My Best Films of 2025

From 2019 onward I have shared with you my list of the best films of the past year. My list contains the films that I truly care about and have communicated something to me that I continue to carry with me. They have the potential to prompt valuable discussions aligned with our Nexus key ideas. Of course, this list is limited to the ones I managed to see throughout the year. Some of the films I’ve written about during 2025. In my short introductions to each film, I’ve used parts of those longer presentations that you will find in the film section.

Here is my list:

1. Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier (Norway)

Without a doubt my favorite film of the year. This emotionally gripping drama explores family relationships and the power of memories in the context of an Oslo family home and the artistic scene. The return of an estranged father, a filmmaker, to this family home and to his two daughters creates tensions. He has come to reenergize his stalled film career by trying to persuade his oldest daughter, a theater actress, to take the lead role in a film about their grandmother. Her refusal sets things in motion. Masterful acting roles of Stellan Skarsgård, Renate Reinsve and Elle Fanning.

2. It Was Just an Accident by Jafar Panahi (Iran)

The Iranian veteran film director Jafar Panahi keeps reminding us of the need to resist state violence, even at personal cost. In this movie he brings together a group of people who all have suffered from imprisonment, violence and torture by the state authorities. One of them has identified a man as a prison guard and now they have been brought together to decide which punishment he deserves. It presents us with questions about guilt, revenge and justice and the importance of not losing your humanity when victimized by cruelty and evil.

3. All We Imagine as Light by Payal Kapadia (India)

Kapadia’s second movie is tender, poetic, relational storytelling, inspiring us to expect light even when things don’t look good. The first part plays in the big city, Mumbai, and we are introduced to three women who work at the same city hospital. We learn what life in this big city, where none of them fully feels at home, carries along for each one, their struggles, hopes and pains. In the second part the three women make a trip to the coastal village one of them returns to. Here they find mental and emotional space to come to terms with their longings and feelings. It’s beautiful.

4. I’m Still Here by Walter Salles (Brazil)

This political drama deals with a dark chapter in the history of Brazil, the period of military dictatorship. In 1971 the politician Rubens Paiva was taken from his home in Rio de Janeiro by armed men and disappeared. It is the story of the search for the truth of what happened to him by his wife Eunice, who stayed behind with their five children. Her search for truth and justice stretches over more than a decade. It is a deeply engaging portrait of a woman who is deeply worried about her husband and does everything she can do; while protecting her children by keeping it secret for the family. Fernanda Torres is fabulous in the role of Eunice.

5. The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohamed Rasoulof (Iran)

The title refers to a species of fig that spreads by wrapping itself around another tree and eventually strangling it, symbolizing the theocratic regime in Iran. With both real footage and fiction Rasoulof brings alive the 2022 demonstrations after the death of Mahsa Amini by government troops and the response of the regime. Then he personalizes it by letting the same suppression and loss of freedom and humanity happen within a family as it is happening in the country at large. He shows us with risk for his own life how the dynamics of oppression and violence develop and permeate every level of life.

6. Vermiglio by Maura Delpero (Italy)

Vermiglio is a beautiful historical drama about an Italian mountain village at the end of World War II. We follow the inhabitants through all four seasons, but zoom in on a family with seven children, focusing particularly on the eldest daughter Lucia, who falls for the deserted soldier Pietro. The story is derived in part from director Maura Delpero’s family history, placed in a time and place where people understood that nature was bigger than them. Maybe the most beautiful film of the year!

7. No Other Choice by Chan-wook Park (South Korea)

Chan-wook Park delivers the next Korean film about what may happen to people and families when class society becomes increasingly brutal. Like Joon-ho Bong’s Parasite this film provokes thought and discussion about social inequality, reminding of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh’s films in the British setting. The film starts with a family who has achieved everything they wished for: a nice house, a nice family with two kids and two well-raised dogs. But then fate hits them: he is fired because of ongoing rationalizing at the paper factory he is working. After two years of seeking jobs, he only sees one further option: to eliminate the competition. A piece of serious, absurd, bleak, but also hilarious filmmaking!

8. One Battle After Another by Paul Thomas Anderson (USA)

In many 2025 summaries (Guardian, NY Times) chosen to be the best film of the year, this film is widely praised for its genre-transcending qualities. It is drama, absurd comedy, action, political thriller, all in one. It also reads as a critique of American society with its ever-continuing struggle between the reactionary and the revolutionary. Anderson seems to be deliberate in making neither one nor the other sympathetic, thereby, I fear, focusing more on entertainment through action scenes than on in depth seeking for meaning and hope. Yet, a remarkable piece of filmmaking!

9. The Mastermind by Kelly Reichert (USA)

In an earlier article about Kathy Reichardt’s films I wrote: “Her small, quiet, slow-paced films have a gentle tone and yet go forcefully to the core of human hopes, dreams and realities. What I understand Kelly Reichardt is struggling with in all her films is what it means to be American and how people in this context are trying to find meaning in their existence.” This certainly seems to be the matter in her newest film, The Mastermind. It is a story about a family man, who does not seem to master anything at all and certainly not his own life. Maybe as an attempt to upgrade his mediocre life, he plans the robbery of a couple of works from a less well-known painter in a little museum in Massachusetts. It is unclear why he got into this and soon things went wrong. It is the story of a little man living in a culture where you are supposed to be a success and where he gets so occupied with that that he can’t hear wise council that comes his way.

10. Second victims by Zinnini Elkington (Denmark)

This is an intense drama in a hospital setting inviting reflection and discussion. A neurologist is shaken by the consequences of a decision she makes for a patient in a Danish hospital. A decision with tragic consequences. In this context the term ‘second victims’ is used. If something goes wrong with a primary victim, then there will be second victims who suffer. Many issues and problems that we regularly hear about from within the medical care system come to the fore in this movie. It may fill us with deep empathy when we witness the high-tension and pressure situations that are normal in that setting. This movie gives us a compelling opportunity to experience behind-the-scenes situations in a context that is important to all of us.

Jan 2026, Rinus

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