Someone Set Me Up the Bomb

You have no chance to survive, make your time! 
 

Back in Theatres: Movies I watched in 2025

 

I needed escape in 2025, and the movies delivered. The vast majority of the films I watched in 2025 were shorts, so don't be alarmed by that huge number on the left; only 538 of the 3,363 were feature-length films (one hour or longer). 

Here are some of my favourite feature-length films of the year. 

For the first time since December 2019, I went back to theatres this year. I chose times designed to reduce exposure to COVID-19, and I'm happy to say the strategy worked; neither Sylvia nor I fell ill. 

Anyone who knows me can't be surprised that James Gunn's Superman was the film that brought me back to the theatre experience. I simply couldn't miss seeing the latest iteration of my favourite fictional character on the big screen. Sylvia, sport that she is, came along with me, and while I'm sure she didn't enjoy it as much as I did, she did like the film, which I think of as a return to form after Zack Snyder's bleak, colourless, cynical interpretation in Man of Steel and its follow-up films. 

The Fantastic Four are my favourite Marvel characters (alongside Spider-Man), so nor could I resist seeing their first official MCU film, Fantastic Four: First Steps. I thought it was a lovely throwback to the spirit of the original comics from the 1960s, with rich characterization for all four leads, amazing production design, and a self-contained, thrilling adventure harkening back to some of the best of the Lee/Kirby comic run. Sylvia skipped this one, and I don't blame her; I don't think she would have gotten much out of it. 

Finally, I won tickets from Letterboxd to see The Long Walk, which adapts one of Stephen King's earliest and most chilling novels. Sylvia came along with me, and we were both impressed by the film's stark production, creating a dystopian near-future (or perhaps recent alternate past) of a fallen United States and the fascist measures it takes to entertain and distract its citizens. Mark Hamill is incredible in this as the tyrant who organizes the titular long walk, but it's the young men competing in the event who really steal the show. The film is raw, disconcerting, unforgiving, and doesn't leave the audience with any means of escaping its bleak, hopeless message. 

My favourite film of the year, though, has to be Yorgos Lanthimos' latest surreal masterpiece, Bugonia. Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone are utterly captivating in this tale of desperate paranoia, and that's all I'll say for fear of spoiling the film's tremendous impact. It really is worth seeing. 

With that, here are some screenshots from my year in film as compiled by Letterboxd: 

At this rate, it's going to take me a long time to finish my watchlist...

See you at the movies!