On this page are my annual top 10% among new-to-me movies. I keep an occasionally updated list of my all-time favorites here. For the rest, you can check out my letterboxd account. Beginning in 2023, I’m also doing a project to watch all the entries on the 2022 Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time list; blogging a bit about that project here.
2025
I saw 61 new-to-me movies this year. Twelve were from the Sight and Sound project, which I’ll set aside. Thirteen were kids movies, and 36 were movies I wouldn’t consider kid ones. From the set of 36 movies I saw (not for kids), I think my favorite four were:
Hundreds of Beavers: I think, in a few decades, this will be seen as a top tier auteur work. I saw it in a nearly sold out theater, mostly full of adults, and took the two oldest kids. That was maybe not the right choice for the younger of the two – if you are capable of visualizing what all the cartoon mayhem would mean for real bodies, then it’s pretty gnarly. But we all had a good time. Side note – it is no small feat to make a movie like this and do the full 110 minutes, instead of letting yourself off with 75!
Weapons: What I most remember about this was that the audience was full of couples, and I braced for lots of chatter during the movie (which annoys my movie buddy more than me). But instead, everyone was locked in from the opening monologue. For the rest of the movie, you could feel all of us leaning forward, wrapt. And the movie stuck the landing.
The Substance: The gonzo ending is what puts this on my list. Movies are not just narratives; the audio and the visuals matter, and this movie got that.
One Battle After Another: This one merits a rewatch, so I feel slightly less confident about it. But it was an engrossing movie whose long runtime flew by and, on top of that, works as a great meditation on revolution (warts and all). And it features a very memorable chase sequence amid rolling hills; the kind of thing we should have seen before, but haven’t, as far as I know. Oh, and it’s unexpectedly timely for a PTA movie!
Finally, as noted I also saw 13 kids movies I hadn’t seen before. I think the best of that lot was…
Porco Rosso: A tough call. I saw this in a theater with the two oldest kids and to our disappointment it was playing in Japanese with subtitles, rather than dubbed. That meant I had to spend a lot of the movie narrating things to middle kid, who wasn’t a strong reader when we watched. And yet… it’s Miyazaki. It’s flight. I need to see it again.
Kpop Demon Hunters deserves an honorable mention here. It’s the movie that has most dominated our family’s collective imaginations this year. But that’s mostly consumed via the songs or clips of the movie. I don’t really have the urge to sit down and watch the whole thing again, from beginning to end. And so I choose the pig.
Bonus: My ballot for the ten best movies of the 21st century. Inspired by the NYT feature on this:
…we embarked on an ambitious new project, polling more than 500 filmmakers, stars and influential film fans to vote for the 10 best movies (however they chose to define that) released since Jan. 1, 2000. In collaboration with The Upshot, we compiled their responses to create a list of the 100 best movies of the 21st century.
When you are talking about best, I think you need to go beyond the usual superlatives; your favorite movie, the ones that expanded what you can do with film, even the ones you love or which make you cry. When you’re talking about best, I think you want to reach for art that uses its form to additionally communicate something deep and important about existence. With that criteria in mind, my top ten (unordered) would be:
- The Banshees of Inisherin: What it is to be in society yet alone
- I Saw the TV Glow: How it feels to live as the wrong gender
- Little Women: The feeling of a large and happy family (bonus points for setting up a problem that cannot be satisfactorily answered in a Hollywood movie, and yet finding a way to have its cake and eat it too)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Being called to duty when you would rather not
- Midsommar: When home is bad, but your home
- In the Mood for Love: To be kept from the one you love
- Mulholland Drive: The feeling of a nightmare
- There Will Be Blood: Pushing away the only thing you love
- Uncut Gems: When your compulsions trap you
- Under the Skin: What we look like, when seen from outside ourselves
2024
I saw 64 new-to-me movies this year, but 13 of those were from the Sight and Sound list. I want to consider those separately, since otherwise they will dominate the list. That leaves 51 other new-to-me movies. Here were my top five.
I Saw the TV Glow: The complete package – great to look at, great acting (though it took a rewatch for me to think so), great soundtrack, great conceit, and all in service of exploring an important facet of the human experience. It took a rewatch before I decided I really liked this.
Poor Things: I liked it a lot in the moment, and liked it even more when I realized after the fact that you could see the whole thing as a riff on Eve getting kicked out of the Garden of Eden (her creator is literally named God) and learning to make your way in the Fallen World.
Black Narcissus: This made me realize I’ve probably been unfair to Powell and Pressburger’s other movies. The other films by them I saw because they were on Sight and Sound’s list of the top 100 movies, and I judged them accordingly. That’s a high standard to be held to, and I didn’t typically think they quite meet my expectations! Black Narcissus, on the other hand, I went in knowing almost nothing about. As it got going, I expected a Sound of Music style movie where the strict heroine loosened up, learned to love, and left the convent. Nope! Much more surprising and interesting.
The Fall: Kind of the ultimate “film is a visual medium” movie.
Wicked: I grew up listening to musicals like Les Miserables, and have a soft spot in my heart for their bombastic and overly emotional style of music. Wicked was never my favorite of the lot, but by focusing on the better half of the play and giving me 50-foot black capes, I think this might be my favorite movie adaptation of a musical.
2023
I saw 57 new-to-me movies this year. But 23 of those were from the Sight and Sound list, and I want to consider those separately (it’s wall to wall bangers). That leaves 34 other new-to-me movies. Of that lot, my top three were:
The Banshees of Inisherin: A three tiered story about eccentric weirdos feuding, who are also an allegory for civil war, that’s also about loneliness.
Tár: Another movie that supports multiple interpretations; but some of these conflict!
The Quiet Girl: Seemingly simple (but perfectly executed), but I find I can’t quite express how I feel about it.
2022
I saw 57 new-to-me movies this year. The top five were:
The Lost Daughter: Tense and deeply moving portrait of a rarely examined experience – the ambivalence of parenthood.
Pig: Quietly magical realism that’s sad and poignant rather than whimsical. Crazy that it works.
Night is Short, Walk On Girl: A champion in the “one crazy night genre.” Because it’s animated, the possibilities are limitless. Pure bubbling fun.
The Northman: A visually striking horror movie told from the monster’s perspective.
Barbarian: *spoilers* The first half of this is just about perfect: without recourse to gore or cheap tricks, the tension was calibrated to exactly my breaking point. Where do you go from there? The movie makes an unexpected pivot that left me feeling completely unmoored – I had no idea where this thing was going. Sadly, the plane kind of crashed out at that point, but the exhilarating feeling of the first third has stuck with me.
2021
I saw 41 new-to-me movies this year. The top 4 were:
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: God-tier world building; fully realized, unsettling, grace and horror.
Manchester by the Sea: *spoilers* Is there a way to marry an unflinching portrait of deep grief to a hollywood redemption arc? Maybe not, but you can get close by closing with a small nod to the possibility of hope and change.
Sorcerer: This movie is merely fine until they get on the road and begin their journey. At that point, it goes to a place of pure tension and animal survival.
Wolfwalkers: Wonderful looking ode to friendship between girls who can turn into wolves. Holds a strange power over my own kids.