I don’t know whether this has been a bad year for cinema, but I do know that I haven’t had much enthusiasm for it. I've ended up with a pretty solid top ten, but I’ve been happy enough to let a lot of the big-hitters pass me by without much interest, and while some of what I have seen has burned bright in the moment, much of it has faded away soon after. A lot of perfectly good movies but very few that have stayed with me. A lot of sixes and very few nines. But then I’ve also not had the chance to see some of the things I’d usually have made time for. I haven’t seen the new Christian Petzold movie, or Bi Gan’s Resurrection, or either of Zhang Lu’s two new movies. And Marty Supreme isn’t out yet. So who knows, maybe this’ll turn out to be a barnstormer of a year, after all, when I do finally catch up with these things and others like them. But all in all, it just doesn’t feel as if very much has been happening.
I've not really done much to make things happen for myself, either, which I’m sure has contributed to this ambivalence. I still managed to get to a few festivals but I keep circling the same ones, and I think I need to be more uncomfortable next year. When I went to Rotterdam in January, for the first time in five years, I got off the train, walked out into the city and felt as if I remembered all of it. The shapes of the buildings, the angles of the roads, the location of my hotel. The same happened in Vienna. I stayed in the same hotel, walked down the same street into town and remembered everything. There’s a warmth in familiarity, but lazy comfort is not a particularly helpful headspace to be in. It’s not one that lends itself well to discovery and it’s not what I want from travel. Most of what I see in a given year is seen at festivals, so I didn’t approach very much of anything this year with the wide-eyed energy of someone lost in a new place, contending with a new lay of the land, and open to whatever possibilities may emerge. Instead, I’ve been drifting around on autopilot, waiting for something to grab me.
Maybe that’s why most of the revelatory viewings I’ve had this year have come at home, during rare bursts of energy. It’s much easier to cater for a sudden jolt of curiosity when you have access to anything you’re in the mood for, rather than awkwardly moulding yourself to the scheduling whims of a film festival. So while I’ve seen fewer films than ever this year, I’ve largely chosen well when I’ve had the choice. The wisest choice I made this year was to dive back in to Inland Empire (2006) in the wake of David Lynch's death in January. I’ve written about my early struggles with Lynch before, but seeing this film for the second (or third) time, on Blu-ray at home in the middle of a wintry Saturday night, was a revelation unlike any I’ve had in recent memory. A whole world, still confusing and frightening, but finally in focus.
So when I look back at 2025, I’m probably going to think of Inland Empire before anything else. Good cinema always finds its way under your skin in one way or another, and I don’t think much of what I've seen from this year has really done that. Perhaps I should be less harsh on myself, then. Maybe I wasn't able to find many films that grabbed me because I didn’t see the right things in the first place, and it’s not so much a matter of passivity than it is a matter of luck. In any case, the year is basically over now and new movies are right around the corner. I hope next year will be a little more exciting.
In alphabetical order:
Avatar: Fire and Ash | James Cameron
The Currents | Milagros Mumenthaler
Die My Love | Lynne Ramsay
Dry Leaf | Alexandre Koberidze
I Dreamed a Dream | Wei Shujun
Kontinental ‘25 | Radu Jude
Short Summer | Nastia Korkia
Silent Friend | Ildikó Enyedi
Sinners | Ryan Coogler
Two Seasons, Two Strangers | Sho Miyake
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In spite of the slow year, I’ve managed to write a lot more than usual. I set myself a challenge of writing something about everything I watch on Letterboxd, which I’ve largely done, and my monthly newsletter, Strange Days, is still going strong. I’ve also written a few things for the blog that I’m proud of, including:
- A look back at Takeshi Kitano’s autobiographical period
- A look back at the films of Sho Miyake
- A look back at the shift from objectivity to subjectivity in The Vanishing
- And an account of my history with Kill Bill
I’m happy to have gotten back into the habit of regular writing over the past couple of years. Long may it continue.
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Ten discoveries from a quiet year. I like to go with my instincts when looking for things to watch, without any specific influences besides the intangible things that hang in the air. Looking at this list of movies, every single one of which has moved me greatly, it feels as if I’ve gravitated towards the idea of confronting an absence. A feeling of having something to lose and then losing it, or searching for something to fill a space, or of rebuilding around the spaces where something used to be. I will always find it strange how themes emerge from what feel like random choices. I don’t know what drew me to these films now, in this year of all years, but something did. And that’s an interesting thread to pull on. For now, these are the ten films I liked above all others this year. I wonder what I’ll see next year.
In chronological order:
Stella Dallas | King Vidor, 1937
Unman, Wittering and Zigo | John Mackenzie, 1971
The Pelican | Gérard Blain, 1974
Man on the Roof | Bo Widerberg, 1976
Shanghai Blues | Tsui Hark, 1984
Typhoon Club | Shinji Somai, 1985
Rosa la rose, fille publique | Paul Vecchiali, 1986
Gilsodom | Im Kwon-taek, 1986
The Eel | Shohei Imamura, 1997
The Sweet Hereafter | Atom Egoyan, 1997
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I’ve had an unusual year of music discovery, and for the first time in a long time I’ve put a lot more time into new releases than I did into old stuff. It may have been a fairly tired cinematic year, but musically things have been wide awake.
In alphabetical order:
Addison | Addison Rae
Baby | Dijon
Big City Life | Smerz
Bleeds | Wednesday
Caroline 2 | Caroline
Downpour | Charmer
Essex Honey | Blood Orange
Getting Killed | Geese
Headlights | Alex G
Lifetime | Erika de Casier
In terms of discoveries, I haven't put the same time and energy into excavations as I have in recent years. I listened to a lot of Scott Walker at the start of the year, and a lot of Slowdive at the end of it. Plenty more avenues left to explore next year.
In chronological order:
Climate of Hunter | Scott Walker, 1984
Pod | The Breeders, 1990
Pygmalion | Slowdive, 1995
All Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors | All Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors, 1996
Look Now Look Again | Rainer Maria, 1999
It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water | The Microphones, 2000
Blue Screen Life | Pinback, 2001
Tha Carter | Lil Wayne, 2004
Citrus | Asobi Seksu, 2006
And… Hearing Things | dinner, 2007
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A few struggles here and there, but on the whole another good year of reading. I felt the strongest about Paul Auster and Kurt Vonnegut, whose novels below are two of the best I’ve read. I suspect I’ll go harder in 2026.
In chronological order:
Snow Country | Yasunari Kawabata, 1948
Galápagos | Kurt Vonnegut, 1985
Sátántangó | László Krasznahorkai, 1985
An Artist of the Floating World | Kazuo Ishiguro, 1986
The Big Nowhere | James Ellroy, 1988
Leviathan | Paul Auster, 1992
No Country For Old Men | Cormac McCarthy, 2005
The Years | Annie Ernaux, 2008
Frog | Mo Yan, 2009
Earthlings | Sayaka Murata, 2018
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A lingering memory from the year. On a flight from London Heathrow to Phoenix Sky Harbour, sometime in the middle of an artificial night, somewhere above the United States of America, listening to Hayley Williams’s Parachute over and over again as I dozed. As we descended, around midday, lights back on, I watched the air temperature gauge tick up beyond anything I’ve ever experienced and listened to it again. Every time I hear it now I’m thrown back to that weird state between time zones, watching a plane glide across a 3D map on a seat-back screen through tired eyes, waiting for the heat to hit me. But at least it’s a dry heat.
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If you’ve made it this far, thank you for persevering. I don’t know how you ended up here but I’m glad that, for whatever reason, you were interested enough in what I have to say to do so. So, thank you. It’s been a rough end to the year but I think things are starting to turn around. I hope 2026 is good to all of us.