This past year has been one of the best for cinema in quite some time, mostly due to the remarkable collection of international films introduced at Cannes in May. American films were also better than they’ve been this decade, even if the number released in theaters remains paltry.

The film industry is always in a state of crisis, but that crisis feels especially acute now as studios are being gobbled up by tech and streaming companies, theaters remain empty much of the time, and film critics are less relevant than ever. The pack-criticism embrace of “One Battle After Another” — their nearly unanimous embrace of the film which seems mostly due to its politics — underscores how little original thought about movies makes its way into the scattered resources left that discuss film seriously.

But amid all of this, there is an incredible wealth of filmmaking talent worldwide and they left us with some remarkably good work in 2025. Here’s my list of the 10 best — subject to revision as I see a few stray films that escaped my attention so far.

10--Train Dreams. (Dir. Clint Bentley) I heard enormous praise of this film before seeing it and it left me with a slightly underwhelmed feeling the first time around. The movie is self consciously influenced by Terence Malick and chronicles a fairly unremarkable life. But on a second viewing (on Netflix), I have to admit that “Train Dreams” is unquestionably beautiful and poetic in its execution and the closing montage is one of the year’s most memorable sequences.

9--If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Dir. Mary Bronstein) This is a bonkers movie, in the spirit of the Safdie Brothers, and you have to be willing to accept some of the worst parenting ever put on film along the way. Cringe has become its own genre ever since “Toni Erdmann” revolutionized the style, and while this movie doesn’t quite live up to that masterpiece, Rose Byrne’s unforgettable psycho-comic turn will stick with you long after, even if you’d rather forget some of it.

8--Hamnet (Dir. Chloe Zhao) A spiritual cousin to “Train Dreams” — also a literary adaptation, also about the loneliness and boredom of an existence enmeshed in the natural world, and ultimately a branch of the Malick family of filmmaking. The final 30 minutes of “Hamnet” are emotional, brilliantly acted and effective, even though I find the book and film’s interpretation of “Hamlet” preposterous.

7--One Battle After Another (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) As much as I’ve written about the various ways the movie doesn’t work and is overrated by critics, you might expect me to leave it off the list entirely. But that would be unfair to so much of the movie that does work — from Benicio del Torro’s fantastic character and performance to some perfectly executed action sequences. And it’s the first Leonardo DiCaprio performance in a while that I’ve truly admired. You can watch it now on HBO Max.

6--Sinners (Dir. Ryan Coogler) If any movie is going to upset “Battle” at the Oscars this year, it will be this raucous, batshit crazy vampire movie that has so many themes, set pieces and subplots that your head might explode keeping up with it. “Sinners” is also the only movie on this list that made money for Hollywood, and they tend to remember those things. Howard Hawks once said that a good movie is three or four good scenes and not annoying the audience in between. “Sinners” not only has four good scenes, but they might be the best scenes of the year. Whether what comes in between annoys you might be a matter of personal taste, and this movie could have easily missed my top 10 if I weighed the parts I didn’t like more heavily.

5--Left-Handed Girl (dir. Shih-Ching Tsou) Sean Baker’s long time producer and collaborator turns in her first solo directed film and, surprise, it looks and feels just like a Sean Baker film. That shouldn’t be too surprising, given that Baker edited the film and his work here is as good as his Oscar winning editing on “Anora” last year. Given that we’re only one year removed from Baker winning four Oscars, I’m surprised how this movie has been largely dismissed. Some critics have noted that the plot turns melodramatic at times. True, but even Rainer Werner Fassbinder turned to melodrama on occasion, it’s no reason to write off a film, especially one as vibrant as this one. I’ve seen several films about Taipei, Left-Handed Girl is the first to give me a sense of the city’s street culture.

4--Marty Supreme (dir. Josh Safdie) For a movie that promotes itself as being about dreaming big, “Marty Supreme” is at its most effective when sending up the absurdity of monomaniacally pursuing personal quests. Marty’s ridiculousness is hidden behind bravado and one particular talent. But like many men who can do one thing well and extrapolate that into a belief in their own divinity. Marty drives his life — and everyone who comes into contact with him — into chaos (and sometimes even bloodshed.) That’s not what you might expect from a sports movie and I should note that my teenaged children found the character a lot more annoying than I did. I consider the movie a triumph 1) because it’s the type of film you’ll enjoy more the more movies you’ve seen and 2) I appreciated how Safdie allowed the audience to draw it’s own judgments of the protagonist. If I want to see him as an object lesson in how not to live, the movie seems perfectly ok with letting me go there.

3--Sentimental Value (dir. Joaquim Trier) The fact that a movie as good as this ends up number 3 on my list underscores what an incredible group of films premiered at Cannes this year. I’ve liked the other Trier films I’ve seen, but they didn’t prepare me for the emotional depth of this one. Stellan Scarsgaard turns in the performance of the year as an Ingmar Bergman stand-in who manipulates his family and actors to get what he needs from them without coming close to giving back … and yet, they all love him, and we understand why. It would not surprise me if “Sentimental Value” wins Best International Film, because it’s a movie actors relate to deeply.

2--The Secret Agent (dir. Kieber Mendonça Filho) I’ve had this movie ranked number one since I saw it, but send it down a tick at the close. That doesn’t mean I think any less of it. This is one of the most complex, rich, rewarding movies I’ve seen this decade, one that is nearly impossible to describe — and that continues to hold surprises even as the credits roll. A brilliant subtext of the film is that you should disbelieve every story you hear, especially those you read in the newspaper. And then the movie has the audacity to pass on its most important plot turn on a newspaper front page. I get the sense that most viewers took that turn at face value — but should they? Consider that it might be a juke and watch the movie’s final scene again with that in mind.

1--It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi) So why have I upgraded this film to the best of the year slot at the end? It’s because I’ve gone back and watched the rest of Panahi’s portfolio and now see what a departure this movie is. Most of Panahi’s films are meta-cinema in the tradition of his mentor, Abbas Kiarostami. But Panahi, who has been banned from making films by the Iranian government for more than a decade now and continues to make them and smuggle them out, gives us a film about government oppression, the slipperiness of memory and truth, and ultimately about the futility of revenge. At a time when American cinema is overrun with revenge fantasies, Panahi’s brave commentary is the year’s most triumphant celebration of humanist values, even as those values seem to be crumbling into the sea.