2025’s best movies (so far) include 'Sinners,' 'Sorry Baby' and 'One of
Them Days'
[July 02, 2025]
By LINDSEY BAHR and JAKE COYLE
Often the best movies of the second half of the year come almost
preordained as the Oscars Industrial Complex revs into high gear. The
first half, though, can offer more of a thrill of discovery.
The first six months of 2025 have offered plenty of that, including
indie gems, comedy breakouts and sensational filmmaking debuts. Here are
our 10 favorites from the year's first half.
“The Ballad of Wallis Island”
“The Ballad of Wallis Island” is the kind of charming gem that’s easy to
recommend to any kind of movie lover. It is goofy and friendly, has an
armful of lovely folk songs, an all-timer of a rambling character, in
Tim Key’s eccentric and completely lovable Charles, Tom Basden's grumpy,
too-cool straight man, and the always delightful Carey Mulligan. “Wallis
Island” is a film about letting go and moving on told with humor, wit
and a big heart. Also hailing from the British Isles is the equally
delightful “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl." (streaming on
Peacock) —Bahr
“One of Them Days”
The big-screen comedy has been an almost extinct creature in recent
years, but Lawrence Lamont’s “One of Them Days” gives me hope. Not only
was this buddy comedy a surprise box-office hit, it is probably the
exhibit A in the case of Keke Palmer Should Be in Everything. She and
SZA, in her film debut, play Los Angeles housemates in a madcap race to
make rent. (Streaming on Netflix) —Coyle
“Sorry, Baby”
There’s a sequence in Eva Victor’s delicate, considered and disarmingly
funny directorial debut, “Sorry, Baby” that kind of took my breath away.
You know something bad is going to happen to Agnes, it’s literally the
logline of the film. You sense that her charismatic thesis adviser is a
bit too fixated on her. The incident itself isn’t seen, Victor places
their camera outside of his home. Agnes goes inside, the day turns to
evening and the evening turns to night, and Agnes comes out, changed.
But we stay with her as she finds her way to her car, to her home and,
most importantly to her friend, Lydie (Naomi Ackie). This is a film
about what happens after the bad thing. And it’s a stunner. (In
theaters) —Bahr
“Black Bag”
Arguably the best director-screenwriter tandem this decade has been
Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp. They were behind the pandemic
thriller “Kimi” and another standout of 2025, the ghost-POV “Presence.”
But their spy thriller-marital drama “Black Bag,” starring Michael
Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as married British intelligence agents,
may be their best collaboration yet. It’s certainly the one with the
most delicious dialogue. How has it taken the movies this long to make a
dinner scene with spies dosed with truth serum? (Streaming on Peacock)
—Coyle
“Materialists”
Celine Song’s “Materialists ” might not be the film people wanted it to
be, but it’s the film they need in this land of high-end dating apps,
designer dupes and everyone pretending to live like minor socialites on
Instagram. A thoughtful meditation on money, worth, love and
companionship, this is a film that upends everything we’ve come to think
we want from the so-called romantic comedy (the idea of prince charming,
the inexplicable wealth that’s supposed to coexist with middle class
mores). Lifestyle porn will always have a place in the rom-com machine,
but this is a populist film, both modern and timeless, that reminds us
that love should be easy. It should feel like coming home.
“Materialists” is simply the most purely romantic film of the year. (In
theaters) — Bahr
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This image released by Sony Pictures shows Keke Palmer, left, and
SZA in a scene from "One of them Days." (Anne Marie Fox/Sony
Pictures via AP)
 “Sinners”
Not only does the wait go on for Ryan Coogler to make a bad movie,
he seems to be still realizing his considerable talents. There are
six months to go, still, in 2025, but I doubt we’ll have a big scale
movie that so thrillingly doubles (see what I did there) as a
personal expression for its filmmaker as “Sinners.” This
exhilarating vampire saga is ambitiously packed with deep questions
about community, Black entertainment, Christianity and, of course,
Irish dancing. (Streaming on Max) —Coyle
“Pavements”
In a world of woefully straightforward documentaries and biopics
about musicians, Alex Ross Perry decided to creatively, and a little
chaotically, upend the form with his impossible-to-categorize film
about the 90s indie band Pavement. Blending fact, fiction, archive,
performance, this winkingly rebellious piece is wholly original and
captivating, and, not unlike Todd Haynes’s “I’m Not There,” the kind
of movie to turn someone who’s maybe enjoyed a few Pavement and
Stephen Malkmus songs into a fan. (In theaters, streaming on MUBI
July 11) —Bahr
“April”
A rare and exquisite precision guides Dea Kulumbegashvili’s rigorous
and despairing second feature. Beneath stormy spring skies in the
European country of Georgia, a leading local obstetrician (Ia
Sukhitashvili) pitilessly works to help women who are otherwise
disregarded, vilified or worse. This is a movie coursing with dread,
but its expression of a deep-down pain is piercing and
unforgettable. (Not currently available) —Coyle
“On Becoming a Guinea Fowl”
A visually, and thematically arresting marvel, Rungano Nyoni’s
darkly comedic, stylish and hauntingly bizarre film about unspoken
generational trauma takes audiences to a place, I’m guessing, many
have never been: A Zambian family funeral. And yet its truths ring
universal, as the elder generation turns their heads from the awful
truth that the dead man, Fred, was a predator and pedophile, while
the younger wonders if things must stay as they are. (Streaming on
HBO Max on July 4) --Bahr
“Friendship”
On TV, Tim Robinson and Nathan Fielder have been doing genius-level
comedy. Fielder hasn't yet jumped into his own films, but, then
again, it's hard to get an epic of cringe comedy and aviation safety
like season two of “The Rehearsal” into a feature-length movie. But
in “Friendship,” writer and director Andrew DeYoung brings Robinson,
star of “I Think You Should Leave," into well-tailored, very funny
and dementedly perceptive movie scenario. He plays a man who
awkwardly befriends a cool neighbor (Paul Rudd). While their
differences make for most of the comedy in the movie, “Friendship” —
which culminates in a telling wink — is really about their
similarities. (Available for digital rental) — Coyle
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