The Wudder 2025 Top Ten Movie Countdown
It’s that time of year again.
2025 is the best movie year of this decade so far, primarily by default, considering it began during peak COVID, continued into the Writer’s Guild then SAG-AFTRA strikes, up thru 2024. But regardless, it’s nice to witness progress.
This is our 2025 ten best, with apologies in advance to any left yet to be screened.
But if we’re keeping it real, some of the skips were intentional. And while critics are currently going gaga over Hamnet, we remember Shakespeare in Love (no shots at pre-Goop-Gwyneth) was once an awards force too.
Something tells us if we did get around to that one, we still wouldn’t be putting it on.
We will be happy to be proven wrong. If you agree/disagree with these ten, feel free to add your praise/scorn in the comment section.
10) Highest 2 Lowest
Full disclosure: Weapons was gonna go in this spot. But Weapons is a flick many critics have or will be citing on other lists, while being a widely available film we watched and already mostly forgot. “Elevated Horror”, or whatever, is all the rage nowadays with the latte-sipping film-twitter set. We’re beginning to be a bit over it. Eddington was Ari Aster straying despite helping create the trend. Not sure what to make of the end result, it suffers some from whataboutism, among other things, but we salute its attempt.
On The Wudder, a Denzel/Spike joint is still an event. Even if this will almost surely be ranked fifth out of their five collabs, with the prior four being: Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, He Got Game, Inside Man. However, you could absolutely argue that’s more testament to the prior greatness than comment on the flaws of their latest. But there is dings to be made. It looks much better on a big screen than on Apple+. The pacing feels choppy at points. It doesn’t trace the Akiri’s Kurosawa 1963 High and Low film it’s based on, unlike the debacle that was Lee’s Oldboy facsimile. Yet given the poetic license taken, along with how this movie’s raw uncut NYC-ness stomps out any trace of the OG’s Tokyo à la Godzilla, did we even need to build upon the bones of that old classic at all?
Because the extended soul-wrestling period, contemplating the ransom payment, leads to a point we already know we’re eventually gonna go. But man, that Oklahoma theme and high-rise DUMBO setting make for a dope intro. And once this movie gets rolling with the subway exchange during the Puerto Rican Day Parade/Yankee-Red Sox series set to Eddie Palmieri (RIP) live? We are cooking with landlord-provided premium New York City gas. So let’s set off our list with this latest creation by a legendary actor/director duo built to last.
9) The Naked Gun
This movie had our audience laughing hard in the theaters this summer. Which was a pleasure to witness considering the Zucker franchise it reboots represents a jokes-flying-every-few-seconds absurd studio-comedy that is a lost art. The template for the cop-show Police Squad satirizes is now as distant a memory as the disaster-films that inspired Airplane!. This new version gets some relatively ‘fresh-blood’ in the form of Lonely Island’s Akiva Schaffer to help bring this into present day. Although it pains us to say, even those guys are approaching fifty, while we can count the studio comedies given a real theatrical run last year on one hand, more specifically, three fingers.
The Naked Gun displays a road map for the always-working Liam Neeson to down-shift into a potential late-late career run, considering his late-career has been taken up by remaking Taken. Don’t get us wrong, we enjoy many of those. But this man is 73. Getting his tall wirey frame up from a comfy chair without creaking may require a particular set of skills. The 1994 Best Actor Oscar Nominee for portraying Oskar Schindler seems to understand this.
Much like co-star Pamela Anderson spins into and out of her expired sex-symbol status as if it were Kid Rock or Tommy Lee. Some of the high praise for her performance in this movie felt a little over-the-top. She’s solid. Better than say, Barbed Wire, or Baywatch. In a role that prioritizes persona-flipping over comedic acting, Priscilla Presley is its OG blueprint. While Neeson’s Frank Drebin does the former-dramatic-actor-playing-comedy-straight trick that worked like a charm for Leslie Nielson. It’s fun in the moment. Whether you remember it later may be a different story yet to be told.
8) Black Bag
Steven Sodebergh is back, baby! Who am I kidding? Spike Lee’s NYU film school classmate never really actually went anywhere. The man films AND edits his movies at the same time while balling on a budget or being bank-rolled by a major studio. Soderbergh doing stuff like thrillers or heists are skills he’s certified across four decades: Out Of Sight, The Limey, Oceans Eleven-Twelve-Thirteen, Logan Lucky.
These are the kind of movies I wish we traffic-ed (seewutidithere) in more often today. Taut, well-written, well-acted, ninety-minute-bangers. No IP, cinematic universe, nor sequel set-up. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender thrive in movies like this. While most actors age, my man Pierce Brosnan, just grows more distinguished.
The British Intelligence spy-caper plot machinations would feel wonky to explain on a page but unspool cinematically at precision pace. Much over the course of two classy dinner parties that get messy, hosted by the married couple played by Fassbender and Blanchett. Soderbergh works tirelessly. He has made 11 new films just since The Wudder opened in Summer 2016. He made 23 films from his Sex, Lies and Videotape debut thru Magic Mike in 2012. There was one extended sabbatical between those two runs. Thankfully the retirement talk did not stick and in retrospect it’s ridiculous to think he’d ever quit, in an era where the ability to make a movie with an iPhone now exists. Speaking of iPhones, Black Bag is Soderbergh’s best since at least 2019’s iPhone-only-shot-reviewed-here High Flying Bird. This one is shot on film, on expensive sets, with A-List actors. Whatever the script requires, this Oscar-winning-director is still a solid hire.
7) Left-Handed Girl
Many of you might not have heard of this one. Not even sure what its elevator pitch is. This movie set in Taipei is about a scuffling young fatherless family (mother, teenage daughter, five-year-old daughter of the title) moved to start a noodle-stand in that city’s bustling night market.
Like several flicks on this list, a strong sense of place transports you to a setting you have never seen onscreen, let alone in real life. Supporting characters feel like they were plucked directly off the streets it’s depicting, adding color to any scene. Finding out this movie was shot on an iPhone shocked me in a way that it maybe shouldn’t have, since Soderbergh showed me that was possible last decade. But that did not look like this. It could be in part the Taipei Night Market of it all, a scene we weren’t previously familiar. It’s filled with foot/bike traffic that feels frenetic. The colors look explosive. It has a visual-style-on-a-shoestring budget that helped make it a film that sparked a distribution bidding war at Cannes Film Festival. While like seemingly everything else, from Warner Brothers to soon-come-our-content-consuming-souls, that battle was won by Netflix who briefly released it ‘theatrically’ before tossing it up sans fanfare on their app in November.
This is a family drama that still provides funny moments. Even the secrets are uncovered in a tone veering between naturally near-disastrous while also savagely comedic. Child actors are risky but the little girl is adorable rather than annoying. The teen daughter and mother’s relationship feels aggressively authentic. The male characters come in all hues: superstitious old man, absentee father, hectoring landlord, family favorite, lecherous dirtbag, well-intentioned good dude.
6) On Becoming A Guinea Fowl
Listen…we like to get weird from time to time. This Zambian-based-and-made film, co-produced by the UK, Ireland and the U.S. fits that bill just off title alone. Sealed by the opening scene featuring our protagonist, twenty-something Shula, driving home from a costume party, dressed as “Supa Dupa Fly” video Missy Elliott, bumping “Come On Home” by Nigerian 70’s Afro-Beat twin-sister duo The Lijadu Sisters (kin to that genre’s godfather, Fela Kuti). Felt like I was tripping upon seeing that combination referenced. To some unfamiliar with at least one, if not both, that may slide by unnoticed. But things get truly weird as Shula gets stopped in her car tracks discovering her uncle Fred lying dead in the middle of the road. Calls get made home. You may initially feel thrown by the tone as her family and then authorities show. Next thing you know, you’re dropped right into the cultural preparations taken in upper-middle-class Zambia for a funeral, along with the disfunction that occurs in many extended family events, especially one with multiple divorces, dark secrets and half-siblings.
But it all makes sense by the final frame, really, right down to the title. This movie puts you in a spot you’ve likely never visited (Zambia, or maybe Africa period, for most reading this). Then, in timeworn tradition best achieved thru great art, its unfamiliarity and uniqueness reveal how universal its themes are.
Yes, heavy stuff comes up. It is a family funeral movie. But the tone is black-comedy while the images are colorful, at times surreal and dreamy. Yes, it mighta been released overseas in 2024, but stateside filmgoers weren’t able to see this before its release on HBO MAX in Spring 2025. Hop in with Shula (brilliantly played by Susan Chardy) and go for a ride.
5) One Of Them Days
Count us among those highly impressed by TDE shining star SZA’s acting debut. We already knew what Keke Palmer could do. But this is a perfect female Friday update for Zoomers to call their own. While there is more than enough for older and younger demos to dig into.
The casual chemistry between Palmer and SZA feels genuinely lived-in. One Of Them Days’ inner-city L.A. specificity is on full display. The internet is incorporated in ways that manage to still be cinematic. Its tone is goofy while slipping in some sharp social-commentary. It has the pace of classic comedies taking place over the course of one ridiculously eventful day in its characters’ life: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, House Party, Dazed and Confused, Superbad, Friday.
Katt Williams crushes in a smaller role. As does our friend Abbott Elementary’s Janelle James. While Keyla Monterroso Meija (aka Maria Sofia from Curb Your Enthusiasm) steals every scene she’s in as a local predatory loan clerk.
Is Maude Apatow a thing now? Guess you have to ask someone who watches Euphoria. She fits here as resident interloper-fish-outta-wudder-witta-heart-of-gold but many young actresses coulda played that role. Maybe we find out more later in the already-in-the-works sequel. The subsequent results could end up becoming as underwhelming as Next Friday or Friday After Next. But it’s too early to speculate.
What we do know is that this is currently of the breeziest watches on Netflix. While it’s also a unicorn of sorts, in being a big-screen solidified comedy hit, relative to its budget (made it back five times over). Being seriously funny, while not taking itself overly serious, is a winning pairing, as are One Of Them Days two leads.
4) Freaky Tales
Despite The Wudder’s East Coast origins before West Coast invention, we fit the Ven diagram of a captive audience for this 80’s Oakland action/comedy anthology like a bullseye. For one thing, the title read as an 808s-and-sex-rhyme Too Short song immediately, before learning Short is actually the voice-over narrator of this film. Too Short songs also provide title and inspiration for two of the four stories. The others involve fantastical tales inspired by real events, involving Golden State Warrior legend Eric “Sleepy” Floyd’s iconic playoff performance versus the Showtime Lakers while also victim of a home invasion and the Gilman Street punk scene that eventually birthed Green Day defending hand-built homebase from well-connected young Neo-Nazi thugs.
So, we’ve got: eighties NBA fables, Bay Area battle-of-the-sexes rap origin stories, punk rocking against racism, gangster flicks, film buff cat nip, rom-com, drama, action, adventure, kung-fu; all in a love letter to late Reagan Era Oakland, stitched together by arcade graphics and Short Dawg’s voice. While because it’s a modern movie, Pedro Pascal is in it. And oh yeah, Bay Area bred Tom Hanks shows up for a juicy cameo as a VHS store clerk.
Sounds like lots to process but it flies by in four twenty-minute-or-so episodes. It’s made by venerable filmmaking dynamic duo of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck who made several small movies this century we love: Half Nelson, Sugar, Mississippi Grind. They also made something called Captain Marvel, but I can’t tell you much about that MCU bit of business beyond that it did over a billion-dollars of box office. “Whoopty-Damn-Do”©Derrick Coleman.
What we can tell you about Freaky Tales is we absolutely loved this shit. The rest of yoūse? Your mileage may vary depending on the level of interest in its genre specifics. What can’t be denied is its affectionate craftsmanship.
3) Marty Supreme
This movie was a lot, about a main character who cared about very little. It’s a vehicle for its star, Timothée Chalamet. You have to be on board with him before getting on this train. We were fashionably late. Call Me By Your Name was cool but did Chalamet really pop in that? Armie Hammer seemed more the initial standout but then all that crazy shit came up. Lady Bird is Greta Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf. Never saw nor cared about Dune or Wonka. So that brings us up to 2024’s A Complete Unknown as the legit launch point for what Timmy now is: the brightest 30-and-under male American movie star working. One that doesn’t require franchise assistance. A young A-list-er whose press runs now feel like event viewing, performative but not (yet) grating. Which is fortunate, since his character here is an asshole. Who’s in every scene of a two-and-a-half-hour Christmas Day (c’mon, Josh Safdie, there’s cuttable stuff in that middle lull) opening movie.
About an entitled would-be world champion of checks notes ping-pong?!? Set in the fifties. Filled with needle-drops of synth-pop hits from the eighties. Co-starring Shark Tank’s Mr. Wonderful, The Nanny, Post-Goop-Gwyneth, “The Ice Man” George Gervin, the grizzled director of King of New York, a real-life deaf Japanese table-tennis champion, comedienne Sandra Bernhard, plus cameos by some 2000’s NBA players as 1950’s Harlem Globetrotters.
Despite the bizarreness of that brew, the end result is (Chris Farley Show voice) “pretty awesome”. We’re delighted to add, it also features the stellar acting debut of Wudder Hall of Famer Tyler The Creator (billed by his birth name Okunma). Is there a creative endeavor this man won’t be good at?!? Not yet, 15 years in. Putting this as high three feels premature slightly. Saw it opening night only about a week ago with the Keenan Fam. But now ready to see it again.
1B) One Battle After Another
*George Thorogood drunk voice* “Loook, Maann…”. This could almost as easily be 1A aka #1 or #2. What it cannot be…is #3. Or any other number after that. The top two films on this list are not just the two best films of 2025, they are the two best movies of this decade. Go debate that with your favorite Chat Bot if you have a problem with that. It’s definitive from where we sit, which for what it’s worth, was a movie theater, watching both in IMAX multiple times.
It’s probably Paul Thomas Anderson’s best movie. Boogie Nights is the only argument otherwise. It’s also his first good movie set in contemporary time since Magnolia. This is very likely Benicio Del Toro’s best performance, trumping Fenster from The Usual Suspects. This is the best work Sean Penn has done in at least twenty years. Leonardo DiCaprio is always great so long as he isn’t doing an accent. But this is some Top Tier Leo Ish here. Light years beyond other recent work, i.e. Killers Of The Entire Afternoon. This is a long movie, in terms of run time, but moves at breakneck pace. It splits itself into three fairly clear acts: Teyanna’s part, the time-jump to introduce their teenage daughter, then the incredible chase to its conclusion. That last part at times in the theater felt legitimately like riding a roller coaster, right down to that stomach-dropping-out sensation.
We’re still a bit in awe of all of it. There have been some fair critiques by folks we know and voices we respect on some aspects of this movie. But it at least attempts to engage with the current moment we are in, which on a daily basis, begins to feel more and more dystopian. But rather than belabor any strident takes, or do much hand-wringing, you mostly just get to have fun watching it. See this, over and over©Marshawn Lynch. It’s the shit.
1A) Sinners
What can we tell you about Sinners that hasn’t been said since it swept across the globe like a cinematic wildfire this spring? We were in here high-praising it the last time The Wudder updated. This is an original movie that hits on so many levels, while whipping across genres and spaces in time in a fashion that leaves an imprint on minds. So picture us crafting this list and finding anything to put it behind. So how did easily the biggest critical/commercial combined triumph of 2025 seemingly drop now to Oscar afterthought? Explain that nonsense as if we were ten. Because all our hypotheses start to lead down a path that starts looking like that Charlie Day corkboard meme.
All the more reason to mark our territory as a reminder. This movie is a molten-lava heat-rock you should have already seen. But if you haven’t, please remedy that ASAP. Saw it thrice in the theater in its IMAX run. That is a record we don’t anticipate or aspire to break. Delroy Lindo better be nominated for Best Supporting Actor or we’re going to war with an intensity that’d make you think vampires invaded the spot. This needs to have a nominee in nearly every major Academy category slot (Actor, Supporting Actress, Director, Picture, Original Screenplay) but oddsmakers say it will not.
Sinners sent us down many rabbit-holes, for the good, learning things: Chinese migrant presence in the 1930’s Delta, musicology source material like Blues People by Amiri Baraka and Deep Blues by Robert Palmer, realizing the girl who first shined in True Grit remains great but now is grown and married Josh Allen, several Irish folk song bangers, Miles Caton’s existence, alright, you get it…it’s a long list. Let’s focus on ^this^ rather than speculate on sitting home watching award shows in March and being pissed.
Five Honorable Mention (in order of descension): Weapons, Eddington, Superman, Train Dreams, Materialists
Five All Apologies (we still need to see): Bugonia, Song Sung Blue, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Blue Moon, Sentimental Value
