Best Movies of 2025 #67-56

67. Hedda

Some critiques of this movie said it changed too much from the Ibsen play. I have the advantage of not knowing a single thing about the Ibsen play. After watching, I don't know if they should have made it closer to the play but they should have made it further away from this.

66. Marcella

An informative documentary about Italian cook Marcella Hazan that isn't especially cinematic. It made me want to try the Roast Chicken with lemons. Also, I like how they mention multiple times about removing the onions from her tomato sauce before serving. Get outta here onions!

65.  Last Breath

Cliched movie about the true story of a deep-sea diver whose electron transport chain is interrupted when oxygen isn't there as a final electron acceptor! Thrillingly, his cells resort to anaerobic means to generate ATP, but it's not efficient!

64. Novocaine

I saw a documentary years ago about people that aren't able to feel pain. It's also tied to your sense of urinary and bowel urgency so they had to set timers to remember to go to the bathroom. I can't remember if Novocaine, a movie about a man who can't feel pain, addresses this. Five stars if it did.

63. Heart Eyes

Sometimes a movie combines two things, like rom-com and slasher, disguising the fact that it's doing neither very well. That's fine, it works for M&M's and it sort of works for Heart Eyes.

62. The Materialists

This is only a rom-com so it's all laid bare. The movie suggests that women will throw themselves at you only for the fact that you're tall. I can assure them that there's some other factor that cancels out tallness but I'm not going to explore what it might be.

 61. War of The Worlds

This is on a lot of lists of worst movies of the year. I was entertained. Maybe not in the way the makers planned but you know I've always rejected authorial intent!

60. Superman

This is the first James Gunn movie I haven't been crazy about. He may be lost to DC like we lost Peter Jackson to Lord of The Rings or Florida to Burmese Pythons.

59. Drop

Not the best 2025 horror movie in a tower restaurant but firmly in the top two 2025 horror movies in a tower restaurant. 

58. The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

Maika Monroe plays Rebecca De Mornay. Upgrade. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Annabella Sciorra. Upgrade. Raul Castillo plays Matt McCoy. Downgrade. The kid is Mileiah Vega playing Madeline Zima. Remains to be seen.

57. The Shrouds

Imagine making a movie dealing with the death of your wife and some doofus on the internet says it was fine. 

56. Megan 2.0

People didn't like that they went more comedy/action this time around. Maybe they also didn't like Terminator 2 or Silent Night, Deadly Night 2. 

 Sometimes you have to switch it up!

Best Movies of 2025 #80-68

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again I'm ranking every movie I saw from this year, starting from the bottom. So "Best" might not be the right title at this point. I don't want to say Worst, however, and I don't feel like the onus should be on the movie. These are the Michael Made The Wrong Choice Movies of 2025.

80. Ash

I have a disability to think ahead in a movie. When someone calls a movie predictable the best I can do is, after the fact, think, "yes, I suppose it was". I have anti-anticipation syndrome. It's a problem. But I was so far ahead of Ash that I knew no animals were harmed in the the making of this movie.

79. The Long Walk

Just like two years ago the second to last movie is a horror film a lot of people like. But The Long Walk holds your hand too much in telling its story and I'm just not into that kind of PDA. I like a movie that puts its hand in my back pocket so its touching my butt but also, kinda not?

78. Death of a Unicorn

I don't know if anything worked in this movie. In fact, it's shockingly high on this list and we just started. But I like what I wrote about the Skinamarink and The Long Walk parallel so DoaU gets some bullshit grade inflation.

77. Love Hurts

I resolve to stop watching movies early in the year just to watch a current movie. The beginning of the year will now be used to catch up on older movies. Like how I watched 107 movies from the 70s this year.

76. Marshmallow

Nobody makes sense in this movie so the whole time you're thinking either there's a revelation that makes it make sense or it's all dumb. But even if there's a revelation, was it worth it to be frustrated that whole time? Huh Marshmallow, was it worth it?

75. The Naked Gun

I've seen this on some best-of lists. People say you need to see a comedy in the theater because the laughter around you will heighten the experience. I don't know, I tend to agree with Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa who said, "The laughter of fools is the pronouncement of madness".

74. F1: The Movie

I was one of the few to dislike Top Gun: Maverick very much and now there's this. It's enough to strike fear in my heart whenever I hear director Joseph Kosinski's name, if only I could commit it to memory.

73. Clown in a Cornfield

Ha, take that Jason Kaczynski. Your movie is one marissa-michael blog unit worse than a movie called Clown in a Cornfield (to be sung to the tune of Girlfriend in a Coma).

72. AJ Goes to the Dog Park

After watching The Naked Gun I tried out this micro-budget ZAZ-type comedy. The amateur charm makes it slightly better. I amuses me that a lot of the bad reviews for this movie are from people that went to the same "mystery movie" showing thinking they might be seeing, as one person says, something like the new Jurassic World movie. It's like what Fernando Pessoa said: "Despondency follows those whose only hope is [for dinosaurs]".

71. KPop Demon Hunters

People like this too. I like to supply a second opinion so you can be informed. I had a problem with the story, animation and songs. Some people accepted those elements. 

70. Found Footage

I had a problem with The Watchers because it used the trope of someone walking away from a place only to find themselves back there. Scary[sarcastic]! This otherwise mediocre movie gets extra points for making fun of that by having the characters try different methods of beating it. In one, they try spinning in circles while walking away. It made me laugh. That makes it Movie Scene of 2025 #10.

69. Becoming Led Zeppelin

I don't have any special interest in Led Zeppelin. Neither, it seems, does Led Zeppelin. It's understandable they would be bored telling their story yet again but it didn't help sell their music to me. Someone once described skateboarding as an activity requiring the most skill for the least payoff. Led Zeppelin is the skateboarding of music.

68. John Candy: I Like Me

I'm tired of biodocs where the general tone is sadness. I don't need slow, treacly piano music in a movie about a comedian. Yes he died young but who wants a movie about someone's life that's mostly about their death? It feels like what the poet Pessoa said, "My life: a tragedy booed off the stage by the gods after only the first act". No, I mean it. I made up the other ones but that one was real!

Best Books of 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You read that right, I started reading books again in 2025. And since books are the lowest art form after music, TV and film I'm going to tackle them first. 

5. The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir by Neko Case

Neko Case's memoir is really not interested in rock and roll stories. She mentions things like releasing her first album and being nominated for a Grammy far after the fact. It's more about how she was so poor growing up she ate potato flakes out of the box for dinner.

4. Say Everything : A Memoir by Ione Skye 

I love a memoir. Sorry. I love: A Memoir. There's a point in this book where Ione Skye is dating Anthony Kiedis while making eyes at Ad-Rock, her brother Donovan Leitch is dating prettiest-celebrity-in-the-world Susanna Hoffs and her mom is seeing Warren Beatty. What is this family?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

This book keeps mentioning how cold it is but it's also constantly raining. Talk to me about cold when it's under 32 Fahrenheit, Australian writer Charlotte McConaghy.

2. Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser

The subtitle doesn't convey how this is about all the lead we poured into the atmosphere and how it causes aggression and may have led to an uptick in serial killers. How about Murderland: How Lead Led to Ted: The Bundy/Plumbum Conundrum. Why does nobody let me name books?

1. Heartwood by Amity Gaige

I read this because it involves the Appalachian Trail and I like hiking and woods. That strategy worked well so next I'm looking for a book about my second favorite thing: news bloopers.

Actually, stage productions are the lowest art form. I saw no stage productions this year. 

Best Movies of 2024 #10-1

Movies not watched in time to make the list are Nutcrackers, which very well might be the new bottom. Hot Frosty should have leaned more into it or away from it. It had a leaning problem. Evil Does Not Exist does not make the top ten. Blink was a fine documentary and Lee is not the best war photographer movie of the year.

10. Rebel Ridge

Jeremy Saulnier first appeared on this blog 13 years ago with his debut movie Murder Party at Bad Movie Night. His following movie Blue Ruin was my favorite movie ten years ago. Green Room seems to be a fan favorite. And then he made a wolf movie. Well, he's back. Seventh best scene is the opening:

9. Green Border

Not to be confused with the Green Room sequel Green Boarder, this is a very serious movie that's incredibly well-made. So I don't have to pretend to like a movie because of its "importance".

8. Challengers

A lot has been made about how Gen Z doesn't like sex scenes in their movies. So we get this sexy movie without much sex. But some harrowingly explicit tennis.

7. Arcadian

My favorite horror movie of the year that was most dismissed as a Quiet Place clone. I see it as an interesting Quiet Place tweak, like those cool alternate Sigourney Weaver clones in Alien 4.

6. Kim's Video

Others also called this documentary "a mess" and the director "annoying". That's true but the subject matter was too interesting to matter. 

5. The Coffee Table

Siskel and Ebert would say the criteria for a thumbs up was if you would recommend the movie to a friend. I wouldn't recommend The Coffee Table to anyone. The tension comes from someone having to deliver the worst news in the world that will destroy the other person. Oh, and it's a comedy. Thumbs down, I laughed a lot and was horrified.

4. His Three Daughters

I loved Carrie Coon, I loved Natasha Lyonne and now I love Elizabeth Olsen. I have so much love to give. So scene eight I'll call the laughing scene is from The Coffee Table. It's not out there right now. Scene nine is the monologue at the end of this movie that's a spoiler. To make up for the lack of videos here's a picture:

3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

I'm not doing this on purpose. I don't mean to rock the boat. I'm nothing if not a team player. But Furiosa is better than Fury Road. 

2. Love Lies Bleeding

What else would you expect from the director of quiet, religious psychological thriller Saint Maud than a "hilarious, bloody film noir" made by "a lesbian intellectual addicted to steroids" as John Waters called it.

1. Hit Man

Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! was my favorite movie of 2016 (and it's better than Dazed and Confused, I can't stop doing this) so I wasn't blindsided by the rise of Glen Powell this year. They reteam here for a gentle rom com with some murder. Sorry Green Border, you should have had more wacky costumes. And one of the top ten movie scenes of 2024, the notes app scene:

Best Television of 2024

1. Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Is the key for good TV taking a mediocre movie and turning it into a show? Let me see, there's Buffy. And... you know I'm not coming up with anything. I needed a third example for it to be a thing. Nevermind.

2. Hacks

Hacks, of course. is based on 1995's Hackers, a movie that brought together Jonny Lee Miller and Angelia Jolie. Which is weird because Mr. and Mrs. Smith brought together Jolie and Brad Pitt. 

3. English Teacher

And English Teacher comes from the early Brad Pitt movie Cutting Class.

It's the movie that brought together Brad Pitt and Jill Schoelen.

4. One More Time

This is a Canadian show I liked that has no connections to actual show business.

5. The Bear

The Bear is a bizarre take on Babes in Toyland with Jill Schoelen and a man she started dating, Keanu Reeves. They changed the setting to Chicago from Cincinnati even though the movie has the famous song:

To bring it all around Keanu Reeves met Winona Ryder on Bram Stoker's Dracula (What We Do In The Shadows) and Winona met Angelina Jolie on Girl, Interrupted which was adapted into Ted.

Best Movies of 2024 #25-11

24. Dune: Part Two

I have no interest in Dune. It took me three tries to get through the first one. But I got sick in July so I had the 17 hours to watch those movies and you know what? Not bad.

23. Inside Out 2

I've seen the first Inside Out but I wasn't trapped in a theater having to give it my full attention like I was for the sequel so this one was better. 

22. The Greatest Night In Pop

An early leader for best movie of the year, thank god 22 movies ending up being better. It has the fourth top ten best scene of the year. After mostly ignoring Al Jarreau's contribution they finally have a section just talking about how drunk he was. No one has excerpted that on YouTube so please enjoy the video for Mornin' instead:

21. Flipside

A documentary made up of failed documentaries to make a documentary about unrealized potential. Or maybe it's about Flipsiders, an 80s toy I really liked.

20. Deadpool & Wolverine

People complain about the jokes in the Avengers movies being forced but these movies should be all jokes because really, who cares?

19. Speak No Evil

I watched the Dutch version of this too this year and it is DARK. The American version gets a little carried away with the changes by dispensing with the horror and everyone just has a nice day at a botanical garden.

18. Kinds of Kindness

Part three of the Margaret Qualley trilogy. More importantly, the fifth top ten scene is a credit sequence that appears in the middle of the movie and has very little to do with what became before or after. These scenes have to come in the order of the movies but that's the best scene in any movie this year.

17. The Fall Guy

I never watched The Fall Guy. I watched Remington Steele, Cagney & Lacey, Hart to Hart, Riptide, Crazy Like A Fox, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Moonlighting, Hunter, Knight Rider and Misfits of Science but never The Fall Guy. The sixth top ten scene is where the Fall Guy cries:

16. Monster

The second, better Monster released this year. This one was directed by Hirokazu Koreeda. Hopefully that distinguishes it enough. If a director ever releases two movies in the same year by the same title god help me.

15. Boy Kills World

The best beat 'em up movie of the year. If any movie in the future is brave enough to have realistic punching sounds where it doesn't sound like much of anything I'm putting you at the top!

14. Longlegs

Am I expected to remember every movie? I saw a lot of movies this year! It had a certain style. Maybe Fincher-y? Alicia Witt was in it. The kid from Twin Peaks is starring in movies!

13. Thelma

An action movie starring a 91-year-old so all the action scenes are about walking on uneven ground and figuring out how to close pop-ups.

12. Alien: Romulus

The third best Alien movie and I like Alien Cubed and the fourth one. I haven't seen the Predator ones. Or those pseudo-Alien Ridley Scott ones. Don't listen to me.

11. Blink Twice

I couldn't blink once keeping my eyes on this nail-biting thriller! 

Best Music of 2024

Like I said last year I don't listen to music anymore but I looked at all the best of lists and here is what caught my ear.

1. Mammoth Penguins - Here

This wasn't on any lists but I thankfully caught it. Remember I named Chappell Roan's album the best last year and then it took off in popularity. Prepare for 2025 to be the year of Mammoth Penguins.

2. Doechii - Alligator Bites Never Heal

As someone outside the music scene I have to assume songs about Nissans were all of the sudden popular this year?

and Nx Worries – 86 Sentra:

3. Being Dead - EELS

To show how out of touch I am, when I saw this on best of lists I was surprised The Eels had a hit record this year. Looking it up they merely have a record this year (it sounds fine). No, this is Being Dead. I looked for this album at the record store I used to frequent and they didn't have it so I'm cool.

4. MICHELLE - Songs About You Specifically

I don't know what this band is and I'm not looking it up. Are they a girl group? Different members seem to take turns singing a song. Is that what I think a girl group is?

5. Samara Cyn - 

Because there should be more music videos on bicycles:

Honorable mention for Brat and Cowboy Carter.