Odds & Ends
What follows next is a rundown of some of my favorite performances, technical achievements, scores, songs, and whatever else tickled my fancy throughout 2025, including a handful of praise-worthy older titles I thoroughly enjoyed. There was a lot to love, and here are few of the highlights:
FIFTY GREAT PERFORMANCES
1. Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
2. Eva Victor – Sorry, Baby
3. Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall – Peter Hujar’s Day
4. Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku, Miles Caton, Delroy Lindo – Sinners
5. Jessie Buckley, Jacobi Jupe – Hamnet
6. Lee Byung-hun – No Other Choice
7. Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow – Marty Supreme
8. Jennifer Lawrence – Die My Love
9. Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value
10. Joel Edgerton – Train Dreams
11. Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie – Mickey 17
12. Leonardo DiCaprio, Chase Infiniti, Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another
13. Masaki Suda – Cloud
14. David Jonsson – The Long Walk
15. Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon
16. Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran – The Wedding Banquet
17. Will Arnett, Laura Dern – Is This Thing On?
18. Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent
19. Elle Fanning – Predator: Badlands
20. Misha Osherovich – She’s the He
21. Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil – A Perfect Life
22. Alfie Williams – 28 Years Later
23. Everett Blunck – The Plague
24. Danielle Deadwyler – 40 Acres
25. Tim Key – The Ballad of Wallis Island
26. Amy Madigan, Julia Garner, Josh Brolin – Weapons
27. Paul Walter Hauser – The Luckiest Man in America
28. Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein
29. Maia Kealoha – Lilo & Stitch
30. Amanda Seyfried – The Testament of Ann Lee
31. Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst – Roofman
32. Benjamin Pajak, Mark Hamill – The Life of Chuck
33. Shannon Mahina Gorman – Rental Family
34. Jai Courtney – Dangerous Animals
35. Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss – The Ugly Stepsister
36. Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson – The Naked Gun
37. Sophie Thatcher – Companion
38. Emma Stone – Bugonia
39. Sonequa Martin-Green, Ed Harris – My Dead Friend Zoe
40. Mia Threapleton – The Phoenician Scheme
41. Jamie Lee Curtis – Freakier Friday
42. Russell Crowe – Nuremburg
43. Cassandra Naud, Emily Tennant – Influencers
44. Oona Chaplin – Avatar: Fire and Ash
45. Austin Butler – Caught Stealing
46. Albert Brooks – Ella McCay
47. Matilda Lutz – Red Sonja
48. Theo James – The Monkey
49. Indy – Good Boy
50. Jodie Turner-Smith – Tron: Ares
TEN FAVORITE SCORES
1. Ludwig Göransson – Sinners
2. Jeremiah Fraites – The Long Walk
3. Nine Inch Nails – Tron: Ares
4. Young Fathers – 28 Years Later
5. Bryce Dessner – Train Dreams
6. David Holmes – Black Bag
7. Son Lux – Thunderbolts*
8. Jonny Greenwood – One Battle After Another
9. Sarah Schachner, Benjamin Wallfisch – Predator: Badlands
10. Edo Van Breemen – The Monkey
TEN FAVORITE SONGS
1. “Last Time (I Seen the Sun)” – Sinners
2. “What It Sounds Like” – Kpop Demon Hunters
3. “Our Love” – The Ballad of Wallis Island
4. “Punkrocker” – Superman
5. “Train Dreams” – Train Dreams
6. “Golden” – KPop Demon Hunters
7. “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” – Come See Me in the Good Light
8. “I Lied to You” – Sinners
9. “As Alive as You Need Me To Be” – Tron: Ares
10. “My Sweet Beth” – The Naked Gun
TEN FAVORITE ACTION FILMS
1. Predator: Badlands
2. Superman
3. Beast of War
4. Thunderbolts*
5. Sisu: Road to Revenge
6. The Accountant 2
7. Avatar: Fire and Ash
8. Ballerina
9. The Protector
10. Red Sonja
TEN FAVORITE COMEDIES
1. No Other Choice
2. Eephus
3. Heart Eyes
4. The Wedding Banquet
5. The Ballad of Wallis Island
6. Zootopia 2
7. The Naked Gun
8. Paddington in Peru
9. She’s the He
10. Freakier Friday
TEN FAVORITE HORROR FILMS
1. Sinners
2. The Long Walk
3. 28 Years Later
4. The Ugly Stepsister
5. Heart Eyes
6. Queens of the Dead
7. 40 Acres
8. Dangerous Animals
9. Presence
10. Weapons
TEN FAVORITE THRILLERS / MYSTERIES / NEO NOIRS
1. One Battle After Another
2. Black Bag
3. Cloud
4. A Perfect Life
5. Wake Up Dead Man
6. The Secret Agent
7. A House of Dynamite
8. Honey Don’t!
9. Influencers
10. The Thursday Murder Mystery Club
FIFTY FAVORITE PRE-2025 DISCOVERIES (because digging into the cinematic vault is fun!)
1. Joan of Paris (1942) (Robert Stevenson)
2. Dressed in Blue (1983) (Antonio Giménez-Rico)
3. All That Money Can Buy (1941) (William Dieterle)
4. The Song of Bernadette (1943) (Henry King)
5. Beau Geste (1939) (William A. Wellman)
6. The Mysterious Island (1929) (Lucien Hubbard, Benjamin Christensen, Maurice Tourneur)
7. Forty Guns (1957) (Samuel Fuller)
8. A Woman’s Face (1941) (George Cukor)
9. Fist of Legend (1994) (Gordon Chan)
10. This Land is Mine (1943) (Jean Renoir)
11. Westward the Women (1951) (Wellman)
12. A Dispatch from Reuters (1940) (Dieterle)
13. The King and the Chorus Girl (1937) (Mervyn LeRoy)
14. Nazi Agent (1942) (Jules Dassin)
15. 99 River Street (1953) (Phil Karlson)
16. Seven Ways from Sundown (1960) (Harry Keller)
17. Drums Across the River (1954) (Nathan Juran)
18. Man Wanted (1932) (Dieterle)
19. The Man I Love (1946) (Raoul Walsh)
20. The Monster (1925) (Roland West)
21. Conflict (1945) (Curtis Bernhardt)
22. The Order (2024) (Justin Kurzel)
23. The Merry Widow (1934) (Ernst Lubitsch)
24. It Happened Tomorrow (1944) (René Clair)
25. The Outfit (1973) (John Flynn)
26. Hombre (1967) (Martin Ritt)
27. Three Smart Girls (1936) (Henry Koster)
28. Tai-Chi Master (1993) (Yuen Woo-Ping)
29. The Long Haul (1957) (Ken Hughes)
30. Kid Glove Killer (1942) (Fred Zinnemann)
31. The Divorce of Lady X (1938) (Tim Whelan)
32. Thrill of a Romance (1945) (Richard Thorpe)
33. Bucktown (1975) (Arthur Marks)
34. Bullet for a Badman (1964) (R.G. Springsteen)
35. Smart Blonde (1937) (Frank McDonald)
36. Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942) (John Farrow)
37. Death on the Nile (1978) (John Guillermin)
38. The Cimarron Kid (1952) (Budd Boetticher)
39. The Seventh Cross (1944) (Zinnemann)
40. The Hoodlum Saint (1946) (Norman Taurog)
41. Botany Bay (1952) (Farrow)
42. Three the Hard Way (1974) (Gordon Parks Jr.)
43. Second Chance (1953) (Rudolph Maté)
44. Mermaid Legend (1984) (Toshiharu Ikeda)
45. ‘G’ Men (1935) (William Keighley)
46. Friday Foster (1975) (Marks)
47. Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933) (Lloyd Bacon)
48. Cuckoo (2024) (Tilman Singer)
49. Venom (1981) (Piers Haggard)
50. Escape (1940) (LeRoy)
