The 20 best films of 2025

BarcelonaWell no, Sirado It is not one of the films chosen by the ARA critics (María Adell Carmona, Gerard Casau, Eulalia Iglesias, Joan Pons, Paula Arantzazu Ruiz, Manu Yáñez Murillo and myself) to summarize the cinema of 2025. But if a second of cinema only fits 24 frames, this invitation to discover a magnificent harvest that could also have included films by Hong Sang-soo, Jafar Panahi, Ryan Coogler, Gerard Oms, Jia Zhang-Ke or Radu Jude.

A Catalan family on vacation cycles along the banks of the Danube and through the Black Forest, witnessing the awakening of their eldest son's sexuality. The pictorial imagery and phantasmagorical eroticism ofStrange river They are Jaume Claret Muxart's calling card, and his debut is one of the best pieces of news for Catalan cinema in 2025. Available in cinemas and, from January 30th, on Filmin

So discreet that it premiered directly on Movistar+, Linda wants chicken It is, however, a small gem of modern children's animation. With a constant barrage of graphic solutions and a vibrant style, it captures the feelings and energy of childhood through the story of a mother and daughter determined to cook a chicken in a city paralyzed by a general strike. Available on Movistar+ in VOSCat

Sebastian Stan, one of Marvel's Avengers, plays an actor with a disfigured face and a stalled career until a miracle drug changes his face and his life. A very fine portrait of male insecurities and neuroses Touched by a caustic humor that Charlie Kaufman himself would have been proud of. Standing ovation for the stellar appearance of Adam Pearson, the actor with neurofibromatosis fromUnder the skin. Available on Movistar+ in VOSCat

Blandine travels alone from Normandy to Paris, adorned for the latest Olympic Games, to watch the swimming competition and reunite with her sister. There are no major dramatic revelations in this small and bright debut work, just a bittersweet portrait of loneliness in the big metropolis and of that moment in youth when you move through life without an instruction manual. Available to rent on Filmin, Movistar+ and Amazon Prime

The friendship between three nurses in Mumbai forms the backbone of this delicate exploration of the spaces of intimacy built by three women separated by social and generational barriers. The director films the city with the tempo and the melody of a symphonic poem, revealing the secret rhythms of love. A great surprise from Indian cinema that, However, his country did not want to send an Oscar nominee.. Available on FilminCat

One of the iconic images that cinema has given us in 2025 is that of children (and some adults) running like ghosts with their arms swung back. With elements of supernatural horror, social satire, and pitch-black comedy, Weapons turns the mystery of the disappearance of a group of children into one Grand Guignol surprising and vibrant that culminates in a final firework display of violence. Available on HBO Max

Unlike others biopics, Bob Dylan's It doesn't attempt to decipher the musician's game of masks, but rather to add another link to the legend and vindicate an artist's right to express themselves on their own terms. And when you least expect it, it infects you with the audience's emotion as they experience it for the first time. The times they are a-changing with a superlative Timothée Chalamet on guitar and vocals. Available on Disney+

The conclusion of Carla Simón's family trilogy reunites the protagonist ofSummer 1993 as a teenager searching for her family origins. the director's most liberated filmAlcarràsThe realism of his first two works falls short because he also captures the poetic and dreamlike truth of the images, and expands his cinema in a new and stimulating direction. Available on Movistar+ from January 2nd

ARA critic Manu Yáñez already pointed this out in his chronicle from Venice that Jim Jarmusch, a leading figure in cinema indie The American director, in his new film, champions "Ozu's stoic spirit, but also the Japanese director's ability to find beauty in the everyday." Composed of three independent stories, Father, mother, sister, brother won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. In theaters December 24

Some compare Maura Delpero's second film to the literature of Natalia Ginzburg, a film that unfolds a delicate and precise sentimental plot against the backdrop of the Second World War and the human landscape of the Graziadei, a large family in a small town in northern Italy. As ARA critic Paula Ruiz Arantzazu says, "a film from another time." Available in theaters

Black and white images of an English diplomat fleeing his post through Southeast Asia are interwoven with contemporary documentary footage in this beautiful hybrid of reality and fiction. Grand tour poua in the imaginary of the British colonial past to tell of love and life with an adventurous spirit similar to that of the Lumière cameramen. Available on FilminCat

A man accused of kidnapping and murdering three teenagers for filming a video snuff He receives the unconditional support of two girls who defend his innocence and don't miss a single session of his high-profile trial. The disturbing thriller psychological The red rooms He reflects on the cult of personality and the fascination with evil with exquisite intelligence and ambiguity. Available on Movistar+

"This is great European cinema," he was saying about Sentimental value ARA critic Joan PonsJoachim Trier's best film yet reveals the open wounds of a veteran filmmaker's family—a Stellan Skarsgård deserving of all praise—who wants to make one last great film with his actress daughter. An ambitious melodrama, unafraid of complexity, with an undeniable finale. Available in theaters

The string of brilliant dialogues would be reason enough to celebrate, but the true miracle is how Richard Linklater imbues this nocturnal ode to defeat with warmth and humanity. Set on the night of the premiere ofOklahoma in a sophisticated bar, Blue moon It is a love letter to popular art and to the tragic and tortured soul of lyricist Lorenz Hart, embodied by a great Ethan Hawke. Available in theaters

Pixar? They should take note. The young Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis doesn't need dialogue or an army of animators to dazzle with this thrilling apocalyptic masterpiece about a handful of animals struggling to survive in a ruined world that looks like an abandoned Hayao Miyazaki set. What a display of talent, inventiveness, and audacity. A masterpiece of modern animated cinema. Available on FilminCat

The cinema of Alain Guiraudie (The Stranger by the Lake) has always understood human desire as an amoral and beautiful impulse that is not judged. In this thriller neorural and mushroom hunter Produced by Albert Serra, the return of a young man to the village stirs up the blood of the neighbors and leads to an abrupt crime that is only the beginning of a plot of deceptions, absurdities and passions that would have pleased both Hitchcock and Buñuel. Available on FilminCat

More than a gentleman thief, the protagonist of this thriller minimalist of robberies It could be a stark, provincial version of The Louvre Thieves. Kelly Reichardt directs the criminal adventure of the unemployed carpenter, played by a magnificent Josh O'Connor, with a playful irony reminiscent of the best Coen brothers and the Safdie brothers' fascination with characters who dig their own graves. Available in theaters

Whether it's because of its objective grandeur – filmed in 70mm and nearly four hours of footage with theintermezzo corresponding—or by the artistic ambition of the director, The brutalist It allows us to look squarely at the best of American cinema from the glorious 1970s. The story of architect László Tóth, a Holocaust survivor who attempts to redeem himself from his trauma through a monumental construction project commissioned by a billionaire, unfolds on screen in the form of enormously expressive images, crowned by an Oscar for his work. Almost overwhelming, this tragedy about the antisemitism entrenched in American society and the predatory nature of capitalism renews faith in cinema as a provider of intense intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional experiences. Available on SkyShowtime

"Ole "Your balls," the members of Andrés Roca Rey's gang repeat ad nauseam in This wonderful and terrible documentaryWe must also celebrate the courage of Albert Serra, who follows his instinct and observes the ritual of bullfighting through close-ups and an almost intimate sound design that decontextualizes the struggle between bull and matador from everything around them. The resulting images are of unprecedented beauty and brutality; so much so that it makes little sense to ask whether he is for or against bullfighting, a question the film completely transcends. Afternoons of solitude It is a pure portrait of life and death, and of the cruelty of tradition, capturing like never before the absurdity, the horror, and the epic nature of risking one's life against a poor beast tortured to death.Summit!"," exclaim Roca Rey's assistants; "because it has been going little by little." Available on Movistar+

To believe in cinema as a living and exciting art, still capable of surprising and thrilling as if you had just discovered it, there is nothing like entering a theater where they are showing One battle after anotherPaul Thomas Anderson filters American political neuroses through the conspiratorial literature of Thomas Pynchon, which inspires this chain of frenetic chases, driven by Jonny Greenwood's absorbing music as a frenetic metronome. Everything is pushed to the limit and simultaneously measured: the delirious humor, the mise-en-scène, the performances of Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn as antagonistic ideological extremes... One battle after another It's torrential, but also a brilliant satire of American society in which a young, racialized, and free woman ends up becoming the moral center. As DiCaprio's character says: "Long live the revolution!" Available in theaters and on HBO Max