A longtime contributor to Screen International, Jonathan Romney also writes forFilm Comment, Sight & Sound and The Observer.
Best film
1. The Ice Tower
Dir. 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
Dir. Josh Safdie
A last-minute explosion to round off 2025. The most energetic and downright audacious film of the year — as in-your-face as its protagonist, for whom the term ‘antihero’ does not even begin to cover it. This story of a ping pong hustler on the make in 1950s New York presents a character who is obnoxious and self-serving, seemingly beyond all redemption — which makes this furious-paced, slapstick uproarious essay in Jewish picaresque all the more quintessentially an American film for our time.
3. Resurrection
Dir. Bi Gan
Calling Bi’s film the essence of screen dreaming does not begin to do justice to the strangeness of his episodic fantasia. After hypnotising viewers with the 3D extended-take fantasia of 2018’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Bi offers a mini-history of cinema — from the Lumière brothers to Wong Kar Wai — in episodes built around the different senses. Using space, time and trompe l’oeil spectacle, Bi proves himself the master of his own wonderfully rarefied imaginative realm.
4. The Mastermind
Dir. Kelly Reichardt
It is always simplicity that counts with Reichardt — but that sometimes conceals layers of nuance that few other contemporary directors can reach. This story of a successful — then catastrophic — art theft begins as comedy, shifts into slowburn tragedy and ends on a deliciously discordant note as a parable of dashed American dreams.
5. To The Victory!
Dir. Valentin Vasyanovich
Ukrainian director Vasyanovich continues to be among the most under-rated and underexposed filmmakers of the moment. His previous films Atlantis (2019) and Reflection (2021) mused in rigorous, confrontational style on the effects of war; here, he imagines a possible life after conflict, in a surprisingly witty, self-reflexive manner that weighs despair and loss against the possibility of a triumph of the soul, and of joy.
6. The Love That Remains
Dir. Hlynur Palmason
7. Rose Of Nevada
Dir. Mark Jenkin
8. Sirât
Dir. Oliver Laxe
9. Late Fame
Dir. Kent Jones
10. Last Night I Conquered The City Of Thebes
Dir. Gabriel Azorin
Best documentary
1. Remake
Dir. Ross McElwee
US first-person documentarist McElwee has long contemplated the world through the lens of his personal life. Here he muses on the drug-related death of his adult son Adrian, a frequent presence in his films, and retrospectively questions the value of his long-term project — which, paradoxically, only emerges as more meaningful and precious.
2. Below The Clouds
Dir. Gianfranco Rosi
The latest from the director of Fire At Sea and Sacro GRA, this portrait of Naples — its people, its relics, its landscapes and its volcanically clouded skies — is a magnificent reinvention of the hallowed ‘city symphony’ documentary mode.
3. Cover-Up
Dirs. Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus
A portrait of a modern hero: investigative reporter Seymour Hersh who, throughout a long history of US political and military scandals, has continued to speak truth to power and to the public. At a time when the survival of the press is endangered worldwide, Cover-Up reminds us of the need to tell it like it is.
Performance of the year
Josh O’Connor in The Mastermind
Dir. Kelly Reichardt
It was tempting to go for the turbo-charged neurotic chutzpah of Timothée Chalamet inMarty Supreme. But O’Connor has to win as the more subtly conflicted antihero of The Mastermind — on one hand devoted family man, on the other irresponsible, idealistic visionary and deluded nebbish. It is the most delicate, layered performance yet from an actor who gets better with every film and, given his genially punchy priest in Knives Out episode Wake Up Dead Man, it is clear O’Connor is having a lot of fun in the process.
