2025 Movie Wrap-Up

Every year I try to watch at least one new-to-me movie a week. Every year I underperform that goal. This year I made it a little over halfway with 32 movies in the 52 weeks of 2025!

(These reviews will probably be a sentence or two long, since it’s been a while since I’ve seen some of these movies–except for the ones I have BIG opinions on (looking at you, Blues Brothers 2000)).

  1. Bound
    • Yay Wachowskis! Yay Lesbains! 
  2. Quiz Lady
    • Dare I say it, but one of Awkwafina’s best. Her and Sandra Oh have a very good sister-dynamic, and was very cute overall (also, hi Paul Reubens!) 
  3. Dyke Hard
    • I rented this on Kanopy, and it’s…wild. It’s a Swedish comedy film released in 2015. I still can’t decide if it’s purposely a B-movie or not. Personally, it’s more of a C-movie, for Campy. The music was fun though!
  4. Willow
    • I…don’t remember much about this one. I walked in on my roommate starting it, and so I sat down and watched it with them. It was fun! That’s all.
  5. Little Mermaid (‘23)
    • People are just rude–this was very cute.
  6. Saturday Night
    • A wonderful tribute to the first episode of SNL! I absolutely loved the actors and their portrayals of real-life people!
  7. Flow
    • While it did feel like a videogame cutscene sometimes, it was still a fun watch. Definitely deserved that Oscar.
  8. War on Rohirim
    • Watched this with my bestie, who knows about LotR lore like I do with Star Trek. I didn’t quite understand where this fit in the Middle Earth universe, but I still enjoyed it.
  9. Anora
    • Did it deserve the 2025 Oscar? Eh, not sure. I liked it, I liked Sean Baker’s other films. But when I found out there wasn’t an intimacy coordinator on set (in a film about SEX WORK) my opinion dipped.
  10. Robot Dreams
    • Loved it until the end. Then it was just heartbreaking–and NOT in a good way.
  11. Perfect Blue
    • I was a little hesitant to watch this, as psychological movies make me a little paranoid, but I’m glad I was brave for this! 
  12. Wallace and Gromit: A Vengance Most Fowl; Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit, Chicken Run, Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget
    • It feels unfair to clump these movies together, but most of what I’m going to say relates to all of them. Claymation is an incredible and important form of animation, Vengeance Most Fowl has an important message about AI that people still need to grasp, Chicken Run is incredibly dark, and I liked a lot of character choices that were made in the sequel.
  13. One of Them Days
    • MORE MOVIES WITH BLACK GIRLS GETTING WHAT THEY WANT! MORE MOVIES WITH BLACK GIRLS AND FRIENDSHIP! MORE MOVIES WITH BLACK GIRLS!!!
  14. Wayne’s World
    • In celebration of SNL’s 50 years on air, Vulture ranked every SNL movie. I, of course, wanted to see where The Blues Brothers ranked. Second!! Can you believe it?! Wayne’s World ranked first, so naturally I had to watch it and see what all the fuss was about. And it was…fine. Maybe I still have my English-major training drilled into my head, but I feel like I couldn’t enjoy it. I kept trying to look for a deeper meaning to it, and there wasn’t one. Sure, there’s the threat of small projects being taken over by big corporations. But with the multiple endings, it just didn’t feel serious to me. And I know it’s not supposed to!
  15. The Pheonecian Scheme
    • I’m not the biggest Wes Anderson fan (quite the opposite), but this one was fine. It felt the least like a stereotypical “Wes Anderson” film. However, I stand by my opinions of his work–no one ever smiles in his films.
  16. Kpop Demon Hunters
    • Yes, it really is that good. Yes, so is the music. Yes, you should watch it.
  17. Ferngully
    • No, I had never seen it before 2025. Don’t judge. (Very cute, loved the environmentalism message). 
  18. Sinners
    • As with Kpop Demon Hunters, yes it really is that good, yes you should watch it, yes the music is amazing as well. Coming into this movie with my blues music knowledge made the film 10x more fun. And it’s not a “scary” movie, even though it has vampires in it. It is a music movie, with some horror elements in it. But the real horror? Colonialism.
  19. Superman (2025)
    • One of James Gunn’s best. Superman has ALWAYS been “woke.”
  20. The Babysitter
    • I’m not the biggest fan of slasher movies, but this one was fun to watch with friends. 
  21. Looney Tunes: The Day The Earth Blew Up
    • 2D animation will always reign supreme. 
  22. Waiting for Guffman
    • Big fan of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries, though I do feel bad for the fates of the characters in this movie, more so than in other films.
  23. Cora Bora
    • As my roommate describes it, “Frances Ha but the main character makes 10x more bad choices.”
  24. Wicked: For Good
    • Yes, I was waiting for a Glinda and Elphaba kiss. Yes, I was sad when it didn’t happen. Yes I still liked the movie.
  25. Blues Brothers 2000
    • Many of my friends know the 1980 film The Blues Brothers is my favorite movie. It’s my ultimate comfort movie. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen it. I can quote it front and back. And for many, many years, I held off on watching the sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, because I knew it would shatter, or at least drastically change, my feelings for the original movie for me. However, Thanksgiving weekend, my dad suggested we finally watch it. And it was…okay. There wasn’t a big inciting incident like the original, and not much of a plot (less of one than the first movie). There were some things I liked about it though! I liked how the other members of the Blues Brothers band had more lines and character. And I absolutely loved all of the different cameos of Blues musicians–more than the original! It was fun to call out who was who with my dad. But the original will always and forever have a special place in my heart. 
  26. Wake Up Dead Man
    • As with a few of the films on this list: yes, it was that good, yes you should watch it. I feel like I can’t rank the three Knives Out movies, as they all are important and special in their own ways. I will, however, defend Glass Onion until my dying breath. 
  27. The Incredible Shrinking Man
    • Universal has a youtube channel that’s just 24 hour movie marathons of their classic monster movies. We watched three in a row for my friend’s birthday, and this is the one I can remember the clearest. The real monster in this movie…was misogyny.
  28. Doukyusei
    • Very cute!
  29. Suzeme 
    • A little weird, but I liked it! Loved the score and soundtrack!

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