Screen International’s critics have selected their top films of 2025, plus the best documentaries and standout performances.
Nikki Baughan
Screen’s reviews editor
Top five
1. Sirât (Oliver Laxe)
A profound meditation on what it means to be human presented as a dust-covered techno fever-dream, Sirâtbegins as the straightforward story of a father looking for his missing daughter at a Moroccan desert rave but soon weaves a tangled web of guilt, grief and loyalty. As a series of twists and turns raise the stakes to an almost unbearable intensity, it’s a credit to Laxe’s singular vision and his largely non-professional cast — not to mention the shattering soundtrack — that the wheels stay firmly on until the final devastating moments.
2. It Was Just An Accident (Jafar Panahi)
3. Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos)
4. Pillion (Harry Lighton)
5. Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
Tim Grierson
Screen’s senior US critic, based in Los Angeles, has written for the publication since 2005
Top five
1. Sound Of Falling (Mascha Schilinski)
One hundred years of German history told from the perspective of four young women living on the same property during different time periods, Schilinski’s labyrinthine second feature is an intimate roadmap of feminism’s progress (or lack thereof) across the 20th and 21st centuries. Sound Of Falling unspools like a collection of faded memories, touching on sexuality, shattered innocence and the struggle to establish yourself in a patriarchal society. The story weaves deftly between eras, pinpointing subtle connections and jarring juxtapositions. This ethereal wonder rewards multiple viewings, its hidden meanings and motifs emerging slowly to form a stunning whole.
2. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
3. Two Prosecutors (Sergei Loznitsa)
4. Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
5. Sirat (Oliver Laxe)
Wendy Ide
Ide is Screen’s senior international critic, and is also chief film critic for The Observer
Top five
1. Sirat (Oliver Laxe)
From the moment the soundtrack kicks in — visceral, battering ram techno that rattles your brain against the inside of your skull — it is clear Laxe’s desert-rave road movie is a journey to dark and dangerous places. But it is not until the most audacious and shocking tonal swerve of the year that we appreciate just how dark and dangerous is the fate that lies before Sergi Lopez’s father on his quest to find his missing daughter. A film that genuinely shocked the Cannes audience.
2. Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
3. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
4. Sound Of Falling (Mascha Schilinski)
5. My Father’s Shadow (Akinola Davies Jr)
Jonathan Romney
A longtime contributor to Screen, Romney also writes for Film Comment, Sight & Sound and The Observer, and teaches at the UK’s National Film and Television School
Top five
1. The Ice Tower (Lucile Hadzihalilovic)
Contemporary French cinema’s most committed dream weaver, Hadzihalilovic reworks the fairy tale of the Snow Queen, turning it into a shimmering kaleidoscope of fantasy, cinephilia, voyeurism and desire. Newcomer Clara Pacini makes a mesmerising impression alongside a glacially regal Marion Cotillard, while cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg confirms his claim to be one of Europe’s finest.
2. Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie)
3. Resurrection (Bi Gan)
4. The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
5. To The Victory (Valentin Vasyanovich)
Lee Marshall
Marshall joined Screen in 1996 as an Italy-based film critic. He also writes on travel, design and culture for a range of UK, US and Italian publications
Top five
1. Sirât (Oliver Laxe)
Once in a while you come across a film that performs a factory reset, renewing one’s faith in the energy of the medium and its power as a collective experience. This, for me, was Sirât, a 21st-century spin on The Searchers in which a small human story gradually becomes a cosmic drama underscored by seat-shaking waves of trance music. Is it, in the end, an upside-down, north-south migration allegory? Who knows — everyone seems to have their own take on the film. It’s difficult to hook an audience while refusing to give answers, but Sirât pulls it off.
2. Blue Moon (Richard Linklater)
3. Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos)
4. Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor)
5. Resurrection (Bi Gan)
Allan Hunter
Hunter has worked for Screen since 1990. He is based in Edinburgh and recently retired as co-director of Glasgow Film Festival
Top five
1. Resurrection (Bi Gan)
Resurrection felt like a joyous riposte to the doom sayers in a year of often grim tidings for the ‘cinema experience’. Bi’s fever dream distils a century of cinema into one spellbinding film. Set in a futuristic world, in which refraining from dreaming is the key to immortality, the film sets out to prove the reward is not worth the sacrifice. A labyrinth of stories in distinctive styles celebrates Murnau, Welles, the Lumière brothers and all those who have embraced the magic of the movies. A kaleidoscopic love letter to cinema, written in fireworks.
2. The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonca Filho)
3. Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier)
4. Left-Handed Girl (Shih-Ching Tsou)
5. No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)
Amber Wilkinson
Wilkinson is an Edinburgh-based journalist with more than 20 years’ experience. She has been writing for Screen since 2019
Top five
1. Natchez (Suzannah Herbert)
The history of Natchez, Mississippi is viewed from multiple perspectives in Herbert’s astutely observed documentary that questions the insidious impact of nostalgia on historical narratives, and asks who has the right to tell stories. In a town full of antebellum mansions, Herbert steps into the world of the white-dominated Garden Club through which the descendants of enslavers earn a living with tales of the “old south”. Meanwhile, Black pastor Tracy ‘Rev’ Collins offers a less glossy and more historically accurate guide to the area. This is a patient film with an eye for irony that waits for masks to slip and hard truths to be revealed.
2. Sound Of Falling (Mascha Schilinski)
3. Celtic Uptopia (Dennis Harvey, Lars Lovén)
4. 2000 Meters To Andriivka (Mstyslav Chernov)
5. Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier)
