Movies: 2025 In Review

Another year of movies another mixed bag result that proves that we are still in the age where a bad movie can’t get by on hype alone while good movies are not guaranteed to be money makers, either. But in the age of streaming, does box office even matter?

That said, the box office was down a bit overall compared to 2024 but we saw a more even spread amongst the top 10. Everything in the top 10 this year made $250M+ up from $190M for #10 last year. But this year Minecraft topped the list at $424M compared to Inside Out 2’s $600M+ haul last year. Neck and neck with Minecraft was the live action Lilo & Stitch remake at $423M. I am still not sure why Disney decided to redo all of these movies as live action instead of something more inventive (cough: $) but here is a quick open letter to Disney: You have all this Disney IP, you have The Muppets you are not using, do Muppet remakes of everything. I’d throw money at a Muppets’ Alice In Wonderland or Star Wars.

The rest of the top 5 were some predictable crowd-pleasers: Superman, Jurassic World: Rebirth, and Zootopia 2. Surprisingly, Wicked: For Good failed to crack the top 5 after being thought a probable shoe-in for highest grossing film of the year.

This year, we saw a lot of great things including Weapons, Keeper, Sinners, Together, Predator: Badlands, The Naked Gun, The Monkey, Toxic Avenger, One Battle After Another, The Long Walk, and more. Overall, a really strong year for movies. Like we have been asking for the last several years, we are finally seeing a lot of movies hit that feel like the filmmakers actually have control of their films, for better or worse. Great to break from superheroes.

Streaming had some gems again this year including some things that didn’t make a huge splash in the theater but got good reviews on Letterboxd, like: Frankenstein (2025), Mickey 17, K-Pop Demon Hunters, Bugonia, and Marty Supreme.

For best theater experiences this year, it had to be Tron: Ares and Predator: Badlands in the Dolby Cinema. Predator is a better movie but Tron was a better audio visual blast to the face, thx NIИ.

Overall, our consensus for favorite movie of 2025 was Weapons. Just a great movie that does what it intends to do. We talked about it to everyone and almost everybody had great things to say.

2026 is looking to be another stacked year as well. Prediction: Nolan’s Odyssey will be the one to beat.

Psst! Down here! If you are reading still, shout out to Cereal Offenders. You didn’t hear it from me but we are having pre-production meetings on Cereal Offenders 2… but don’t tell anyone yet, shhhhh!