With Oscar nominations announced in just a few short weeks on January 22nd, Spinning Platters closes out the year by weighing in with our own Best Films of 2025! Check out fellow critic Chad Liffmann’s Top 20 here, and read on below for my Top 10:
Way back in March, I boldly predicted that this understated but powerful film would secure a spot on my Top 10 list. Despite the many outstanding movies that followed since then, I always remembered this well-told, empathetic story about loneliness, unexpected connections, and found family. Released early in the year, the picture seems to have been forgotten at awards time, which is unfortunate. It deserves a wide audience.
A Little Prayer was little seen, which, like Bob Trevino below, is also a real shame. Worth watching for David Strathairn’s complex, layered performance alone, this indie about a southern family grappling with secrets, pain, and family bonds deserves both praise and accolades.
8. MATERIALISTS
Celine Song earns another Top 10 spot this year with her Past Lives follow up. What is marriage for, really? Are all relationships transactional? Should they be? Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans explore issues of love and money with nuance, humor, and unapologetic honesty.
7. TRAIN DREAMS
Beautiful and haunting, this cinematic adaptation of Denis Johnson’s Pacific Northwest-set novella examines no less than the ephemeral nature of time. Joel Edgerton will shatter you as Robert Grainier, who quietly bears witness to the country’s social and technological changes as he experiences life’s inevitable joys and tragedies.
6. SALLY
Astronaut Sally Ride’s personal and professional triumphs and struggles make for one of the year’s most inspiring–and infuriating–documentaries. You’ll cheer for Ride’s successes as much as you recoil at the overt sexism and homophobia she faced throughout her groundbreaking and stellar career.
5. WEAPONS
With jump scares aplenty and the burning question of why 17 children from one third-grade classroom disappear into the night, Weapons hooks us from the start. But its themes of loss of innocence, generational suffering, and suburban malaise and distrust make it something singular. Amy Madigan’s exceptional turn as creepy Aunt Gladys adds extra pleasure to an already chilling and remarkably well-crafted story.
4. HAMNET
Director Chloe Zhao deftly shows us the connection between grief and art in her gut-wrenching adaptation of the best-selling novel dramatizing Shakespeare’s creation of Hamlet. Paul Mescal does excellent work as the distraught Will, but it’s Jessie Buckley and Noah Jupe who will break your heart in the year’s most cathartic and emotionally devastating ending.
3. SORRY, BABY
Eva Victor pulls off a suburb trifecta as writer, director, and lead actress in this sensitive story of a sexual assault survivor processing her attack. As humorous as often as it’s sad, Victor’s film is always bracingly truthful, reflecting how trauma affects us both in its immediacy and in the long term.
2. SINNERS
Bay Area born-and-bred Ryan Coogler’s ostensible horror picture is so much more than merely a terrific vampire tale, though it is that. Less about supernatural bloodsuckers than about the real horror of this country’s centuries-long history of race hatred and bigotry, the film combines gothic horror, historical drama, and Black music into something utterly unique. By setting a vampire story in the Jim Crow era, Coogler uses aspects of both to shine a light on the restorative power of community, culture, and family.
1. FAIRYLAND
Sure, as a Bay Area critic I’m partial to Bay Area stories, but even if I weren’t a local, I’d pick Fairyland as my #1 film of 2025. Not only a startlingly accurate and fascinating period piece about San Francisco in the ‘70s and ‘80s, this brilliant adaptation of Alysia Abbott’s memoir about her complicated gay father touches on a multitude of universal themes. Fairyland considers the ways families and communities can come together or be torn apart based on whether we choose to love and accept or hate and reject. Coming out firmly in favor of the former, this soulful, heartfelt film will both leave you in tears and fill you with hope.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: So close! A Top 16 would have also included the terrific docs Deaf President Now!, Secret Mall Apartment, The Chaplain and the Doctor, and the equally deserving features Rebuilding, Rental Family, and Song Sung Blue.
