All The Best Movies of 2025 Are About Our World Crumbling Around Us

I love movies so much, and I love podcasts about movies a close second. That's why I gobble up everything by Sean Fennessey, one of the hosts of the Big Picture podcast, who has an excellent mind for movies.

So when he made this observation on Letterboxd the other day, I stopped to listen.

Sean writes a post titled Nothing Is OK: 2025 Movies in Hell. And in it he says, "Many of the year's best films are about the social despair of everyday life, told through the prism of middle-aged men who have felt power and vitality slip through their fingers."

And he made a list of all the 2025 movies that reflect this notion, and it really shook me. Looking at the slate of films that have defined this year, he’s right. It's all societal collapse and infighting.

As I sat there looking at the titles, I realized that labeling this trend as just "misery" or "dystopia" is missing the point.

These filmmakers aren't just painting a picture of a broken world to depress us. They are challenging us to make it a better place.

And we have to hear and accept it, or else this may be the end of the world as we know it.

Let's dive in.

'28 Years Later' Credit: Sony Pictures

Everything Is Bad And Nothing Is Okay

If you look at the box office this year, the theme is undeniable. We are obsessed with the End of Things.

From One Battle After Another to Bugonia to Eddington to The Running Man to Friendship and so on, we're living in a time where the best artists of our generation are talking about how the systems around us have failed.

We saw movies that took on immigration, the environment, social media, and just the discourse between human beings, both online and in person. These movies showed us everything from the rise of violence to the mass genocide of the entire human race.

The stark warnings, even if based in genre, are that people do not feel good about their lives right now.

But the movies aren't asking us to surrender.

They want us to be brave and to fight back.

'One Battle After Another' Credit: Warner Bros.

Bravery Is Contagious

Roger Ebert famously said that movies are machines that generate empathy. If you watched all these movies in 2025, you know that we're seeing a call to action.

These kinds of calls can be scary, because people always look for these giant ways to change the world. But I don't think that's what these movies want you to do. I think the moral of a lot of them is that the big swings you take mostly do not work. So why not take some small ones to make things better for your community, and hope that spreads across the globe?

I am a big believer in starting small and letting those actions spread.

A buddy of mine drops his kids off at school every day and always tells them to try to make someone else's day a little better.

To me, that's maybe the summary of the lessons of all the 2025 movies I have seen. What are we, the viewers, doing to help other people from day to day?

How are we doing a small, nice thing that can actually wind up saving the planet? Whether you think that's recycling, buying a stranger a coffee, or just being nice to someone who needs it, these actions can go a long way in making the world a better place, especially if we all chip in.

Otherwise, it's going to end us.

'Bugonia' Credit: Focus Features

Summing It Up

Fennessey’s list is titled "Nothing Is OK," and that’s a valid emotional starting point. But the job of the story—and the job of the audience receiving the story—is to decide that "Nothing Is OK" is unacceptable.

We cannot become complacent. We have to be active characters in our world.

Check out Sean’s list. Watch these movies. Let them break your heart. Let them make you angry.

And then, use that anger to build something better.

Go out and make the day better for someone else.