2025 "On Your Left" Film Awards

 2025 "On Your Left" Film Awards

It's the time of year again to celebrate the best of the previous year's movies.  I saw quite a few movies, either in theaters or at home via streaming - and as always, there was a mixture of the good, the bad, and the OK.  I've written more about the movies themselves in my Year-in-Review post, but here I'll focus on the best performances of the year.

For this Oscar-style awards post, I'm sticking with my rule that only films I've seen are eligible.  Other than that, if it's eligible at the Oscars this year, it's eligible for me.

Please also check out my year-in-review post with my top-10 movies of the year, most overrated and most surprising movies, and more, too!

Winners in bold

Runners-up underlined

Best Actor

Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme)

Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)

Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)

Paul Mescal (Hamnet)

Josh O'Connor (Wake Up Dead Man-Knives Out 3)

Honorable mentions: Tim Robinson (Friendship), Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning)

Oscar nominees I didn't see: Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

While not making the list of "official" nominees, I wanted to give shout-outs to Tim Robinson for his debut starring film role - his comedic style is unique, to say the least, and a needed dose of creativity for a badly reeling genre; and to Tom Cruise, in his (presumably) final Mission Impossible - the movie itself let him down, but he continued to take his stunt work to extraordinary new heights (literally and figuratively).  Mescal was great as an understated William Shakespeare in Hamnet, taking the 1B role and making the playwright into a real human, not some mythic legend.  O'Connor continues to impress in his relatively young career, this time grabbing the reigns of the exciting Knives Out mystery franchise and with his good yet conflicted priest, going toe-to-toe with Daniel Craig's famed detective.  Jordan provided the central intensity for the wildly original, breakout hit Sinners; while I couldn't distinguish his twin characters' personalities, he was the perfect actor for the role.  Chalamet breathed life into the conniving ping-pong champ in Marty Supreme; any less fascinating performance would have resulted in a movie too agonizing to watch.  

No stranger to the top of the acting world, DiCaprio was the best in 2025 in One Battle After Another.  Yes, he is the central figure, but he doesn't make it about himself; he perfectly syncs with the other elements of the movie, exemplifying "greater than the sum of its parts".  As the once-formidable revolutionary, oddly named Bob, DiCaprio is a believable father and flawed average man (not just for his drug habit) with a mostly-dormant zeal for his old trade that can't help but resurface occasionally.  He is sympathetic; sometimes, just pathetic; hilarious; world-weary; and bright-eyed - DiCaprio puts all these things together like no one else could.

Best Actress

Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)

Chase Infiniti (One Battle After Another)

Keke Palmer (One of Them Days)

Florence Pugh (Thunderbolts*)

Emma Stone (Bugonia)

Honorable mentions: Ana de Armas (Ballerina-A John Wick Story), Dakota Johnson (Materialists)

Oscar nominees I didn't see: Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You), Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)

Ana de Armas receives what I'll call the "Tom Cruise" award for her committed physical performance in the hard-hitting grittiness of her John Wick-spinoff hit woman.  Johnson is subtly great in a much different kind of role; she has to balance being a superhuman matchmaker with a very average personal life, and pulls it off well.  Newcomer Chase Infiniti is a revelation in One Battle..., showing both the terror of being hunted by the government but also fierce resolve as a burgeoning fighter for justice.  Palmer is one of the funniest comedic actors on the planet today, and clearly has a blast with the bonkers One of Them Days, while still keeping her role pretty damn relatable.  Stone is an annual presence on my list of best actors and her Bugonia is a worthy addition, working with now-common partner director Lanthimos; she pulls off intensity, insanity, and ordinariness all without breaking a sweat.  Pugh is another common nominee for me, and her pugnacious little superhero sister Yelena gets a perfect showcase in the outrageously overlooked Thunderbolts*; she is a worthy new symbol and leader of Marvel's great character work (you heard me!).

Best of the best this year is Jessie Buckley's Agnes, a tour de force performance that turns what could have been a pretty average, if tear-jerking, drama into a fully felt, fully human story.  She uses precious few words, particularly early on as an independent spirit of the woods, instead using her eyes and mouth to convey everything you need to know.  Affection for one William Shakespeare inspires her to leave her solo life behind, and her dedication forms her into the leader her family needs.  The camera focuses on her for much of the film, even - especially - in the most agonizing moments, and in them Buckley shows the audience true love with all its attendant emotions.

Best Supporting Actress

Odessa A'zion (Marty Supreme)

Glenn Close (Wake Up Dead Man-Knives Out 3)

Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Thunderbolts*)

SZA (One of Them Days)

Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

Disagree w/ Oscars: Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners)

Oscar nominees I didn't see: Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value), Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value), Amy Madigan (Weapons)

SZA turned out to be a great partner-in-crime for Palmer in One of Them Days, so ridiculous (yet good-natured) that her co-star could be the "straight" arrow while being only slightly less silly.  A'zion plays the only other true character in Marty Supreme, even though she, like everyone else, gets trampled by his shenanigans; still, you can feel her pain more acutely than others'.  Louis-Dreyfus gets a bit of a role-achievement nod here, as one would not expect her to be in one Marvel movie, let alone several plus a TV series; she gets her most Marvel screentime in Thunderbolts and takes full advantage as her anti-heroine (sort of an anti-Nick Fury) role and keeps it hilarious.  Close is the quietest by far of my nominees, quite content to be shunted to the side by the larger-than-life Detective Blanc and Father Wicks, but Close's quasi-nun is underestimated to your peril.  Teyana Taylor might not have a lot of screentime, either, but she is probably the most vivid image of the best movie of 2025.  Yes, she is fighting for a righteous cause, but she is not afraid to get dirty doing it, nor will she apologize for it (quite the opposite, in fact).  Her fallibility is heartbreaking, though, and lingers with the audience, inextricably intertwined with the movie's message, long afterward.

Best Supporting Actor

Josh Brolin (Wake Up Dead Man-Knives Out 3)

Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)

Delroy Lindo (Sinners)

Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)

Paul Rudd (Friendship)

Oscar nominees I didn't see: Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein), Stellan Skarsgaard (Sentimental Value)

Paul Rudd is the comedic battery that just keeps on plugging away (and looking the same) year after year; Friendship is sort of like his old buddy comedies, but the humor and style itself is so much different, and he still gets it.  Del Toro provides a relieving dose of calm competence in One Battle...; even though you cock your head at the oddities of his character (karate sensei, hang-dog beer chugger) he gets the job done and makes you laugh without cracking a smile.  Lindo can do seemingly anything, and his role as a larger-than-life music hall legend is another new one, at least to me; he crucially helps lighten up the dark Sinners, just a bit.  Brolin has developed quite the affinity for the bad guy, and he has perhaps never done it better than in Knives Out 3; the sheer contempt for his fellows, even another priest, as well as the (seemingly) utter certainty in his mission with the craven cynicism behind it... whoa.  No one could top Sean Penn in One Battle..., though, disappearing into the role of rogue military commander with a vendetta - someone worse even, if possible, than Brolin's Father Wicks.  Penn makes Lockjaw (perfect name) into a grotesque figure, from his physical appearance to his lack of morality.  While we admittedly get little if any glimpse of humanity in him, the familiarity of his behaviors and tendencies to real humans is chilling.

Best Casting

One Battle After Another

The Roses

Sinners

Thunderbolts*

Wake Up Dead Man: Knives Out 3

Honorable mentions: Good Fortune, Mountainhead, Fantastic Four

Disagree w/ Oscars: Hamnet, Marty Supreme, Sinners

Oscar nominees I didn't see: The Secret Agent

This is a new category at the Oscars this year, so I am also adding it to my own awards.  I don't know exactly what the criteria are for the Oscars, but mine are: A) outstanding ensemble (4 or more notable/ especially good performances/castings); and/or B) at least 3 outstanding individual performances.  Hamnet falls short because it simply doesn't have any standout roles beyond Mescal and Buckley; Marty Supreme has a larger cast than Hamnet but again only two especially strong performances.

I am almost always highly impressed by the casting in Marvel's superhero movies, and the new Fantastic Four continues this trend, especially Pascal and Kirby's roles.  There were multiple comedies this year which, even if they didn't end up quite as good as they should have been, still deserve kudos for their casting, such as Good Fortune (Ansari as the put-upon average man; Rogen the asshole rich guy; and Reeves the kind but dumb angel - perfect!) and Mountainhead (four tech-bro assholes played excellently by Carell, Schwartzman, Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith).

A third comedy, which does make my "official" nominees list, is The Roses with its amazing casting: Cumberbatch and Colman aren't strictly comic actors but are still deliriously funny and so make excellently venomous spouses, while their best friends are played by comedians, the standout SNL alums Samberg and McKinnon.  Sinners is one of the top movies of the year, but in terms of casting, it barely makes my list.  Jordan and Lindo are the only true standouts, although enough of the supporting cast are strong and vivid that it makes the cut.  Thunderbolts* is yet another Marvel entry, and it's almost all returning characters which is cheating a bit, I suppose, but as an Avengers-type team-up movie it has an absurd number of fun - and well-developed - characters, from Pugh and Harbour's unhappy family to kinda-bad guys Louis-Dreyfus and (newcomer) Pullman and many more.  Knives Out, similarly, is famous for its large and fun casts, and Wake Up Dead Man is no different; Daniel Craig continues to lead the charge, of course, but O'Connor is as good in the 1B role here as de Armas was in the first movie, and Brolin, Close, Renner, Scott, etc. are great, too.  But it has to be One Battle After Another to take the crown: how could it not, as I have it winning Best Actor (DiCaprio), Supporting Actress (Taylor), and Supporting Actor (Penn)?  Add del Toro, phenomenal newcomer Chase Infiniti, and plenty of others, and it is jam-packed with acting excellence, a major reason that it is the best movie of the year.

Best Director

Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)

Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland (Warfare)

Jake Schreier (Thunderbolts*)

Chloe Zhao (Hamnet)

Disagree w/ Oscars: Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)

Oscar nominees I didn't see: Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)

Just as I love the casting in most Marvel movies, I also greatly admire much of the directing work.  Thunderbolts* was an even bigger challenge than a typical Avengers movie, since none of the truly big stars are in it.  Schreier shrewdly chooses Pugh's Yelena as his main character, though, with the rest of the massive cast with an important yet subtle part to play in illustrating and developing her character; it also balances the obligatory action scenes with strong thematic work, particularly at the end.  Sinners had to have a great director behind it to make it comprehensible, let alone high quality and electric.  Coogler does that, particularly in the first two-thirds, melding period drama with fantasy.  But, at least to my personal taste, the last third becomes too generically horror/monster-based; with a more clever, unexpected conclusion, this could have contended for best movie of the year.  Warfare is unlike anything I've seen before, a super realistic-feeling dramatization of a battle from the Iraq War.  Co-directed by one of its surviving veterans, Mendoza, along with reliable Hollywood filmmaker Garland, it captures the non-stop tension and lack of artificial flourishes in real fighting, yet paces and shoots it as riveting entertainment.  Remarkable.  Hamnet could have been, to this viewer, a fairly drowsy affair, yet another period piece that telegraphs exactly where it's going with the famous Hamlet play at the end.  Yet Zhao made a thoughtful and surprisingly brisk, straightforward yet nuanced and show-not-tell story that gripped me.  Tremendously emotional, in an honest and earned way.  Once again, though - notice a theme? - it is One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, at the top.  It is many different things, all perfectly blended together - political thriller, dark yet silly comedy, family drama, scifi(ish) dystopia - into an amazing whole.  So many different scenes leave an indelible impression on me, and even specific frames, but again, none override the others to dominate.  I think the best way to describe it is lightning in a bottle, and the director has to get the most credit for that.

* By source, https://framerusercontent.com/images/NAntSGY741IZhtTQlonGPHmrO0.webp

Hamnet + Send Help

 

Hamnet

Score:  A

Directed by Chloe Zhao

Starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal

Running time: 126 minutes

Rated PG-13

Hamnet is an excellent historical tragedy, a story involving the world's greatest playwright but focusing on his family in more universal terms rather than serving as a biopic.  The movie is an adaptation of a 2020 novel that I'm not familiar with, but that wasn't important to understanding or enjoying the film.  Beyond not being a Shakespeare biopic, the main character is in fact Agnes, his wife.  Magnificently played by Jessie Buckley, Agnes is a fascinating person.  More or less raised as a pagan, the movie handles this beautifully: it's a major element, but complementary to (not distracting from) the more regular human drama.  Her falconry is majestic, its clear spiritual bond powerful; Agnes is a woman of nature, spending most of her time (pre-family) in the woods, where a mysterious cave is both a potent symbol on its own and has a striking connection with the play.  Agnes is also smart enough to adapt to standard domestic life of the time, inspired to do so by her love for William.  She wins over her mother-in-law and even understands better than William himself what the struggling, frustrated genius needs - even if that results in him moving away.  Agnes doesn't have much of a life of her own, but she seems to fully embrace motherhood, raising essentially by herself three wonderful children.  This is Shakespeare-based, though, and tragedy befalls the family.  I'll admit that I cried - several times - as the camera is unflinching, unsparing of any of the characters' pain which the actors marvelously and genuinely show.  It's not at all manipulative or gratuitous, and yet not numbingly depressing, either.  Finally, the movie does indulge us with an abbreviated performance of Hamlet itself, which ingeniously though subtly syncs the family's story with William's masterpiece.  I like this movie the more I think about it, even though it doesn't connect with me in especially personal or cultural (this is the 16th century, after all) ways.  It stands on its own - bravo!

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Send Help

Score:  A-

Directed by Sam Raimi

Starring Rachel McAdams, Dylan O'Brien

Running time: 115 minutes

Rated R

Send Help is a tremendously entertaining, impressively creative new take on the deserted-island-survivor genre, a pleasant change of pace at the theater.  I should next say that you might want to defer reading the rest of this review until after you've seen the movie, as I think knowing as little as possible before will be particularly rewarding in this case.  That said, director Raimi showcases his filmmaking skills and distinctive style to great effect.  I have not seen any of his more straightforward horror movies, but even titles like Spider-Man, his Oz spinoff, and especially Doctor Strange 2 showcase a neat creepy (in a good way) vibe along with occasional jump scares.  Send Help is ideally suited for this style.  Rachel McAdams also shows an impressive range of acting, starting out as Linda, a meek, socially awkward but hardworking, successful office drone.  It's laid on thick, from close-ups on her tuna-smeared lips to her cooing to her lone companion, Sweetie the cockatiel.  The company CEO's heir, Bradley, is the only other survivor who washes ashore with Linda, and even while he completely depends on her (thanks to her literal Survivor TV prep), still treats her like dirt.  It's a pretty standard feminist scenario for turning the tables on the obnoxious, entitled bro.  Which is satisfying, yet Raimi makes it even more interesting with Linda's darker turn.  We get just a little of the obligatory "this is how they are surviving" cues, and then the movie focuses on the gripping, evolving, tense relationship between Linda and Bradley.  This is both internal and dialogue-based, but also often quite directly physical.  While you guess at motives and plans, you're treated to a breathless boar hunt, squirm-inducing interrogation, and a finale that is actually both well-earned and legitimately exciting and well-done (unlike many other movies' endings).  See this one in the theater for maximum effect, but in any event, just see it!

***

This double review represents a transition, with Hamnet likely being the final 2025-released movie I see in a theater, and Send Help being the first 2026 movie I've seen in the theater.  Fortunately for me, both are outstanding movies that were well worth the trip to the theater.  Hamnet is very near the top of my 2025 movie list (I'll be posting my 2025 movie awards/overview soon!), in many ways a fairly straightforward drama that searingly focuses on its characters.  Not a fun movie, but very rewarding.  Send Help is in fact terrifically entertaining even as it is lighter in (but not bereft of) deeper meaning.  Send Help, though, actually gives me more hope for the future of movies, as it represents a blockbuster-ish type release that is imbued with the distinctive creative stamp of a great director and is just strongly made all around, as well as being simply very entertaining.  Too many movies are launched on the basis of an interesting premise, perhaps also featuring some good/great actors, but the writing and directing is uninspired at best and overall quality - and entertainment value - mediocre or worse.  So please, please, please Hollywood - look to Send Help as a shining example of empowering the most talented filmmakers and setting them loose on the many interesting ideas waiting for the right opportunity.

* By Focus Features - https://www.focusfeatures.com/hamnet, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81300449

** By https://dam.gettyimages.com/s/3j9twnzs3mc24f94zc9k5x, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81341066

Marty Supreme + Zootopia 2

 

Marty Supreme

Score:  B

Directed by Josh Safdie

Starring Timothee Chalamet, Odessa A'zion, Gwyneth Paltrow, et al

Running time: 150 minutes

Rated R

Marty Supreme is an entertaining and, in some respects, well-made dramedy that ultimately falls short of its Oscar aspirations due to an erratic story and gratuitous bad behavior.  Ostensibly, Marty is about the titular character's (Chalamet) efforts to overcome a hard scrabble background to become a table tennis world champion.  But Marty is really more interested in attention of all kinds, using and abusing those around him to get what he is immediately desperate for, which is often just petty cash.  This makes the character, and overall story, quite similar to director Safdie's Uncut Gems (which he co-directed with his brother Benny).  Starring Adam Sandler, it is an excruciatingly unpleasant movie to watch; in purely technical cinema terms, it's a decent movie, but also full of nothing but despicable behavior and cursing.  Marty Supreme is fortunately milder in its bad behavior (and language) than Gems.  At least, the bad behavior is a little better excused.  Whereas Sandler gets his just deserts, though, Marty bungles his way to unearned moral victories by the end.  There are also quite a few secondary characters and stories that pop up and disappear at random, artificially portraying them as important or well understood components in the story (hawking orange ping-pong balls; a random "best friend" played by Tyler, the Creator who drops in and back out again; etc.).  It's not all bad, by any means.  Chalamet creates a compelling, if decidedly unheroic, main character who is fun to follow, and his foibles (escaping the cops, falling through a floor in a bathtub, etc.) can be quite humorous by themselves.  It's a long movie, but decent pacing prevents it from dragging.  But Marty leaves an awful lot of wreckage in his wake, particularly for those closest to him, and to what end?  These mixed and troubling themes created (intentionally or not) by the story and characters waste some genuinely high quality elements of filmmaking that are also present.

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Zootopia 2

Score:  B+

Directed by Jared Bush & Byron Howard

Starring Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Quan, Andy Samberg, et al

Running time: 108 minutes

Rated PG

Zootopia 2 is an entertaining, well-made animated movie that, like the original, offers far more for adult audiences than many in the genre; but it also can't quite match the first film's charm or, naturally, its originality.  The first thing that stands out to me about Z2, whether or not it's actually true, is that it feels more plot-based, and less about exploring the world and its characters than the original.  There is still some very good material in those latter categories in the sequel: in particular, the introduction of a backwater, ghetto-like reptile neighborhood, as well as continued development of the sweetly mismatched duo of Judy (Goodwin), an earnest and still rather naive bunny and Nick (Bateman), a streetwise and still rather jaded fox.  But the plot is kind of humdrum; Judy and Nick have to clear their good names while also investigating the mysteries of the maligned reptiles (hint: they're not as bad as the residents of Zootopia think).  The supporting characters, while fun to one degree or another, also aren't as strong as in the original.  The action scenes, while cleverly devised and beautifully animated, are also enjoyable, but get bogged down somewhat in the tangles of plot.  Again, a perfectly entertaining movie - for both adults, solo or parents, and children - that has Pixar-level quality in many ways, but I hope that the next one will ease up on the plotting and bask more in its vivid characters and setting.

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I think that these two movies will probably wrap up my 2025-released theater trips (unless a few Oscar-nominated movies come to my theater closer to the Academy Awards ceremony-hopefully!).  Solid movies both, although I think both are overrated, for different reasons.  Marty Supreme is considered a Best Picture contender, which I disagree with.  Yes, it has some elements of a top movie, but too many and too significant of flaws to put it in that category (however, Chalamet is a more deserving option for Best Actor).  Meanwhile, Zootopia 2 has surged to box office heights: while it's made modestly more in the U.S. than the original, it has almost doubled its international total to $1.275 billion (thanks mostly to $610 million in China)!  It thus follows the pattern of Inside Out: the sequel makes way more money than the outstanding original, even though it isn't nearly as good (IMO).  Oh, well.  2025 was a good, though not great, year at the movies, and I'll be writing my year-in-review posts in the coming month or so.  Until then, hopefully 2026 gets off to a good start!

* By Source, A24 - impawards, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80723175

** By Source, Disney Enterprises, Inc. - https://dam.gettyimages.com/s/nbg894c5nz2fhkg5pkfwtpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77592031