Forget the Golden Globes, Oscars and MTV Movie Awards because I’m stepping into the ring with my own awards! Instead of just making a ranked list of favorite movies of the year (although I did do that on Letterboxd) I’ve decided to shine my spotlight on the films I wanted to talk about most! Some good, some not so good, some underrated, all interesting enough that I wanted to share them with you, my dear readers!
The “Underrated Performance” Award : Jai Courtney in Dangerous Animals
Dangerous Animals did for Jai Courtney what Heretic did Hugh Grant: it created the opportunity to break away from the type of performance we’re used to from then actor and go in a wild new direction. The discomforting menace and glee the Australian actor gives Tucker, a shark-obsessed sea-rial killer deserves more awards than just mine, but I’m sure it’ll be mostly ignored because it’s horror… sigh. And I can only imagine how many totally out there performances we’d have gotten from Courtney if Hollywood hadn’t tried in vain to make him a leading action star for so damn long… double sigh. Hassie Harrison is solid as Zephyr, the victim currently in Tucker’s crosshairs but this is Jai’s movie and he appears to be having the time of his life portraying the twisted villain. I promise that you won’t find anything else like from 2025 quite like Dangerous Animals.
The “Movie I’ve Wanted to See for Decades” Award: Predators: Killer of Killers
We should’ve been getting Predator movies like Killer of Killers since the early 90’s, but better late than never! Prey director Dan Trachtenberg knows exactly what his audience wants and delivers yet again with this amazing anthology. Jaw-dropping ultraviolence; multiple Yautja with various physical builds, tactics and weapons; a story set within different time periods that many fans (like me) have wanted to see first watching the 1987 classic; the awesome score with auditory callbacks to the previous films sprinkled throughout. It’s all fucking incredible. Killer of Killers’ animation is also a boon for the franchise thanks to an art style that often feels like a painting in motion. The closest thing I could compare it to is probably Blue Eye Samurai – which I’ve mentioned before for its absurdly great visuals. With this and Predator: Badlands, there hasn’t been a better time to be a fan of the franchise.
The “Movie That Made Me Question Everything (and not in a good way)” Award(?): Jurassic World Rebirth
Look, I’m fine with suspending disbelief every once in a while, but there are times when a movie dives so deeply into the depths of stupidity that I just cannot ignore it; like pretty much everything in Jurassic World Rebirth. For two brutal hours and change I shook my head again and again asking questions I should not have to ask. The highlights include “why would anyone open a raft three feet from the face of a sleeping T-Rex?” “why would you give velociraptors wings and use them almost exclusively in enclosed spaces?” and “why, why, why would you make the new big, bad dinosaur look like a giant, walking bean with teeth and give almost nothing to do the entire movie?” I hate to say it, but this franchise should probably go extinct.
The “Best Blend of Genres” Award and the “Shot of the Year” Award: Sinners
I saw a tweet where somebody described the Ryan Coogler directed, double Michael B. Jordan starring, blockbusting horror Sinners, as a “horny vampire musical” and that’s better than any synopsis I could come up with. The soul of this movie is as tied as deeply to music as it is to its themes of romance, racial injustice, brotherhood and spirituality. The twangs of blues, folk, gospel and other genres permeate every scene in Sinners, showcasing one of the few kinds of art and solace for a people who needed it desperately. Then there’s the truly magnificent long-take that floats through the film’s main setting while showcasing just a sliver of the history of music from multiple cultures and time periods. My jaw actually dropped and I knew then that this was almost certainly going to be the best shot of 2025. And while they take about half the movie to really make their presence known, the vampires turn a compelling drama into a bloodsoaked nightmare full of terror and tears.
The “Short Film of the Year” Award and “Documentary of the Year” Award: All the Empty Rooms
In a bid to prevent us from becoming further desensitized to the increasingly common horrors of America’s school shooting epidemic broadcast journalist Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp took on a daunting task: memorializing the bedrooms of children who lost their lives in senseless violence. All the Empty Rooms is a heartbreaking, sometimes literal portrait of the innocence that has been stolen from far too many families. Hartman also speaks with some of those families, allowing you to feel some of the joy their children brought them before their lives were cut so painfully short. The crucial message of All the Empty Rooms is loud and clear: we can’t keep letting this happen and we can’t become any more numb to this as a nation than we already are. Our elected officials need to do better to protect America’s youth – America’s future – and they needed to do it decades ago. This has to stop.
The “Video Game Adaptation Curse Isn’t Completely Dead Yet” Award(?): Until Dawn
*In my mind, Until Dawn fails in two major ways: The first is as an adaptation. Aside from the look of a couple of antagonists and Peter Stormare (in a completely different role) this has absolutely nothing to do with the “source material.” The story, characters, setting and tone are all drastically changed. Hell, I’d argue the time loop schtick is in direct opposition to one of the most impactful aspects of the Until Dawn game; if you made a poor choice people died and stayed dead. Unlike the vast majority of video games there were no do-overs, and the movie seems to not get or care about what made the game great. Secondly – and more importantly – it fails at just being a horror movie. None of the characters feel like actual people, therefore there isn’t much (or any) tension whenever they’re in danger. And while the time loop premise with different killers/monsters each loop isn’t in line with the game it still had potential, the how’s and why’s of it all are left frustratingly vague.
I loved that third night though!
*from Suggestion Box #121
The “Unexpected Opening Scene” Award: Warfare
I’m gonna keep this one short because I don’t want to spoil what it entails, but I never would’ve expected a film co-directed Alex Garland, the guy behind stuff like Annihilation and Civil War, to open quite like this. However, the more I’ve thought about it the more I felt it’s totally on brand for him. If you’ve seen Ex Machina before watching Warfare, you’ll understand what I’m talking about when you see the latter.
The “Unbelievable Ending” Award: Bring Her Back
Bring Her Back has many of the tried and true tropes we’ve seen in possession movies for decades, but there’s such a strong human element to it all – something that often feels lacking in contemporary entries in the subgenre. Adoptees Andy (Billy Barratt) Piper (Sora Wong) and their new guardian Laura (Sally Hawkins) are vastly different people linked through grief. Even though the things Laura does in response to her loss are undoubtedly unforgivable, you understand and feel the pain that’s driving her thanks to the talented Philippou brothers’ direction and a stunningly powerful performance from Hawkins. Barratt and Wong deserve plenty of praise too, but Hawkins is on another level. She hit her final note so well that I was crying by the end of it all. The weakest part of the Philippou’s last film, the also great Talk to Me, was how you could see the finale coming, but if someone told you they predicted how this one played out they’re either psychic or a liar. Bring Her Back is a brilliantly bleak, truly horrifying experience punctuated by an ending that created a lingering, hollow ache in me – one I can’t help but respect.
The “Best Animation of the Year” Award: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle
The end is approaching for the worldwide hit anime adaptation of Demon Slayer (except it’s not because the final arc trilogy isn’t wrapping up until 2029?!) and the talented folks behind it have outdone themselves yet again. Along with Ghibli and Trigger, Ufotable sits among the pantheon of all-time great animation studios for consistently producing breathtaking visuals, and the latter has improving their mastery of the craft with their Demon Slayer adaptation. There are some tension-deflating flashbacks in Infinity Castle, sure, but the animation on display here is nothing short of extraordinary. It’s essentially just three different fights taking place in an endlessly shifting maze of rooms (a setting where the term “mind-bending” only begins to do justice) but each has its own unique identity. The different powers and skills on display keep it fresh and honestly, I don’t know if the medium has ever looked this good before. Each battle is spectacular, but it’s the climax of the second in particular that completely floored me. That final blow combined with the set-up between its combatants and how it all plays out is just… perfect?
Yeah, perfect.
The “Director’s Cut” Award: *Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
*I know there have been (extremely) limited screenings of The Whole Bloody Affair since 2006, but I’m adding it here because A) I never had a feasible opportunity to see it before now and B) this is my award list so I’ll give awards to whatever I want.
With that out of the way, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is a true work of art that matches the Quentin Tarantino’s legendary duology; after all it’s the director’s best works combined, remixed into a bigger, bloodier cut while retelling the same, all-timer revenge tale, featuring an iconic antiheroine and rogues gallery of unforgettable, unforgivable villains. I don’t imagine this will win over the folks who didn’t care for the original films (I’m sure there’s at least a couple out there?) but I’d say The Whole Bloody Affair is a must-see for Kill Bill and Quentin Tarantino fans for the extended anime sequence alone.
As for what comes after the credits, well..
The “Please Don’t Let This Be a Thing” Award(?): Kill Bill: The Lost Chapter – Yuki’s Revenge
Yuki’s Revenge, a post-credit “scene” from Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is just like Quentin Tarantino’s iconic revenge films… except it has sentient banana, power-up drinks and people bleeding blue cubes instead of memorable dialogue, iconic music, loving homages to decades of cinema, incredible action or over-the-top gore. In all seriousness, this isn’t a film or a short, it’s a transparent, extended commercial for a T-rated video game attached to a hyper-violent, gory revenge flick that it has no business being around. I don’t use the phrase “anti-art” often, but that’s what this feels like to me. Even worse, Yuki’s Revenge probably won’t be the last time we see some soulless cashgrab like this in cinemas. I really would like to be wrong about that though.
The “So Funny I Nearly Suffocated” Award: The Naked Gun (2025)
Akiva Schaffer’s (director of Hot Rod and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) The Naked Gun sequelboot comes insanely close to hitting the comedic heights of the original as a whole and has what is probably be the single funniest scene I’ve seen in anything. Yes, really, the funniest I’ve ever seen! The film remixes some of the classic’s best jokes to great effect and throws in plenty of its own howlingly funny gags, brilliantly stupid dialogue and outrageously entertaining action sequences. Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Danny Huston and Paul Walter Hauser are dynamite and had me laughing out loud at least once every thirsty seconds or so. This was easily the hardest and most consistently I’ve laughed in a theater since The Nice Guys nearly a decade ago! It feels like the comedy stylings of ZAZ, Shchaffer and producer Seth McFarlane all rolled into one, uproarious masterwork. I’d say “they don’t make comedies like this anymore” but they just did!
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Middle of the Row 