{"id":198910,"date":"2025-12-24T01:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/198910\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T01:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:01:07","slug":"listeners-best-movies-of-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/198910\/","title":{"rendered":"Listener\u2019s best movies of 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listener reviewers Sarah Watt and Russell Baillie name their top 10 films of the year, with a guide to where you can find them.<\/p>\n

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER<\/p>\n

Time for radical action<\/p>\n

\n Looked at from some angles, director Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s latest might be seen as just another of his
\n California shaggy dog stories. His previous, mostly brilliantly weird Golden State films have included Boogie Nights (about porn), Magnolia (death), There Will Be Blood (oil), The Master (not all California but Scientology), Licorice Pizza (Hollywood, The Valley), and Inherent Vice (you name it). Like that last one, One Battle After Another (extremist politics and parenthood) is based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, an act that might seem like chainsaw sculpturing of a Dali painting. Inherent Vice was a big swing and a miss, One Battle \u2013 a very loose treatment of Pynchon\u2019s Vineland from 1990, is a home run. With Leonardo DiCaprio out front in the loosest, funniest performance of his career as a former radical forced out of hiding, and a vanity-free Sean Penn as his neo-Nazi nemesis, One Battle is a hilarious, madcap, unflagging, high-action, original with a father-daughter relationship at its heart. And despite taking a story of Vineland\u2019s 1960s radicals in the Reagan years, Anderson has made one of the great movies of the Trump era. One that also wins the prize for the most motion-sickness-inducing car chase of the year.\n <\/p>\n

See it: VOD <\/p>\n

Now watch: There Will Be Blood (2007)<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Ballad of Wallis Island<\/p>\n

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND<\/p>\n

Finger-picking good<\/p>\n

It might not have been the biggest folk music movie of recent times \u2013 that was a Bob Dylan movie starring whatshisname \u2013 but wry music-comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island was certainly the funniest and sweetest. The film\u2019s co-writer, British sitcom regular Tom Basden, played one half of separated fictional singing duo McGwyer Mortimer \u2013 with Carey Mulligan the other \u2013 who are hired by an obsessive, harmless hermit fan for a reunion gig before a very select audience on his island. Quite special.<\/p>\n

See it: VOD<\/p>\n

Now watch: A Complete Unknown (2024, Disney+)<\/p>\n

\"BlackBlack Bag<\/p>\n

BLACK BAG<\/p>\n

Spy vs Spy<\/p>\n

American director Steven Soderbergh headed to London for a smart, twisty espionage thriller, delivering a very British mole hunt that felt like a classic Cold War yarn. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender play a powerhouse couple of spies in a marriage with as much passion as distrust, and had fun with a snarky script that delivered the schadenfreude of watching morally bankrupt characters slowly unravel as everyone becomes a suspect.<\/p>\n

See it: Netflix<\/p>\n

Now watch: The Lives of Others (2006)<\/p>\n

\"Eddington\"Eddington<\/p>\n

EDDINGTON<\/p>\n

American idiots<\/p>\n

This satirical black comedy, set in a New Mexico town in the early days of Covid, showed yet again that Joaquin Phoenix (playing a sheriff turned mayoral candidate) is a giant talent, and director Ari Aster has more in him than just head-trauma-obsessed horror films. As a dissection of the current horrors of American life, the performances, which also included Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone, and a propulsive narrative made Eddington hilarious and gripping.<\/p>\n

See it on: VOD<\/p>\n

Now watch: Civil War (2024)<\/p>\n

FAMILIAR TOUCH<\/p>\n

Cloud with a silver lining<\/p>\n

Less harrowing than other films in the \u201cgetting old isn\u2019t for sissies\u201d genre, this directorial debut by Sarah Friedland captivated with its stunning central performance by octogenarian stage actress Kathleen Chalfant as Ruth, a self-contained woman settling into an assisted-living facility. Eschewing the topic\u2019s usual heartache associated with memory loss, the script allowed for glimmers of warmth and unlikely connection in portraying the onset of dementia as a journey with occasional moments of sunshine.<\/p>\n

See it: In cinemas<\/p>\n

\"Frankenstein\"Frankenstein<\/p>\n

FRANKENSTEIN<\/p>\n

Fine addition to his body of work<\/p>\n

Having created a few monsters in his past, director Guillermo del Toro got his chance to stitch together his own version of Mary Shelley\u2019s seminal creation. He opted for a traditional, old-school approach, one centred on a desperately sympathetic creature played by Jacob Elordi and brought to life by Oscar Isaac\u2019s Victor Frankenstein. It was an exhilarating take on the much-filmed story, but what a pity that del Toro\u2019s made-for-the-big-screen vision was barely shown in cinemas before heading to Netflix.<\/p>\n

See it: Netflix<\/p>\n

Now watch: The Bride! Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, due in cinemas in March.<\/p>\n

\"PikePike River<\/p>\n

PIKE RIVER<\/p>\n

The fight to make things right<\/p>\n

Director Robert Sarkies tackled the sprawling story about the aftermath of the 2010 mining disaster with the restraint and authenticity he\u2019s showed in previous dramatisations of NZ tragedies. With Fiona Samuels\u2019 deft script and the performances of Robyn Malcolm and Melanie Lynskey as Sonya Rockhouse and Anna Osborne, Pike River was an affecting depiction of those who lost men in the mine. It was also a telling drama about how NZ has let negligent employers kill their workers and face no meaningful punishment.<\/p>\n

See it: In cinemas.<\/p>\n

Now watch: Out of the Blue (2006)<\/p>\n

THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG<\/p>\n

Family ties<\/p>\n

Another excoriating Oscar-nominated portrait of human rights abuses heaped upon ordinary citizens, the Tehran-set Seed of the Sacred Fig left audiences silent and sobered by its scenes of government brutality. When law-abiding Iman is promoted to investigating judge of the Revolutionary Court, the values he is meant to uphold clash with the activist sympathies of his teenage daughters, with the whole family drawn into unforeseen tragedy.<\/p>\n

See it: Currently unavailable in NZ.<\/p>\n

Now watch: Hit The Road (2021)<\/p>\n

SINNERS<\/p>\n

From dusk til dawn, Southern style<\/p>\n

Michael B Jordan was sublime in both lead roles as entrepreneurial twins intent on bringing the joy of the juke joint from 1930s Chicago to their Mississippi hometown in director Ryan Coogler\u2019s (Creed) exhilarating examination of race and retribution. With a soundtrack to literally die for, this bloody, music-infused horror movie broke the rules and the mould.<\/p>\n

See it: VOD<\/p>\n

Now watch: The Beguiled (2017)<\/p>\n

\"2828 years Later<\/p>\n

28 YEARS LATER<\/p>\n

Back to bite you<\/p>\n

Just as he did with the Trainspotting sequel, Danny Boyle returned to his zombie franchise with new purpose \u2012 a story of how British survivors have been fending off the apocalypse since 2002\u2019s 28 Days Later. When young Spike broke out of their coastal island quarantine to find a cure for his sick mother, his zombie-hunter dad (Aaron Johnson) was forced to follow. Their quasi-spiritual encounter on the mainland with Ralph Fiennes\u2019 extraordinary doctor turned a monster movie into something unexpectedly moving and profound.<\/p>\n

See it: VOD <\/p>\n

Now watch: Trainspotting 2 (2017)<\/p>\n

VOD stands for video demand, meaning the film is available on Aro Vision, Neon Rentals, Prime Video, Apple TV, or YouTube.<\/p>\n

Three standout local docos <\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister<\/p>\n

WHILE GREATER MINDS have ponder our honours system elsewhere in the holiday edition of magazine, an observation: there is already an alternative life-achievement honour \u2013 the five-star documentary feature. Three such top-ranked docs about our great and good were released in cinemas this year after premieres at the NZ International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

The most prominent, of course, was Prime Minister, a riveting movie that was a fly-on-the-wall study of Jacinda Ardern\u2019s rise and self-induced fall as PM. It had some audiences crying as if it was Whale Rider all over again. After all, it, too, was the tale of a young woman plucked from obscurity to lead the tribe, even if some elders didn\u2019t think she was up for the task, but who then dealt heroically with giant problems that kept washing up on our shores.<\/p>\n

And while the doco, one largely powered by the home-movie footage of husband Clarke Gayford, shouldn\u2019t be mistaken for a piece of political journalism, it still captured a period in history vividly from a unique, centre-of-the-storm angle.<\/p>\n

Another study of a great dame also impressed Listener reviewers. The House Within\u2019s examination of Dame Fiona Kidman by director Joshua Prendeville traversed the Wellington writer\u2019s life by letting her do the storytelling in her own raw, honest and funny way.<\/p>\n

\"LifeLife in One Chord<\/p>\n

Likewise, in Life in One Chord, director Margaret Gordon captured the many voices \u2013 snotty punk, sneering singer, brutally frank memoirist \u2013 of veteran musician Shayne Carter, offering a captivating film that brought to life many of the pages in his terrific autobiography Dead People I Have Known.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister proved popular \u2013 it\u2019s been seen by more than 50,000 in New Zealand and has given Ardern\u2019s international profile a second boost after the release of her bestselling autobiography. She was on The Graham Norton Show promoting its UK release in mid-December, following its November release in Australia.<\/p>\n

But if you were a Kiwi living in either place who fled the country after the confines of Covid and the economic aftermath \u2013 as Ardern did herself \u2013 you might wonder if seeing it would be the thing to put you off ever coming home. <\/p>\n

Funnily enough, the local cinema year ends with a terrific doco Not Only Fredd Dagg But Also John Clarke, about a Kiwi who fled our shores and never returned. \u2013 Russell Baillie<\/p>\n

Save<\/a>Share this article<\/p>\n

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.<\/p>\n

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