I watched dozens of new releases each year in order to publish a pretty encompassing ranking just before New Year's, but if I’m being honest, my favorite list to assemble isn’t the rankings, it’s this one. The dirty work of watching movies isn’t done by making 50-something trips to a movie theater (which is something I very much did) but by poking around on streaming services or going down Letterboxd rabbit holes to discover a movie from the ‘70s that reminds you what the art form is all about.

Was 2025 a fantastic year for new releases? Probably not. But every year is a great year for older stuff I’ve discovered (and rediscovered).

→ Favorite Discoveries and Rewatches of 2024

→ Favorite Discoveries and Rewatches of 2023

→ Favorite Discoveries and Rewatches of 2022

→ Favorite Discoveries and Rewatches of 2021

Get all of this in real time by following me on Letterboxd.

Lost Highway (1997)
dir. David Lynch

I watch a lot of movies and consider myself pretty film literate at this point in my life, but there are still filmmakers who make me feel like I know nothing. David Lynch's use of the medium boggles my mind. Sometimes this leaves me completely lost, and sometimes (namely with Mulholland Drive and now Lost Highway) it feels like I'm being shot straight through the forehead with a giant laser beam.

Lynch worked in a different artistic language than any other filmmaker I've seen, but when he's able to use that to achieve this level of emotional clarity, it's an experience I haven't been able to get anywhere else. Simply miraculous.

Lone Star (1996)
dir. John Sayles

"Gotta be careful where you go pokin'. Who knows what you'll find."

Whew. I watched this on the back of Adam Nayman's placement of this on the Eddington syllabus. So much of Aster's film maps onto this one that I'm actually a little surprised he hasn't cited it as inspiration himself. They're similar films––a small town standing in for America writ large, though while Aster's is pitched in his trademark shit-eating fervor, this one plays in a minor key, revealing itself to be surprisingly intricate and sneakily tragic, a cascading series of intergenerational wounds and sociopolitical tensions. The skeletons are in the dirt, but the ghosts are all around us.

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
dir. Wes Anderson

Anderson's best.

It's funny to look back on this with nearly a quarter-century (and eight features) worth of distance, because the work Anderson is doing now is unquestionably different, which is a bit surprising for an artist I associate with stylistic consistency. I think the commonly held opinion, at least by the loudest voices, is that his movies have gotten worse from his early period, but I disagree entirely. He's now unquestionably more labyrinthine, and his dollhouse machinations are even more strict, but Asteroid City is probably my second favorite of his.

In that film, warmth and earnestness are a vein to be tapped. Here it's all just spilling out on the surface. It's not actually how I prefer his work, but if you watch this and aren't moved, you are soulless. "I've had a rough year, Dad" is absolutely gutting.

Hackman, of course, is the secret sauce. Anderson has a great troupe, but the performance he got from Hackman here is just a different caliber.

Body Double (1984)
dir. Brian De Palma

Kind of accidentally forms the connective tissue between Rear Window/Vertigo and Mulholland Drive. And, like Lynch's film, it's the kind of thing I feel fully comfortable dubbing a masterpiece, even before I've sorted through it.

De Palma, god bless him, has so many other major movies that I don't often hear this one cited as his opus, but it probably should be. He's got the whole bag here. Several scenes manage to morph from full Hitchcock to ridiculous farce to garish indulgence, all the way back to sheer movie magic without breaking stride.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
dir. Charles Laughton

"It's a hard world for little things."

Feels like one of those weird oddities of children's media (often animated) you don't realize is strange and kind of disturbing until you get older, except this one's live-action and shot in 1955. A lot of this feels tonally in line with something like Leave It to Beaver––a show that premiered two years later––while thematically it reads as a rebuke of everything that show is about, or is at least very cynical about the promises of religious authority, the nuclear family, etc.

Mitchum is flawless, and the black-and-white photography might be the best I've ever seen. I'm instantly in love.

Chinatown (1974)
dir. Roman Polanski

"Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What could you buy that you can't already afford?"
"The future, Mr. Gittes! The future."

Still makes me feel absolutely terrible. Perfect movie.

Prince of Broadway (2008)
dir. Sean Baker

Painting America (represented here by New York City) as a land of deception is hardly new, but I can't think of another film that so successfully reckons with the complexity of that idea and its manifestations: Green card marriages, undocumented immigrants, paternity tests, and counterfeit purses. And yet the story's ultimate revealing lens comes from the lies we tell to ourselves and the cons we secretly hope are real. (Is there a little bit of Paper Moon here?)

A lot has been said in recent years about Sean Baker's penchant for centering his stories on marginalized characters, and I'm not sure I have a strong enough opinion on that to weigh in, but I think a story like this is a great rebuttal. These are complicated characters and I think their sins and shortcomings are not only depicted with empathy but are also simply inconsequential to their circumstances and instead speak to a larger, universal experience.

Absolutely wrenching stuff. Right up there with Baker's best, and certainly his pre-breakout crowning achievement.

Body Heat (1981)
dir. Lawrence Kasdan

"The wind chimes on my porch. They keep ringing and I go out there, expecting a cool breeze. That's what they've always meant. But not this year. This year it's just hot air."

Possibly the most neo-noir-y neo-noir I've ever seen––nearly to the point of parody. It's almost impossibly sweaty, dirty, doomed, shadowy, foggy, and jazzy. If you don't hit the Leaning Forward In Chair Meme when that score kicks in during the opening titles, then we simply do not watch movies in the same way.

I wish it had the mercy to move about 10% quicker, but I suppose its methodical pace is sorta the point. Those ratchet straps are like a torture device by the final moment. And like any neo-noir (or erotic thriller), it passes the almighty test: "Yeah, that guy had it coming, but I can't say I blame him."

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
dir. Paul Schrader

Structurally ambitious and yet so emotionally centered that I never found myself disoriented, which is an incredible stunt. Schrader is good at bringing viewers to a place of emotional resonance and then using wild narrative and stylistic ripples to really effective ends. (See, for example, the flying scene in First Reformed.) Here, he's built a whole film around that kind of ability, leaping all over the place but never losing balance or clarity.

I was wondering how Schrader, a guy who makes movies about decaying American men, was going to fit into a story about a mid-century Japanese author. And now I see that's how.

High and Low (1963)
dir. Akira Kurosawa

Incredible that this opens with an unexplained discussion of shoe manufacturing before a brief phone call locks into place a pretty complicated set of social dynamics, setting the stage for the next 130 minutes. Can't think of many movies that clarify so strongly and quickly. Across the span of about 60 seconds, you understand exactly what Kurosawa is going to pick apart.

And also incredible that parts of this feel staid and traditional, owing to being six decades old, and yet other parts manage to feel plucked directly from contemporary cinema and masked with a black-and-white filter. Tsutomu Yamazaki in those mirror shades... my god. Indelible.

Sturdy, timeless filmmaking––cinema as an empathy machine. Reminds me a lot of 12 Angry Men in that way.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
dir. Jacques Demy

I made a point to eventually get to this a couple of years ago because of how often it was referenced in relation to some of the more ambitious visual ideas in Barbie. Turns out this is a lot more La La Land––the ecstasy and fantasy of the movies, cast upon the real world. Every frame is a masterpiece, every line is a song, and every narrative beat is the opposite. Hard to imagine me––a person who does not really like musicals––liking a 50-year-old musical in a foreign language any more than I liked this.

Out of Sight (1998)
dir. Steven Soderbergh

"It'd be worth the risk."

I love the feeling of returning to a movie under the suspicion I'd overlooked it on my first viewing and being proven absolutely correct. Not sure why I didn't fawn over this out of the gate, although I have watched 1,000-something movies since the last time I caught this, so I suppose my appreciation for this type of thing has just grown naturally.

What's not to like here? Two incredibly sexy stars peaking right in front of us, surrounded by a bulletproof ensemble (is this cast somehow better than Ocean's Eleven?), and shot in this incredibly sultry, woozy way. A sneaky "they don't make 'em like this anymore" type of movie. We don't really have stars quite like these two in 2025, and if we did, I'm not sure we'd put them in a smart, sexy, funny caper built for the masses.

I write about this too often, but George Clooney, despite a limited acting range, is in like six movies that are at least this good. Kind of one of my favorite filmographies.

Soderbergh Mt. Rushmore for me.

To Die For (1995)
dir. Gus Van Sant

"There are some people who never know who they are or who they wanna be until it's too late, and that is a real tragedy in my book, because I always knew who I was and who I wanted to be. Always."

Together with Truman Show forms a remarkable, prescient view of what fame would become in the 21st century––be it the viral, voyeuristic kind or (in To Die For's case) a variety much more self-managed and paid for within the strictures of a nasty, broken system.

It's yet another brave performance in a career of them for Nicole Kidman, but it's also a clear Joaquin Phoenix breakout. So funny and tragic.

Lilo & Stitch (2002)
dir. Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois

This was a childhood favorite of mine. Haven’t watched it in at least 20 years.

Pretty funny (or maybe just sad) that we got a live-action remake of Lilo & Stitch before Disney Animation made a single other movie as good.

The remake makes perfect business sense to me, of course. But the idea is so artistically bankrupt. This one’s perfect and so clearly dependent on its animation. Just a gorgeous movie. Will never watch the new one. 🥰

Metropolitan (1990)
dir. Whit Stillman

Feels so much like the first ripple in a wave that would bring us stuff like Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, not just in its themes (privileged but bored and disaffected youth with a strong point of view but without the sense or wisdom to defend it) but because these talky characters give just enough of themselves to feel three-dimensional. By the time the credits began to roll, I'd begun to feel like I knew them. It's surprising how rarely that happens. Just really subtly wonderful.

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

"I don't know if there is anything wrong because I don't know how other people are."

The last time I watched this, I was struck by how much of myself I saw in Barry Egan (still the case; not good!). But this time, I can't help but feel this is almost prescient in its depiction of a distinctly modern condition. I was only 10 when this came out, so I can't say whether this is how the world felt in 2002, but I think in 2025 we're all kind of isolated and paranoid, desperately searching for connection amid a hostile world. (It's apparently relevant enough that Friendship, a successful film in its own right, is able to pull a lot of these ideas.)

It's hard to watch this and not notice everything PTA (and Elswit) are doing visually. The first three films in his filmography represent an achievement in cinematography, but they're getting most of their visual flair from blocking and camera movement. Here, PTA takes his first truly internal film and turns it inside out, making real Choices with color, lighting, lenses, etc. Gorgeous! Incredibly endearing! A charm nuke!

Probably the PTA film that’s grown on me most in the past couple years.

Made In Hong Kong (1997)
dir. Fruit Chan

"The world is moving much too fast. So fast, that when you finally get to fit in with it, it's become another brand new world."

My god. A spinning, swirling story of regret, loss, and abandonment. It's a story of what it's like to be 18 and feel like you've already lost all your chips and crashed straight into a dead-end that also happens to work really well as a metaphor for a city in a similar crisis.

It's gorgeous, and it also feels like trying to run in quicksand.

Election (1999)
dir. Alexander Payne

A revelation.

It reminds me a lot of Rian Johnson's Brick––not because they're both high school movies, but because they're early career works (this is not quite a debut) that are almost gobsmackingly fully formed. Stylized and distinct. Feels tried-and-true while still leaving space for the unexpected. Kind of the perfect little snowflake of a movie, bringing everything I love about Payne, but doing it with a kind of Midwest debaucherous freakout that reminds me a lot of the Coen brothers.

My Darling Clementine (1946)
dir. John Ford

I consider myself a Doc Holliday type: gunslinger, heartbreaker, Shakespeare appreciator, licensed surgeon.

(The fellas firing guns at one another or galloping on horses across American vistas is just inherently the most cinematic stuff we’ve ever come up with as humans.)

Time Indefinite (1993)
dir. Ross McElwee

"And the trees are coming back to life and nobody cares or even remembers."

I am not a movie crier, but I found myself on the verge of tears for the entire second half of this. It's an absolutely blistering depiction of life, loss, love, and the things that stand the test of time within each of us while their once-steady mark on the rest of the world vanishes in an instant. It does the thing the best documentaries do in channeling moments (sometimes at a rapid pace) that defy anything you could create in a purely narrative film. McElwee's calling card is Sherman's March, but this de facto sequel is a more focused and miraculous piece of work.

So very John Wilson. I haven't found any instance of Wilson talking about McElwee's work, but the inspiration feels uncanny: Video essays/diaries with wry humor and creeping emotionality.

The American Friend (1977)
dir. Wim Wenders

Makes me feel absolutely terrible. Looks absolutely wonderful. The best kind of movie. Seriously, the stuff Müller is doing with color and light is some of the very best I've ever seen. Staggering work. No less than half a dozen moments that will have any cinematography sicko giggling.

Everyone has that one American Friend.*

*Dennis Hopper in a cowboy hat, being a disheveled and conniving sociopath.

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
dir. Chantal Akerman

Five years ago, I watched (as far as Letterboxd knows) my 1,000th movie: Citizen Kane. It was part earnest choice and part dumb joke––watching 999 movies before finally deciding to watch “the best one.”

Jeanne Dielman is (as far as Letterboxd knows) my 2,000th movie. Since Sight and Sound’s poll ranked it #1 in 2022, it’s been on my watchlist, but I saved it for this occasion––making it, again, part earnest choice and part dumb joke. I watched 1,999 movies before finally getting to “the best one.”

The canon is funny, and I think it’s really daunting for people trying to get into film. Expectations are almost always a bad thing. Going into a movie expecting to see the greatest thing you’ve ever seen is silly, just as it was with Citizen Kane for so many people. (Personally, I’m much more swept away by Casablanca, entertained by The Godfather, impressed by 2001, and stirred by Stalker than either my 1,000th or 2,000th movies.)

And yet, for as silly and pointless as it is to try to determine a canon around something so subjective, I really love it––and I think it matters, if for nothing else than freezing in time a culture’s attitude around something like film. Citizen Kane is brilliant, but it really couldn’t be more different than Jeanne Dielman––a movie that was met with (some) praise upon its release 50 years ago, but had to wait until 2022 to inevitably collide with culture at large: a meaningless recognition and an important milestone at once.

The film is as much an exercise in forced minimalism as it is a flexing of subtle vibrance; as much a feminist commentary on labor as it is a simple recognition of the fact that no child will ever appreciate the sacrifices their parents made––at least not in time. And it’s as much another entry in a long list of really great, important movies as it is, I guess, the greatest of them all.