Team Screen’s top films of 2025

Screen’s editorial team has selected their top five films of the year plus their favourite scene.

In order to be eligible for the list, a film must have had a festival premiere and/or theatrical release in the past 12 months. There are five points for first place; four for second; three for third; two for fourth; and one for fifth, with these scores tallied to produce an overall top five (seen at the bottom).

Matt Mueller (editor-in-chief)

1. Sinners
2. Sirāt
3. Sentimental Value
4. Marty Supreme
5. Sorry, Baby

Favourite scene: The ‘River of Hills’ sequence from One Battle After Another.

Louise Tutt (deputy editor)

1. One Battle After Another
2. Sinners
3. Lollipop
4. Dragonfly 
5. Belen

Favourite scene: I was going to say that car chase in One Battle…but then I watched the documentary Cutting Through Rocks and it can only be the very final scene of the girls riding their motorcycles through the Iranian countryside. Visually, it is strangely reminiscent of PTA’s desert dash but emotionally it packs a very different punch. As recommended by Wendy Mitchell on The Screen Podcast. 

Jeremy Kay (Americas editor) 

1. One Battle After Another
2. Sound Of Falling
3. The Secret Agent
4. The Testament Of Ann Lee
5. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Favourite scene: Leo DiCaprio (in One Battle After Another) on the public pay phone, forgetting the password to his clandestine group.

Charles Gant (awards/box office editor)

1. Sirāt
2. Marty Supreme
3. Wasteman
4. One Battle After Another
5. The Perfect Neighbor

Favourite scene: In Hamnet, Agnes Shakespeare (Jessie Buckley) watches Hamlet performed at the Globe theatre – emotionally supercharged by the casting of a certain actor in the title role. Nice casting coup, Chloe Zhao and Nina Gold.

Michael Rosser (Asia & Middle East editor)

1. No Other Choice
2. A Useful Ghost
3. It Was Just An Accident
4. Left-Handed Girl
5. Weapons

Favourite scene: The scene in No Other Choice when three people are clumsily fighting over a gun is equal parts funny, violent and inventive, as director Park uses diegetic music to almost drown out the chaos. A standout moment in a standout film.

Tim Dams (Europe editor)

1. The Ballad Of Wallis Island
2. The Testament Of Anne Lee
3. Splitsville
4. Bugonia
5. Sinners

Favourite scene: The long, crazy and funny fight scene between two middle-aged men in romantic comedy Splitsville. Their frenetic brawl rivals anything in the biggest action films.

Ben Dalton (senior reporter, UK and International)

1. The Voice Of Hind Rajab
2. One Battle After Another
3. Sinners
4. The Testament Of Ann Lee
5. My Father’s Shadow

Favourite scene: In a year of bombastic music on film, it is the reunion of Herb McGwyer and Nell Mortimer around the kitchen table in The Ballad Of Wallis Island that lingers longest, for Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan’s harmonies, but also for Tim Key’s bittersweet reaction as Charles relives the songs that represent his lost love. It’s not rock; it’s art as memory in all its beauty and pain.

Mona Tabbara (senior reporter, UK and Ireland)

1. Sinners
2. Pillion
3. Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk
4. Christy (dir, Brendan Canty)
5. Sorry, Baby

Favourite scene: Alexander Skarsgård finally giving Bromley High Street a big screen moment in Pillion is what the magic of cinema is all about.

Ellie Calnan (reporter and video producer)

1. One Battle After Another
2. Sinners
3. Sorry, Baby
4. A House Of Dynamite
5. The Perfect Neighbor

Favourite scene: It’s been a strong year for memorable endings but that final scene of It Was Just An Accident will haunt me forever. So simple but so effective.

Mark Salisbury (contributing editor)

1. Sinners
2. One Battle After Another
3. Weapons
4. Blue Moon
5. F1 and Nouvelle Vague

Favourite scene: In One Battle After Another, when Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) is on the phone trying to get the rendezvous point to meet his daughter. Unable to remember the password, Bob loses his shit and asks to speak to a supervisor.

Wendy Mitchell (contributing editor and host of The Screen Podcast)

1. Sirāt
2. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
3. Sound Of Falling
4. Sentimental Value
5. Pillion

Favourite scene: It was already moving to walk into the realm of Shakespeare’s Globe – and when Hamlet (Noah Jupe) walks on stage looking like the dearly departed Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe, real-life brothers, of course), I actually gasped.

Silvia Wong (Asia editor)

1. A Foggy Tale
2. Lucky Lu
3. Palimpsest: The Story Of A Name

Favourite scene: The 2025 extended 4K version of Wong Kar Wai’s In The Mood For Love has additional footage that reunites Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung in a new romance, only in a parallel time and space. 

Rebecca Leffler (France correspondent)

1. Sentimental Value
2. Nouvelle Vague
3. Arco
4. Train Dreams
5. The Little Sister

Favourite scene: Sentimental Value — this film moved me like no other this year and its underlying message of art as a vehicle for connection and reconciliation is so timely: “tenderness is the new punk”. The final scene is particularly incredible because it is mostly dialogue-free, yet we can feel the emotions of the main characters thanks to the actors’ superb performances (Stellan Skarsgard, Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). It manages to be optimistic without being saccharine. And I think I speak for the world when I say we could all use a happy-ish ending right now, oui?

Sandy George (Australia correspondent) 

1. Sirāt
2. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
3. Every Little Thing
4. The Golden Spurtle
5. Lesbian Space Princess

Favourite scene: It’s not one scene in Every Little Thing, it’s different versions of tiny hummingbirds – made inspectable with exquisite cinematography – bodies still and mid-air, wings flapping madly, feathers shining in the sunlight. 

Matt Schley (Japan correspondent)

1. Two Seasons, Two Strangers
2. Nouvelle Vague
3. The Mastermind
4. Jinsei
5. Eephus

Favourite scene: It’s not on my list because I wanted to highlight some smaller films, but the desert car chase in One Battle After Another. I mean, come on.

Geoffrey Macnab (UK, Benelux correspondent)

1. The Secret Agent
2. Orwell: 2+2=5
3. Left-Handed Girl
4. Sirāt
5. The Six Billion Dollar Man

Favourite scene: Concert on the beach in The Ballad Of Wallis Island.