We’ve come to the point in the cycle of cinematic reflection, in between the Academy Award nominations and the ceremony where the winners are announced, when I rattle off my personal selections for the best movies of the calendar year recently closed. I suspect we can all agree on the top film achievement of the 2025. It’s obviously Chloé Zhao’s dance party at the Globe Theatre.
Okay, that’s a joke. And yet, there’s something truly special in those couple minutes of teammates in creativity cavorting to a Rihanna song. As current affairs have grown increasingly grim, I keep returning to this clip, finding reassurance in the sight of people exalting in the soul-filling act of making art together. When a dismayingly high percentage of what crosses multiplex screens — especially the offerings from the dwindling number of major studios — feels calculated into lifelessness, it is a helpful reminder that there are still devoted filmmakers coming together and finding free-spirited joy in collaboration.
I believe that fortifying spirit is imbued in the set of ten films that I’ll go through one by one in the coming weeks. For all the variety to be found in these movies — in budget, in genre, in tone — there is indeed a unifying factor. All of them bear the marks of profoundly human authorship. They are honest expressions of the people who united to make them. As the news of the day drives me to think about the vital power of community, I find the fact of this collective work to be beautiful and inspirational.
We begin tomorrow, of course with the film I place at number ten.
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