Here at ScreenAnarchy we wish you all a very fortuitous 2026! And now that we’re in a new year, let’s close off the old one with our traditional Top 10 list. This time, 21 of our writers forwarded their favorite titles of last year, and all together they mentioned 69 films. And while the bottom half was really close (this is one election in which a single vote can matter A LOT…), the top 3 was undisputed.
As always, films are not a running contest and all judgements here are subjective, not objective. Our list may not be to your taste, and that’s fine, because it was to our taste. Don’t see this list as a definite measure of quality, it’s more a mix of quality and distribution. Some people saw some of the titles in 2024 already, or will have the première in 2026, leaving them out of their lists for now. But do know that each of the titles here touched several of our writers so much, that they decided to put it in their top 5! There are no losers here, only winners…
So without further ado, here’s our list, and we start with the ‘runners-up’ from 20 till 11. If you clicked on this article thinking that The Ugly Stepsister was our favorite title this year, glory to you! And a legitimately great film it is. Not our collective number one though…
The top 10 films each get their own tab in this gallery. Click on the edge of the pictures to cycle through them, or on the thumbnails below to go straight to that tab. Let’s get this party started!
Dustin Chang, Martin Kudlac, Rob Hunter, Theodoor Steen, Olga Artemyeva, Lia Matthew Brown, Shelagh Rowan-Legg, J Hurtado, Daniel Eagan, Peter Martin, James Marsh, Blake Simons, Ryland Aldrich, Michele “Izzy” Galgana, Kurt Halfyard, Kyle Logan, Jim Tudor, Ronald Glasbergen, Rino Lu and Maxwell Rabb
contributed to this story.
Runners Up:
11: Nouvelle Vague
12: Train Dreams
13: Marty Supreme
14: The Secret Agent
15: Superman
16: The Ugly Stepsister (see picture above…)
17: Little Amelie or the Character of Rain
18: Dead Lover
19: Left-Handed Girl
20: The Chronology of Water
10: Black Bag
Director Steven Soderburgh delivered a spy thriller which mostly consisted of dinner party talk and relational shenanigans between three couples of spies visiting each other. What makes it so good? Well, our Kyle Logan calls it “Soderbergh’s Sexiest Film in Decades”, and that is without explicit nudity.
In his review, he also says:
“It is drama that’s wonderfully brought to life by the talented cast and expertly scripted by David Koepp. From the smallest twitches of nervousness to outright threats of violence, every actor is at the top of their game and Koepp gives them all multiple quips that are just as cutting as they are funny.”
9: Resurrection
Director Bi Gan has impressed a lot on the visual front with his previous films, and he continuous that sumptuous streak with Resurrection. An anthology of dreams that seem to be about classic cinema, this one has no shortage of splendor. In his review, Daniel Eagan says the following:
“Jackson Yee is one of China’s heartthrobs after appearing in films like Better Days. Here he’s up to the task of playing a shape-shifting monster, although there’s rarely a sense of an interior life to his characters. Li Gengxi is simply spectacular as a femme fatale with a truly dark secret.
Bi Gan’s films are events to be savored, examples of how artistry and technique can expand cinema’s potential. They are also a hodgepodge of esoteric ideas and weak metaphors.”
8: No Other Choice
A new Park Chan-wook film is always reason to celebrate, and the old master has delivered a humoristic acidic view on humanity. A salaryman does whatever it takes to avoid losing his lifestyle after losing his job, and things turn very dark indeed. Our James Marsh says the following in his review:
“Ultimately, No Other Choice proves once again that Park Chan-wook is one of world cinema’s most talented and versatile filmmakers, every bit as capable at making us laugh as making as wince in pain. This is a film that will almost certainly reward repeat viewings, as the fullness of its opulent style and intricate plotting are almost too rich to be absorbed in a single sitting.
Whether an established fan or newcomer to Park’s oeuvre, viewers will find almost too much here to enjoy, while those already compiling their list of the year’s best films will have, well…no other choice. “
7: Sirât
Director Oliver Laxe’s new film is quite the ride. A father travels to a rave in the Moroccan desert in search of his daughter, dragging his young son with him. If you have seen the film, this tells you enough. If you haven’t seen it yet, the less you know, the better, except maybe that the landscape the father is travelling through becomes something else. Our Martin Kudlac says the following:
“It is an apocalyptic and dystopian film rendered in an implicitly lyrical register, at times verging on the trance-like.
What begins as a family drama gradually transforms into a survival expedition that transcends physical terrain. While geopolitical tensions remain embedded in the backdrop, Laxe guides the viewer across a narrow psychological and metaphysical threshold, one that takes on a literal and gut-wrenching form in the harrowing finale. “
6: Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro’s dream project, realized after decades of yearning and planning, is a feast for the eyes… but it does matter who those eyes belong to. In his review, Kurt Halfyard stated that it’s a great film but Guillermo’s hands “…were not burned, however. Maybe, just maybe, they should have been singed a little bit more.”
Fair enough, but what did the rest of us think? Why is it so high in this list? Well, we had ourselves a multi-writer mini-review fest, so you can find out for yourself.
5: Weapons
RAAAAAAH! Benedict Wong can pull scary weird faces!
Most of us loved Zach Cregger’s Barbarian and we were eagerly awaiting his next film to see if he could continue on that streak. And the good news is: he could! Weapons has an intriguing premise, a deceptively simple story (told in an interesting way), an antagonist who puts the “vile” in villain, and a bonkers super-satisfying finale.
Our J. Hurtado was very much pleased too, and wrote in his review:
“Gorehounds will howl in their seats at the copious levels of splatter – especially in the film’s go-for-broke, boundary shattering climax – and those who prefer the more emotionally traumatic brand of suffering will also leave with something to chew on.
Though Barbarian set the bar quite high for Cregger’s eventual return to the director’s chair, he proves himself to be more than just a one trick pony with Weapons. A surefire candidate for best horror film of the year as we head into the back half of 2025, Weapons is brilliantly paced, confidently staged, and features a narrative with more left turns than a NASCAR race. Sure to send horror fans home with giddy bloodstained smiles plastered across their faces, Weapons is another winner from Cregger.”
4: It Was Just An Accident
In Jafar Panahi’s new film, a man, by coincidence, runs into the official who tortured him in prison, and captures him. But what is next? Is it time for revenge? He asks fellow previous detainees what to do and this spirals out of control. Martin Kudlac writes in his review:
“Panahi demonstrates that even weighty socio-political topics can be approached in a form accessible to broader audiences. By merging a revenge thriller with the sensibility of absurdist comedy, It Was Just an Accident creates space for reflection on the limits of justice and the moral ambiguities that emerge when confronting historical violence. In doing so, the film becomes a meditation on how societies process trauma inflicted by state repression and how can they move on.”
3: Sentimental Value
Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s newest film shows several generations in a family of actors and filmmakers, the house they grew up in, the tensions between them, and what happens when the father (a film director with an egoistic agenda…) creates a lot of turmoil. Several people have called this a masterpiece and many of us agree, as it gets the third position on this list. Our Martin Kudlac had the following to say in his review
:
“Sentimental Value is slower, more diffuse, and more architectural in form than The Worst Person in the World, adopting a labyrinthine structure to explore the layering of emotion over time, across roles and generations within a family history. It also functions as a quiet homage to art, as both an existential necessity and a thinly veiled therapy.”
2: Sinners
This was the big number one in our halfway-through-2025 list
, so it shouldn’t be a surprise it’s in here too. I’ll restate what we said in July: the film itself is a pretty solid period horror about vampires, but there is one bit, about an hour in, which is so jawdroppingly perfect in its intent and execution, that it makes history all by itself. In
Mel Valentin’s review, he wrote the following:
“Sinners, an indisputably superb entry in the Southern Gothic horror sub-genre, narratively and thematically connects to Coogler’s long-held, deeply personal preoccupations with African and African-American culture, art, and history (among others).”
1: One Battle after Another
Not only was this the most often mentioned title in all our lists, it also scored the most number one positions on them. All in all it’s rare to have a title be so undisputed as this one turned out to be. Well, if we ever wondered what a star-studded Paul Thomas Anderson action comedy would look like… we got the answer! Long and deliciously absurd in places… Of course it’s also quite political, with inept anti-border revolutionaries fighting bizarrely caricatural rightwingers.
Our Kyle Logan loved it in places and didn’t like it much in others. In his review he says:
“It’s perhaps ironic that in the time between preproduction in 2023 and release in 2025, One Battle After Another has only become more relevant and suspect in equal measure. Hopefully, in time it will be less relevant and easier to enjoy, because there is a lot to enjoy. ”
ARE YOU THINKING WE’RE DEMONS BECAUSE YOUR FAVORITE FILM HASN’T BEEN MENTIONED?
Well, that doesn’t mean we don’t like it. Heck, it might even have been on several people’s lists! In alphabetical order, here are all the titles mentioned by our writers:
Alpha
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Better Man
Black Bag
Black Rabbit, White Rabbit
Blue Moon
Brand New Landscape
Bring Her Back
Bugonia
Chainsaw Man The Movie: Reze Arc
The Chronology of Water
The Colors Within
Companion
Dead Lover
Die My Love
Dog Man
Dracula (Radu Jude’s, not Luc Besson’s…)
Dreams
Eddington
Eephus
Enzo
Fiume O Morte!
Frankenstein
Freaky Tales
Friendship
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Grand Tour
Hamnet
Highest 2 Lowest
A House Full of Dynamite
I Only Rest in the Storm
Ick
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
I’m Still Here
Invention
It Was Just an Accident
Kokuho
K-Pop Demon Hunters (see picture above…)
Left-Handed Girl
Lilim
Little Amelie or the Character of Rain
The Love that Remains
Magellan
Magic Farm
Marty Supreme
Match
The Naked Gun
No Other Choice
Nouvelle Vague
One Battle After Another
The Plague
Plainclothes
Resurrection
Rewrite
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Silent Friend
Sinners
Sirât
Sorry, Baby
Sound of Falling
Straw
Superman
Train Dreams
Transcending Dimensions
The Ugly Stepsister
Universal Language
Wake Up Dead Man
Warfare
Weapons
And that concludes our overview of 2025!
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