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.
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