The films of 2025:Q4

Don't blame me: I never promised you a plot

I didn’t see as many films during Q4, as I was away from home for much of the time. But the list will still seem quite long. Keep in mind I watch very little TV.

I saw a very interesting Youtube video that suggests that social media is rewiring our brains in a way that makes old movies seem too slow:

I don’t watch much social media like TikTok, so from my perspective modern films seem weirdly hyperactive. I wonder if social media also contributes to the decline in reading.

Speaking of which, I read a few more novels by Kipling, but lost interest before completing the set. Then I picked up Gene Wolfe’s Knight/Wizard series, which was good, but a bit below his three earlier Sun series. Although I’m not a big sci-fi fan, I decided to take a stab at a few highly recommended classics. I couldn’t finish Neuromancer, but did complete Roadside Picnic, Ubik and The Dispossessed (my favorite). These 50-year old novels seem like history books, reminding me of the world of 1970. I would also recommend the recent novel Red Heart by Max Harms to those interested in the alignment issue. Harms works on AI alignment at MIRI and clearly knows his stuff. It’s well written and doesn’t feel dated in the way much of sci-fi does.

I took a stab at the TV series Pluribus, but gave up when it seemed like a pale imitation of the two Invasion of the Body Snatcher films. (According to Tyler, I gave up too soon.) I started to watch Blossoms Shanghai, but Wong Kar Wai seems to have lost his touch. It happens to the best of them.

Coming back home on a flight from Wisconsin, I chatted with a young film director named Paige McKenna Grube. Later I watched an interview where she discussed the difficulty of getting a distributor for her new documentary (entitled Gold), which is a non-exploitive look at the exotic dancing industry. I hope one of the streaming services picks it up, it seems interesting and would probably have an audience.

Tyler joined the wave of pundits listing the top films, music and writing of the first quarter century, and so I’ll take a stab at the arts at the end of this post.

2025:Q4 films

Newer films

Resurrection (China) 4.0 Finally, a new film lived up to my expectations. I’m not quite sure what this film is about, as I was so busy being astonished by the cinematography that I missed many of the subtitles. (Oddly, the audience for this Chinese language film was mostly white, in one of America’s most Chinese counties.) Bi Gan seems to have been influenced by everything from Méliès’ silent film to Joseph Cornell’s magic boxes to Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times. It’s so gratifying to see a director give us something new. This might end up being my favorite film of the decade. A shout out to cinematographer Dong Jingsong, who also filmed Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

The 30-minute long take at night in a rundown Yangtze river town reminded me of when my wife and I visited Wanxian one evening back in 1994. It was a surreal experience as the city would soon be flooded by the Three Gorges Dam and the place seemed like a decaying cyberpunk stage set.

Saw the film at Orange County’s only independent movie house, The Frida:

Sentimental Value (Norway) 3.8 As with many family dramas it’s all about the acting, which in this case is quite good.

The Secret Agent (Brazil) 3.7 The plot didn’t seem all that plausible, but I enjoyed the film’s leisurely pace and the portrayal of life in Brazil’s northeast back in 1977.

One Battle After Another (US) 3.7 Probably the most entertaining film of 2025, it borrowed a great deal from various Kubrick films. In some ways it was a throwback to films of the 1970s and 1980s—I especially appreciated the lack of CGI. If it falls a bit short of the great Kubrick films, it’s because in the end it is just one damn scene after another. Very entertaining but not destined to stick in one’s mind a decade later.

Left-Handed Girl (Taiwan) 3.0 Glitzy Taiwanese dramedy that doesn’t really offer anything new. It has some entertaining scenes, but not enough to justify its nearly 2-hour length. I generally find dramedies to be a bit overrated (this scored 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.) The characters are not realistic enough to produce anything beyond melodrama, and there’s not enough comedy to justify all of the depressing drama. Neither fish nor fowl.

Older films:

An Elephant Sitting Still (China, 2019) 4.0 Five years ago, I saw this on TV and gave it a 3.8 rating. This time I saw it on the big screen, and because I no longer had to concentrate on following the narrative, I was better able to appreciate the brilliant job done by the director and the actors. One masterful shot after another—one of my all-time favorite Chinese films. After seeing the film I downgraded Paris, Texas from 4.0 to 3.9. It doesn’t seem fair to give a film that has one outstanding hour of filmmaking the same rating as one that has four superb hours. The director Hu Bo is clearly one of the giants of 21^st century cinema, based solely on this one film. Unfortunately, he committed suicide soon after the film was released. Hu was only 29 years old.

Paris, Texas (US/German, 1984, CC) 3.9 After 40 years, I’d forgotten that this film doesn’t take place in Paris, Texas. The first 90 minutes are very good, but nothing exceptional. The final hour contains some of the most sublime filmmaking in the history of cinema. It’s fascinating seeing America through the eye of a European filmmaker, and no one is better than Wenders at showing Americans the utter strangeness of our country. Scenes like the superimposed faces are deservedly famous, but I especially appreciated the small touches, like the exposed insulation in the erotic club cubicle. It’s the little things that show a director (or writer) sees the world as it actually is. And yet all this realism is employed in a story that is basically a fairy tale for adults.

The Silence (Sweden, 1963, CC) 3.8 After the introduction of “talkies”, there was only one brief period when American audiences were willing to attend foreign films—roughly from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. This Bergman film would have shocked American audiences back in 1963. From the perspective of 2025, there’s a freshness to the first half of the film—as it reflects an era when directors were unshackled, able to explore many previous taboo topics.

Lessons of Darkness (Germany/Kuwait, 1992, CC) 3.8 A documentary on the aftermath of the Gulf War, with a focus on the effort to put out the hundreds of oil well fires. Some will find the chapter headings to be pretentious, but this is one Herzog film where it fits the subject. Only 54 minutes long, the film is packed with sublime images. Instead of dialogue, there is ominous music composed by people like Wagner and Mahler. Better on the big screen.

Breathless (France, 1960, CC) 3.8 Godard kicked off the 60s with a film ostensibly about “a girl and a gun”, although it’s actually a film about film. In a sense, he invented modern (post-modern?) cinema, movies full of jump cuts, irony and references to classic films. My rating is an average of 4.0 for invention and 3.5 for entertainment value. After everything that’s happened over the past 65 years (in movies and in real life), some of the innocence of Belmondo’s gangster might seem a bit dated, even offensive. But more than almost any other film, it’s “just a movie”.

Undercurrent (Japan, 1956, CC) 3.7 The riches of 1950s Japanese cinema seem almost inexhaustible. I had never heard of the director Yoshimura, but his early color film has some truly beautiful images. Must see for fans of Japanese film, especially for those who appreciate the work of Naruse.

Scarface (US, 1932, CC) 3.7 It’s all here---Hawks wrote the book on gangster films. It’s all about the people, the faces, the poses, the gestures. Much of the film is well below a 3.7 rating, but the final portion contains some truly classic scenes. It’s a pre-code picture, and has many scenes that would have been banned after 1934, as explained by 10 taboos in the upper right of this amusing photo:

The Barbary Coast (US, 1935, CC) 3.6 Even Howard Hawk’s weaker films are quite entertaining. Like Spielberg he does not have an obvious style, but he knows exactly how to make films that please the audience. He is the most conventional and straightforward of America’s great directors.

This was a sort of appetizer for what came next—between 1938 and 1948 he directed Bringing Up Baby, Only Angels Have Wings, His Girl Friday, Ball of Fire, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and Red River. All seven are classics.

Safe (US, 1995, CC) 3.5 A Village Voice poll of 50 critics named this the best film of the 1990s. I’m guessing they were attracted to its mysterious ambiguity, but I don’t think it has aged all that well. Thirty years later, some of the scenes seem a bit too heavy handed, too didactic. Julianne Moore is great, however, so it’s still a very fine film.

Barton Fink (US, 1991, CC) 3.4 I can see how a story of a Jewish screenwriter who goes from NYC to Hollywood might have seemed appealing to the Coen brothers, but it turns out they had no story without jazzing it up with some improbable plot twists. Even so, I appreciated the effort they put into making it work---a classic example of a film that is much less than the sum of its parts---but has some really excellent parts. Lovely final shot.

A Better Tomorrow (Hong Kong, 1986, CC) 3.4 Hard to believe it’s been nearly 40 years---much of the film has not aged well. Still, there are a few scenes that remind me of why this film thrilled audiences back in 1986.

Framed (US, 1947, CC) 3.4 Despite his bland exterior, Glenn Ford is nearly perfect when he plays this sort of role—an average guy who gets caught up in trouble. It’s well short of the classic noirs, but the film has an interesting plot that holds one’s interest. It seems like almost any noir from the late 1940s is worth watching—for reasons I don’t fully understand.

Perhaps the attraction is that film noir is a way of traveling into the past---the world right before I was born. When watching old films, I like to remind myself that to the people in the film, their world was just as rich as ours and felt just as “now” as ours does. Here’s John Koenig talking about the people in old photographs:

Of course, to them, it wasn’t all flickering silence and grainy black and white. They saw vivid color rushing by in three dimensions, heard voices in deafening stereo, confronted smells they couldn’t escape. For them, nothing was ever simple. None of them knew for sure what this era meant, or that it was even an era to begin with. At the time, their world was real. Nothing was finished, and nothing guaranteed.

That world is now gone. If the past is a foreign country, we’re only tourists. We can’t expect to understand the locals or why they do what they do.

I doubt that today’s young can understand the 1970s. If you cannot imagine a professor smoking in class, or the person next to you on the airplane smoking, without it seeming weird or annoying, then you’ll never understand what life felt like in the 1970s. Just as the people of 2075 will never understand that it 2025 it felt perfectly normal to walk into a friend’s house without taking off your shoes, sit down at a table, and begin eating an animal.

La Collectionneuse (France, 1967, CC) 3.3 Rohmer films often make me feel like a bit of a simpleton, as I’m not very good at game playing. Even so, the last portion of the film had enough interesting ideas presented in a witty style to keep me engaged. Nicely captured the feel of 1967, when anything seemed possible.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (US, 2009, CC) 3.2 Roughly what you’d expect from a film directed by Werner Herzog and produced by David Lynch. Must see for Herzog/Lynch fans and must not-see for everyone else, which may explain its 50-50 Rotten Tomato rating. I enjoyed the dark comedy, especially from the supporting actors.

My Blueberry Nights (US, 2008, CC) 3.2 After 7 straight outstanding films, Wong Kar Wai stumbles in an attempt to bring his style to America. Visually appealing but a weak screenplay.

Love Under the Crucifix (Japan, 1962, CC) 3.2 A heavy handed melodrama with some very attractive cinematography. Western viewers will be interested in seeing the way Christianity is perceived in a non-Christian country. I’ve noticed that Japan’s relative lack of Christianity is a defining feature of much of their film output, indirectly showing up in a variety of contexts, such as a greater acceptance of suicide.

A Single Man (US, 2009, CC) 3.1 A somewhat earnest film about a gay man in 1962 America. The film avoids edgy and controversial scenes, which might have been a mistake. Pleasant viewing, but not essential.

Damsels in Distress (US, 2011) 3.1 Whit Stillman’s weakest film—making fun of dumb people is not his forte.

Once a Thief (Hong Kong, 1991, CC) 3.0 I enjoyed this John Woo comedy the first time around, but it hasn’t aged well. The action scenes that he invented have been so widely copied they are no longer particularly exciting.

Maps to the Stars (US, 2014, CC) 3.0 Cronenberg portrays Hollywood as an industry full of almost nothing but amoral jerks. Viewers might reasonably wonder about the fact that Cronenberg himself is a part of that industry. When satire is motivated by hatred, it can suffer from a certain lack of nuance. I’d rather see a black comedy done by a director that is bemused by the crazy and bizarre world of commercial filmmaking, not bitter.

A Rainy Day in New York (US, 2020) 3.0 Recent Woody Allen films all seem about the same to me—not bad, but not good either.

Toute une Nuit (French/Belgian, 1982, CC) 3.0 I enjoyed the visuals here more than in Jeanne Dielman. But it’s very hard to make a satisfying feature film without a unifying narrative thread. A few months ago, I praised a film that was nothing more than David Lynch outtakes, but Akerman is a very different director—more intellectual but less engrossing. Best if viewed as a sort of modern dance performance, but I’m not a connoisseur of modern dance. On the other hand, without a narrative you can easily watch as much as you like, and turn it off if bored.

Body of Evidence (US, 1993, CC) 2.9 The phrase “gratuitous sex” has a whiff of puritanism—I prefer an abundance of eroticism. As noted above, the 1960s was the only decade when American viewers were interested in foreign art films, as Hollywood was still quite conservative. The motivation was sex, not aesthetics. Similarly, the 1990s was the final pre-internet decade, the last time when middle-aged people went to the movies to get a dose of eroticism. Recommended only for those looking for campy humor, not great art. Don’t watch it with grandma. BTW, I’d guess that very few viewers realize that Madonna was more than 2 years older than Julianne Moore when the film was made.

Heat Wave (Japan, 1991, CC) 2.8 Nice visuals, but mediocre acting and an even worse screenplay.

The Lost Weekend: A Love Story (US, 2023, CC) 2.7 I understand that people like to gossip, but that doesn’t make it ethical. In my view, gossip is more disreputable than pornography. It is also often inaccurate, probably more often than you might suspect. Is Yoko Ono actually as portrayed in this film? I doubt it. On the other hand, I did watch this mildly interesting documentary on one of John Lennon’s affairs, so I suppose I’m a hypocrite.

Fata Morgana (Germany, 1971, CC) 2.5 I can see how audiences might have been impressed at the time, as Herzog developed some innovative techniques. But almost everything here is done more effectively in subsequent films (including Lessons of Darkness), and it hasn’t aged well. I enjoyed a few scenes of a town in the Sahara and the Leonard Cohen songs.

My favorite art of the first quarter (26 years) of the 21^st century

I won’t live to 2050, so I’ll copy Tyler and put in my 2 cents here. I’ll confine my comments mostly to film and novels, as I haven’t followed the other art forms well enough to put together a respectable list.

Cinema:

Here I’d like to do something different than a top ten list of films. I think it is more useful to think in terms of time periods, and also notable directors.

1. Most of my favorite films occurred in the first 5 years of the decade: In the Mood For Love, Mulholland Drive, Yi Yi, Spirited Away, Nobody Knows, 2046, Three Times, Inland Empire, and Lord of the Rings. That last one seems like the final great film for teenage boys, before the genre was ruined by CGI and superheroes. To be clear, there have been many, many high-quality films since that time, and it’s quite possible that film has not declined, rather I’ve lost my ability to be awed as I got older. All I can tell you is that the first years of the century feel to me like the final flowering of the golden age of cinema—the 20^th century.

2. I tend to think in terms of directors, rather than individual films. I see so many films that I cannot recall which ones I liked best. For Europe (including Turkey and Iran), the directors that stick with me are Ceylan (About Dry Grasses), Kiarostami (The Taste of Cherry), Farhadi (A Separation, About Elly), Bela Tarr (Satantango), Lars Von Trier (Melancholia) and some Romanians whose names I’ve forgotten (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days.) In the Americas, I am especially impressed by Carlos Reygadas (and I haven’t even seen his most acclaimed film), Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums), and Terrence Malick (especially his experimental stuff.)

3. I tend to prefer East Asian cinema over Western films because the focus is more on visual style, rather than intellectual ideas. Cinematographers like Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee did the camerawork on some gorgeous films in the 1990s and 2000s. It has also been a golden age of Korean cinema, with Lee (Burning) being the deepest director, Bong (Parasite) being the best mix of art and entertainment (a poor man’s Kubrick), Park (Oldboy) being the most Tarantino-like director, and Hong being the most Rohmer-like. As noted above, the early 2000s were the tail end of the golden age of Hong Kong and Taiwanese film (Wong Kar Wai, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, and Tsai Ming-liang.) The Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul will be too slow for many viewers, but Uncle Boonmee is especially good. Along with Korea, China has the strongest recent contributions, especially films by Jia Zhangke, but also Bi Gan and Hu Bo. And I’ve also seen some very impressive recent films by lesser-known Chinese directors. Koreeda’s my favorite modern Japanese director, but Japan’s 21^st century cinema is especially strong in genres such as horror and animation, which I don’t follow as closely.

And finally, please don’t take this as a definitive “best films” list. For instance, there are films by PT Anderson, Tarantino, Spielberg, and the Coen brothers that are as good or better than the Wes Anderson and Malick films. But I find the styles of those two to be the most interesting and creative of the American directors currently making films.

Television:

I don’t watch much TV, but for what it is worth I found Twin Peaks: The Return to be far and away my favorite recent series. Especially episode 8. Indeed, I don’t view it as TV, rather as a film put onto the TV screen. Babylon Berlin was also very good, but a distant second. After that, Better Call Saul and Succession are even more distant thirds and fourths, but still good. I also liked the Icelandic crime drama Trapped. I’ve obviously left out many acclaimed series, so take this list for what it’s worth—not much.

Novels:

The 21st century seems like the century of docu-fiction, auto-fiction, and long multi-volume novels. Some of my favorites include Sebald (Austerlitz), Knausgaard (My Struggle—especially volumes 1, 2 and 6, but all are well worth reading), Ferrante’s four volume Neapolitan quartet, Murakami (1Q84), Bolaño (2666 and The Savage Detectives), Pamuk (Snow), Marias (Your Face Tomorrow), and Houellebecq (known for his novels, but don’t overlook his interesting tract on Lovecraft.) I’m currently working my way through what will eventually be a 7-volume On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle.

I don’t read much sci-fi/fantasy, but The Three Body Problem and His Dark Materials were very good (both were three volumes). I also liked Klara and the Sun. But I discovered Gene Wolfe during this period, and I much prefer his three “Sun” series from the 1980s and 1990s to these 21st century sci-fi novels.