Five years have passed and we have finally entered the mid-point of the decade, and below we will be ranking some of the most engaging and memorable films of the decade so far:
25) The Father
Directed by Florian Zeller
A sad and sometimes uncomfortable film is how you can describe Florian Zeller’s directorial debut, The Father. Starring Olivia Coleman and Anthony Hopkins, the film follows the slow descent of a man living with dementia and how that affects his surrounding family. Based on the director’s 2012 play, La Pere, the film treats the situation with the honesty and care that it demands, but also attempts to convey the true horror that also comes from the situation. Hopkins puts in a dynamic performance in this emotional film, awarding himself with a second Oscar for Best Actor, becoming the oldest actor to ever have won the award, and the film walked away from the 2021 Oscar Ceremony with a second award in winning Best Adapted Screenplay. It is a must-see drama from this decade, lead by two great performances that convey each part of such a devastating topic.
24) Nosferatu
Directed by Robert Eggers
1922’s Nosferatu served as the first adaptation of Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel, even in an unofficial sense, with the film eventually being forced to be destroyed after a long legal battle. The original film is one of the most important horror features ever made, introducing long-running vampire features like the fear of light, and dwelling itself in the important film movement of German Expressionism. Robert Eggers’ has long teased his passion in creating a remake of this classic horror, and in 2024, when this film actually became a reality, he did not disappoint. Starring Lily Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgard, Nicholas Hoult and Willem Dafoe, the film explores the attempts by vampire Count Orlok to travel to Germany and reunite with the aue of his infatuation, a woman named Ellen. After releasing such acclaimed critical hits as The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, Nosferatu continues Eggers’ eye for time-period accurate set design and costuming, adding so much to the original narrative, making key changes to Orlok himself and the dialectic spoken through each character. Rooted in inspiration from the original, the film includes many German Expressionist staples, including the use of darkness and shadows. Eerie moments break from reality, as Orlok’s shadowy hand englufs the entire town, or Hoult’s character seems to float towards a carriage encased in darkness. It can easily be argued as Eggers’ scariest film, but also his most thematically rich, exploring sexual liberation, the vampire as a metaphor for sexual assault and the plague being brought upon by Orlok having a lot in similarity to the COVID-19 pandemic. It slowly became Eggers’ most successful film at the box office, marking a large success for indie’s darling of a director and finally rushing him into the limelight.
23) RRR
Directed by S.S. Rajamouli
The Bollywood film that took the world by storm, its hard to classify RRR as any specific genre. It mixes the worlds of action, comedy, historical drama, musical and romance in such a way that it can only be classified as an epic. Starring N.T. Rama Rhao Jr. and Ram Charan as fictionalised versions of Indian revolutionaries Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju, the film follows their fight against British colonial rule during the era of pre-Indian independence. The film sees these two revolutionaries becoming fast friends, as they battle together through impressive and over-the-top action sequences, fantastically crafted musical sequences and even romantic moments with potential love interests. In what could become a film buckling under its own weight, the epic only excels in becoming everything and more, all wrapped up together with a clear political message against the British Empire. The film’s signature song ‘Naatu Naatu’ won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 95th Academy Award ceremony, marking this historical film as the first win ever for an Indian film at the Oscars.
22) The Batman
Directed by Matt Reeves
Attempting a fresh new take on such an iconic character like Batman is a hard task in the modern day, with so many actors donning the cape and cowl. Following Christopher Nolan’s well-received Dark Knight trilogy is an even more daunting task. Director Matt Reeves, famous for his work with both Cloverfield and the modern Planet of the Apes trilogy, however met these stakes and delivered one of the most unique blockbusters of the decade. Inspired by the works of David Fincher, namely Zodiac and Seven, the film takes the iconic superhero through a crime investigation thriller, as he attempts to track down the serial killer known as the Riddler. Robert Pattinson is the new actor that has put on the batsuit, and he leads a cast that includes big name actors like Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Andy Serkis, Jeffrey Wright and Colin Farrell. Portraying the narrative mainly through the superhero’s eyes and lacking many Bruce Wayne-moments, the film takes its time to dispel its mystery to the audience. Clocking in at nearly 3 hours, the crime-drama is smart and entertaining throughout, keeping its action grounded and realistic, seeing a young Batman being challenged by the own symbol he has created. The movie explores the meaning of vengeance, and how Batman must become a symbol of protection and not one of fear. This marks the film becoming a clear standout in the modern superhero boom, meeting the worlds of superhero action and the world of police procedurals into one cohesive whole.
21) The Last Duel
Directed by Ridley Scott
Director Ridley Scott has been hard at work this decade continuingly crafting new features for audiences, from the middle-of-the-road House of Gucci, to the long-awaited sequel to Gladiator. However, his adaptation of the 2004 book, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France by writer Eric Jager, is the feature that stands high amount the rest. Starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer and Ben Affleck, the film follows two knights who are drawn into a duel to the death after one is believed to have raped the others’ wife. The film is portrayed in three separate chapters, each displaying the same set of events but from a different characters’ perspective. This smart storytelling device keeps the audience guessing to the true nature of events, and to question their own preconceived notions of an event like this. The film is intense and can be hard to watch at times, dealing with a heavy subject like sexual assault and how that can be normalised in a world structured around men and so focused around misogyny. It is a thematically complex film which seeks to question its audience’s own perspectives, and stands out as a key film of Scott’s later works.
20) Sinners
Directed by Ryan Coogler
The newest feature on this list, Sinners is director Ryan Coogler’s first big-budget original film. The director gained notable attention after working with notable IP-hits like Creed and the Black Panther duology, and the studio put a lot of faith in the director being able to craft something original and crowd-pleasing. Sinners is that and more, following criminal twin brothers, Stack and Smoke, as they attempt to open a duke-joint back in their hometown of Mississippi Delta, until their night of debauchery is crashed by unexpected guests. Starring an impressive cast like Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Moskau and Delroy Lindo, the film proves the star power of its director through a truly moving narrative. What starts as a movie that emphasises drama and character-work soon become a living nightmare as the horror elements set in, and our characters are plagued by vampires. Action sequences are engaging throughout, and the film has some freakish sequences, but really stands apart is the usage of the vampire. Vampires have long-been used as metaphoric forces for a film’s underlying message, even dating far back as Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel, where it can be gleamed as discussing around sexual liberation and taboo. Sinners sees the vampire become a hivemind, absorbing each person it bites into its web, absorbing their interests and culture until each vampire becomes one-in-the-same. Essentially, the film explores the vampire as a metaphor for cultural assimilation, but does so in an even smarter way. The lead vampire is Irish and is a similar victim to this cultural assimilation, removing any generic takes of white versus black that this could have easily fell back on. Removed from all that however, the film also just serves as love-letter to music and the power of song, delivering some exceptional musical sequences.
19) Past Lives
Directed by Celine Song
A film focusing around what ifs, the concept of the ‘in yun’, the idea that any person you might in life is a potential other life opened for you, another romantic or platonic relationship that could exist in another life. Past Lives, Celine Song’s directorial debut, semi-based on her own life, deals with the concept of what ifs thoroughly. Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro, the film follows two estranged childhood friends who were separated for 24 years after one emigrated to the states. 24 years later, they come back into each other’s lives, one single and one married, and they reconnect about their shared past and what could have been if they had stayed. This is a romantic-drama that feels honest and true, it involves a love triangle between our three leads, but they are all thoroughly fleshed out people who never outstep their roles or boundaries. A lesser film would demonise one of the characters to bring the estranged friends together but this film doesn’t, instead the film fleshes all three out and what they mean to each other, in this life and any others. The friends mean a lot to each other, they are all they have got to remind themselves of their past and the culture clash they feel now in the United States, but the film questions how important the past is when they have the life they have now. A film that’s bound to make you think about your own life, this honest look into relationships, what ifs and cultural dissonance is one of the decade’s finest romantic features.
18) The Worst Person in The World
Directed by Joachim Trier
The closing film in director Joachim Trier’s Oslo trilogy, following 2006’s Reprise and 2011’s Oslo, August 31st, a trilogy brought together by the shared location at the heart of the features, Oslo. The Worst Person in the World takes place over a 4-year gap, following Julie, a woman lost in both her love life and her work life, as she attempts to take a hard look at herself and make crucial changes in her life. A Norweigan romantic-comedy that essentially subverts all regular tropes of these two genres, the film can be more easily classified as a drama at times, being both hilarious but deeply sad at the same time. It is a brutally honest look at being lost in life, mixing in all the bad and good moments that come from trying to discover yourself and figure out who you want to be in a romantic and professional length. Leading actor Renate Reinsve delivers one of the best performances of the decade, elevating the lost-and-struggling woman trope and filling that character with so much personality and ethos. She won the award for Best Actress at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, sadly missing out on any nomination from that year’s Oscars, a massive snub for one of the most memorable films of the decade.
17) Dune: Part Two
Directed by Denis Villenueve
Following up David Lynch’s original attempt at the material would have been a daunting task for any big director, but Villenueve made the strong choice to split the original novel’s narrative into two distinct films. Both films released this decade, but Part Two is the clear victor of the two. Dune served as the set-up, familiarising audiences with this vast world and setting up a much action-packed follow-up, and Dune: Part Two delivers this premise masterfully. Starring big names like Timothee Chalamet, Florence Pugh, Zendaya and Austin Butler, the film follows the story of Paul Atriedes, one of the sole survivors of the assassination attempt on the House Atriedes by the Harkonnens. Surviving in the desert of the planet Arakkis, he is believed to be the deity known as Muad’Dib, and gathers an army to take his revenge. Based on the back half of the original Frank Herbert novel, the film ups the scale from the first feature, delivering exceptional action sequences and incredible action sequences. The action and scale are not the only things to be in awe of however, the narrative becomes equally more complex and compelling, as our own hero becomes someone to fear and question. The film explores the concepts of the novel through a true mature lens, exploring cultism, false prophets and revolution in a way that strikes fear in its audience, and really questions who is the true hero of this story. Timothee Chalamet delivers one of his finest performances yet, marking this as having the potential to be this decades’ equivalent to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, equally if Dune: Messiah hits the landing in the coming years.
16) Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson
Sony Pictures Animation challenged animated filmgoers in 2018 with the release of Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, a film which buckled the trend of stock studio- animation styles. With its comic-book inspired animation style, and blending multiple different animation types, the film became an instant success and challenged other animation studios to also experiment with new forms of animation. Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse, the 2023 sequel to the Sony Pictures original, doubles up on the impressive animation quality and delivers easily the most ambitious animated film in decades. Starring notable names like Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Daniel Kaluuya and Oscar Isaac among an even more impressive cast, the film follows spider-hero Miles Morales as he bravely steps out of his own universe and into the multiverse in an attempt to stop a villain who may destroy the web that holds the multiverse together. Distinctively more ambitious than its predecessor, in both story and animation, with the film ending on a cliff-hanger to set up its 2027 follow-up, Beyond the Spider-Verse, the film could have buckled under its own massive weight but instead delivers a moving and incredibly impressive story. With scenes that include over 250 animated characters on screen at once, and blending multiple different worlds with visually distinct animation styles, the film cannot help to impress you as you watch. Blending all these parts with a moving story about finding yourself away from home and accepting who you are, and mixing it with comic-book references in a earnest way, the film stands out as a clear highlight of the superhero movie boom.
15) Bones and All
Directed by Luca Guadagnino
Director Luca Guadagnino has had a very busy decade, crafting film after film to commercial and critical success, from Challengers to Queer, the director has definitely made a mark this decade. For this list however, his romantic-horror road film Bones and All takes the cake as his best work this decade. Starring Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet, the film, based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis, follows two cannibals who fall in love across a road trip through the United States. The film is a notable piece of the director’s work, a film which blends the world between gross-out horror and earnest romance perfectly. Romance is a classic trope of the director’s works, the yearning, the look for connection, the sexual need and the feeling of loneliness purpurates across all his work, but never has it felt more earnest and innocent, even in a film featuring pure horror. The road-trip elements allow the leads to fall in love and meet fresh new characters, with their sense of belonging being connected to their ability to sniff out other cannibals, and also being tested by the dangers that can come from such a way of life. The film is equal parts creepy and earnest, blending the worlds perfectly to craft Guadagnino’s finest film of the decade.
14) The Banshees of Inisherin
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Following his memorable directorial debut In Bruges, Martin McDonagh delivered another perfect dark comedy in The Banshees of Insiherin. Set in a fictional island off the coast of Ireland, the film features Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two friends whose friendship comes to an explosive end when one decides he no longer wants to be friends, starting a domino effect of consequences between the two. Crafting a screenplay this hilarious and deeply heart wrenching based on such a simple premise is a massive achievement in itself, and its all wrapped up in a narrative about the power of legacy, the fear of loneliness and the fear of death and how we will be remembered once we are gone. Padraic, played by Colin Farrell, is a happy man who is willing to be remembered as just the kindest man in the village, willing to be remembered for his character and not for his work. Colm on the other hand, played by Brendan Gleeson, is bitter for how much time he has left and how little he has done, wishing to be remembered for not his character but his work in music. These two different views could be seen as the director making comparisons across the storied history of Ireland’s divisions, from the Irish Civil War to its long dealing with the Catholic Church, its all important to understanding McDonagh’s perfectly crafted film. Legacy and conflict seem to be one in the same in this film’s world, and that’s a message to think over when viewing one of this decade’s most finely crafted features.
13) Tar
Directed by Todd Field
Never has a fictional film about a ‘real person’ felt like it was reality more than Todd Field’s Tar. Starring Cate Blanchett, the film follows Lydia Tar, a world-famous conductor, whose life falls apart when she is accused of misconduct. Blanchett delivers one of the finest performances of her career, crafting such an emotionally complex character, the film constantly leaving you guessing who the real Lydia Tar is, the person she is pretending to be or someone even more evil than that. The film seems to deal with the current trend of cancel culture, exploring how a celebrity deals with this trend and attempts to put things right, or double down on their behaviour. It is a film that is so confident in its messaging and narrative that director Todd Field never attempts to guide your hand in thinking a certain way, he just leaves you to make your own judgements about both the identity politics it plays with and the cancel culture it thoroughly explores.
12) Everything Everywhere All At Once
Directed by The Daniels
Multiverse narratives are the new trend in Hollywood, with franchise features banking on nostalgia of long forgotten cinematic outings in films like Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Flash. However, the film that really stood apart in this trend was A24’S Everything Everywhere All at Once, a film exploring the multiverse concept in such a human way. Following a Chinese-American immigrant, who after being audited by the IRS, must travel the multiverse and join forces with different versions of herself to stop a mysterious enemy who is seeking to destroy the multiverse. Multiverse stories are a tricky gamble for sure, there is a vast amount of storytelling possibilities but they can threaten to fall apart if there is no cohesive storyline to ground the chaos. The Daniels made the smart decision to ground the narrative in a simple story of mother and daughter reconnecting, and wife and husband learning that there is nothing more important in the multiverse than being together. There are themes of depression, neurodivergence, generational trauma and identity that bring together the chaos of the narrative and the absolute creativity in crafting alternate realities, into becoming a human narrative. The film became a surprising Oscar winner for sure, winning the Best Picture Oscar at the 2023 awards ceremony, alongside best director, best editing and best original screenplay. The film is also equally important for finally marking a accolade in Michelle Yeoh’s career, winning best actress, and revitalizing Ke Huy Quan’s career, winning best supporting actor for a equally memorable role.
11) Barbie
Directed by Greta Gerwig
Barbie captured a cultural moment on release in 2023, becoming the highest grossing film of the year, marking a big turnout for female audiences for Hollywood cinema. Directed by long-running and proven feminist director Greta Gerwig, the film proves there is still a future in franchise filmmaking, and in a feature that is both a toy commercial and an auteur-driven comedy. Featuring a variety of big performers, the cast includes such big names as Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Michael Cera, Simu Liu, Will Ferrell and Issa Rae. The narrative follows Barbie as she questions her own existence, travelling away from Barbieland to the real world in order to meet her creator and set her right. A hilarious comedy that appeals both to general audiences and the built-in audience from Gerwig’s previous work, the film delivers on being an appealing children’s film but also a product to market the Barbie world to the world. Filled to the brim with engaging themes around embracing female beauty through all shapes and sizes, the film also explores both toxic masculinity and toxic femineity. Through its breakout performance of Ryan Gosling as Ken, the film explores a need for men to stand up and be better, but also deserve to be loved and show love as much as the women that appear across the film. The release of Billie Eilish’s song ‘What Was I Made For?’, which was awarded the Best Original Song Oscar at the 2024 awards ceremony, marks the theming of the film, questioning why you were put on this earth and how you can love yourself with so.
10) Oppenheimer
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Paired with Barbie, Oppenheimer became another cultural touchstone of the 2023 Hollywood film season, pushing audiences to the cinema to see both on the same day as a viral trend. The film became the highest grossing R-rated film at the time, grossing nearly 1 billion dollars at the box office, marking a rare time a historical epic became one of the highest grossing films of the year. Christopher Nolan has had a long-standing career across Hollywood, being under the Warner Bros studio partnership for a long-time. After the release of Tenet in 2020, a film which was released during the COVID-19 pandemic and was the centre of a falling-out between the director and his former studio, the director jumped ship to Universal Pictures. Here, he was given free reign and a massive budget to deliver one of his finest features yet. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus, the film conveys the timeline of events in its titular character’s life. Dramatic recreations of Oppenheimer’s studies, his work at the Los Alamos Laboratory and his eventual security hearing years later. Starring Cillian Murphy in the titular role, the film is one of Nolan’s narratively complex films yet, seeking to understand a man who essentially created death as a weapon. The Trinity Test sequence is one of the most compelling sequences of the decade, making the use of the IMAX filmmaking to its biggest degree. The film doesn’t seek to demonise or victimise its lead character, forcing its audience to decide what they think of the man who created the atomic bomb. The film was a massive success at the Oscars, winning seven of its nominations. This seen the film gain the most notable accolades for Best Picture, Best Director for Nolan, Best Actor for Murphy and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. It is hard to argue against the fact that Oppeheimer could easily be seen as the most influential film of the year 2023.
9) Titane
Directed by Julia Ducournau
A French body horror, psychological drama film, Titane is one of the most outlandish picks for this list, but it’s a notable film for the decade. Following a near-fatal car crash, lead character Alexia gets fitted with a titanium plate in her skull, with the film then flashing forward to adulthood. As an adult, she becomes a car model and serial killer, dealing with a sexual obsession with automobiles. Similar to her film Raw, which followed a young girl dabbling in cannibalism, the director brings together a very human film through horror and some of the most disgusting scenes put to film. Through all the disturbing imagery, the film boils down to a simple narrative about a lost woman finding connection with an elderly firefighter who has lost his son. The mixing of absurd body horror and a simple human narrative, marks this as a very memorable feature from this decade.
8) Aftersun
Directed by Charlotte Wells
Memory is a key component that makes up the backbone of Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, Aftersun. Starring Paul Mescal and Frankie Coro, the film, inspired by Wells’ own childhood, sees an older woman looking back on her final holiday with her father when she was a child, watching her old recorded footage to try and find new meaning. Impressive in nature for a directorial debut, the film conveys its meaning through a mixture of traditional filmmaking and home-video footage. Paul Mescal portrays a struggling father, who the film never explains the fate of, and explores his daughter’s coming of age as she is unaware of her father’s struggles. Through the use of home-video footage, the film marks a connection between memory and technology, and explores the new found perspective people will have on their memories once they have aged with them. The film brings alive a natural look at British holidays, and conveys a child-like look at the world and the ambiguity that comes with the lack of understanding of adult topics when you are a younger age. There is symbolic meaning across the entire runtime of the film, and clues to draw the audience’s own analysis of the film and the eventual fate of Mescal’s character. This makes the film one of the most rewatchable films of the decade.
7) Anora
Directed by Sean Baker
Sean Baker’s film that finally awarded him the Best Picture Oscar in the 2025 award ceremony, Anora is a film of three halves. It begins as a romantic comedy, drawing a connection between a young sex worker and a rich son of a Russian oligarch, and then slowly transforms into a slapstick comedy in its second act. The final act opens the door to the true reality of the situation, matching the realness that comes from Baker’s previous features, and becomes a true drama. Mikey Madison became the first member of Generation Z to win the Best Leading Actress Oscar for her performance as the lead, playing a character which emphasises the positive aspects of sex work, a common aspect of Baker’s works. Baker emphasises lesser-known members of society as his leads, displaying them as three-dimensional characters through his empathetic direction, like transgender characters in Tangerine and single mothers in The Florida Project. Anora sees itself as a chaotic fun time, a comedy filled with entertaining characters and fun set pieces, most noticeably the search to find the oligarch’s son in the second act, turning the movie into an almost Three Stooges situation. Ending on a sad note however, as you learn more about how this comedic situation has actually left a lasting impression on the lead, Anora’s connection to sex as a commodity and a comfort welcomes a deeper message worth exploring.
6) Killers of The Flower Moon
Directed by Martin Scorsese
The Western genre has always been rooted in the promise of freedom in the west, the freedom for the cowboys across the open desert and plains. However, for the Natives of that land, that so-called freedom was instead fear and pain from the people that took their land, and sought to marry trhem and then murder them to claim their riches and land for their own. This is the central narrative crux of Martin Scorsese’s newest film, Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the novel of the same name by David Grann. Sometimes called an anti-Western, the film seeks to squash the beliefs of the American Dream and show the dirty and secret truth to the riches of America. The director has long crafted films about despicable humans and making no attempt to humanise them for their terrible actions, examples being The Wolf of Wall Street and Taxi Driver. The true villain of this film however is the pull of greed, the focus characters are evil because of their greed, they are big pillars of society but make their money through pain and misery, while pretending to be honourable and just. Starring actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, the film narrows the perspective of the book, from the birth of the FBI and the mystery around the killings, to instead being focused from the perpetuator’s perspectives and from the victims themselves as well. The narrow focus allows for a more focused narrative, and allows Scorsese to have a honest discussion about the horrors at play in America’s history, proving why the director is still one of our best working in the industry.
5) Poor Things
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring actors like Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe, Poor Things, based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray, follows Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a young woman who is brought back to life with the mind of a child. Sharing much of its DNA with the classic tale of Frankenstein, the film’s science-fiction roots seek to question the meaning of life and is it sound to try and control death and life. Through its female perspective, the film also explores body positivity and sexual positivity, and how our development can be easily linked to our sexual development. The film broads the line between comedy and science-fiction, with its steampunk and almost German Expressionist set design and backdrops, with Stone’s heightened comedic body performance marking this connection even further. Stone received her second win as Best Actress for this film in the 2024 Oscar award ceremony, portraying the hilarious coming of age character in a way its never been seen before
4) The Boy and The Heron
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
A seemingly personal film from director Hayao Miyazaki, and a film that could mark his long-career working in Studio Ghibli, The Boy and The Heron became the winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar in the 2025 ceremony. The film follows a young boy, who moves away after the death of his mother, and in the process of exploring his new home, discovers a strange Heron that takes him to another world. Originally announcing his retirement in September 2013, the director went back on his announcement soon after, and in order to create a film which is seemingly heavily rooted in his own childhood. Continuing a notable trend in his past work with the studio, the film explores the coming of age of its lead character through its fantastical elements, but also has deeper meanings behind its engaging visuals and incredible voice-acting. It explores themes of coming of age mainly through a life plagued by sadness and death, and exploring grief through the eyes of a young child. The signature director of such classic animated features like Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro, marks a potential end to his career with one of Studio Ghibli’s very best.
3) The Substance
Directed by Coralie Fargeat
Following up her debut feature in 2017’s Revenge, a rape revenge film from a feminist perspective, was bound to be a big task for director Coralie Fargeat. Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid, The Substance follows an aging Hollywood starlet, who takes a mysterious drug after being fired due to her age, a drug which has the ability to create a younger version of herself. The film made history in the 2025 Oscars, standing out amongst all of its competitors as a body-horror film actually being nominated for Best Picture, and the first horror to do since Get Out in 2017. Directed with expertise from only second time director Fargeat, the film is inspired by the works of Kubrick and Cronenberg, and is edited in such an expressive way, it stays in your mind permanently. The film uses body horror to form some topical discussion around societal standards of female beauty and female aging, taking those pressures to their extreme in some effective body-horror sequences. Demi Moore received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress from this film, marking a moving performance, where the saddest sequence does not come from the squeamish body horror but a woman unsatifised with her appearance when attempting to go on a date.
2) Nickel Boys
Directed by RaMell Ross
Based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Colson Whitehead, the film was inspired by real-world incidents like the Dozier School for Boys, reform schools which were infamous for their poor treatment of African-American youth. Starring Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson, the film follows an example of one of these reform schools, as two young boys attempt to survive and eventually escape their own school. Continuing a notable movement in this decade of black storytelling in film, the film stands apart by being shot in POV shots for its entire runtime, seeing the pain and anguish through the eyes of our two protagonists. Constantly moving, the film explores untouched moments of American history and seeks to dwell not in black suffering, but learning from those lessons in order to create a better future.
1) Nope
Directed by Jordan Peele
The third film by Get Out-breakout director Jordan Peele, the director took his own spin on the summer blockbuster and the UFO-film. Starring actors like Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun, the film follows horse rancher siblings, who in an attempt to save their business, attempt to capture evidence of an unidentified flying object that appears above their home. Inspired by Spielberg films like Jaws and Close Encounters of The Third Kind, the film takes the Hollywood blockbuster and re-evaluates it within the borders of Peele’s signature use of symbolism and metaphors. The film instead becomes an evaluation of people’s will to seek entertainment and thrills no matter the danger, African-American’s importance to the history of cinema and the abuse that animals can come under when being used as film props. Paired with some genuinely thrilling horror sequences, and the director’s signature style of comedy, the film standouts as one of the decade’s best blockbuster features.
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