The Best Movies of 2025: Honorable Mentions & Editors' Choice
Here at HFJ we know that while the Top 10 list is objectively correct as determined by democracy we also understand that these things are nuanced: there are films that will not make the Top 10, because they were underseen, because they got buried in other releases, or because they just missed the admittedly arbitrary cutoff of “10 films.”
Therefore as a corollary, every year we share a list of Honorable Mentions, curated from the films submitted by voters. We also like to include our own picks, because, well, we can. So there.
Without further ado, and in no particular order:
Honorable Mentions
Die My Love
I’m a simple girl: I see Sissy Spacek and I’m automatically intrigued. Thankfully, Die My Love did not disappoint, which is a feat given my fervent love for Morvern Callar. It has remnants of what stood out to me in Lynne Ramsay’s 2002 film — an uncomfortably honest portrait of a troubled woman with a killer soundtrack that complements the atmosphere without being emotionally directive — while still retaining its singularity. Jennifer Lawrence leads with a bold performance as Grace, a woman barely managing her new life in isolated Montana with her husband (Robert Pattinson) and infant. Her grief-stricken mother-in-law (Spacek) wanders in her own darkness, but the two women are unable to resonate with each other. The film’s aversion to interpretation contributes to the discomfort that overwhelms our viewing experience, registering alongside the unraveling mental state of its characters. With scenes that melt into each other, time and reality oscillate disorientingly like the fractured state Grace is living in. Whether understood as a reflection on postpartum depression, the moribund condition of creativity or identity, the struggles of womanhood, or simply the weight of existence, Ramsay constructs her own language that resists reduction and the engineered manipulation of traditional narratives. — Alexandra Zaragoza
Castration Movie ii. The Best of Both Worlds
What director Louise Weard accomplishes with Castration Movie is a direly-needed shock to the system in both format and content. Two (with a third in the works as well) four+ hour long sections of an anthology that span the continuum from hypnagogic nightmare odyssey to the most naturalistic depictions of queer friend groups I've ever seen. Textured with Inland Empire-inspired camcorder aesthetics, Castration Movie is a fascinating thing to watch and get lost in. The first section, subtitled The Fear of Having No One to Hold at the End of the World, mostly remains distinctly in reality, albeit a reality suffused with internet brainrot (which, hey, same!), but the second part is where the film really starts to blossom and show you what it's capable of. Part ii, The Best of Both Worlds, follows a trans woman trying to leave a cult, and features some of the absolute funniest (and heart-breaking) dialogue of anything I've seen in the past year. The running time of the film(s) might be a big ask for some, but committing to the watch exposes you to a once-in-a-lifetime piece of cinema, truly. – Vivian Violet
And read Matthew Seidel’s full review: A Deep Dive Into Louise Weard's World: Austin Premieres of Castration Movie Anthology i and ii
Final Destination: Bloodlines
We don’t need to beat around the bush here: most horror reboots are dogshit. With the Scream franchise progressively disappearing up its own ass, and Halloween sputtering out yet again with two early contenders for worst movies of the 2020s, it’s genuinely shocking that everyone’s favorite Y2K mallrat death simulator Final Destination came out swinging with pure pop-gore cheese that proved itself the franchise’s best movie in nearly 20 years (not that many others have been made in that timeframe) and one of the most fun films of 2025.
The brilliance of Final Destination: Bloodlines lies in its penchant for tension and misdirection based on expectations from five prior films, playing constant cutesy cat-and-mouse games that climax with some of the nastiest, most over-the-top, laugh-out-loud kill scenes featured in any major studio release of the last several years. By the time any particular character beefs it, their death feels like a cathartic release of tension instead of a cruel shock. It’s easy to spotlight violence in a film, but it’s more difficult to accomplish without seeming misanthropic. The impish, just-mean-enough Bloodlines infuses the proper amount of playfulness to pull it off. If anything, this is the crowd-pleasing, humanity-affirming apogee of Nicole Kidman’s infamous AMC speech: Somehow, watching a kid get flattened by a piano Looney Tunes-style feels good in a place like this. – Morgan Hyde
And read Alix Mammina’s full review: Final Destination Bloodlines Brings the Franchise Back to Life
One Of Them Days
This buddy comedy follows driven career gal Dreux (Keke Palmer) and her ditzy artist roommate Alyssa (SZA) as they try to hustle together a month’s worth of rent money in one (never-ending and increasingly surreal) day. Will their friendship survive run-ins with gang leaders, stripper-phlebotomists, biscuit burglars, and entrepreneur boyfriends? Driven by a funny and fast-paced script from Insecure’s Syreeta Singleton and energetic performances from a top-to-bottom very talented cast, One of Them Days captures the simultaneous hopelessness and resilience of cash-strapped millennials amid the camp and chaos of a rapidly-gentrifying LA. – Maddy Kilburne
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
You’d never guess that a film about grief, generational trauma, familial pressure, and the heavy burden of keeping these demons a secret would also be one of the funniest and most thrilling films of the year, but that’s the beauty of a film as complex yet accessible as Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. One of the most challenging but popular subgenres in feminist film is the rape-revenge thriller, but there is a lot to be said for the rape-trauma-anger-revelation drama, too. Here, underneath the claustrophobic customs of performing grief, we witness a smaller-scale version of the protection and lionization of a rapist that we often witness on a cultural-scale. It is not easy to articulate the numerous aftershocks that follow abuse, but this film does so with spellbinding tenacity and a well-earned sense of humor. This is not a sad, sappy trauma opera, nor is it a scathing exposé of an abuser—both of which are valid frameworks. This is a quietly incendiary, casually devastating, elegantly-constructed mosaic of the discomfort of survival, and the comfort in knowing that sometimes justice can at least be achieved through death. – Lili Labens
And read Justin Harrison’s full review: With On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Rungano Nyoni Pulls Truth from the Depths of Memory
Editors’ Choice
In years past, your intrepid editors each picked a film to highlight that wasn’t on the Top 10 or Honorable Mentions lists. This year we did things a little differently.
Each editor submitted their top 3 picks — overlaps with the community lists allowed. From there, we created a list of 9 Editors Choice picks with each editor having at least one unique pick on the list. And then we figured hey lets make it an even 10 via a bracket-style discussion drawn from the pool of films that didn’t make it into the list already.
We recorded that discussion as a bonus for our patrons over on Patreon. So if you like what we do–such as these annual lists–consider joining our Patreon and listening to how we arrived at pick number 10 (Including some lively discussions about 28 Years Later, Materialists, and more!)
Sentimental Value, dir. Joachim Trier — Lina, Alix, and Remus
Sinners, dir. Ryan Coogler — Liz, Hannah, and Savannah
Castration Movie ii. The Best of Both Worlds, dir. Louise Weard — Remus and Liz
Sorry, Baby, dir. Eva Victoria — Savannah and Chad
Die My Love, dir. Lynne Ramsay — Alix
Final Destination: Bloodlines, dir. Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein — Hannah
Resurrection, dir. Bi Gan 毕赣 — Josh
Wake Up Dead Man, dir. Rian Johnson — Manny
Weapons, dir. Zach Cregger — Chad
Viet and Nam, dir. Minh Quý Trương — Find out on Patreon!