next tidal and tonal change to come.
Beyond Greenwood’s Varèsian bombast and Schönbergian orchestral sophistication, there’s a rock-and-roll ethos still peeking through some of the score’s crunchier, punk-like moments. There are dialectical collisions of both temporal and timbral elements (drawing from the likes of Frank Zappa’s concept of xenochrony) that makes has these turbulent sonic waves as vital to the success of the storytelling as any other aspect.
Throw in some welcome additions including unearthed explorations between PTA and John Biron, as well as a killer needle drops from The Jackson 5, Ramsey Lewis, Ella Fitzgerald, The Shirelles, Gill Scott-Herron and, of course, Steely Dan (whose “Dirty Work” helps form much of the chordal bedrock for Greenwood’s explorations) and you’ve got one yet another mind-blowing playlist from one of the most legendary soundtrack-crafting partnerships in cinematic history. –Jason Gorber
Cinematography, Pär M. Ekberg, “Black Phone 2”
Scott Derrickson may have his bad days, but very few directors have his good days. 2012’s “Sinister” created an expectation that he can tell a horror story through the visuals alone, with the properly calibrated jump scares and truly haunting 8mm interludes. On his good days he produces a texture that turns America’s false idyllic domestic past into a place of unruly horror. “Black Phone 2” is his best film when reduced to what the camera shows us, and in this case it’s a killing spree but a demented satyr, a killer in the woods with a hatchet turning children into cautionary tales with each jittery frame. Meanwhile, the narrative camera, in agoraphobic 2.39:1 widescreen, allows us to see monsters everywhere against the blue white of snow. The hokey-est ideas become otherworldly when bathed in Pär M. Ekberg’s cool, bleak lighting. The music video veteran treats each scene like a short film, giving the film raw power with every visual opportunity. No other film this year looks like “Black Phone 2,”and a good deal more should try. –Scout Tafoya
Cinematography, Christopher Messina, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
In the psychological dark comedy “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” director Mary Bronstein throws the viewer directly into the turbulent life of a therapist named Linda (Rose Byrne, in a career-defining performance), as she juggles the chaos of an unwell patient, a hostile relationship with her own therapist, an absent husband, a house that has been torn apart by a giant hole in its roof, and the unnamed illness of her daughter that requires round the clock care and feeding through a tube. As they began filming, Bronstein told her star that the aim was to film as if they were in Linda’s eyeballs for the duration of the movie. Working in tandem with cinematographer Christopher Messina, this was achieved with extreme close-ups on Linda, often leaving everything out of the frame except her often-distressed face.
Throughout the film Linda’s daughter is not seen, although she is heard, remaining a small, often annoying voice, just out of the frame. Although she stays entirely off screen for most of the film’s runtime, her wants and needs somehow dictate Linda’s entire life. Even the red light of her feeding tube at night becomes an oppressive force that engulfs their entire hotel room. This notion that we are inside Linda’s eyeballs goes one step further in one of the film’s flights of fancy as Linda visits the gaping hole in her apartment one night. The thick blackness of the void swirls and grows before Linda’s eyes, while every thought and memory inside her head, past and present, collide in a cacophony of sound and fury. The result is a film that is at times viscerally uncomfortable to watch, the ultimate filmic embodiment of walking a mile in someone else’s deeply stressed-out shoes. –Marya E. Gates
Adapted Screenplay, James Gunn, “Superman”
Superman is among the most valuable IP characters in the world, but that value, at least in movie terms, has come with a massive asterisk for a shockingly long time. What value does a character truly have if seemingly no one can get him right? That question had plagued Warner Bros. for over 40 years, as the last half dozen Superman movies have been either achingly boring (“Superman Returns”), campy schlock (“Superman IV: The Quest for Peace”), or woeful misunderstandings of the character’s core appeal (the gloomy destruction-porn of “Man of Steel” and its sequels). That’s the catch-22 with an all-powerful character who’s meant to be a shining beacon of hope and aspiration—how to concoct a credible threat to the former without sacrificing the latter.
I was admittedly dubious of whether James Gunn was the right choice for a long-overdue course correction. Despite loving his “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies, I worried Gunn’s tongue-firmly-in-cheek style might be just as much of a mismatch for the original superhero as Zack Snyder’s joylessness was. Happily, I was very wrong.
Gunn succeeded in the most unlikely of ways. Instead of trying to import Superman into the realism of our awful world, Gunn exported the threats we face in 2025 America to the bright, comic-book world of Metropolis. How would a physically omnipotent hero combat right-wing grievance media, internet deep fakes, social media disinformation, and a public that’s become addicted to being lied to by bad-faith billionaires? Those are threats worth watching a Superman movie about and seeing them defeated was as contagiously inspiring and hopeful as a Superman movie should feel. “Superman” got a lot of things right, from its bright visuals and hilariously misbehaved Krypto, to the most perfectly-cast Lois, Clark, and Lex we’ve ever had. (Yeah, I said what I said.) But first and foremost, “Superman” succeeded at a basic story and character level, because James Gunn understood the assignment. –Daniel Joyaux
Casting, Jennifer Venditti, “Marty Supreme”
Casting director Jennifer Venditti’s work started with the Safdie Brothers for 2017’s “Good Time,” and she’s been working with both of them ever since. Her greatest claim to fame is the collaborative casting of “Euphoria,” which introduced the world to some of the most famous young performers in Hollywood. The argument can be made that Josh Safdie had already met with Timothee Chalamet about “Marty Supreme.” He’s certainly central to the overall success of the picture. But that would also be shortchanging some of the most exciting casting choices of 2025.
Gwyneth Paltrow certainly doesn’t act as often as she used to, given her wellness and lifestyle brand, Goop. Her business savvy and personality have overshadowed her acting abilities, as she’s terrific as the retired actress Kay Stone. Finding Odessa A’zion for Rachel was a stroke of genius, as she’s about to launch into the stratosphere on HBO’s “I Love LA.” She could easily find herself in the Best Supporting Actress mix this year. Tyler Okonma (Tyler, the Creator) has appeared in TV shows before, but has often played himself. Here, he seamlessly inhabits the role of Chalamet’s trusted ally. The final bit of inspired casting comes from including Kevin O’Leary as a cruel businessman. O’Leary’s personality has brought him success on TV’s “Shark Tank,” but this is his first film performance, and he’s certainly up to the task. This list hasn’t even gotten to shout out Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, and Koto Kawaguchi. Venditti collected an inspired cast to bring the story of Marty Mauser to life, and it’s certainly among the year’s best. –Max Covill
Original Score, Daniel Pemberton, “Eddington”
The music in each of Ari Aster’s feature films has always felt like a character. Working with musician Bobby Krlic since his sophomore feature “Midsommar,” Aster’s newest film “Eddington” saw Krlic collaborating with composer Daniel Pemberton. While the two have very different techniques, their contrasting styles allow the film to unravel into a haunting mishmash of ideas and sounds, reverberating ominously through each minute of the film’s 2 hour and 28-minute runtime. Pemberton’s work dominates through the first few scenes of the film, where he utilizes soft strings that perfectly blend with the apparent righteousness of the film’s small town. Then comes Krlic’s first solo track, “Slogan Ideas,” where the classical Hollywood feel dissipates, giving way to heady guitar strings found in old westerns.
From there, both Pemberton and Krlic blend modern sounds with echoes of American cinema’s past, creating a unique soundscape that feels tethered not only to Eddington, New Mexico, but the fracturing psyche of the film’s characters. The film showcases a perfect blend of what both of these composers do best, the score humming and whining just as its characters do, before exploding into a cacophony of dueling sounds with one of its final tracks, “Here Comes the Cure.” In “Eddington,” the score is just as at war with itself as Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) are at war with each other, plucky strings and crescendoing horns allowing the horror of America’s broken spirit to take root.
Production Design, Alexandra Schaller and John Lavin, “Train Dreams”
There is already much earned praise that has been bestowed upon Adolpho Veloso’s stunning cinematography in “Train Dreams,” but there should be just as much celebration of the rich production design that brought the film’s world to life. Alexandra Schaller and John Lavin, two longtime veterans of their craft, have built a world that feels like you can reach out and touch it while watching it. From every detail of the lovingly made cabin that the sweeping film’s lonely Robert Grainier initially lives in with his family before residing there alone when he loses them to the massive firewatch tower that was actually built on the side of a hill, this is a film whose each and every element are ones that you almost don’t even notice because of just how natural it feels.
This is a testament to the work of Schaller and Lavin, who, with their talented fellow crew, even built some of the trees we see in the forest. That shot with the man lying inside a tree? That was built from the ground up. The train Robert watches making its way along the tracks he’s just built for a country that will soon leave him behind? They built that. The plane in the breathtaking final frames where Robert sees his small world from the sky? They built that on a gimbal on the ground to simulate the weightless feeling of flying high. To quote William H. Macy’s character from the film, it’s beautiful, all of it. – Chase Hutchinson
Original Score, Rob Mazurek, “The Mastermind”
In “The Mastermind,” Kelly Reichardt diverts ever so slightly from her typical, slow cinema storytelling. This “art-heist” film is Reichardt’s “One Battle After Another.” She, too, reckons with a deadbeat dad navigating an increasingly hostile political America; “The Mastermind” is existentially action-packed. While the plot itself is stressfully silly, the jazz-forward score decorates that tension with excitement and emotion.
The abstractavist, Rob Mazurek, is near flawless in composing his first-ever feature film score. His Chicago-based roots shine through, understanding the right amount of calculated improvisation to manipulate how the audience feels. As the main character, J.B. (Josh O’Connor), moves westward, the score becomes increasingly wild. Music moves the film’s pacing in a smooth, playful manner; there is more pizzazz when there is more at stake.
While I feel inclined to say the music mirrors the actions of J.B., upon rewatch and relisten, the sonic structure is so strong and entangled with enhancing the visuals that it’s uncertain who is in control. Perhaps that is the point, like jazz, it’s free-flowing, adapting, taking risks, and keeping everyone (most importantly the self) entertained. I am always pleasantly surprised by how it moves through moments of melancholy and bounces back to life.
Cinematography, Steven Soderbergh, “Presence”
I can’t recall a time when I wasn’t struck by the cinematography of a Steven Soderbergh film. It’s not only the camera’s movement and framing, but the color palette, and the way he bounces the cinematography off other aspects of the craft, like editing and music. It’s also the way in which the cinematography is an expression of the film’s soul, articulating with precision its persona, whether it’s the grittiness of “Traffic,” the playfulness of “Out of Sight” or the coolness of “Ocean’s 11.” With “Presence,” Soderbergh once again displays his dexterity by creating an entity POV film.
There is no shortage of theories about the role of the camera: from a tool to photograph the action, to an extension of the audience’s gaze, complicit in the voyeuristic act. In “Presence,” everything we see is from the ghost’s POV, and here lies a fascinating tension. The POV might adopt a voyeuristic gaze, watching up close the family’s day-to-day lives, but it’s they that are intruding on the ghost’s personal space. They force it to play the role of voyeur. This elicits a sympathy for the invisible protagonist. Just as we read the actor’s body language, so the camera movements inform our impression of whom this mysterious entity is. The shyness in the early scenes, when it hides from the family, its growing curiosity and the emotional outbursts all serve to reveal its character. What remains special about “Presence” is that Soderbergh somehow creates a character through cinematographic suggestion alone. –Paul Risker
Original Score, Kangding Ray, “Sirāt”
Often, the best film scores touch the heart or stir the spirit; this one, you feel deep in your bones—which perfectly suits Oliver Laxe’s fever dream of a fourth feature, which opens with a father searching for his lost daughter in the mountains of Morocco before descending into the desert to become a sonically mesmerizing work of metaphysical terror. Set in a remote rave culture that hosts illegal parties far from civilization—all deep, throbbing bass that reverberates through the battered, sometimes broken bodies of attendees, their movements suggesting a subconscious trance between agony and ecstasy—“Sirāt” benefits immensely from the interplay between its intensely atmospheric sound design and Kangding Ray’s sensational electronic score. With its textural density a driving force throughout the film, the French club musician’s compositions slowly transition from electrifying, psychedelic waves of sound to more skeletal, stripped-down arrangements, mirroring the way that Laxe’s narrative—which leads its potentially doomed characters through all manner of harrowing and horrifying ordeals en route to an uncertain destination—disintegrates like a sculpture crumbling into dust, blowing away in the desert’s howling winds. Ultimately, Kangding Ray’s score is revealed to be, more than simply a sonic landscape that immerses the viewer in the film’s rave scene, itself a kind of auditory bridge between heaven and hell, suspending the film’s atmosphere in a purgatorial state of divine, deafening bliss. –Isaac Feldberg
Costume Design, Kate Hawley, “Frankenstein”
Guillermo Del Toro had a simple directive for “Frankenstein”: “I want people painting, building, hammering, plastering.” Costume designer Kate Hawley listened and the results are visceral.
First, color: carnelian red for Claire, a mother’s love worn on her sleeve; upon her death, Victor keeps a red scarf around his neck, often donning red leather gloves too, his mother’s spilled blood literally guiding his actions and decisions. Harlander’s tight tan gloves and nymph-topped cane reference his need for control, perhaps even the source of his illness. Adult Victor dons neither Dickensian nor Victorian attire, but an 1850s blend of David Bowie’s Thin White Duke era, Mick Jagger, a little Francis Bacon, and Rudolf Nureyev. Hawley stopped fixing Isaac’s costumes between takes, saying, “He had lovely clothes, but…wore them irreverently. To me, that is the ultimate kind of rock star language.”
Garments for Elizabeth establish her relationship with nature: her malachite and magenta crinoline dresses, overlaid with tulle, were hand-printed to mimic blood cells and the iridescent shells of beetles. Diaphanous materials (the organza veils and sheer, 1960s Victorian horror nightgown) are multipurpose: they constantly shift color to evoke the evanescence of God’s creation, they reference Claire, but also the dreamlike nature of memory, of repetition as a part of the storytelling. Elizabeth’s carnelian red rosary (the cross has a beetle inside) and blue scarab beetle necklace—in keeping with Claire as a callback and nature as a vital force, respectively—are archival Tiffany pieces.
It is Elizabeth’s bond with nature and God that creates her rapport with the Creature. The Creature is a composite of parts from fallen soldiers, as are his clothes; he must cobble a self together at every turn, literally and figuratively imprinting on his person the memories of those whose limbs and garments he now uses. Elizabeth’s wedding gown is a final reunion between herself, the Creature, and Claire: the Swiss ribbon bodice harkens back to “The Bride of Frankenstein,” but also references the strips of bandages hanging from the Creature’s frame. Each layer of the gown, like Elizabeth’s other dresses, functions like an X-ray, revealing layers of filleted skin, and once she is maimed, blood blooms inside the bodice, evoking Claire’s color motif and her death. The best costume work tells a story without dialogue, and Hawley’s work speaks volumes. –Nandini Balial
Cinematography, Dong Jingsong, “Resurrection”
Shooting Bi Gan’s “Resurrection” meant shooting six films in one, using six different styles and color palettes to evoke not only five different periods in cinema (plus one timeless black void) but also the six Buddhist senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind. Cinematographer Dong Jingsong is more than up for the task, giving each of the film’s chapters a distinct visual identity that contributes to its sense of romance and epic, century-long sweep.
First, Dong recreates the hand-tinted, hand-cranked look of silent-era film for the film’s opening chapter, which sets the playful, magical-realist tone with paper flowers and a spinning zoetrope. Next is a silvery tribute to midcentury film noir, followed by a still, snowy interlude at a Buddhist temple in winter. From here, we get a self-contained short film in realist ‘80s arthouse style, followed by a neon-soaked trip to the stylized languor of late-’90s Hong Kong.
The thing that ties all of these segments together is a series of tracking shots, which range from jaw-dropping feats of camerawork (a winding 30-minute one-take through a crowded karaoke bar) to smaller, more ephemeral moments (a brief shot following the film’s lead actor through the reflection of a puddle on the sidewalk).
The enigmatic “Other One,” an eternal being who shepherds the film’s “deliriant” through each of these cinematic “dreams,” speaks of the “ancient and long forgotten language of cinematography.” But, if Dong’s work on this film is any indication, that language is as alive as it’s ever been. –Katie Rife
Cinematography, Fabian Gamper, “Sound of Falling”
There’s a timelessness to the image in Mascha Schilinski’s extraordinary multi-character, time-hopping drama following four women in the same family spending time in the same countryside estate at different points over the course of a century. In these spaces charged with collective history and individual pain, the camera of cinematographer Fabian Gamper glides around artfully observing the evolving human conflict, yet not in an entirely inconspicuous manner. At times the characters look back, staring at the lens as if acknowledging its presence, or perhaps using the camera as a portal to communicate with their relatives in the other time periods, who are experiencing similar feelings of frustration and despair.
Coated in soft light, the frames in Schilinski’s masterful film appear as if they existed in the present and the past simultaneously, like photographs plucked from an old album and brought to life. Though the lighting choices are delicate, almost ethereal in sensation, Gamper’s dynamic presence (including in a dreamlike underwater sequence) also acts as a unifying force, even as the narrative walks in and out of each thread weaving them into a devastating whole. That Gamper and Schilinski are married may have also influenced the synergy between content and form magnificently exhibited here. –Carlos Aguilar
Screenplay, Eva Victor, “Sorry, Baby”
Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby” takes on a fresh perspective in demonstrating that trauma and our navigation towards healing are anything but linear. In their viscerally vulnerable and naturalistically funny debut screenplay, Victor adopts a non-chronological approach to focus on their lead character, Agnes, and her healing process following being sexually assaulted—which is described as “the bad thing”—by her professor. With Victor’s non-linearity over a five-year period, “Sorry, Baby” structures itself as the aftermath of a traumatic event in which the affected person is slowly catching up, if not stuck, as the world moves on. While “the bad thing” is specific to Agnes and her experience, Victor’s powerful script strikes a universal notion in the challenges people face to reclaim their agency and autonomy following a spiritually breaking traumatic event.
Victor deftly strikes a balance between guiding this challenging subject with empathy and potent comedy with profound, sharp dialogue. Much of it—specifically the complex discussions Agnes shares with her devoted best friend Lydie or Pete, a random sandwich shop owner who helps her calm down from a panic attack—has lingered in my mind since my first viewing at this past Sundance Film Festival.
However, the script of “Sorry, Baby” is a potent indicator that an original, honest, intelligent voice has arrived in Eva Victor. And I await more of what’s in store from their pen in the future. –Rendy Jones
Costume Design, Trish Summerville, “Weapons”
You never forget your first time meeting Aunt Gladys in “Weapons”. Exquisitely portrayed by Amy Madigan in a killer performance that splits the difference between bloodcurdling and outrageously hilarious, Aunt Gladys enters a school principal’s office dressed to the nines in her very own unapologetic way. She’s in a color-blocked tracksuit embellished with floral pins, flaunting her oversized green shades and an enormous tote she might have made herself using a vintage rug. (In fact, the purse is supplied from Max Carpetbag Works.) It’s an instantly legendary look—so memorable in fact that it become among 2025’s popular DIY Halloween costumes—one that costume designer Trish Summerville brought to life in divine detail, complementing (and even informing) both the deliciously kitschy nuances of Madigan’s performance, and the film’s tricky overall tone that serves up uncomfortable laughs and horrors seamlessly.
As the witchy Pied Piper-esque houseguest that overstays her welcome and gets busy threatening an entire community, Aunt Gladys is somehow never too busy to adorn herself in magenta skirt suits, floral house robes, or unthinkable colorful ensembles that look like well-preserved relics of the bygone ‘70s and ‘80s, with subtly modern twists here and there. In Summerville’s costuming (that is equally detailed and lived-in across the film’s other characters), Gladys is both that weird porcelain doll-collecting auntie you’ve learned to avoid in family gatherings (come to think of it, she looks like one of those dolls herself), and a new horror icon that will continue to decorate our most unsettling nightmares.
Editing, Sara Shaw, “Splitsville”
When people discuss the art of editing in movies, the talk too often tends to focus on big elaborate sequences involving action and violence. However, editing also plays an equally important, if often overlooked, part in the success of screen comedies—even the most brilliantly conceived and performed bit of humor can be botched by some hiccup in the process, such as using the wrong angle or cutting to and from the punchline either too quickly or too slowly. In 2025, no film had me laughing louder or more consistently than “Splitsville,” the wild relationship comedy about the conflicts that arise between two couples, one (played by co-writer Kyle Marvin and Adria Arjona) who are in the process of getting divorced and the other (played by director/co-writer Michael Angelo Covino and Dakota Johnson) in an open marriage, and while the screenplay, direction and performances are all quite funny, it is the editing from Sara Shaw that really sends things into overdrive with her ability to know how to handle each moment in just the right way in order to maximize the laughter.
This is most evident in the instantly famous sequence where the two guys end up in an extended brawl that winds up leveling much of the lavish beach house where they are staying, one of the most inspired bits of physical comedy to come along in some time and one that Shaw miraculously manages to keep from slipping into mere brutality. However, Shaw also manages to use her craft to get big laughs in plenty of other ways, from unexpected displays of full nudity to conveying passages in time to any number of surprise reveals. Considering the indifferent manner in which too many comedies are assembled, to see one put together with the grace and skill that “Splitsville” has been given is a cause for celebration, one that will have you rolling on the floor with laughter at the same time. –Peter Sobczynski
Production Design/Cinematography/Gaffer Team, “Wake Up Dead Man”
The shining moments in “Wake Up Dead Man” are a craft conundrum. At first, you wonder if the tricks of light originate in Rick Heinrichs’ production design. The sanctuary of the fictitious Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude is gorgeously gothic, every arch and pew evocative. And yet, Steve Yedlin’s cinematography whispers secrets, draped in darkly alluring mystery. Then again, lead gaffer Dave Smith’s lighting is a practical and poetic miracle. Finally, it dawns on you. The pinnacle of craft in the latest “Knives Out Mystery” isn’t a person, but a beam of light known as “God Rays,” and it’s a culmination of three creatives.
Heinrichs built the church set with light in mind, placing windows and architectural details to channel sunlight and create natural sight lines. Yedlin took that foundation and engineered the look, calibrating cameras to capture the interplay of inky darks, vivid color washes, and contrast shadows with light to highlight details. But it’s Smith’s technical precision that brings it all together. The gaffer team created rigs that allowed them to control the timing and intensity of every beam, allowing the outside world to invade the sanctuary, just as Rian Johnson envisioned.
When Benoit Blanc argues for reason over faith, clouds obscure the sun, but Pastor Jud’s passion brings the sunlight back, flaring the camera lens. Later, during Blanc’s ‘Road to Damascus’ moment, the stained-glass glows, and he’s enveloped in ethereal light. God Rays. The awe we feel in those moments is testimony to the rhapsodic effects of craft in collaboration. –Sherin Nicole
Original Score, Jerry Goldsmith and Christopher Young, “Final Destination: Bloodlines”
One of the biggest surprises of this year is Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein’s “Final Destination: Bloodlines”. Yes, all of its main characters are destined to die in one gruesome way or another, but the movie has a real naughty fun and thrill with those expectedly horrible death scenes. This depends a lot on Tim Wynn’s electrifyingly dramatic original score, which is definitely one of the crowning achievements of this year.
A lesser composer would simply resort to a lot of blunt noises just for jolting us during those death scenes in the film, but Wynn, who once studied under Jerry Goldsmith and Christopher Young, follows his two legendary teachers’ footsteps with a lot of style, skill, and intelligence. While the overall style of his score is often reminiscent of Young’s gleefully grand horror score for “Drag Me to Hell” (2009), its occasionally propulsive moments take us back to Goldsmith’s several notable action/thriller movie scores such as “Basic Instinct” (1992). In addition, he even adds a respectful nod to Shirely Walker’s score for “Final Destination” (2000) during a key scene featuring one of the last performances by late Tony Todd, who played a recurring character throughout the franchise.
Overall, Wynn utilizes well this big opportunity which may boost his career a lot, which was started in the 1990s but mostly consists of a bunch of TV works and video games such as “Warhawk”. Just like Bear McCreary did in “10 Cloverfield Lane” (2016), he suddenly comes to us as another promising film music composer to watch, and the success of “Final Destination: Bloodlines” will possibly lead to him to more opportunities to demonstrate his considerable skill and talent. –Cho Seongyong
- With “Metroid Prime 4,” Nintendo’s Frankenstein is Beyond Saving (December 18, 2025)
“Metroid Prime 4: Beyond” has had an uncharacteristically troubled development cycle. After it was completely rebooted in 2017, we’ve finally gotten the next mainline “Metroid Prime” game, 18 years after “Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.” But something feels off about “Metroid Prime 4.” Even after 8 years of development, the game lacks a cohesive vision. It’s a cobbled mess of uninspired ideas with flashes of brilliance. Biomes are stunning, and exploration feels exciting, but the game has the blandest open world in recent memory, along with a boring cast of supporting characters.
“Metroid Prime 4: Beyond” follows Samus Aran as she and members of the Galactic Federation get mysteriously transported to the planet of Viewros during a heated combat encounter. There, an ancient civilization called the Lamorn tasks her with collecting five keys across the planet to teleport a device to safety. The story is just fine for what it is, as this series is about the vibes and atmosphere anyway. However, what drags the experience down are the annoying Galactic Federation members.
You have the nerdy engineer Myles, the weary sniper Reger, the gruff sergeant Ezra, the energetic soldier Nora, and the curt robot VUE-995. These Galactic Federation members constantly spout Marvel-like sarcastic quips and idolize Samus, but it’s incredibly awkward when all she does is stay silent and occasionally nod. In many past adventures, Samus is a lone agent and doesn’t interact with others much. Even though she was silent, her unwavering confidence gave her a badass personality. Prime 4 attempts to be more cinematic and character-driven, but the supporting cast doesn’t really develop beyond one-note personalities. By the end of the game, it’s hard to care about them.
The Lamorn grants Samus psychic abilities, which is Prime 4’s gameplay gimmick this time around. With these newfound powers, she’s able to latch onto walls, create platforms, and grapple on hooks. I had a lot of fun revisiting old areas whenever I unlocked more of her kit to find more upgrades. However, these psychic powers are underutilized in the combat department. The only attack that even remotely uses her psychic abilities is being able to control where her blasts go manually in slow motion. It’s a cool mechanic that showcases Samus’s fighting prowess in a new way.
Instead of more of these kinds of mechanics, “Prime 4” falls back on generic fire, ice, and electric elemental shots that Samus can switch between. It feels devoid of creativity compared to past games, such as her Phazon Corruption arm cannon in “Prime 3.”
At the very least, the game is a technical marvel. Performance issues are nonexistent on Nintendo Switch 2, the different environmental biomes are gorgeous. I loved exploring places like Volt Forge, a place powered entirely by lightning strikes, the sweltering Flare Pool facility inside a volcano, and the Ice Belt, an eerily cold underground lab. These dungeons helped flesh out the history of Viewvros and the Lamorn’s extinction, providing valuable worldbuilding. The sound design and soundtrack are also superb in keeping you immersed.
Unfortunately, in between these biomes, you’re forced to cross vast distances in the Sol Valley, an utterly lifeless desert area that is one of the emptiest open worlds I’ve ever experienced. There’s nothing here besides a few weapon upgrades scattered about and green crystals that Samus can crash through with her motorcycle. Every time I step out into Sol Valley, I feel like I’m just wasting my time. The pacing would’ve been much better if the biomes were interconnected in some way, you know, like a Metroidvania. The desert could literally vanish into thin air, and nothing of value would be lost.
“Metroid Prime 4: Beyond” could’ve done so much more with its open world, supporting cast, and psychic powers. It just feels like a Frankenstein of half-baked concepts. The ambiance and exploration that made past Metroid games fun are in here, but those moments are stuck between laborious driving and plodding dialogue. I’m not entirely sure what was going on during the game’s troubled development, but there’s little coherence between all of its systems. Just go play the much better “Metroid Dread” instead.
- Emily in Paris Season 5, but It’s Rome (Where She Wants To) (December 18, 2025)
“That’s the problem with Rome: ancient history is everywhere.”
–Emily, preaching a sermon
Last year, when writing about Season 4 of the candy-coated Netflix series, I said, “After almost 4 seasons, I’ve discovered the cheat code for enjoying ‘Emily in Paris,’ it’s recognizing while Emily is a hero in her own mind, she’s the villain in this story. That revelation est joyeaux.” Created by Darren Starr and starring Lily Collins, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, Ashley Park, and the current paramour, Eugenio Franceschini as Marcello, “Emily in Paris” is a show with the magic of a Vegas lounge magician, deeply annoying and yet highly watchable. Every time I watch it, I think: This must be what chain smoking feels like. And I wonder if I should invest in a nicotine patch. Ah well, when in Rome…
Be assured—throughout much of the 10-episode Season 5—we are indeed in Rome, or Venice, or in Solitano with Marcello. Meanwhile, Emily tries to leave Gabriel (Lucas Bravo) in the past. Again. And once again, the fashion from lead costume designer Marylin Fitoussi is bold, imaginative, and chic. But that’s not the only good news.
Emily in Paris. (L to R) Bruno Gouery as Luc, Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu as Sylvie Grateau in Emily in Paris. Cr. Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix © 2025
Helming Agence Grateau’s new Rome office, Emily is thrown headfirst into Italian styling, cultural subtleties, and high-stakes ambition. At first, her signature optimism pays off. It’s fun to watch her and the Grateau gang leap into creative problem-solving mode with all kinds of romantic entanglements attached. Until a marketing campaign unexpectedly backfires, leaving her feeling betrayed and sending shockwaves through both her love life and career. As familiar heartbreak and professional setbacks return, Emily tries to find balance by re-embracing her reliable Parisian lifestyle. But just as things begin to settle, a scandal or two within her inner circle threatens to upend her support system and send her spiraling.
Where’s that good news I promised? This season, Emily is growing. Although the progress is slow, she’s maturing, and it shows. No longer able to shut down when situations get difficult, this season is about facing conflict head-on and discovering that a pivot doesn’t have to be a cop-out. That helps because Sylvie (Leroy-Beaulieu) is almost as good as Emily at getting their agency firmly mired in the “merde,” as Luc (Bruno Gouery) provides effortlessly clueless comedy, and Julien (Samuel Arnold) bails out this trainwreck of Orient-Express proportions with a simmering glare of French disdain and a witty quip.
Mindy (Park) is just as self-centered as Emily, and both double-dutch in and out of love just as quickly. Yet somehow Mindy makes ‘dizzy oblivion’ charming, while Emily makes you want to pull her aside for a word. Mind you, I’m not talking about the performances—Collins and Park give us full-bodied characters. I’m just begging Netflix to give us a spin-off. A romantic romp called Mindy Over Paris, with a touch of global travel and lots of jukebox musical set pieces. That’s what the people want. It’s me. I am the people.
Emily in Paris. Ashley Park as Mindy in Emily in Paris. Cr. Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix © 2025
So what else is different this season? If you’ve seen the S5 trailer, you know that Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) is back. Was that a spark between him and Mindy? I’ll never tell, but what’s really new—no matter how many mishaps, missteps, and mix-ups happen—is the depth of the friendships. Emily and Mindy learn that being there and upfront with one another enriches their lives. Emily and Sylvie also develop deeper levels of trust and connection. Sylvie goes through a torrent of upheaval this season. We’re allowed to witness her vulnerability and the unseen hopes that her icy facade usually hides. That’s what makes this season more grounded than in the past; the characters aren’t just silly people doing silly things. They’re still prone to bouts of ridiculousness, but they are works in progress, beginning to discard the flatness of caricatures to take on more dimension.
The characters continue to annoy me, but the annoyances have more nuance. Still, if you’ve been here for the entire run of the series, the plot points will make you feel like a fortune teller. I shouted out every story beat before it happened like an Oracle of Netflix. So yes, “Emily in Paris” used to be my one-and-only hate-watch. Now I hate that I somewhat enjoy watching it, but I do.
What? No, there aren’t any clues in that last sentence. Even if there were, it’s not what you think.
Whole season screened for review. Now on Netflix.
- The Great Performances of 2025 (December 17, 2025)
The remarkable year for film has already been captured in this feature of the ten best movies of the year, and this one with over 100 works cited on individual lists. It’s time to talk about performances! We asked our regular contributors to pick a performance this year they loved, and the results capture the diversity of genre, tone, and even acting styles in the art form.
There were some rules, including that each film could be represented by only one entry, which is one of several reasons this list is nowhere near comprehensive for ALL the great acting of 2025. There are performances by Emma Stone, Teyana Taylor, Benicio Del Toro, Wagner Moura, Timothee Chalamet, David Strathairn, and many more that we adored but aren’t included below. Consider this a snapshot of the great acting of 2025 more than the entire picture, but it’s a beautiful one, nonetheless.
Joel Edgerton, “Train Dreams”
These days, we are constantly bombarded with TikTok influencers and shiny, happy people in TV ads “living their best lives,” whatever that means—but in Clint Bentley’s meditative, early-20th-century period-piece poem “Train Dreams,” Joel Edgerton plays a man for whom that concept would be utterly foreign, and maybe even embarrassing. Edgerton’s work might seem minimalist at first, but we come to realize that we’re watching a formidable actor sculpting a fully realized, complex performance.
Edgerton’s Robert Grainier is orphaned as a child, knows happiness for a few brief years before tragedy strikes, and then spends most of his life simply trying to get by in a harsh land, largely isolated from the changing world and only occasionally making meaningful human connections. This is the best he can do with the life he’s been handed.
Aspiring actors looking to break into film would do well to study Edgerton’s performance. He creates an authentic, lived-in character and brings a rough-hewn physicality to the role—but there are no theatrics, no self-conscious mannerisms. This is an understated, restrained performance, yet we see a broad spectrum of emotion conveyed through Edgerton’s subtle facial expressions. He is playing the rarest of movie leads: an utterly ordinary man who is nevertheless a fascinated and sometimes overwhelmed observer of the world around him—and a quietly fascinating human being in a myriad of small but lasting ways. –Richard Roeper
Jennifer Lawrence, “Die My Love”
If there’s such a thing as dejection incarnate, Jennifer Lawrence has mastered it in her raw portrayal of Grace in “Die My Love.” Post-partum depression and psychosis are in the awareness of the social zeitgeist, though they are often misunderstood and cloaked in shame. But in the throes of depression, sometimes shame is hard to come by when one is overcome with profound indifference and even anger. Lawrence embodies this spectrum with expert primality, using the beast of motherhood as a centerpiece for exploring the animal of her new selfhood.
On the other side of birth, Grace feels born anew, though not fresh; something has turned. The runtime of “Die My Love” seems to find her exploring her body as a new frontier, trying to move through the rot and find her way back to clarity. At times, Lawrence straddles behaviors that echo both animality and infancy: routinely exploring her territory on hands and knees, licking windows, and going limp in exasperation. She is erratic at times, and carefully measured at others, unyieldingly sexual in bouts, and then hungry for isolation. Yet in all these dichotomies, whether lying prone on the floor of her wedding reception or tearing her nails to shreds on the bathroom wallpaper, Lawrence never tips off the head of the nail.
As far as dialogue goes, she’s usually silent or stripped bare, forcing her into a primarily physical performance that volleys between crawling, collapse, and impulse. It’s a ballet of true hysterics, chaptered by interludes of longing and frustration that Lawrence intermingles with deft hands. Grace is in the mouth of madness: sometimes in full, clawing-at-the-walls embrace, and other times, by means of a thousand-yard stare, desperate to find her way out.
Here, the same dryness that makes Lawrence so funny in comedic roles and interviews alike is weaponized into the perfect stoicism of Grace’s melancholy. But sadness takes many forms, and above all, Lawrence’s immersive performance feels like a curdled scream into the void: a moving, empathetic portrait of female ferality. –Peyton Robinson
Abou Sangare, “Souleymane’s Story”
Before the production of his immigrant drama film “Souleymane’s Story,” Boris Lojkine went through an extensive search for his leading actor. He did find the right one from Abou Sangare, a young Guinean immigrant mechanic who incidentally had no acting experience at all before. Because the titular character’s surname is also Sangare, we naturally wonder how much of Sangare’s life story overlaps with his character (he also came to France mainly for his mother’s welfare, just like his character, for example). All I can tell you is that he brings a lot of sincerity and honesty to his character, besides genuine authenticity.
As the camera steadily follows Souleymane through several eventful days, Sangare’s unadorned, non-professional performance effortlessly embodies his character’s ongoing struggle and conflict. This eventually culminates in the expected but undeniably powerful scene between Souleymane and a government official handling his application for political asylum. As Souleymane later becomes more honest about the long-standing pain and desperation behind his false life story to gain acceptance from the government official, Sangre is simply captivating, and we come to have a greater understanding and empathy for Souleyman instead of merely pitying him from a distance.
Not so surprisingly, Sangre received several notable awards, including the Breakthrough Performance award at the Gotham Independent Film Awards. I do not know whether we will see him more in other films in the future, but he does give one of the finest performances of this year. –Cho Seongyong
Jacob Elordi, “Frankenstein”
Those who judge acting often make the mistake of judging the writing instead of the performance. A great monologue, a witty exchange, a heartbreaking plot twist–these are the building blocks of performance, but brilliant screenwriting often deserves half the credit. Of course, this is not to say that a bad actor can’t mangle a screenplay, but it’s led to a dynamic in which it feels like we all take the physical half of performance for granted. Acting is more than speaking words. Acting is movement. The way a performer finds his light, hides his eyes, stiffens his spine, slumps his shoulders, etc., impacts an entire film as much as the lines he speaks. There was no more physically riveting performance this year than that of Jacob Elordi in Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein.”
From the minute Elordi’s Creature enters the frame, he’s using his giant frame to maximum impact. The way he stretches and moves his fingers, the way he first encounters the world, almost like a newborn child, and how that’s contrasted against the vicious killing machine later in the story. Elordi is constantly making choices about not just what this character is thinking and feeling, but how those emotions can be expressed through his body. It’s a performance that can be appreciated in silence, a reminder that great actors don’t steal scenes as much as they elevate a filmmaker’s vision through their physical choices. It’s arguably the best performance in Del Toro’s oeuvre, a perfect conjoining of an artist’s vision and an actor’s expanding skill set. –Brian Tallerico
Ethan Hawke, “Blue Moon”
“Nobody ever loved me that much.” This line becomes a tattered refrain for Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon.” A line uttered by Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca,” the down-and-out lyricist gloms onto it as an explanation for his own self-destructive behavior. This internal narrative is at the heart of star Ethan Hawke‘s towering performance in the chamber dramedy, his ninth collaboration with Linklater. In Hawke’s nimble hands, Hart is a broken man with a front row seat to his own personal and professional demise. Diminutive in stature, but big in personality, Larry, as he’s known to his friends, has thrown himself into one last performance as Lorenz Hart, one half of Rodgers and Hart, the greatest American songwriting duo of all time.
Although Larry knows his days as somebody of note are waning, he can still play the part to a fault. It’s the after party for the premiere of “Oklahoma!,” the first of several hit shows Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) would go on to write with his new partner Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Still, Hart is determined to hold on to his old partnership, pitching new show concepts to Rodgers with the overzealousness of a used car salesman.
Hawke allows this desperation to seep in slowly, like a balloon letting out air over the course of a party. His passion and charm, at least at first, mask his self-loathing. He can banter with his bartender buddy Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) and share an intellectual discussion with fellow writer E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy) with the confidence of a bantam cock. But when it comes to matters of the heart, including his disastrous crush on the young and talented Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley) and his dissolving twenty-five-year relationship with Rodgers, the cracks begin to show. Hawke slowly folds his body into itself. His wide eyes become open wounds, where deflated passions leak out like pools of blood. Although Hart is a broken man, body and soul, Hawke plays this destruction all on the inside, projecting one last false sense of celebration into the night, as everyone who has ever meant anything to him heads out into their own futures, leaving him behind to wallow in his glorious past. –Marya E. Gates
Michael Cera, “The Phoenician Scheme”
By the time Michael Cera arrives in the quietly hilarious “The Phoenician Scheme” from director Wes Anderson, it’s hard to imagine any Anderson film going forward without him. Cera is so predisposed to the symmetrically off-kilter worlds Anderson creates. Despite this, he doesn’t simply default to tired, tried-and-true tropes. Instead, Cera comes alive in the minutia of his performance. There’s a constant, thrumming energy to his character that suggests he might float off if able to, with each physical flourish, be it how he holds himself or leaping across the frame, adding layers of specificity and charm. The script both works with what we know of Cera as a performer while allowing him to show off, from accent work to holding his own against heavyweights. In a rich ensemble of character actors and leading men, Cera eclipses them by reminding us of the magic in more minor gestures. From brushing off dust from a pretzel retrieved from his coat pockets to the sing-song delivery of his lines, the minimalist manner in which he approaches this character is in perfect harmony with the silliness and whimsy. So much so that, once the glasses and bow tie come off, and the coat collar is upturned, we, too, have been duped. –Ally Johnson
Amy Madigan, “Weapons”
Aunt Gladys, the surprise villain of Zach Cregger’s horror hit “Weapons,” is a clown. That’s scary enough to a lot of people in a post-”It” world. But the curly wig with the bizarre baby bangs, smeared ring of red lipstick, and heavy eye shadow and pancake makeup that actor Amy Madigan wears in character aren’t just an inspiration to drag queens and Halloween revelers — they’re armor. Aunt Gladys makes herself invisible by making herself hyper-visible, allowing those around her to dismiss her as an eccentric old bird who probably thinks that Jimmy Carter is still the president. But she isn’t as harmless as she looks. In fact, she isn’t harmless at all.
Madigan’s mannerisms change when Aunt Gladys goes barefaced; she no longer tilts her head to one side, and her wide, clueless smile is replaced with a tight-lipped scowl. This is when the character really gets serious. In these scenes, Madigan’s calm voice has a threatening undercurrent that speaks to the power concealed under her clownlike appearance. But that power is also a bluff. It conceals Gladys’ true vulnerability, which her young nephew, Alex (Cary Christopher), witnesses when he walks in on her alone in her bedroom.
As all good actors playing villains should be, Madigan is sympathetic towards Gladys, calling her “a very misunderstood woman” who’s “just doing what she has to do to get through.” Her performance plays on society’s simultaneous fear and dismissal of older women, embodying the desperation and bitterness that drive this storybook witch and her selfish, power-hungry ways. –Katie Rife
Leonardo DiCaprio, “One Battle After Another”
Among the greatest movie stars of our time, Leonardo DiCaprio has built one of those enviable careers that increasingly feels like a unicorn in cinema. He’s never been anything less than a stupendous actor, even as a young heartthrob of the ‘90s. And at 51 years of age today, his name still invokes the dream of Hollywood stardom. But to those looking closely, DiCaprio has been doing something else recently, in addition to reinforcing his uncompromising focus on cinematic excellence as an actor and producer. He’s been proudly embracing his age and leaning further into his disarming on-screen vulnerability, which has always been there behind his intensely sharp gaze, playing characters who are struggling to keep up with the rapidly changing world around them.
After playing the likes of an aging TV star, a murderous and morally conflicted war veteran, and a scientist with a case of midlife crisis, he is now a washed-up revolutionary in Paul Thomas Anderson’s masterwork, more in love with fatherhood than he’s ever been with changing the world. As Bob Ferguson, DiCaprio (hilariously donned in a weathered robe throughout much of the movie) is both sturdy and broken, both deeply relatable and maddening, both heartrending and laugh-out-loud funny. (DiCaprio’s exceptional physical comedy chops continue to be overlooked.) He is a single dad stuck in a rut in life, and he needs to step up at once to save the person he’s been living for, his daughter (Chase Infiniti), not realizing that perhaps he is the one who needs to be saved.
Because DiCaprio is always consistently excellent, the shades of humanity he brings out in Ferguson through a physically and emotionally agile performance might be taken for granted. But it shouldn’t be. To this critic, the road sequence in which Ferguson reunites with his daughter, holding that musical trust device, is the most heart-swelling scene of the year. In it and elsewhere, DiCaprio proves that he’s still that heartbreaker we fell in love with decades ago, but perhaps of a slightly different, more approachable kind. It’s a flawless turn from an actor who continues to give us a reason to go to the movies and experience stories and faces on the big screen. –Tomris Laffly
Naomi Ackie, “Mickey 17”
“Mickey 17” is, for the most part, unmemorable. After a slew of shifts for its release date and seemingly nonexistent marketing budget, it’s somewhat shocking anyone saw it at all. With her stellar support performance in Eva Victor’s “Sorry Baby,” Naomi Ackie is even more standout as the lead in Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi adventure. While she showcased some of her depth in the 2024 thriller, “Blink Twice,” her role in “Mickey 17” allowed her to soak up the spotlight and be audaciously, unflinchingly gravitational.
When Nasha (Ackie) comes into the storyline, we, like Mickey (Robert Pattinson), are immediately smitten. Although her primary role is as Mickey’s love interest, her confident, playful demeanor makes it evident that she is much, much more. Nasha is no damsel-in-distress; she’s Mickey’s primary motivator. Ackie excellently matches Pattinson’s oddball energy, and she brings an enticing warmth to the screen that the story often lacked.
Her role is also much more complex than that of a lover; she’s a shipmate, a caring friend, and ultimately, the heroine. This layered identity is contained by a faraway spaceship with questionable leadership. Yet, Ackie acts with assurance that her character knows no bounds and will go great lengths for her found family. At times, it would be easy (i.e., lazy) to label Nasha as angry or aggressive. Ackie, without explicitly stating so, convinces us that every emotion explored and expressed is justified. Giving us, the audience, something gritty and authentic to admire, letting us know that Ackie is an actor to always look forward to seeing. –Cortlyn Kelly
Dylan O’Brien, “Twinless”
There’s an enchanting, rough-around-the-edges quality to Roman. His bro-type propensity to resolve conflict with violence is juxtaposed with a certain naivete that allows him to take others’ intentions at face value. You could call him a himbo, but in Dylan O’Brien’s career-best turn, this straight white dude who loves hockey transcends his brutish archetype for a more vulnerable depiction of heterosexual masculinity. Emotionally unequipped to grapple with the loss of his twin brother, O’Brien’s Roman clings to a bromance with the secret-holding Denis (James Sweeney), and it’s through this relationship founded on deceit (unbeknown to him) that Roman begins to process his grief.
Halfway through this dramedy, as the two characters sit in a hotel room, Roman pretends to be in front of his brother Rocky. Through this scenario, he wrestles with regret and resentment amid rageful tears. Layered with both profound sorrow and glimmers of genuine humor, O’Brien’s monologue viscerally captures the ambivalent, turbulent feelings Roman harbors about his sibling. The actor’s unrestrained crying while trying to formulate sentences resonates with such believable heartache that it almost prompts one to look away, as if to prevent getting caught up in the rawness of the emotion that O’Brien so potently evokes. On a path-redefining run as of late with roles in films like “Ponyboi,” O’Brien is twice as impressive here since he also puts on an opposing personality, that of a confident gay man, to play Rocky, the other twin. –Carlos Aguilar
Amanda Seyfried, “The Testament of Ann Lee”
“The Testament of Ann Lee” needs audiences to believe that Amanda Seyfried’s character could be the female embodiment of Christ. I’ll be the first to admit that I was a doubter of Amanda Seyfried. Despite showing her expertise in numerous projects, I always envisioned her as an actress who sings her best parts. Roles like Cosette in “Les Misérables” or Sophie in “Mamma Mia!” were how I always envisioned her. Broadly speaking, less dramatic roles. While her performance in Ann Lee still finds her singing, it’s more in line with her performances in films like “Jennifer’s Body” and “First Reformed”– physical performances that sneak up on you. The biggest difference this time is that she’s the one in the spotlight. No longer playing second fiddle to Megan Fox and Ethan Hawke.
As the founder of the religious movement that would become the Shakers, Seyfried’s Ann Lee dances and sings, her soul visible to all. There’s a sequence early in the movie that must’ve taken unbelievable courage to film. Seyfried follows those early haunting visions with enchanting choreography and a physical performance that demands almost everything from her. There’s a primal rage to the dancing that’s hard to describe without witnessing it. Undoubtedly, Seyfried benefits from Mona Fastvold’s direction, whose vivid imagination helped forge this powerhouse performance. Seyfried was gifted the role of a lifetime, and she absolutely delivers in one of the most demanding roles of her entire career. I’m no longer a doubter of Seyfried. –Max Covill
Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
One of the greatest tools in cinema is the close-up. Though this may sound obvious, it’s a part of the art form that allows us not just to look, but truly to see people in a way we rarely get to in our everyday lives. In 2025, there were few characters we saw more completely than Rose Byrne’s troubled mother Linda in Mary Bronstein’s illuminating “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”
From the opening moments where we get the first of many often extreme close-ups on Byrne’s frequently exhausted face to the quietly shattering finale when we see her for the first time through the eyes of her daughter, her performance is nothing short of astounding. Even as the film is less a reintroduction to the longtime performer than a reaffirmation of her immense talents, it’s this role that gives her the fullest canvas of emotions to explore. In nearly every frame, it falls to Byrne to carry the film’s unexpected moments of dark humor just as she does the heightened, heartbreaking portrait of motherhood. She does so with a force that is on par with the work of the late, great Gena Rowlands in the enduring “A Woman Under the Influence.”
While this is praise she already more than earns in every one of the film’s evocative escalations, Byrne also excavates emotions all her own. She’s a grounding force in a whirlwind of a movie, finding a gentle grace that knocks you flat. –Chase Hutchinson
Tessa Thompson, “Hedda”
When paired with Nia DaCosta, Tessa Thompson is at her absolute finest as a performer. If her performance in their initial collaboration, “Little Woods,” was an appetizer, “Hedda” is a buffet and more. In the queer reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s play, Thompson’s performance as the titular Hedda Gabler is mesmerizing in every frame.
She may be the smallest person at her own party, but Gabler stands tall over everyone with her pure charisma and cunning behavior. Brash, classy, confident bisexual agent of chaos who weaponizes her femininity to dominate over everyone, whether it be her husband, George (Tom Bateman), or ex-lover Eileen (Nina Hoss), who she strongly yearns for, or her ex-lover’s new lover/writing partner, Thea (Imogen Poots). Thompson is the ringleader of destruction, and in traversing channels, the energy of a youthful, bratty child trying to get her way. In a way, Gabler is that, as the wealth she had to live comfortably as a child is gon,e given the loss of her war-coveted general dad’s passing.
Exuberantly, Thompson employs her entire skill set to elevate DaCosta’s portrait of a distraught woman attempting to preserve her remaining financial wealth and power as the consequences of her past impulsive actions resurface in real time. Of course, with the film subtly taking account of her race and sexuality within the 50s setting, there’s an overall sensation in witnessing an antagonistic Black bisexual lead cling to her power. Thompson’s showstopping portrayal of Hedda Gabler is a resounding testament to persistence, beyond the dissatisfaction of life and her efforts to maintain her freedom and fluidity, no matter how many fires she stirs along the way. –Rendy Jones
Ralph Fiennes, “28 Years Later”
“28 Years Later” wasn’t the sequel anybody expected to follow Danny Boyle’s zombie-horror parable. Still, this new film’s focus on one boy’s coming-of-age in post-apocalyptic Great Britain allowed it to succeed on stranger, more intimate, and surprisingly emotional terms. As young Spike (Alfie Williams) accompanies his mother (Jodie Comer) to the mainland to seek a cure for her severe illness, the pair encounters the enigmatic Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who has lived in isolation since the Rage Virus outbreak. Once a general practitioner, Kelson is considered mad and was last seen collecting hundreds of dead bodies; shredded, stained orange-red, and quoting Shakespeare, he certainly cuts a peculiar figure. But it’s with the introduction of this medicine man, played with a miraculous mix of gumption and grace by Fiennes, that “28 Years Later” emerges as a daring meditation on the inevitability of death in our lives, the dignity we can find in facing mortality, and the meaning we must make in mourning others.
After Kelson leads Spike to a monument he’s built from human bones, the doctor explains that this is a form of memorial. He invokes the Latin concept memento mori: “Remember, you must die.” Yet as he consoles Spike, Kelson speaks another phrase, memento amoris: “Remember, you must love.” Only an actor of Fiennes’ gravitas could hold together a picture as thematically ambitious as “28 Years Later.” As Kelson yearns to restore compassion to a world that’s forgotten how to grieve, his performance gives the film a poignant, haunting poetry. –Isaac Feldberg
Wunmi Mosaku, “Sinners”
There’s a moment in “Sinners” when the joy curdles, blood is in the air, and survival isn’t bound to bravery but discernment. That wisdom, the ability to anchor the others within a storm of terror, is Wunmi Mosaku’s Annie. Her presence at the juke joint makes us believe: If survival is a lie, love will abide (even amid the call of evil).
If you’ve seen Mosaku ignite the screen in “Lovecraft Country,” or found yourself wishing she had more to do in “Loki,” you know her acting is planetary: it has gravitational pull. When she’s on screen, all eyes are on her. And it’s her earth goddess conjure woman who turns the old magics into a force field of protection.
That’s Mosaku’s magnetism. Annie isn’t a sidelined partner for Smoke, and she’s never a damsel, because she’s a parallel for Sammie. Both are ruled by faith and gifted with paranormal abilities, but where his blues calls the vampires, Annie’s Hoodoo is the only way to fight. He’s the beacon, she’s the barricade. Mosaku seamlessly channels the many sides of Annie—mourning mother, lover, guardian, and font of ancestral knowledge—through every gesture and assessing gaze: the way her hands linger over a mojo bag, the warning to leave Smoke behind and enter the afterlife as Elijah, the steadying resolve in her eyes, the way she catches every clue and questions every supernatural twist.
Annie is strength, not spectacle, and because she’s rooted in the fertile soil of the “Sinners” saga, Mosaku’s artistry blooms. –Sherin Nicole
Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet”
“I don’t know what Jessie Buckley is or where she came from,” says her co-star Paul Mescal in a promotional reel for “Hamnet,” “but she is God’s gift to this Earth.” Truer words have never been spoken. As William Shakespeare’s (Mescal) wife Agnes, Buckley achieves the kind of acting glory even the most gifted performers rarely achieve. Not only is Agnes different from the narrow-minded busybodies around her—she dozes at the base of a colossal tree; she shares a mystical bond with her falcon—she will use these differences to bend reality to her will (pun unintended). Her confident gait doubles as evidence of her ramrod spine, which remains upright even in the most harrowing moments of her life. Her romance with Will sparks a physical and emotional push-and-pull, creating sensational on-screen chemistry.
Watching Agnes calmly square off against her mother-in-law, Mary (Emily Watson), is a delight, as the former believes in a childhood full of wonder and play. At the same time, the latter knows only repressive misery. When loss comes to Agnes, Buckley shatters the screen. She is desperation incarnate, limbs akimbo, hair askew, as she flings herbs and salves to save Hamnet from the plague. When he is gone, the guttural roar she emits from the deepest, darkest part of her soul feels like the dissolution of the universe.
But we are altogether reborn when Agnes watches the first stage performance of “Hamlet.” She cycles through rage, indignation at her dead son’s name being spoken, but slowly, she realizes that by (literally) reaching out to art, she can give her son’s soul, and herself, peace. For all the devastation wrought over the course of 126 minutes, the film’s last few seconds are pure elation, as Buckley turns her face up and laughs, the sorrow and her body taking flight as Agnes finally returns to join the living. If Shakespeare summed up the human experience in his body of work, then Jessie Buckley has done the same as an actor. –Nandini Balial
Jai Courtney, “Dangerous Animals”
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been waiting for Jai Courtney to reach his final form. The handsome Aussie was positioned as an American action star until David Ayer asked him to be a scumbag Captain Boomerang, and it was like the bogan drongo inside him came alive. He’d been belted into Hollywood stardom, but the man needed to swim free. Sean Byrne gave him a dye job, a scar, a camcorder, and pushed him into the open waters, and he swam. Courtney clearly had to rebel a little against his star training to reach the point of unselfconsciousness, but few performers this year wore it as well as he did. He is as beautiful and as bad as any of the sharks to whom he feeds tourists. The perfect cheek muscles twist upward in a Mona Lisa Smile, and you know someone’s about to die.
Like John Jarratt in “Wolf Creek,” David Argue and Chris Haywood in “Razorback,” Eric Bana in “Chopper,” and Daniel Henshall in “Snowtown,” he’s created one of the best boogeymen in the nation’s cinema. Just hearing him chew the words in his real accent is like watching Hollywood melt in a crock pot. This is what cinema is. –Scout Tafoya
Théodore Pellerin, “Lurker”
Some performances creep up on you, slowly, even patiently. At first, there appears to be nothing remarkable, and then suddenly, they snap, crackle, and pop. Théodore Pellerin’s performance in director Alex Russell’s “Lurker” is one such example. At first, all we see is a socially awkward young man who is drawn into the orbit of an on-trend music star. What unfolds is the story about the power imbalance between two burgeoning friends and how one’s usefulness is the most valuable currency. From behind the uncomfortable construction of the film’s broader themes, Matthew slowly reveals a transformation that has gone unnoticed. Pellerin honors the relationship between his internal and external selves, and in one captivating scene, shows the vain transformation underway through his body language and telling sidelong glances. All of this is to observe that Pellerin empowers his performance, not allowing the plot to expose the character at chosen moments. Instead, the plot is driven by the character’s emotional and psychological rhythms.
As Matthew gradually reveals himself, we are forced to question how sympathetic and likable he is. This spirals outward to explore themes of learned patterns of behavior and frames the film as a moral play about losing oneself. Pellerin, however, invites deeper consideration of the character’s psychology and whether his experiences awakened something in him that had been lying dormant. Pellerin’s success is in crafting a layered character that doesn’t push the audience away, but ratchets up the discomfort as we sympathize with and struggle to reckon with a character that speaks to a part of us all. –Paul Risker
Frank Dillane, “Urchin”
Watching Frank Dillane’s character Mike take a shower in director Harris Dickinson’s “Urchin” told me all I needed to know about this spiraling drifter, who we’ll come to love and mourn. Mike approaches the hot water with recalcitrance and intrigue, as if he’s encountering a friend or lover with whom he’s fallen out of touch. When the droplets hit, we see relief flood his visage as he finally allows himself to exist without judgment or self-deprecation. From this sequence alone, thanks to Dillane’s performance, we’ll learn so much about who he is, the larger forces that are at work against him, and a bit more about the traumas keeping him shackled.
Dillane seems to intuitively understand how important these smaller, “in-between” moments are to understanding and embodying character, and “Urchin” is a film that’s filled with beats where the camera seemingly lingers on him for a second too long for comfort. Still, Dillane uses that to reveal a new multifaceted layer to Frank. Take a moment where, after he is given a new job as a cook, he practices saying “Yes, chef,” to himself. He repeats the phrase, chewing it over like a food he hasn’t tasted before, yet is instantly taken with.
But it’s in that moment where we learn more about his character. It’s a tricky balance: “Urchin” neither justifies Mike’s behavior nor critiques the ineffectiveness of assimilation as a tactic for true transformation. The structures and pace of life are antithetical to the kind of presence and slow, ruminative change needed to help those most in need, and we mourn for Mike for both what he can control and what he can’t. In Mike, we see the see-saw nature of the reality of deconstructing addiction; it’s never straightforward and always looks worse before it gets better. Dillane’s radiance and honesty ensure we pity or judge him as much as we condemn the systems that would rather benefit from his withdrawals than his sobriety. Dillane embodies Mike in a way that we never see the verisimilitude of performance. He teaches us how to breathe again, one attuned to Mike’s tortured, tender soul. –Zachary Lee
Indy the Dog, “Good Boy”
I have a niece who is a dog: her name is Evee, and she is the light of my life. I have a fear, its weight is gargantuan, and its roots are mangled and snarled around a deep-seated guilt: that I will hurt myself when I am watching Evee, and nobody will be able to help her. It’s a fear inspired by my actual fuck ups, and so I have promised myself that when I look after Evee, I will be good. In Ben Leonberg’s “Good Boy,” I see my worst fear grow to even more monstrous proportions and morph into Indy the Dog as he watches his owner, Todd, his best friend, grow sick under death’s clawing shadow.
Near the end of the film, Todd chains Indy, who has been diligently questing throughout the film to protect his best friend from the murky death only he sees creeping toward Todd, to a doghouse and leaves him with a bowl of kibble, so Indy might be easier to save. Indy is crestfallen but undeterred, he breaks free even as the monster seems to come for him, and runs up to Todd, but it’s too late. Todd has committed suicide. Watching this moment, I always weep, because I only ever thought about nobody finding Evee, not about her own sadness. I see it in Indy’s sweet little face, the way he quietly sits on Todd’s bed, guarding his dear friend, still.
That’s the thing about this movie, it’s not just about our feelings toward our dogs, it’s also about our dogs’ feelings, their hopes, fears, their love. In Indy’s deep, warm amber eyes, in his soft brow that furrows in understanding and widens in terror, in his tail that wags with joy at seeing Todd or falls still with apprehension and knowing—in Indy, we see how much we mean to our dogs. “Good Boy” doesn’t have a happy ending, and Indy, as he is driven away from the home where Todd dies, is more still than before; his best friend is gone, even if he himself is okay; grief is setting in. When we leave, our pets will be heartbroken.
I love this movie, even as it confirms and never quells my fears of leaving Evee, but I am also grateful to it, to Indy, for showing us what it looks like for our dogs to love us, to need us, to be scared for us. Indy’s performance of love, brave and bright in the face of fear, helps me to renew my promise tenfold; I will be good for Evee. –Alisha Mughal
Tom Blyth, “Plainclothes”
In Carmen Emmi’s “Plainclothes,” undercover cop Lucas (Tom Blyth) has been tasked with entrapping gay men at a local mall, a duty marred by the fact that he himself is a gay man. Throughout the film, which slowly unfolds into a romance between Lucas and Andrew (Russell Tovey), a man he meets on the job, Lucas’ growing paranoia manifests on Blyth’s face in darting glances, dilated pupils, and bodily ticks. As his relationship with Andrew progresses beyond casual sex, Lucas becomes desperate for affection, willing to put his job and life on the line for any semblance of closeness. His anxiety is showcased by the intercutting of grainy, VHS-style footage, the film’s shifting aspect ratios highlighting Blyth’s physicality and reflecting the suffocating constraints of Lucas’ double life.
A relative newcomer, the actor sheds all the grandeur of his previous leading role in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” Instead of grand speeches, Blyth uses each passing expression on his face to convey Lucas’s anxiety, and the subsequent elation of finding someone he thinks he can love. Whether it is a look of disbelief passing over his face as Lucas and Andrew have sex in a minivan, or a feverish hopefulness as he asks to make their relationship official, the desperation of this character never wanes. Blyth’s raw vulnerability comes to a head in the film’s climactic finale, which explodes in a revelation filled with screams and gasps. It proves that Blyth’s future as a leading man is incredibly bright. –Kaiya Shunyata
Josh O’Connor, “Wake Up Dead Man”
Josh O’Connor’s Father Jud is a man in crisis. In the small-town parish that’s his own personal Gethsemane, he’s anguished, volatile, and guilt-ridden, tempers made all the worse by the fact that his heart is in exactly the right place; he has a shady, bloody past, and he’s still working on it. In a paradox that speaks to how the nobility of our intentions so seldom lives up to our words or actions, Father Jud simultaneously radiates authentic love and hope for the good of humankind, yearning to help those who share a similar darkness find the light. This church’s parishioners have gone astray, but he can’t save them before he saves himself.It’s not since Andrew Garfield in “Silence” or Ethan Hawke in “First Reformed” that an actor has so profoundly captured spiritual struggle, embodying the inner battles of the soul we all experience. As if to demonstrate that conflict, multiple scenes in “Wake Up Dead Man” demand O’Connor’s performance to turn on a dime. Father Jud quickly pivots from sobs of despair into friendly debate against Benoit Blanc’s Hitchins-styled atheism, only to break down in tears once he “felt like a priest again.” Later, in the film’s best scene, annoyance at a frustrating phone call dissolves into rivers of empathy for a woman in need. It’s a deceptively tricky part that requires a whole range of ever-shifting feelings, playing the torment between our best and worst selves. It’s a magnetic, utterly compelling turn, with O’Connor as much a shepherd to the audience as Father Jud hopes to be for his flock. –Brendan Hodges
Stellan Skarsgard, “Sentimental Value”
There are myriad movies about making movies, and even more about fathers coming to terms with their children’s actions and reactions. Yet it takes a special film and an extraordinary performer to wring reality from what could easily be tired clichés, forcing viewers to confront their own prejudices and presuppositions and to focus instead on this particular paternal figure. Leave it to Stellan Skarsgård to make this magic trick seem so effortless, with emotions from the sardonic to the sentimental delivered with documentary-like verisimilitude.
In a year where on the small screen Skarsgård elevated a sci-fi streaming show to a status befitting its mythic standing in pop culture, his would be a talent worth championing on any end-of-year list. Yet it’s his deft, subtle, precise portrayal in Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” that best mixes his trademark icy assuredness with deep yet reluctantly expressed emotionality, an exercise in bravura craftsmanship that would never dare to succumb to lazy showiness or maudlin meanderings. This patriarch of the film’s remarkable ensemble (with a handful of other performers equally comfortable on any best-actor list) is the heart of one of the outstanding accomplishments of this cinematic season.
Skarsgård’s often quiet performance is worthy of being championed as loudly as possible. Even though this title was arguably robbed of a rightful Palme d’Or following its Cannes debut, his exquisitely nuanced take, and the film as a whole, easily deserve to be considered one of the year’s absolute finest. –Jason Gorber
Margaret Qualley, “Honey Don’t!”
There have been several strong performances in films, but I have to say that one of my absolute favorites was in a movie that hardly anyone saw, and many of those who did clearly did not care for it at all. The film in question was “Honey Don’t!,” Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s follow-up to their equally maligned “Drive-Away Dolls,” and the performance in question was the one delivered by Margaret Qualley, who was terrific in that earlier project and who is even better this time around. In this LGBTQ-themed riff on the detective movies of old, she plays Honey O’Donoghue, a private eye whose investigation into the mysterious death of someone who had just hired her for unknown reasons leads her to cross paths with a corrupt mega-church, a troubled runaway niece, and a cop (Aubrey Plaza) with whom she embarks on an unexpected and cheerfully horny relationship.
With her unapologetically brash and bold approach to matters both personal and professional, Honey is the kind of character that Barbara Stanwyck might have played once upon a time. Qualley perfectly captures her flip, offbeat manner throughout with a performance that is both whip-smart and hilarious, especially in her scenes with Plaza, no slouch in the scene-stealing department herself. Over the last few years, Qualley has become one of the most reliably entertaining new screen presences around, and her work here is as good, funny, and memorable as anything that she has done to date. Ignore the naysayers—the film is a blast from start to finish, and Qualley is even more so. –Peter Sobczynski
Vincent Cassel, “The Shrouds”
David Cronenberg made no secret of the fact that “The Shrouds” was a very personal movie, and having his leading man Vincent Cassel styled with a distinctively Cronenbergian haircut only drove that point home. His mournful tale of bereavement blending with conspiracy starred Cassel as Vincent Karsh, a businessman who invents a form of graveyard surveillance, allowing grief-stricken people such as himself 24/7 access to footage of their loved ones’ decomposing corpses. Cassel taps into both the overwhelming agony of being a full-time mourner and the gallows humor that death inevitably inspires. In maybe the most awkward first date in 2025 cinema, he acts like a proud parent when he shows off a video of his wife’s body via his phone.
He’s an actor who’s always succeeded in blending charm with a sinister edge, which makes his performance in “The Shrouds” so uncanny. Karsh is a sensual romantic who has cloaked himself in chilly professionalism to deal with his loss. Still, as he descends into paranoia over his technology may have been hijacked by nefarious forces, he becomes curiously passionate in his tin-hat scheming. It’s a very Cronenbergian character—Seth Brundle with more foresight but all the same delusions of grandeur—played by an actor acutely on that wavelength: Steely but manic, reserved but horny, grotesque yet intensely human. It’s amazing it took this long for Cassel to become a Cronenberg leading man, and not just because of the haircut. –Kayleigh Donaldson
- The 25 Best TV Shows of 2025 (December 17, 2025)
It’s that time of year when critics look back and try to capture the quality of an entire art form in one feature. Was it a good year for TV? Sure. Great? Maybe? It feels like the top of this list contains programs that will undeniably be remembered when we’re discussing the best of the decade or even of their entire era, but it’s not extreme to suggest that there was more “good” this year than “great.” Although that’s not the end of the world. The truth is that almost every streaming service had something to justify its cost with Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Apple, and more making this list of the best of the best. As the market gets more diffused every year, it can be hard to find what’s truly worth watching. We’re here to help with our staff picks for the best 25 shows of 2025, and where to watch them.
25. “Clean Slate” (Prime Video)
“Clean Slate” is the definition of feel-good television for a progressive crowd. In the series, Desiree (Laverne Cox) returns to her southern Alabama hometown for the first time in 17 years and reunites with her old-school, outspoken father, Harry (George Wallace), who learns that she is now a trans woman. Despite her father’s initial shock and a few instances of insensitivity and transphobia, the pilot concludes with Harry accepting Desiree as his daughter.
The last show that the late Norman Lear made is a progressive family sitcom about the new school vs. old school coexistence. The show is grounded in a decent, sitcom-fueled social commentary on Southern Black culture (such as voter suppression and transphobia in Black churches), despite its lighthearted nature. It also has a good set of supporting characters, such as Desiree’s best friend from childhood, Louis (D.K. Uzoukwu), who is a closeted gay man who serves as a choir director at their church, and Mack (Jay Wilkison), a charming employee of Harry’s at the car wash who takes a romantic liking to Desiree.
But “Clean Slate’s” true heart and soul stems from Wallace and Cox’s familial chemistry. His quintessential Southern bluntness clashing with her dry-witted line delivery lends to some classic, sweet-natured comedy. -Rendy Jones
24. “Running Point“ (Netflix)
This Netflix sports comedy plays like a light blend of “Ted Lasso” and “Succession,” with Kate Hudson lending her signature charm and natural on-screen ease to the Jeannie Buss-inspired role of Isla Gordon, the newly appointed president of the fictional Los Angeles Waves pro basketball franchise. “Running Point” wisely keeps the basketball scenes to a minimum in favor of a traditional workplace sitcom, featuring a packed (and perhaps overcrowded) group of supporting players who bounce sharp-liners back and forth, with Isla, well, running point on much of the humor. Standouts include Brenda Song in a sparkling and hilarious turn as Isla’s best friend and chief of staff, Ali; Fabrizio Guido as Jackie Moreno, a popcorn vendor who suddenly becomes a member of the Waves family; and Toby Sandeman as the LeBron-like veteran superstar Marcus Winfield. Kudos as well to Chet Hanks, who pokes fun at his own image with the role of Travis Bugg, a point guard and wannabe rap artist with a monumental ego.
“Running Point” is mostly breezy, but over the course of the season, we come to know these characters on a level that allows us to buy into the more serious developments. We have good reason to believe the sophomore season (coming in spring 2026) will build on a promising rookie campaign. –Richard Roeper
23. “The Righteous Gemstones“ (HBO Max)
Danny McBride enjoys risk. But on “The Righteous Gemstones,” the series he created and co-executive produced, which ended after four seasons on HBO this year, he asked a simple question: What if a family of scheming, foul-mouthed, petty, sadistic, avaricious evangelicals were just profoundly damaged people? What if their worst impulses were just masks for performativity, concealing the pain and loss within? What if one family’s path to God’s love included cocaine, blackmail, a succession crisis, and a YA film about Christ called “Teenjus”?
Over four seasons, the Gemstone family, including MVP Baby Billy Freeman (Walton Goggins, praise be), doled out belly laugh after laugh, hit song after song, while asking the audience to consider what lies beneath the outward idiocy. Given McBride’s past experiences with organized religion, “Gemstones” is built on a solid foundation of biblical knowledge but tempered by a heady skepticism about the godliness of evangelical Christians. And despite the barbed commentary, McBride is kind to his characters, arguably to a fault, but that’s understandable: after four years, these knuckleheaded Gemstones feel like family, both to the audience, but more importantly, to each other. -Nandini Balial
22. “I Love L.A.“ (HBO Max)
“Entourage” for the “Girls” crowd, “I Love L.A.” is a hilarious and biting satire, featuring quirky, self-absorbed Gen-Z characters navigating the digital influencer industry and codependent friendships within Los Angeles. Maia (Rachel Sennott), a talent agency employee, reunites with her college best friend, Tulluah (Odessa A’zion), who has since become an influencer, and becomes her manager. They and their network of friends, which includes easygoing nepo baby Alani (a show-stealing True Whitaker), stylist Charlie (Jordan Firstman), and Maia’s level-headed teacher boyfriend Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), engage in various misadventures along the coast that capture the faux yet bizarre culture of the city. The fourth episode, “Upstairses,” is particularly noteworthy, as it depicts Alani and Maia meeting a fictionalized (and painfully funny) Elijah Wood as a germophobe who is fixated on watching “The Simpsons” and “Shrek.”
Even if its purposefully intolerable characters do get genuinely irritating, the cast retains an adorable charm, primarily thanks to Sennott and A’zion’s flawless sisterly chemistry. “I Love L.A.” cleverly deconstructs the stressful, tragicomic hustle-grind culture of staying relevant in this late-stage digital market. –Rendy Jones
21. “The Beast in Me“ (Netflix)
Claire Danes. Matthew Rhys. Natalie Morales. Brittany Snow. It’s a millennial fantasy cast that delivers a best-in-class elite-folk murder mystery for Netflix. “The Beast in Me” follows Danes’ Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Aggie Wiggs. Still grieving the death of her eight-year-old son, she’s living alone, trying to write a second book that doesn’t interest her. Then Rhys’ real estate scion and potential wife-murderer, Nile Jarvis, moves in next door.
What follows is a heart-pounding exploration of the dark side of human nature that showcases its stars’ talents while leaning into its pulpy, violent premise. Danes’ chin quivers about once an episode as she reveals Wiggs’ keen intelligence, vulnerability, and grit. Rhys brings a seductive, dangerous energy to Nile, making scenes like his dance number that much more fun and compelling.
So many of these shows fail to stick their landings, able to build tension but not resolve it. In contrast, “The Beast in Me” only gets better as it goes, delving into the contractions inherent in evil–how we each have some of it inside us, how the worst of us still have tender moments of humanity–all to create a satisfying and earned ending that makes the most out of the show’s various, prestige parts. –Cristina Escobar
20. “Deli Boys” (Hulu)
One of the first comedy series to air in 2025 remains one of the year’s most underrated. The series centers on pampered nepo baby Pakistani-American brothers Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh), who inherit their dad’s crime business following his comical yet bloody passing—via being hit with a golf ball to the head. The only thing is, neither of them knew that their dad ran a drug empire called Dark DarCo through his ABC Deli. Throughout the season, the brothers fail upward in their attempts to manage the business, escape foes trying to claim their throne (including Tan France as a South London gang leader), and avoid inept FBI agents (Alexandra Ruddy and Tim Baltz). All with the help of their aggressive, cunning, and badass auntie Lucky (show-stopping Poorna Jagannathan in a best-of-year comedic performance).
Creator Abdullah Saeed’s skillful tonal tightrope balances gory action and absurdist dark humor. The show is hilarious, elevated by the chemistry among its main cast members and their generally charismatic performances. In particular, Ali and Shaikh’s buddy dynamic made for some of the funniest TV all year. –Rendy Jones
19. “Long Story Short“ (Netflix)
By “BoJack Horseman” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, “Long Story Short” follows the Schwoopers, a Jewish family, growing up and trying to thrive. The central unit consists of mother Naomi (Lisa Edelstein), father Elliot (Paul Reiser), and their three children, Avi (Ben Feldman), Shira (Abbi Jacobson), and Yoshi (Max Greenfield). The animation format allows the show to jump from the siblings’ childhood to their adult lives and their own family formations, drawing clear lines between past and present.
Each short episode reveals a Schwooper family dynamic, whether it’s the youngest brother Yoshi’s struggles to prove himself or the reason behind matriarch Naomi’s catastrophizing. The vignettes give us just the pivotal moments, without simplifying the mess of growing up.
Truly funny, “Long Story Short” also manages to explore issues of Jewish faith and identity in ways that similarly situated “Nobody Wants This” can only dream of—it helps that the Jewish women here are given more to do than stymie or support their menfolk. For example, Naomi may be sure her experience of the faith is the only right one. Still, Bob-Waksberg cleverly contrasts her certainty with her children’s varying experiences, showing her relationship to faith as just one path among many.
With this powerful combination, “Long Story Short” makes its drawings feel more like real, lived-in, scruffy people than the vast majority of 2025 productions. –Cristina Escobar
18. “Dexter: Resurrection“ (Paramount+)
With more than 100 episodes under his scalpel, Dexter Morgan has logged more screen time than any infamous sociopath in television history–more than Tony Soprano, more than Walter White, more than Joe Goldberg from “You,” more than any of ‘em. We just can’t get enough of this oddly charismatic and chillingly weird vigilante. Yes, he’s a maniac, but they had it coming. Michael C. Hall’s titular character is actually a RELIABLE narrator, as we can always count on Dexter to share his morbid demons with us, sometimes in wickedly funny fashion.
“Dexter: Resurrection” recovers from the stumble of “Dexter: New Blood” as it quickly pivots from upstate New York to Manhattan and other city boroughs, with Dexter resigned to acknowledging he can never shed his “Dark Passenger”–and horrified to witness his deeply traumatized son Harrison (Jack Alcott) continuing his metamorphosis into the worst kind of Nepo Baby. The production design and cinematography are cinematic throughout, and the rich and layered scripts deliver showcase roles for a brilliant roster of guest stars, including Uma Thurman, Peter Dinklage, Krysten Ritter, and Neil Patrick Harris. (Episode 4 is insane—and great.) This season is a reckoning, forcing Dexter (and the viewer) to acknowledge that for all the moral rationalization spattered throughout this man’s blood-soaked path, he is a sick and twisted soul, for whom life is a waking hell. –Richard Roeper
17. “Death by Lightning“ (Netflix)
In an era where it’s ever clearer that moral righteousness and integrity are no prerequisites to power, along comes “Death by Lightning” to remind us that, especially in American history, that was always the case. Over a brisk four episodes, “Bad Education” screenwriter Mike Makowsky retells the story of the 1881 assassination of President James Garfield (Michael Shannon) by power-hungry wastrel Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), a move designed by the latter to enshrine himself in history but which instead relegated them both to relative obscurity.
And yet, Makowsky’s script positions them as polar opposites, battling it out in a poisonous political arena full of entrenched interests, entitled partisans, and opportunistic charlatans, all more willing to grab power than to live by their values, if they have any. (Said competitors, played by Shea Whigham, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford, and others, are a beautiful array of pointed words and even pointier beards.) What strikes most is the endearingly modern tenor of the presentation, placing modern barbs in the mouths of buffoons in ways that make the whole thing feel like “Veep” gone “Drunk History.” And through all the grim laughs, a more powerful message emerges: America is so allergic to the notion of a kind, ethical leader that it will literally cut him out like a tumor at the first opportunity. –Clint Worthington
16. “Severance“ (Apple TV)
A Redditor once opined, “Maybe I’m too dumb for “Severance,”” saying all they really glean from Apple’s smash hit is “Damn, work sure does suck.” But that is the show’s central thesis. Deeply damaged people—Mark (Adam Scott) mourning his late wife, Irv (John Turturro) battling homophobia and loss, Dylan (Zach Cherry) fighting nauseating waves of inadequacy, Helly (Britt Lower) taking on the family that created this nightmare—wake daily in a cruel world. Driven to madness, they eliminate the sensation of their authentic selves as they sit under blinding fluorescent lights, doing “work that is mysterious and important,” and depending on your chosen theory, likely setting in motion some sort of AI-slave worker paradigm. (TV these days, such a reprieve from the news!)
What pushed Season Two to transcendence was its investment in its characters, for deepening the autonomy and rage of the main quartet’s split selves, for depicting, in ways both naturalistic and surreal, the dehumanization of the modern worker, the price we pay with our souls so that we can afford bread and shelter. Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) revealed a tortured past and present, directed with striking vision by Jessica Lee Gagné; Seth Milchik (Trammell Tillman, extraordinary) asserted himself, Harmony Cobel’s (Patricia Arquette) brittle, remote arc was enriched via the context of a haunted past. Though dozens of unanswered questions remain, “Severance” deserves its acclaim because it chooses to put in the work; its combination of top-notch technical work (cinematography, mid-century modern production design, arresting costumes, and Theodore Shapiro’s excellent score) with outstanding performances creates one of, if not the most, philosophically and visually arresting series on TV. But please, make sure to enjoy each episode equally. –Nandini Balial
15. “Paradise“ (Hulu)
Hulu’s “Paradise” is and isn’t a murder mystery. It’s an apocalyptic science fiction time bomb that asks as many questions about people under pressure as it does about who killed the president. Dan Fogelman, famed for fractured timelines and tangled family trees, turns cataclysmic events into a character study, dropping us into Paradise, a city that’s both our last safe haven and a lit fuse. The first episode sets the tone: Yes, the president is dead, but all we care about is the dark and twisty population of Paradise, and the fragile social order is teetering on the brink.
Sterling K. Brown’s Xavier Collins is our guide through the turmoil: a Secret Service agent and presumably a widower, who’s trying to raise his kids. At the same time, the world outside crumbles and suspicions draw a target on his back. The ensemble—Julianne Nicholson, Krys Marshall, James Marsden, and Sarah Shahi—brings heat and mystery in equal measure. While the creative team’s genre-bending approach keeps the show nimble, shifting from political thriller to family drama to sci-fi survival story with syncopated rhythm. At the center of its bunker, “Paradise” is about reversals and fractures—what we protect, and what protecting it costs. –Sherin Nicole
14. “The Bear“ (FX on Hulu)
As a TV show, Christopher Storer’s hit FX culinary dramedy “The Bear” has had a similarly shaky trajectory as the titular restaurant at its center. Its first two seasons were about building bona fides, transforming its scrappy Italian beef place into a prestigious Michelin-quality restaurant; season three was about seeing whether they could maintain the momentum they sorely needed to survive. Season four continues in that rich vein, with Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and crew figuring out how to fix themselves and their lives just as much as their restaurant. In so doing, it sometimes collapses into the kind of over-the-top embellishment that can often kill a dish; it’s tempting to write off so much of the season’s feel-good atmosphere as a way to undercut the existential tension these characters must experience. After all, we’ve grown to like this ensemble cast so much, we might as well cut them a break, right?
But really, “The Bear” remains a sentimental, if imperfect, ode to its Chicago setting and food scene, as well as to its increasingly high-profile cast (whether due to the show’s boosting of their profiles or its ever-bursting roster of A-list cameos it continues to trot out). Even amid these quibbles, Storer’s open-heartedness and the weepy commitment of its cast make it incredible television, leveraging the goodwill they’ve spent seasons cultivating and stretching its cooking-as-catharsis mood to its limit. It’s long past being the kind of comedy show we can snipe over when it comes to Golden Globes wins, but who cares? The food tastes good. I’ll eat it. –Clint Worthington
13. “Hacks“ (HBO Max)
As HBO’s Emmy juggernaut breaks out its final routine in the upcoming last season, it’s starting to feel like we’re taking it for granted. Sure, it wins all the awards, especially deserved for Jean Smart’s acerbically brilliant comic timing. Still, the oversaturation of the streaming market means a program that’s this consistently great sometimes struggles to rise above the noise of the new. There’s a tinge of irony in a show about an aging comedienne looking for one last mountain to climb in her career, being less buzzed about than the new whippersnappers on the comedy scene.
The fourth season of “Hacks” pitted Deborah (Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) in a war of egos while trying to make TV history. What do you do when you’re forced to work with someone you hate? What if part of you knows that you can’t succeed without somehow finding a way to reconnect with someone you desperately want out of your life? While these questions formed the foundation for the start of the fourth season, they eventually bloomed into a story of teamwork and overcoming impossible odds. Sometimes you need a frenemy to make history. –Brian Tallerico
12. “Forever“ (Netflix)
Netflix’s “Forever” is Mara Brock Akil’s refreshing remix of a Judy Blume classic. Turning an old-school YA novel into a coming-of-age anthem amid Black excellence in Los Angeles. Set in 2018, the series follows Keisha (Lovie Simone) and Justin (Michael Cooper Jr.) as they stumble their way through first love—missed signals, messy confessions, and all. Brock Akil does her thing: centring tangible moments, giving the teens space to be vulnerable, impulsive, and authentic. While their families add the foundation and frustrations that many of us know or remember.
In “Forever,” love isn’t a subplot—it’s layered throughout the entire story. Justin’s parents (Karen Pittman and Wood Harris) model a partnership that’s aspirational but never perfect. Keisha’s world, meanwhile, is supported by her hard-working mom (Xosha Roquemore) and her steady granddad (Barry Shabaka Henley), but is interrupted by a father (William Catlett) whose late arrival makes old wounds ragged. Familial love isn’t just background noise; it’s the fuel and the friction in every choice these teens make.
“Forever” gets what it feels like the first time you fall—first heartbreak, first big risk, first time you see yourself through another’s eyes—while letting its characters be as soft or as bold as they need. Brock Akil’s take is honest, funny, and deeply felt—a reminder that the journey to who we become always starts with the people (and the love) that raised us. –Sherin Nicole
11. “North of North“ (Netflix)
In the life of any inveterate TV enthusiast, there are series that comfort, inspire, and haunt. But there is another, underrated category: TV that takes you by surprise. “North of North” is a sitcom that draws on familiar workplace and community tropes. The heroine, Siaja (Anna Lambe), is balancing motherhood, identity, and marriage; Ice Cove, Nunavut, is her home, and she wants to improve the lives of its residents. But in between the physical hijinks, including a memorable game of baseball involving a walrus dick (the excellent editing regularly induces laughter, let alone the comedic set-pieces themselves), the Inuit in-jokes, the light in the eyes of the elders when they see their young thrive, there is a startling darkness. Though they love each other, Siaja’s relationship with her mother is colored by generational trauma. Siaja isn’t just annoyed by her husband’s laziness; she’s starting to understand his golden boy persona is a front for emotional abuse.
Hanging over the entire community are horrific memories of colonialism, of residential schools that were used as brainwashing centers for kidnapped Indigenous children. “North of North” combines the best ideas of both “Reservation Dogs” and “Parks and Recreation” while introducing us to a culture rarely seen on TV. Yes, things were bad; things continue to be bad. But that reality does not preclude us from fighting, from trying to make the darkness brighter, from working every day to create a secure, joyous existence, even—and especially—if it means confronting the worst aspects of our past and present. –Nandini Balial
10. “Pee-wee as Himself“ (HBO Max)
When “Pee-wee as Himself” premiered, more than one publication ran with the headline that Paul Reubens had come out of the closet. But that’s a gross simplification (if not obscuration) of what’s going on in Matt Wolf’s docuseries and interviews with Reubens, who cooperated until he didn’t. Airing on HBO, the two-part series isn’t a tabloid reveal or a celebrity-brand experience like so many of its peers.
Instead, it’s a rich conversation with its prickly, hilarious, and wronged subject. Reubens does talk about his time as an out undergraduate and an early, meaningful relationship with a man. But when asked point-blank if he’s gay, he demurs. This is a man who was both exacting and self-effacing. He was someone who didn’t want to be known, even as his creations became household names, even until the end. He was dying of cancer during filming but didn’t tell anyone on the production–making the resulting project that much more poignant.
Wolf combines this portrait of the ever-maneuvering Reubens with a clear interrogation of the homophobic society that tore him down. Accused of one sex crime and then another, Reubens lost his ability to make wacky performance art for children–and we all lost something in his career cut short. Thankfully, we have this docuseries to look back and appreciate both Pee-wee and the guy who made him. –Cristina Escobar
9. “Alien: Earth“ (FX on Hulu)
Television adaptations of stories originally seen on the big screen are a dime a dozen. But with its first episode, it was clear “Alien: Earth” was trying to do something different. Noah Hawley’s series weaves together two stories: one focusing on a group of children whose minds are placed in the bodies of adults who possess godlike strength, and the crash landing of a spaceship that a Xenomorph infiltrated before it fell from the sky. Both of these stories become connected in a never-ending jigsaw puzzle, one that is violent, thrilling, and slowly shapes up to be one of the most fascinating examinations of humanity and free will in the history of the “Alien” franchise.
Hawley allows the tension to be pulled so tight in the series it is always on the verge of snapping, with philosophical monologues quickly giving way to haunting scares and vice versa. Each episode ends with a needle drop that emulates a crescendo, from the likes of The Smashing Pumpkins to Jane’s Addiction, giving the series a punk-rock edge that its more recent film ventures have lacked. “Alien: Earth” stands out amongst a wasteland of television adaptations that don’t understand their source material, making this a story that surprisingly thrives on the small screen, where its characters are allowed to shift and transform before our very eyes, becoming startlingly deformed by season one’s bare-knuckle final moments. –Kaiya Shunyata
8. “Task“ (HBO Max)
Brad Ingelsby’s intense and viscerally impactful crime procedural is set in the same working-class, greater-Philadelphia universe as the equally brilliant “Mare of Easttown.” The two series share a similar blueprint of themes exploring grief, regret, broken lives, and the inescapable fate that comes from making bad choices, and the belief that one didn’t do enough to prevent tragedy.
Mark Ruffalo has specialized in playing brooding yet doggedly determined crusaders for justice (“Zodiac,” “Spotlight,” “The Normal Heart,” “Dark Waters”). He does some of the finest work of his career as former man of God turned bureaucratic FBI task team leader Tom Brandis, who has been so battered by life that he walks through the day as if he’s just been socked in the gut. As Brandis leads his ragtag, seemingly overmatched squad through an investigation of a string of violent robberies targeting drug stash houses, a parallel storyline follows Tom Pelphrey’s Robbie Prendergrast, whose past and present are so bleak that Brandis’s life seems almost sunny by comparison. Pelphrey’s work is so heartbreakingly profound, so memorably searing, that it earns comparisons to the likes of Brando, De Niro, and Sean Penn. It was the equal of any work I saw this year, on screens big or small. –Richard Roeper
7. “Dying for Sex“ (FX on Hulu)
Adapted from the podcast of the same name, Hulu’s “Dying For Sex” focuses on Molly’s (Michelle Williams) journey as she reckons with a cancer diagnosis, the series follows her as she leaves her husband, and takes off on an odyssey of reclamation. Yes, the series is provocative and features a bunch of sex scenes. Still, the show dismantles any previous notions its title brings up, instead shaping into a story that not only explores Molly’s psyche as she processes her impending death, but also as she reexamines her life. At the center of this is a secret she’s been keeping buried deep within her soul, one so shattering it recontextualizes the way in which she engages not only with sex, but the foundational relationships in her life.
Instead of focusing on the people she sleeps with on this sex-fuelled journey, the show’s central relationship is between Molly and her best friend Nikki (Jenny Slate), who abandons her job and romantic relationship to become Molly’s primary caregiver. Williams and Slate are a match made in heaven, and their platonic bond anchors the series, which slowly unfolds into a heart-wrenching examination of the tenacity of female friendships. “Dying For Sex” remains achingly tender throughout, never shying away from the reality of death while also allowing its protagonist to bask in the sex positivity she craved, and that we as a growing puritanical culture desperately needed to see. –Kaiya Shunyata
6. “The Lowdown“ (FX on Hulu)
“The Lowdown” is a writer’s show. And not just because Ethan Hawke’s Lee Raybon is a book-store-owning “truthstorian,” aka pulpy journalist with an eye for trouble. It’s also how “Reservation Dogs” creator Sterlin Harjo uses literature and lyrics in his detective series, positioning his show within a specific Western cultural canon. To drop a few names of my own, the show boasts a Raymond Chandler/Walter Mosley vibe, following a derelict detective uncovering the machinations of the corrupt ruling class.
And, of course, there’s the writing itself, with so many strong lines and idiosyncratic ways of speaking that the language itself builds the world of this show as much as its cowboy hats, turquoise necklaces, and Indigenous beading.
Harjo’s unique sense of place helps, giving us a multiracial, grimy version of a state that Hollywood is largely content to fly over. Yes, the principals here are primarily white, with Kyle MacLachlan, Tim Blake Nelson, and Native Jeanne Tripplehorn joining Hawke in the leading ensemble. But there are also many characters of color, and the show gives them depth and nuance, making Keith David’s rival investigator Marty, for example, as important as anyone except Lee.
With its writerly foundation, “The Lowdown” is about one flawed man, the long and short tale of racial injustice, and what doing right in the face of that even looks like. You can’t get much more meaningful than that. –Cristina Escobar
5. “Adolescence“ (Netflix)
There was no program this year that came more out of nowhere to dominate the pop culture conversation than Netflix’s 4-part mini-series, a winner for just about every Emmy it was eligible to win. Long before collecting those trophies, “Adolescence” became the program that everyone was talking about, including many who learned about incel culture through this heartbreaking drama. The story of a 13-year-old (Owen Cooper, giving one of the best teen performances of all time) accused of murder avoided tropes by being so incredibly raw that it was impossible to turn away.
Written by Jack Thorne and star Stephen Graham, “Adolescence” is a story of the ripple effect of violence and toxic masculinity, how the prevalence of the latter online destroys youth. The title feels almost poignant in that it’s what’s being lost as young people grow up too quickly, thanks to exposure to emotions and ideas online that they’re not capable of handling. If we don’t let young men go through adolescence at their own natural pace, tragedy will ensue.
Finally, the form of “Adolescence” strengthened its impact. Each episode’s one-shot structure eliminated the escape that comes from cuts. When a scene cuts away to another one in a typical drama, it’s often a chance for the viewer to catch their breath, but that’s not an option here. We’re forced to watch something like the stunning third episode in its real-time entirety, a witness to tragedy rather than merely a passive observer of television. –Brian Tallerico
4. “The Studio“ (Apple TV)
In an era where prestige TV often delivers prestige anxiety, AppleTV’s “The Studio” is industry-accurate escapism that’s as self-aware as it is sincere. It’s a show that lets us live vicariously as a studio exec—fumbling, failing, and almost getting smacked up by lovable former child stars—but no ulcers are involved. Despite The Studio’s realness, it’s all belly laughs. The Emmy-winning series gleefully burns Hollywood’s Ozian veil, showing us the pandemonium behind the curtain, while letting its flawed, frantic characters stumble toward unexpected moments of foolishness and connection.
The cameos wink without smirking, the storylines reference real-life absurdity, and the cast—led by Seth Rogen, Chase Sui Wonders, Catherine O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz, and Kathryn Hahn—turns the chaos into quests. “The Studio” hands us an all-access pass and invites us to giggle while the dream machine breaks down, but somehow keeps chugging out the entertainment we crave or happily cringe at. For those of us in search of a break from the deep, dark but admittedly brilliant gloom of prestige TV, “The Studio” is just as true but refreshingly ulcer-free. –Sherin Nicole
3. “The Pitt“ (HBO Max)
HBO’s “The Pitt” stands tall amongst the ashes of a dying era of television. Set over the course of one 15-hour shift, the series introduced us to Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch (Noah Wyle), a Senior Emergency Attending Physician who attempts to navigate a shaky post-COVID healthcare system. The series immediately had an edge above other medical dramas, as each one-hour-long episode is set during one hour of Dr. Robby’s shift. Removing all the glamour that shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” have basked in, the series gives us a grueling look at the realities of what it means to be a healthcare worker in a world still scrambling to recover from a pandemic, one that left healthcare professionals in the dust, and one that shattered any unity our modern world had before it.
While Dr. Robby remains the show’s protagonist, “The Pitt” is undeniably an ensemble show that relishes familiar faces and brings new ones to the forefront. Actors like Katherine LaNasa finally get the spotlight they deserve, while newcomers like Supriya Ganesh and Patrick Ball come out guns blazing. Because of the show’s bold real-time structure, the series allows us to get to know these characters over the course of one of the most challenging days of their careers, which sees them go from treating patients dealing with addiction to saving victims of a mass shooting. “The Pitt” embraces the structure of old school television, already becoming a defining series in an era that seems so desperate to do away with what initially made TV such a fascinating medium. –Kaiya Shunyata
2. “Pluribus“ (Apple TV)
Doesn’t it feel lately like the world has gone a little mad? Have you looked at your friends and neighbors and wondered what exactly has gone wrong in their heads and hearts? Welcome to “Pluribus,” one of several examples of shows and films this year that feels like they’re trying to address the inexplicable divides in the world today without doing so directly. We’re all Carol Sturka.
Played by the wonderful Rhea Seehorn, Carol is basically the last sane person on Earth after an alien invasion either kills or turns everyone else into a part of a massive hive mind, one that seeks to cater to Carol’s every need, but she really just wants to be left alone. Creator Vince Gilligan incorporates the patient storytelling of “Better Call Saul” into a sci-fi concept that could have been investigated by Mulder & Scully (Gilligan was a legendary “X-Files” writer too) and presents the hybrid as something that’s like nothing else on television.
In fact, “Pluribus” is so unique that it’s spawned an online conversation about its comparatively slow pace. While no critic can really contend with a viewer who considers something boring, the truth is that there are dozens of shows designed to be watched more casually than this one, shows that value over-explanation. In fact, there’s a whole trend of writers being asked to over-narrate their shows to create “casual viewing.” No one should expect that from “Pluribus,” a blindingly brilliant show that feels almost like an answer to the dumbed-down writing of the streaming era. Carol truly is alone. –Brian Tallerico
1. “Andor“ (Disney+)
“Star Wars” creator George Lucas has long lambasted the franchise’s often-critical fanbase, asserting that the films are “for 12-year-olds.” Granted, there’s plenty of truth to that; the galaxy far, far away we know and love was essentially built as high fantasy space adventure movies for adolescents, and it’s been rough watching Internet fan culture work themselves into a lather when the universe they grew up watching didn’t grow up with them. Enter “Andor,” Tony Gilroy’s answer to Lucas’ brief: That a world with talking robots and laser swords and mystical powers could still take itself seriously and answer burning questions about our own body politic, without losing any of its edge.
“Andor”‘s first season in 2022 was a revelation, and there was understandable concern that a second and final season wouldn’t hold up to the high standard set by the first. Lucky for us, then, that Gilroy and crew went above and beyond, fast-tracking the tragic life of Cassian Andor (a beautiful, brooding Diego Luna) and his compatriots’ attempts to build a viable rebellion against the ever-encroaching Empire into a series of chapters leading up to the events of “Rogue One.” Here, we watched the groundwork Andor, Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard), and Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) laid in Season 1 begin to escalate, then unravel: Rebel factions scrabble over power, prestige, and position, while the Empire manufactures consent to destroy a beloved commerce planet for the very mineral required to build the Death Star. Along the way, we see the macro and micro effects these political events have on the show’s characters, from the French Revolution-style underground on Ghorman to the personal trauma of loved ones like Adria Arjona’s shell-shocked Bix.
And all of this is delivered with the kind of patience, craft, and sophistication we rarely expect from Disney+ shows, other “Star Wars” entries included. As the smoke clears, it’s evident that “Andor” is more than just one of the best “Star Wars” stories ever created—it’s one of the great television shows of the century thus far. –Clint Worthington
