Kicking and screaming

Here we are at the finishing line in what really was an obscenely good year in cinema

10. Cactus Pears

I adore it when a film comes out of seeming nowhere and suddenly introduces brand new favourite directors and stars. While Indian filmmaker Rohan Kanawade’s Marathi-language debut feature was on my radar, having won a Grand Jury prize out of Sundance, it didn’t show up here until the Adelaide Film Festival in October, where, hoo boy, it whammied me. Bhushaan Manoj and Suraaj Suman turn in two of the year’s most achingly delicate performances, as childhood friends and closeted gay men falling back into one another, even as their families clamour to marry them off to women. A masterclass in tenderest touch, stolen glances and unexpected directions, it unfurls layers upon layers of emotional intelligence that straddles time, place and tradition.

9. It Was Just an Accident

Iranian legend Jafar Panahi has, like Kelly Reichardt, never put a foot wrong. An insanely brave filmmaker full of tempered passion and fire, he crafts morally and texturally rich films that challenge authority at great personal risk, finding himself once again threatened with imprisonment if he returns to the country he loves. Bringing it closer to home than ever before, this masterpiece assembles a motley crew of Tehranis who have all endured blindfolded torture who are convinced that they have discovered their anonymous captor. But what to do with him, and can they live with the consequences of becoming that which they revile most? To tackle an open wound with such clear-headed conviction while finding space for comedy that tempers the darkest night is incredible.

8. Bring Her Back

In any sane and rational world, Sally Hawkins would absolutely be in the mix this awards season. But as well all know, (a) this is not a sane and rational world, (b) horror struggles to overcome snobbery, and (c) Hollywood types appear oblivious to Australian creatives unless our lot heads over there. Well, the Philippou brothers refuse to blend into the transatlantic beige to get ahead, with Bring Her Back just as true to their voice as the stonking Talk to Me. Much bleaker, but still thrumming with their cheeky energy, Bring Her Back is an incredible next step. Hawkins towers as a deeply damaged ‘carer’ who has been consumed by grief, with young actors Billy Barrat, Sora Wong and Jonah Wren Phillips all stepping up to meet her in this desolate place that leaves its mark.

7. Babygirl

I cannot understand the crap that gets flung at Nicole Kidman while Tom Cruise remains inexplicably popular, despite her talent eclipsing his a million times over. At her best when navigating thorny territory that pokes and prods at power dynamics, she’s near career-peak as the CEO of a big tech company wading into murky waters when Triangle of Sadness star Harris Dickinson’s cocky young intern in a cheap suit blows apart her boundaries over spilt milk. Bodies Bodies Bodies director Halina Reijn unleashes their beast mode in this genuinely horny morality (fore)play that crackles with all the energy of a 90s erotic thriller as viewed through the disappointments of the post-Me Too era and the dashed hopes that attend what was supposed to rewrite the scene.

6. A House of Dynamite

There are several theatre-like films on my list, and that’s sort of what Near Dark queen Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear threat clock ticker is: a triptych of chamber pieces. Sure, they sometimes involve a frantic run down DC’s Mall, a basketball shoot out or a panicked presidential helicopter ride, but for the most part, it’s just people talking in a room with little over 20 minutes or so before it all kicks off. No, you don’t need a dumb CGI shot to get the point, nor is it ‘repetitive’ to see things from multiple angles. There wasn’t one moment my rolling panic attack let off steam as a series of impossible decisions are made. Rebecca Ferguson is incredible, Jared Harris elicited the biggest gasp of my year, and that payoff between Idris Elba and Jonah Hauer-King says it all. Explosive stuff.

5. One Battle After Another

In any other year, Paul Thomas Anderson’s gloriously oddball comic political pulp fiction would easily have been my number one, so it’s a testament to just how impeccable the competition is and no shade on him that it ultimately lands in the middle of my top ten. All power to Chase Infiniti for blazing her trail so incandescently that she swoops to the top of the pile in an ensemble obscenely stacked with outstanding performances. Sean Penn’s gurning malevolence and bruised little boy ego is arguably the year’s funniest. I was screaming with laughter as Leo’s password fail and resultant panic attack juxtaposed with Benicio del Toro’s chill. Santa nazis?!?! Teyana Taylor sets it all alight, but it all comes back to Chase and that Bullitt-recalling chase.

4. 28 Years Later

While I’ve come to appreciate 28 Weeks Later more, it suffers from the influx of sequel money, losing sight of the original’s instantly iconic claustrophobic terror. So where to next? I don’t think anyone predicted just how surreal, savage and scabrously funny a returning Danny Boyle and Alex Garland would go, or just how bizarrely beautiful and oddly intimate it would get. Bait and switch us with folk horror Summerisle stylings set to Rudyard Kipling’s unnerving poem Boots, only to splice in Henry V and, err, the Teletubbies? Sure! Parkouring ninja Jimmy Savilles? What!?! Instant stardom for Chi Lewis-Parry and Samson’s unfeasibly big you know what? All bound together by performances for the ages from Ralph Fiennes and Jodie Comer? The apocalypse has never WTFed this hard, rug-pulling until we’re deliriously dizzy and demented with delighted.

3. Sirat

The first thing I said, once I’d recovered from the shock of seeing (and hearing) Óliver Laxe’s end-of-the-world odyssey while sat next to bone-crunching sub woofers in Sydney’s State Theatre, was “This is CINEMA.” From that bewildering hunt for a missing daughter/sister in a Moroccan desert doof up and down treacherous cliffs and on through a minefield of diabolical intent, every second was calibrated to shatter my nerves and capture my soul. A brilliant example of hurling us into the visceral midst, Laxe conjures a world in freefall that feels all too real without shovelling on the details. Terrifying snippets on the radio and armies set against the people just trying to have one last good time tells us all we need to know. Sharing the feral spirit of Mad Max (and Gorgonà), we are all in with its caravan of hope.

2. Sinners

There’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that my favourite scene of the year belongs to that dance sequence set in a Mississippi juke joint so jumping it can raise the unholy dead. Combing the stellar talents of writer/director Ryan Coogler, cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, composer Ludwig Göransson and choreographer Aakomon ‘AJ’ Jones and a cracking cast led by not one, but two spectacular performances from the mighty Michael B Jordan, it delivers the biggest electric shock of the year, as time folds in on itself, aligning past, present and future in one intense throwdown. Sinners relishes its twists and turns that flicker and spark. Props to Jack O’Connell for his dastardly Irish vamp, the best villain of the year – even counting his insane 28 Years Later reveal – but it’s Wunmi Mosaku’s big heart and simmering heat that champions this instant classic.

1. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Sometimes you see a film so startling in its clarity of vision, in its unforgettably sparkling and sassy dialogue, big and bold ideas, and centred on such astounding performances that from then on, it utterly demolishes the competition. Again, I’d die on the hill for any one of the 50+ films I’ve championed here in what truly was an exhilarating year, but not a one could topple Mary Bronstein’s epic scream into the ‘but what is it really?’ void that has remained the guiding light that illuminated my 2025 in darkened auditoriums since Berlinale in mid-February. Arguably the wildest casting choices champion the top-notch talents of A$AP Rocky, Danielle Macdonald, Conan O’Brien and Christian Slater, but it’s Australian star Rose Byrne who triumphs over literally every single actor in a crowded cinematic field with her almighty personal Armageddon of motherhood at its wits' end. Oscar now please.

If you enjoyed this adventure, here’s parts one and two, plus docos.