Michael Darvell Looks Back at the Year of 2025
Photo by Sabrina Lantos, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
The world of entertainment gets ever more complicated as the years go by. Certainly when it comes to films, the growth is exponential to the limits of our not being able to cope with so much material. So, to choose the best of anything is to fall short, as there is such a great choice, while some good material may have to be abandoned in the effort. Prior to the current age of recording and repeated showings, a programme or a film was lost virtually forever. Now, with hundreds of television channels, showing thousands of new films and series, plus the many catch-up and streaming facilities, everything is available instantly on tap, possibly for good and all.
Any selection of the year's best films can only be skimmed off the top of today's enormous output, as there is so much to consider. Films open in cinemas and often almost immediately appear online and on streaming platforms. The box-office returns for the cinema are based only on the footfall of going to the movies in-person and do not take into account any viewers watching at home. Studios and streamers notoriously keep home viewing figures under lock and key, but there is an occasional glimpse. In the early days of 2025, Universal reported that Wicked had minted $70 million in premium video on demand in just seven days. So, here we go, facing a lot of material out there in the foyers here and abroad, but only managing to cream off what we think is the best at the time.
First off are the runners-up, those films of 2025, the qualities of which I would hate to have missed such as the humanity of Mike Leigh's Hard Truths, Dolores Fonzi's gripping Belén, Nina Ye as the delightful Left-Handed Girl I-Jing, anti-book banning The Librarians, the power of Nickel Boys, the extraordinary killing in The Perfect Neighbour, the determination of Cillian Murphy in Steve, the madness of Grenfell Uncovered, the sad world of Sorry, Baby, and the perfect Toby Jones as Mr. Burton.
Michael Darvell’s Favourites
