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Song of the Day #6,452: ‘Courtyard’ – Bobbie Gentry

Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2025
#6. Eddington

Writer/director Ari Aster’s Eddington is the first film to tackle the insanity of America in 2020 — that discombobulating period when anti-COVID measures collided with the post-George Floyd social justice movement. The movie interrogates both sides of a country divided right down the middle and does so with humor, smarts, and a healthy dose of cynicism.

Some liberals disliked the film because it pokes fun at young social justice warriors and those who were overly cautious about COVID. But to the extent that Eddington takes sides, I see the more biting satire aimed at the right. This is a movie in which a planeload of heavily armed ANTIFA crisis actors descend on the town like something out of a Fox News fever dream.

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Song of the Day #6,451: ‘The Dark End of the Street’ – Percy Sledge

Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2025
#7. Weapons

Zach Cregger’s 2022 Barbarian was an easy top ten entry for me — a twisty delight, alternately nerve-wracking and hilarious. It made me an instant fan, eager to see what he would deliver next.

The answer is another twisty delight, alternately nerve-wracking and hilarious. Weapons is broader and more ambitious than Barbarian but it serves up the same intoxicating blend of mystery, humor, scares, and catharsis.

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Song of the Day #6,450: ‘Come On up to the House’ – Tom Waits

Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2025
#8. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Writer/director Rian Johnson’s latest Benoit Blanc whodunit is a great example of how streaming dilutes the cinematic experience. While I’m sure a ton of people watched this on Netflix between loading the dishwasher and taking out the trash, it doesn’t have the cultural footprint of a movie that plays for a couple of months in theaters.

Given a proper theatrical release, I bet this movie would have had the same water cooler appeal of the 2019 original. And I bet Glenn Close would have been on her way to that elusive Oscar.

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Song of the Day #6,449: ‘Mud Bug’ – Fuasi Abdul-Khaliq Sextet

Continuing my countdown of last year’s best films…

Best Films of 2025
#9. The Phoenician Scheme

Wes Anderson is often criticized for making the “same movie” again and again. It’s a lazy attack that ignores how decidedly different the plots and settings of his movies are from each other. If you synopsize his films, you’ll find he has written about a wide range of topics with milieus that include a private school, a research ship, a 1930s hotel, a New Yorker-like magazine, a Japanese canine encampment, a New England island, and a train through rural India.

What those critics mean is that Anderson’s style doesn’t change, and for the most part that’s true. His early films were a bit looser than the diorama-like productions he has staged since 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. But even those efforts had the same fastidious composition, deadpan delivery, and ingenious production design of his later work.

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Song of the Day #6,448: ‘Sleigh Ride’ – The Ronettes

Over the next two weeks, I’ll offer up my top ten movies of 2025.

If you’ve been reading my posts from the last few weeks you probably have an idea of which films will show up here. But in these entries, I’ll spend a little more space explaining why.

Best Films of 2025
#10. Roofman

This movie stubbornly held on to the #10 spot on my year-end list even as more obvious options came and went. Sometimes you just want to see charismatic actors doing nuanced work in the service of a great yarn, and that is sadly in short supply these days.

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