top 20 films – Spinning Platters

Film Feature: Chad’s Top 20 Films of 2025

What a sneaky good, but not great, movie year. 2025 was full of major blockbuster disappointments (Mickey 17, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Tron: Ares, The Running Man, Wicked For Good) and a few five-star masterpieces. But there was a plethora of three-and-a-half to four-star fare, some good and some great, that made moviegoing a memorable experience. The honorable mentions will be many this year, but here’s my ranked list of the twenty best films of 2025:

20. FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES

The sixth film in a series is rarely, if ever, as good as, if not better, than all previous installments. Bloodlines refreshed the ‘90s horror franchise in inventive new ways, killing off a plethora of death-cheaters.

19. THE NAKED GUN

Pure comedies can still be good, and still make money! The reboot of The Naked Gun had some of the funniest lines of the year, and produced the rare pleasure of joining in raucous laughter with a moviegoing audience. Continue reading “Film Feature: Chad’s Top 20 Films of 2025”

Film Feature: Chad’s Top 20 Films of 2024

It’s been an odd year for movies, partly due to the lasting effects of labor strikes. There are very few masterpieces, and just as few disasters. Instead, 2024 featured a lot of solid 3-3.5 out of 5 star films, a healthy selection of entertaining fare that enabled the theater industry to finish the year far ahead of what many analysts had feared (box office-wise). Well, without further ado, here’s my ranked Top 20 best films of 2024 (and don’t forget to check out Carrie’s Top 10 Films of 2024 as well): Continue reading “Film Feature: Chad’s Top 20 Films of 2024”

Film Feature: Chad’s Top 20 Films of 2023

It’s been a great year for movies. All the hubbub about the ‘worst films of the year’ list that Variety put out is making a lot of noise, so I’d like to fire back with a Top 20 of the year list. There are so many to choose from, just look at the thirty movie posters above, all of which I’d consider very good films, great films, and even a few masterpieces. This is not a year to point out the worst, but rather one in which we should highlight the surplus of quality films released. Without further ado, here’s my ranked top twenty of 2023:

Fancy Dance

A criminally underseen indie film in which Lily Gladstone gives another memorable performance playing a resident of the Seneca–Cayuga Nation Reservation searching for her missing sister.

Continue reading “Film Feature: Chad’s Top 20 Films of 2023”