50-41
50
Black Bag
Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller sends two married agents – Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender – after a mole, who might turn out to be one of them. Read the full review.
49
On Becoming a Guinea FowlUnconventional … On Becoming A Guinea Fowl. Photograph: Courtesy: Cannes film festival
Zambian-Welsh film-maker Rungano Nyoni’s unconventional, and blackly comic, family drama is an inventive and playful surprise. Read the full review.
48
Train Dreams
Joel Edgerton is superb in Clint Bentley’s Malickian story of trees, grief and railroads. Read the full review.
47
Peter Hujar’s Day
Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall star in this verbatim retelling of Hujar’s day in hip 1970s New York, recounting encounters with Ginsberg, Burroughs and Leibowitz. Read the full review.
46
Father Mother Sister BrotherAwkward and close … Vicky Krieps, Cate Blanchett and Charlotte Rampling in Father Mother Sister Brother. Photograph: Yorick Le Saux/Vague Notion 2024
Jim Jarmusch explores the awkwardness and closeness of parents with their grownup children in three slyly comic panels of drama set in the US, Dublin and Paris. Read the full review.
45
Sound of Falling
The same location in seen over four different timeframes in this unsettling and unusual German drama. Read the full review.
44
Sentimental Value
Stellan Skarsgård is an egomaniac director in act of ancestor worship in Joachim Trier’s entertaining drama. Read the full review.
43
Cover-UpOde to journalism – Seymour Hersh in 1975, as seen in Cover-Up. Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix/Redux
Laura Poitras’s Seymour Hersh documentary is a thrilling and impeccably structured ode to journalism. Read the full review.
42
Ghost Trail
Jonathan Millet makes his fiction feature debut with an ambitious slow-burn thriller that opens up a complex world of pain as a Syrian refugee attempts to track down his torturer. Read the full review.
41
One to One: John & Yoko
Kevin Macdonald’s surprising documentary catches a radioactively charismatic Lennon enjoying his rambunctious post-Beatles heyday in New York. Read the full review.
40-31 coming soon
The 50 best movies of 2025 were voted for by Peter Bradshaw, Catherine Bray, Xan Brooks, Luke Buckmaster, Sian Cain, Cath Clarke, Leslie Felperin, Ryan Gilbey, Jesse Hassenger, Phil Hoad, Adrian Horton, Richard Lawson, Ann Lee, Benjamin Lee, Rebecca Liu, Mike McCahill, Gwilym Mumford, Philip Oltermann, Andrew Pulver, Steve Rose and Catherine Shoard