Film 2025

Thought I'd do a films of the year list again. Way back when I started these, I felt confident that I was considering the whole menu.  It was possible for someone determined to look at everything likely - particularly everything likely that made it to Australia. Anything else was merely commercial or local consumption product. Of course, Asian, South American and Arab material only got a look in by accident.  Moving out, I ran into people who felt that their access to film festivals meant that they had it nailed down.  This of course excluded trash movies/ cinéma bis and "third world" efforts. Physical media and now Streaming have buried this illusion. Without doubt, there is now more material being produced and more material made accessible than any one person can hope to do justice.

It's tempting to just view legacy theatrical exhibition or the material mentioned in the press - or what meets your ideological criteria - and there are people who do that, offering a suitable amount of scorn for anything else. I've been around long enough to know any of those standards will eliminate most of what I'm looking for. It will take another five/ten years for a lot of what I value to reach me. Kinugasa's An Actor's Revenge was made ninety-one years ago and I only this year caught it in a Cinémathèque event -  severely mutilated at that.

The best I can do is nominate titles which I saw for the first time this year and impressed me. I enjoy doing that and it would be nice if it encouraged anyone to seek them out.

Let's have La Grazia Paolo Sorrentino Italy, One Battle After Another Paul Thomas Anderson USA, Histoire de Souleymane Boris Lojkine France, Anora Sean Baker USA, Yukinojô henge: Kaiketsu-hen / An Actor’s Revenge Teinosuke Kinugasa Japan (1936), Straume / Flow Gints Zilbalodis Latavia,  Xiang yang Hua/We Girls Feng Xiaogang China, Les trois mousquetaires: I D'Artagnan & II Milady/The Three Musketeers Martin Bourboulon France, Sinners Ryan Coohler U.S.A. Amance en Samana Rafa Cortés, Spain, 

La grazia - Tony Servillo, Anna Ferzetti






Barrie Pattison 2026