Welcome to the 2025 SiftPop.com Sifties!
This year, the SiftPop writers came together to nominate five films for Best Movie. There is always a good deal of subjectivity that goes into an award like this, but there were five movies that stood out as clear favorites of the group:
Weapons has perhaps everything one might want from a movie. It’s highly entertaining on a basic level, being a movie that just about anyone could get into. But it also has deep thematic work beneath the surface, excellent performances, an unpredictable screenplay, an exciting visual language, enough laughs to last the whole year in movies, and of course the scares you’re looking for in a horror movie. Basically half of why the film works is on premise alone, but everything else it offers is a nice bonus.
The Knives Out films have survived (and thrived in) a pandemic, years-long breaks, and the streaming hell that has become the number one killer of movie franchises. The latest, Wake Up Dead Man, gives us two and a half more glorious hours with Daniel Craig’s verbose Southern sleuth Benoit Blanc, but more importantly, it gives us another vehicle for one of the best actors of his generation: Josh O’Connor. He plays Father Jud Duplenticy, a young priest caught in the middle of a sinister murder plot. O’Connor is the protagonist of the film, but the star-studded ensemble (a trademark of the franchise) is a delightful, funnier counter-balance to the serious discussions about faith that writer/director Rian Johnson conducts through Father Jud’s journey. You could say that Wake Up Dead Man is just another Knives Out film, but that is in no way a bad thing; Johnson has yet to let down his devoted audience, and his latest is a perfect addition to the mystery series that never fails to make us laugh, gasp, and cheer.
There are movies, and there are films. One Battle After Another is a film. Paul Thomas Anderson fires on all cylinders, creating the most high-energy, propulsive film of his career. To list every impressive quality of One Battle would be to construct an entry far too long for this particular blurb, but needless to say, the filmmaking is immaculate. The performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro, and Chase Infiniti are outstanding, the Johnny Greenwood score is electric, and Michael Bauman’s cinematography finds new ways of shooting to make a scene as classic as a car chase compelling in a way never seen before. One Battle is a complete meal of a film, simultaneously highly watchable, unexpectedly emotional, and endlessly thought-provoking.
Take Uncut Gems, one of the most widely acclaimed movies of the last decade, bring its energy and vibes to a movie about ping pong, Timothée Chalamet’s movie star charisma, and a level of heart you wouldn’t expect from a Safdie brother movie, and you get Marty Supreme. It’s a deeply exciting movie because of its propulsive editing and anachronistic ’80s score in a ’50s-set movie. Add on some welcomed emotional maturity to boot, and you’re in for a rollicking good time.
Sinners did the unthinkable this year. Not only was it a rousing success at the box office, but it also blends together genres like horror, musicals, dramas, and thinkpieces in a masterful way. Ryan Coogler has given us a magnum opus that helps tell the story of a group of vampires who represent racism in the Jim Crow South. The magic trick that Coogler performs with the cast and the story cannot be underscored enough. Sinners will be talked about for years to come because it’s an original movie with amazing performances, outstanding sets and costumes, and music to die for. The scene where Sammie plays the guitar at the juke joint might go down as one of the most transcendent moments in movie history this century. It’s such a dazzling moment in a pristine movie.
Make sure to check out the previous 2025 Sifties winners!