The best movies of 2025, ranked by AP film writers

The bean counters might say otherwise, but 2025 was a good year for movies.

- By ASSOCIATED PRESS

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Leonardo DiCaprio in a scene from 'One Battle After Another.' (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

(Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

Filmmakers working in and out of the studio system managed to make bold, personal, wildly imaginative, and singular works. Some of them even broke through to the mainstream — how extraordinary is it that "Sinners" is among the highest earning of the year in North America, alongside all those "safe" sequels, reboots, and known brands? Most, however, are more likely destined for cult classic status.

Hollywood as we know it is undergoing seismic changes, with yet another studio, Warner Bros., staring down a possible merger. This is an industry that's always under threat, though, and always seems to figure something out. If anything, 2025 was also a year in which audiences showed that they still crave the theatrical experience, whether it was to shout "chicken jockey" at the screen or, despite all logic and polling otherwise, help "KPop Demon Hunters" unofficially top the box office charts two months after hitting Netflix.

More than a few greats were woefully underseen as well. But in a year which also saw the deaths of cinema icons like David Lynch, Robert Redford, Diane Keaton and Gene Hackman, it's good to remember that box office and awards are just temporary measurements. The films are the things that last.