What Does Sight & Sound Think Are the 50 Best Movies of 2025?

The BFI's annual Sight & Sound poll of the 50 best films isn't like the typical Hollywood year-end list.

It's a barometer of international cinematic health, judged by critics, curators, and academics. I love how diverse they get and how many titles on the list I have never heard of and get to seek out and see.

And what they saw in 2025 was a cinema fueled by rebellion and resourcefulness.

But what did they think were the 50 best movies that displayed those characteristics?

Let's dive in.

Sight & Sound's 50 Best Movies of 2025

'Sinners'Credit: Warner Bros.

A lot of work goes into making a list of the 50 best movies of the year. And with this list, you can see they have looked at cinema across the globe and picked some titles that may even surprise you.

Here is the complete ranked list of the 50 Best Films of 2025 as voted by the magazine's international pool of critics...

Rank	Film Title	Director
50	With Hasan in Gaza	Kamal Aljafari
49	What Does That Nature Say to You	Hong Sang-soo
48	The Phoenician Scheme	Wes Anderson
47	Oslo Stories Trilogy: Dreams	Dag Johan Haugerud
46	Nickel Boys	RaMell Ross
45	Miroirs No. 3	Christian Petzold
44	Landmarks	Lucrecia Martel
43	Highest 2 Lowest	Spike Lee
42	Hard Truths	Mike Leigh
41	Hamnet	Chloé Zhao
40	Die My Love	Lynne Ramsay
39	Cover-up	Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus
38	28 Years Later	Danny Boyle
37	Souleymane's Story	Boris Lojkine
36	Silent Friend	Ildikó Enyedi
35	The Shrouds	David Cronenberg
34	Remake	Ross McElwee
33	On Falling	Laura Carreira
32	My Father's Shadow	Akinola Davies Jr.
31	Father Mother Sister Brother	Jim Jarmusch
30	Cloud	Kiyoshi Kurosawa
29	Black Bag	Steven Soderbergh
28	Nouvelle Vague	Richard Linklater
27	The Love That Remains	Hlynur Pálmason
26	If I Had Legs I'd Kick You	Mary Bronstein
25	Eddington	Ari Aster
24	April	Dea Kulumbegashvili
23	Afternoons of Solitude	Albert Serra
22	Rose of Nevada	Mark Jenkin
21	A House of Dynamite	Kathryn Bigelow
20	Blue Moon	Richard Linklater
19	The Voice of Hind Rajab	Kaouther Ben Hania
18	The Ice Tower	Lucile Hadžihalilović
17	Blue Heron	Sophy Romvari
16	Pillion	Harry Lighton
15	No Other Choice	Park Chan-wook
14	Misericordia	Alain Guiraudie
13	Kontinental '25	Radu Jude
12	Sound of Falling	Mascha Schilinski
11	Sentimental Value	Joachim Trier
10	Resurrection	Bi Gan
9	Dry Leaf	Alexandre Koberidze
8	Weapons	Zach Cregger
7	Sorry, Baby	Eva Victor
6	It Was Just an Accident	Jafar Panahi
5	The Secret Agent	Kleber Mendonça Filho
4	Sirāt	Oliver Laxe
3	The Mastermind	Kelly Reichardt
2	Sinners	Ryan Coogler
1	One Battle After Another	Paul Thomas Anderson

Let us know what you think in the comments.