The 2025 Top Movies
Rerank, Rewatch, Reboot, Refresh

 

I made a list of favorite movies back when I first opened this site. I didn’t put a lot of effort into it, but I felt that the list was representative without being exhaustive, if that makes sense. And it’s been a minor thorn in my side ever since. I like structure, I like organization, and I like movies. A top movies list should be easy for me. But it’s not. It’s a genuine chore.

So I decided that I’d use occasional free time to make a list that I feel is a reflection of where I’m at right now in January 2025. By my rough calculations, I’ve logged nearly 1,500 movies since that initial list was made for the site. That’s a lot of movies! And I’m three years older* and three years more crotchety. I’ve also been a member of a movie club Discord for most of that time, which has exposed me to a diverse group of movie watchers from all over the earth, and I’ve watched many movies through this group.

To summate, I want a list that reflects all of the above.

We’re doing this in four steps over the course of 2025. This post will  update as I complete each step. First, I want to rewatch the Top 15. Second, I want to make a list of every movie that I feel could be in the Top 15. Third, I’m going to compare every movie on that list to the Top 15. Fourth, I’m going to rank the movies and then present the entire list, ranked, official, etched in bronze.

 

Step 1: Watch the 2021 Top 15

It has been a few years since I watched some of these. Understandably so: how frequently do you want to be emotionally drained by Wings of Desire or Happy Together? Another motivation for this project is that I have varying Top 15 movies on every site and in every spreadsheet that I keep. For instance, the list on this site includes Duck Soup but the Letterboxd list does not. I’m using Letterboxd but know that Duck Soup will still be present somewhere in the rankings. I can’t leave out the Marx Brothers.

 

Here is the 2021 list:

1. Casablanca (1942)
2. Heat (1995)
3. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
4. Aliens (1986)
5. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
6. Stop Making Sense (1984)
7. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
9. Rio Bravo (1959)
10. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
11. Happy Together (1997)
12. The Last Waltz (1978)
13. Tinker Tailor Solder Spy (2011)
14. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
15. Wings of Desire (1987)

 

Casablanca

Watched January 2, 2025

I don’t know how Casablanca is not everyone’s favorite movie. The more movies I see, the more this script and this cast stand out. There is a hell of a lot of life lived in an hour and forty minutes, and it never feels rushed.

 

Heat

Watched January 3, 2025

I watched this across two viewings. It diminished the experience somewhat, as I love how methodically this film builds to the climax. But it was like rewatch number 30, so it’s not a big deal. This remains Mann’s masterwork among a career of great films.

 

Rio Bravo

Watched January 4, 2025

This is nominally a John Wayne western drama. It’s certainly there on the screen, and it’s a hell of a good one too. But this is really a showcase of the great Angie Dickinson. She is so captivating and warps the gravity of the film around herself despite the fact that her character is never seen outside of the hotel, the stairwell, or her room. This movie is so much fun; easily my favorite John Wayne film.

 

A Fish Called Wanda

Watched January 6, 2025

I noticed that comedy was underrepresented in my list, so I was happy to see that I had two comedies in my Top 10. Both belong there, no doubts in my mind. I am unaware of another comedy that gives you more bang for your buck. This movie features at least two all-time-great comedy performances (Jamie Lee and Kevin Kline) and has one of the sharpest scripts you’ll ever read. I grin through the whole film.

 

This Is Spinal Tap

Watched January 8, 2025

This movie stands above most of the other improv comedies ever released because the editor and the creative team used the best stuff and left out the rest. Spinal Tap is 82 minutes long, and that runtime includes multiple, full-length musical performances. Every scene is nonstop comedy, even when we dig into the pathos of these characters. I love everything about this movie.

 

Stop Making Sense

Watched January 13, 2025

To quote my own Letterboxd: “This movie is just so fuckin’ joyous. It’s like Paddington 2 or Moonstruck but the whole cast is art school kids.”

This movie is my favorite thing in the entire world for the 88 minutes of its runtime, and I’m happy as a clam for days afterward. My chief regret is that it took me so long to watch this movie in the first place. I didn’t see it for the first time until the COVID lockdown, and my knowledge of Talking Heads before that was just the couple of songs that I’d hear on WDVE or other classic rock stations.

 

Aliens

Watched January 17, 2025

It feels like 40 years of action movies and videogames are still trying to recreate or shake off this film’s impact. It’s a watershed for the genre as surely as are Jaws or Halloween for horror. Space marines, sentry guns, crawling through ducts, a heads-up display with motion detector, there’s a lot here that is now ubiquitous.

And it’s a hell of a good movie. I love every minute of it.

 

The Silence of the Lambs

Soon

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Soon

Happy Together

Soon

The Last Waltz

Soon

The Last of the Mohicans

Soon

Wings of Desire

Soon

Mad Max: Fury Road

Soon

I’m torn about having two Mad Max films in my top 15. I think it is reasonable given my love for the movies, but I also think there should be at least one more comedy in the Top 15.

 

 

Step 2: Make a list of contenders

TBD

 

Step 3: Head to head matchups

TBD

 

Step 4: The 2025 list

TBD

 

 

 

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*I never reevaluated the list, but when I added movies to the bottom, I changed the date. So as far as I can tell, the list was first made in 2021 even though it says 2023.