Film selection of the year 2025 by four of our film critics – Filmauswahl des Jahres 2025 von vier unserer Filmkritiker*innen – Sélection de films de l’année 2025 par quatre de nos critiques de cinéma

{ While j:mag offers a wide range of sections, our faithful readers have undoubtedly noticed that cinema holds a special place. We asked three of our film critics, along with the editor-in-chief, to share their favorite films of the past year. Here is Agnieszka Pilacińska’s selection.

The selection of Harald Ringel (in German) and Malik Berkati (in French) can be found here.
As you likely know, our long-time collaborator and a pillar of our editorial team, Firouz Elisabeth Pillet, passed away in December of this year. The tradition of selecting her favorite films of the year was very dear to her heart. Since she did not have the chance to compile her final list, we would like to share a few links to reviews and interviews that we know she deeply cherished. You can find all of her reviews and interviews here—primarily in French, but also in Italian, German, and English.
The Editorial Team }

Best Films of 2025

I have a love-hate relationship with top-10 lists. I’ve reshuffled this one about 100 times in the last two hours alone! Comparing these is like comparing apples and oranges, but I did it! Here is the final cut:

Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi)

Joachim Trier / Norway, Germany, Denmark, France, Sweden, United Kingdom, Turkey / 2025

Trier delivers a precise blow to the gut, and the pain gradually spreads throughout the body throughout the screening, resonating with different intensities in each part of it. An emotional journey in search of lost time. A deconstruction of the family structure, and at the same time, an outstanding portrait of individuals. A film about what home is, but also about the boundaries of our world defined by language, about being true to oneself in the act of creation.

Sirât

Oliver Laxe / Spain, France / 2025

A philosophical, contemplative journey worthy of Tarkovsky. Laxe observes and questions, but does not provide answers. What is life? Loss, desert, body, sound, oblivion, dance, feeling. What is the modern world, and where is there a place for humans in it?

Queer

Luca Guadagnino / USA, Italy / 2024

A comprehensive portrait of otherness, loneliness, hunger for closeness, and emptiness. A story about systematically, yet ineptly, stopping bleeding with band-aids, about decline, coming to terms with aging, passing away, disappearing, mortality. A film about looking in the mirror, into the past, and into the future – and seeing the same thing over and over again.

Resurrection (Kuang ye shi dai)

Bi Gan / China, France, USA / 2025

A triumph of imagination, vision, artistic self-awareness, and courage. Bi Gan adapts the audience to the work, rather than the work to the audience. The greatest tribute to cinema in history.

After the Hunt

Luca Guadagnino / USA, Italy / 2025

An intellectual feast. A brilliant spectacle of intergenerational and intergender arguments, which does not aim to determine a winner. Guadagnino plays with the viewer, toying with expectations, habits, and views.

 Yes (Ken)

Nadav Lapid / France, Israel, Cyprus, Germany / 2025

Israel’s chief satirist is back in form. Lapid scrutinizes a society fed on war propaganda – increasingly passive and dumbed down. Between expression and reflection, in a world of major and minor deals, where creators are kept on a tight leash by capital and politics, he seeks answers to the question of the artist’s duty.

 Hunger Strike Breakfast (Badautojų namelis)

Karolis Kaupinis / Lithuania, The Czech Republic, Latvia / 2025

An intimate, minimalist story that uses the events of 1991 to tell a universal tale – about man, the struggle against the system, classism, the patterns we live in, and desires. Filled with Slavic poetics, it speaks quietly about important things.

 April

Dea Kulumbegashvili / Georgia, Italy, France / 2024

Raw social cinema intertwined with magical realism. A non-didactic voice on the situation of women and abortion. Hypnotic, magnetic, disturbing, and visually stunning at the same time.

 If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Mary Bronstein / USA / 2024

A multi-layered, juicy dissection of the limits of an individual’s endurance in a situation of slowly losing control over reality. An examination of the myth of motherhood, dressed up in stifling, claustrophobic images, and an outstanding performance by Rose Byrne.

One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson / USA / 2025

A wild ride. Making fun of America, white people’s obsession with race, and the status quo. An interspecies marriage, endearing with its theme of fatherly love. It never loses its rhythm for a second.

Agnieszka Pilacińska

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