John Bleasdale

Outside of a few box-office smashes, 2024 was a relatively quiet year for movies, full of fascinating breakouts and leftfield successes, but few major events. But 2025 is shaping up a bit differently. While it’s still hard to spot another #Barbenheimer on the horizon, or even a Deadpool and Wolverine, the calendar is loaded with the return of monolithic franchises like Avatar, Mission: Impossible and Jurassic World and a few monolithic auteurs, including Paul Thomas Anderson, Bong Joon-ho, Lynne Ramsay, Spike Lee and Steven Soderbergh. Shoot, we might even get a Terrence Malick movie this year. Of course, the most exciting thing going into every year are the films you never see coming. Will we get another The Substance or Nickel Boys? Who knows? But that’s why we keep watching – and you can follow along with our ever-growing list of the best movies of the year below. RECOMMENDED: 📺 The best TV and streaming shows of 2025 (so far)🔥 The must-see films for 2025 you can't miss🎥 The 101 greatest films ever made

It’s never a good sign when you’re not sure if a film is supposed to be funny. There are moments in Spike Lee’s new take on the classic Akira Kurosawa 1963 crime drama High and Low (which itself was based on Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom) where I felt genuinely baffled as to whether I was watching a moment of Police Squad! parody or a fumbled episode of Law & Order. The results are sporadically entertaining, sometimes riveting, sometimes dull and sometimes just plain silly. Denzel Washington plays a king of New York: David King, the founder and executive of a record company which is in the process of a hostile takeover when he decides to throw his entire fortune into securing a controlling share. At which point, his son Kyle gets kidnapped and he is asked for $17.5 million, a sum that would wipe him out. When the cops show up to help out, King gets impatient at their apparent lackadaisical approach: ‘Haven’t you watched SVU?’ he asks.  Rather than heighten the stakes, the twists only seem to lower them The twists and turns that follow only seem to lower the stakes, rather than heighten them. Spike Lee throws in all his enthusiasms: Brooklyn gets A-to-Z namechecked, along with his baseball and basketball teams and rivalries. King’s job allows him to riff on music. He consults the portraits of musical icons on his office wall for advice: ‘What would you do, Jimi? What would you do, Aretha?’ Luckily, he hadn’t signed Diddy. There are also a bunch of strange directorial choice

An outdoor rave in the desert. The music pounds, distorting the speakers, and the desert sun beats down. These people dance like the damned. Some like they're asking questions; others like they’re answering them. Some seem furious; others ecstatic. They all look exhausted, old, like they’ve been dancing non-stop for 25 years. Some have lost limbs. Think Burning Man, but more like Burnt Man: the embers of the ’90s dance scene.  Among them wanders Luis (Sergi López) and his young son, Esteban, handing out fliers as they search for his daughter who is rumoured to be in the area. When an international crisis causes the military to start rounding up foreign nationals, a ragtag caravan of ravers breakaway from the convoy and head to the mountains seeking out another rave. Luis and Esteban follow. Wherever they think they’re going, they’re in for a surprise. The same can be said for us. All you need to know is that the twists and turns of French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe’s film are as dangerous as a mountain road. For some, the vertigo they cause will be too much.  It’s The Wages of Fear meets The Vanishing on shrooms At first, the film plays as a fish-out-of-water comedy as the resolutely middle class Luis finds himself forced to ally himself to the tattooed, drug-fuelled crusties who can show him the way. The sweetness of Luis and Esteban’s relationship is matched by the makeshift family of outcasts and wanderers, played almost exclusively by first-timers. Relationships are not

Une rave en plein désert. La musique martèle, distordant les enceintes sous le cagnard. Des gens dansent comme des damnés. Certains comme s’ils posaient des questions ; d’autres comme s’ils y répondaient. Certains, furieux ; d’autres, extatiques. Tous épuisés, vieux, parfois estropiés, semblant en free party depuis 25 ans. Une sorte de Burning Man, mais en version cramée, oubliée sur les braises de la scène électro des années 90. Parmi eux erre Luis (Sergi López), distribuant des tracts avec son jeune fils Esteban, à la recherche de sa fille, censée être dans la région. Lorsqu’une crise internationale pousse l’armée à commencer à rassembler les ressortissants étrangers de la fête, une caravane hétéroclite se détache du convoi et part dans les montagnes à la recherche d’une nouvelle rave. Luis et Esteban les suivent. Sans savoir où ils vont, ils vont avoir une surprise. Et nous aussi. Tout ce que vous devez savoir, c’est que les rebondissements du film du réalisateur franco-espagnol Oliver Laxe ressemblent aux lacets d’une route de montagne. Pour certains, le vertige sera trop fort. La rencontre sous psilo du Salaire de la Peur et de L'Homme qui voulaire savoir Le film débute comme ces comédies de situation où un personnage se retrouve plongé dans un univers étranger : Luis, issu de la classe moyenne, se voit contraint de faire alliance avec ces marginaux tatoués et complètement perchés, seuls capables de lui indiquer le chemin. La tendresse de la relation entre Luis et Esteba

I’m old enough to remember when every trip to the cinema involved not a barrage of adverts for mobile phones but a ten-fifteen minute short, usually a documentary on a subject of almost parodic dullness, like ‘cheese-making in France’. Louise Courvoisier’s debut Holy Cow takes that concept and runs with it, but the result is far from dull. Instead, what we get is a moving and humorous coming-of-age story which is told with brio, avoiding the usual divots of social realism misery. Totone (Clément Faveau) is a teenager, whose summer is full of fêtes, fights and hangovers until a sudden tragedy leaves him alone with his young sister (a phenomenally cute Luna Garret), and all the responsibility as the head of the house. Neighbours offer help but their offers are soon revealed to either be empty or compromised by Totone’s feud with the sons of another cheesemaker. His solution is to try to win a cheese-making competition which will pocket him 30,000 euros, with the help of his stock-car driving chums. There will be missteps and acrimony and an unsentimental romance that smells of dung and sex with Marie-Lise (Maïwenn Barthelemy), a much more capable young woman from a neighbouring farm and from whom he’ll learn self-discipline and cunnilingus. It’s a summer film of late nights and early mornings Holy Cow is set in the agricultural region of Jura, home of the Comté cheese which Totone is trying to make – and you can tell that the director is a local. Despite Elio Balezeaux’s gorge

Not counting Brad Pitt’s breastplate-buster Troy, Homer hasn’t exactly been a go-to inspiration for Hollywood. That’s unlikely to change with Uberto Pasolini’s The Return, a handsome but dour take on the last chapters of The Odyssey. Talking of handsome but dour, Ralph Fiennes’ Odysseus belatedly washes ashore on his homeland of Ithaca. Here, his queen Penelope (Juliette Binoche) is besieged by thuggish suitors who threaten his son, Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) with a grisly end if she keeps them waiting much longer. Most of the plot points are familiar from half-remembered school lessons. Unrecognised by all, except for his dog, the unfortunately named Argos, Odysseus arrives disguised as a broken beggar. This disguise is, in fact, not far from the truth. He is a veteran of bloody battles and suffers from a lingering PTSD, unsure of whether he is worthy to return home without his men. Is he even really the king? Meanwhile, Penelope weaves during the day and unweaves at night – though her suitors are beginning to suspect her delaying tactics, and one of them, Antinous (Marwan Kenzari), is becoming silkily persuasive. After all, what future does she face? A more daring director would have turned this into Ralph Fiennes’ Taken The sun beats down and everyone walks around in those odd Greek togas, which always look like they’re slipping off the shoulder. As one of the finest screen actors alive, Fiennes is fantastic and the film is worth a watch purely for his performance. At th

It is a truth universally acknowledged that clowns are not funny, but Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is seriously not funny. In Joker, he went on a killing spree and became a figurehead of nihilistic fury. The film won the Golden Lion in Venice, as well as two Oscars, one for Joaquin Phoenix’s painfully, if not dangerously, rake-thin performance. Todd Phillips’s film also made buckets of money for its risk-taking studio, Warner Bros.  The inevitable sequel picks up with Arthur in jail, heavily medicated and jovially bullied by the chief prison guard, played with whistling nonchalance by Brendan Gleeson. A patient in a neighbouring psychiatric ward, Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga), is obsessed with Joker. But Arthur’s lawyer (Catherine Keener) argues that Joker is a part of his split personality, basing his defence on this.  The film itself has multiple personalities: it’s a musical, a courtroom drama, a prison movie and even a Looney Tunes style cartoon. The setting, of course, is Gotham. Wayne Tower can be spied in the background and Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) is the prosecuting DA – all names familiar from the comic books and their many cinematic interpretations. But there’s real bleakness as the prisoners of Arkham slop out every morning.  It’s a big swing for all involved, but all the better for it The first film channelled Martin Scorsese and the cinema of the ’70s. Here, Phillips is inspired more by Band Wagon, with numbers performed by Gaga and Phoenix to express their un

Es una verdad universalmente reconocida que los payasos tienen poca gracia, pero Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) tiene MUY poca gracia. En 'Joker', cometió una matanza y se erigió en un símbolo de la furia nihilista. La película ganó el León de Oro en Venecia, así como dos Óscar, uno por la actuación dolorosa –o directamente peligrosa– de Joaquín Phoenix y su constitución física de fideo. El otro, para el director. La película de Todd Phillips también ganó dinero a espuertas para Warner, el estudio que asumió el riesgo. La inevitable secuela comienza con Arthur en prisión, muy medicado y jovialmente asediado por el jefe de la guardia de la cárcel, interpretado con indiferente silbido por Brendan Gleeson. Una paciente de una sala psiquiátrica vecina, Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga), está obsesionada con el Joker. Y la abogada de Arthur (Catherine Keener) basa su defensa en que el Joker forma parte de la personalidad dividida de Fleck. Y de hecho, la película también tiene múltiples personalidades: es un musical, un drama judicial, una de presidiarios e incluso un dibujo animado al estilo de Loony Tunes. Foto: Warners Bros.'Joker: Folie à Deux' El escenario, por supuesto, es Gotham. Wayne Tower saca la cabeza de fondo y Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) es el fiscal. Todos son nombres bien conocidos de los cómics y por las muchas versiones cinematográficas. Pero se percibe una sordidez real cuando los prisioneros de Arkham vacían el cubo de la mierda cada mañana. 'Joker 2' es audaz: una

És una veritat universalment reconeguda que els pallassos tenen poca gràcia, però Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) té MOLT poca gràcia. A 'Joker', va cometre una matança i es va erigir en un símbol de la fúria nihilista. La pel·lícula va guanyar el Lleó d'Or a Venècia, així com dos Oscars, un per l'actuació dolorosa –o directament perillosa– de Joaquin Phoenix i la seva constitució física de fideu. L'altre, per al director. La pel·lícula de Todd Phillips també va fer diners a cabassos per a Warner, l'estudi que va assumir el risc.  La inevitable seqüela comença amb Arthur a la presó, molt medicat i jovialment assetjat pel cap de la guàrdia de la presó, interpretat amb xiuladissa indiferència per Brendan Gleeson. Una pacient d'una sala psiquiàtrica veïna, Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga), està obsessionada amb el Joker. I l'advocada d'Arthur (Catherine Keener) basa la seva defensa en què el Joker forma part de la personalitat dividida de Fleck. I de fet, la pel·lícula també té múltiples personalitats: és un musical, un drama judicial, una de presidiaris i fins i tot un dibuix animat a l'estil de Loony Tunes. Foto: Warners Bros.'Joker: Folie à Deux' L'escenari, per descomptat, és Gotham. La Wayne Tower treu el cap de fons i Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey) és el fiscal. Tots són noms ben coneguts dels còmics i per les moltes versions cinematogràfiques. Però es percep una sordidesa real quan els presoners d'Arkham buiden el cubell de la merda cada matí.  Joker 2 és audaç: una continuació p