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The Conversation
The Conversation
Ruth Barton, Fellow Emeritus in Film Studies, Trinity College Dublin

The five best films of 2025 – according to experts

Eva Victor Are The Conversation Agnes Benji Kieran Culkin Jesse Eisenberg Paul Thomas Anderson Remmick Jack OConnell Jim Crow Sammie Miles Caton

In no particular order, here are The Conversation’s top five films of 2025 as reviewed by our experts.

1. One Battle After Another

The latest film from director Paul Thomas Anderson follows Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ageing hippie hero and a relic of a fictional noughties brigade, the French 75. Led by his lover Perfidia Beverley Hills (Teyana Taylor), they robbed banks, bombed buildings and liberated detention centres in the name of their ideology of “free borders, free choices, free from fear”.

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