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This post moved here from “個人的2025新作映画ベスト10” on Shizuka na Internet, where it was first written in Japanese.
My personal top 10 new films of 2025
Every year I keep a list of my favourite films in Notion; this time I’m leaving it here too, as a note to self. It’s entirely personal, so feel free to disagree. Everyone’s different, and that’s fine.
The Wild Robot
Roz, a state-of-the-art assistant robot, washes up on an uninhabited island covered in wilderness and wakes when her power button is pressed by chance. Programmed for city life and for doing her clients’ jobs, she wanders the helpless wild island, learns the animals’ behaviour and language, and slowly adapts. One day she hatches a goose egg, and when the gosling calls her “Mama”, unexpected changes begin. Naming him Brightbill, Roz tries to see through the “job” of raising him with help from the island’s animals, like Fink the fox and Pinktail the opossum…
A classic story that still makes you cry. The way the animation renders the robot and the wild animals differently is stunning, and the visuals are top-tier. There’s a sudden bit of fantasy at the end, but the film is good enough that I can forgive it.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
The 1980s. Chan, a young man smuggled into Hong Kong, refuses the rules of the underworld and chooses his own path, which puts him in the gangs’ sights. Cornered, he flees as if led by fate into the Kowloon Walled City, a whirlpool of the underworld’s ambitions, where he forms deep friendships with three companions. But the war engulfing the Walled City only escalates, and Chan and his friends throw themselves into a fight to the death, each holding to their beliefs.
The masterpiece of films you can watch without thinking. The action is just incredible — it shows so many kinds of action that I wondered whether they’d done everything possible inside the Walled City. I’d never properly watched a Hong Kong film, and this is one I’d proudly recommend as hugely entertaining.
5 Centimeters per Second (live action)
Spring 1991. Takaki Tōno and Akari Shinohara meet at a primary school in Tokyo and grow close, as if reaching out to each other’s loneliness, but Akari moves away when they graduate. In the winter of their first year of junior high they meet again on a snowy night in Iwafune, Tochigi, and under a cherry tree standing in the snow they promise to meet at the same place on 26 March 2009. Time passes; it’s 2008. Takaki, now a systems engineer in Tokyo and nearly 30, realises part of him is still left behind in that distant time. Akari, too, is quietly living her days with those memories.
The dark horse of the year. I rarely come across a live-action adaptation of an anime or manga that I’m glad exists, and I struggle to accept ones that change the original — but if you’re going to adapt 5 Centimeters per Second, I don’t think you could do better than this. I’ve praised it too much, so fans of the original should lower their expectations a little.
One Battle After Another
Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland: a washed-up former revolutionary is forced to fight one assassin after another when someone targets his only daughter, in a chase where pursuers and pursued tangle. Once a revolutionary who shook the world, Bob now lives a dull, ordinary life — until his beloved daughter Willa becomes a target. To protect her he throws himself into the fight, while the ruthless soldier Lockjaw hunts Willa with an abnormal obsession and corners father and daughter.
I watched it in Sydney without subtitles and it still left a powerful impression. There’s social satire in it, but above all, DiCaprio is hilarious while achieving absolutely nothing.
Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc
Denji, a boy who turns into Chainsaw Man through his contract with the Chainsaw Devil, fights devils as a Devil Hunter in Public Safety’s Special Division 4. Giddy after a date with Makima, the boss he adores, he’s caught in a sudden downpour and, sheltering from the rain, meets a girl named Reze. Reze, who says she works at a nearby café, smiles gently at Denji, and the two quickly grow close. That encounter starts to change Denji’s everyday life.
The film that got a standing ovation from the audience in Sydney. It’s just one arc of the serialised manga, yet it feels so complete you’d think it was written to be a film. The animation and the catharsis at the end leave you feeling you’ve seen a really good movie.
Conclave
The Catholic Church is Christianity’s largest denomination, with more than 1.4 billion faithful worldwide. Its supreme leader, the Pope and head of the Vatican City State, has died. More than a hundred cardinals gather from around the world for the conclave that will choose the new pope, and the secret ballot begins behind the closed doors of the Sistine Chapel. As the votes split, plots, discrimination and scandal stir below the surface. Cardinal Lawrence, who runs the election, learns a secret that will shake the Vatican.
Despite being about a conclave, which isn’t very familiar in Japan, it gives you the satisfaction of a fine mystery, and the surprise at the end leaves a good aftertaste.
Kokuho
Kikuo, born into a yakuza family, loses his father in a gang war at 15 and is left alone in the world. Hanai Hanjirō, head of a famous Kamigata kabuki family, spots his natural talent and takes him in, and Kikuo unexpectedly plunges into the world of kabuki. Raised like a brother alongside Hanjirō’s heir Shunsuke, the two push each other as best friends and rivals and devote their youth to the art. Then Hanjirō, hospitalised after an accident, names Kikuo rather than Shunsuke as his stand-in, and both their fates are shaken.
A film that doesn’t need me to say anything about it here. But I want to say it anyway: I went to see it on opening day. And the song over the end credits fits far too well.
Frontline
On 3 February 2020 a luxury cruise ship carrying 3,711 passengers and crew arrived in Yokohama. One passenger who had disembarked in Hong Kong had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, and more than 100 people on board were reporting symptoms. Japan had no agency specialised in large-scale outbreak response, so DMAT, a volunteer-like disaster medical team, was hastily deployed. Facing a virus with no known treatment and risking their own lives, they kept fighting until every passenger was off the ship.
The true story of the people who fought COVID. I never really understood what went on aboard that ship, but there were people who seriously took on saving lives against an unknown virus — and just spreading that awareness through a film makes it valuable.
The Substance
Elisabeth, a once-popular actress turning 50, worries as her work dries up with her fading looks, and turns to an illegal drug called “The Substance” that promises youth, beauty and a perfect self. The moment she injects it, her back splits open and a younger self, “Sue”, emerges. With youth and beauty plus all of Elisabeth’s experience, Sue is effectively an upgraded Elisabeth and shoots up to stardom. The two have one absolute rule — they must switch every week — but Sue starts to break it…
A film that says: you can’t beat lookism or ageism, so don’t push yourself! It has the scares of a sci-fi thriller and the fun of a comedy, and a strong, clear message as a film. I never want to see it again, but it’s worth having seen.
Bugonia
Michelle, the charismatic head of a world-famous pharmaceutical company, is kidnapped. The kidnappers are Teddy, a conspiracy theorist convinced she’s an alien invading Earth, and his devoted cousin Don. They lock her in their basement and demand she leave Earth alone. Michelle dismisses their absurd demands and tries to talk her way out, and the standoff twists and turns with neither side backing down. Then Teddy’s hidden past comes to light, and the outlandish kidnapping heads somewhere no one expected.
Another one I got to see early in Sydney. Conspiracy theory × crime suspense, but packed with laughs. Emma Stone throws herself into it so completely that I like her even more now. Partly because I saw it in Sydney, but the theatre was in stitches from start to finish.
The other new films I saw this year
I feel like I met a lot of good films this year: 29 new releases, 30 if I watch one more before the year ends. I’d like to see about this many next year too.
- Superman
- Wicked: For Good
- Zootopia 2
- Avatar: Fire and Ash
- Hyakuemu (100 Meters)
- Thunderbolts*
- Wicked
- Flow
- Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle
- Last Breath
- A Real Pain
- Detective Conan: One-eyed Flashback
- Anora
- Captain America: Brave New World
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps
- KPop Demon Hunters
- Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX
- Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan
- Bullet Train Explosion
Somehow not seen yet — watching over the holidays
Films I meant to see and missed. I’ll probably watch them next year.
- First Kiss
- Femme
- Sinners
- Detchiage
- Nemuru Baka
- The Apprentice
- Mickey 17
- The Legend of Hei 2
- Bakudan