The Geek's Best of 2025: Movie of the Year

Our lock back at my Best of 2025 continues, this time with movies! It was a very special time going to the cinema in 2025. After being content with waiting for blockbuster movies to hit streaming, this year was packed with movies that I really needed to see on the biggest screen possible.

Let’s take a look at the movies I watched this year—and why one of them stood above the rest!

Superhero Movies Are Fun Again

Let’s be honest, superhero movies haven’t been good since Avengers:Endgame. What used to be a pop culture monolith has now become the butt of jokes. But there was something about 2025 that injected energy into the genre that it desperately needed.

Sure, I had to sit through Captain America: Brave New World, but it was worth it to see what came next—Thunderbolts* going back to basics with an amazing ensemble cast and a simple story buoyed by heavy themes, Superman bringing color and hope back to superhero movies, and Fantastic Four: First Steps finally giving Marvel’s first family and Galactus justice on the big screen.

Animated Movies Are a High Point

2025 was another year that animation proved it’s not a genre but a medium worthy of cinematic merit. My wife and I enjoyed some of the best animated movies this year, from the stylish and brutal Predator: Killer of Killers to the unapologetically energetic and fun global phenom that is K-Pop Demon Hunters. We desperately need more well-made, original animated movies like these!

Genre Films Are a Welcome Surprise

It wasn’t just the blockbusters that stood out for me in 2025—it was the genre films that took risks and entertained regardless.

Even though horror isn't my cup of tea, movies like 28 Years Later, Weapons, and Sinners blew me away with their scares but also with their themes of loss, faith, trauma, and power. Speaking of power, Frankenstein was such a beautifully visceral movie that it deserves all the praise it's getting.

Ballerina then pleasantly surprised me with a fun “John Wick”-style action romp that didn’t feel derivative, while A House of Dynamite exacerbated my anxiety with a taut thriller that sliced too close for comfort. And even as the year ends, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery scratched that whodunnit itch I've been craving for this whole time.

The Franchises and the Familiar

As sure as death and taxes, Hollywood chugs along this year with franchise entries that are a mixed bag. The Old Guard 2 may have ruined my appetite for sequels, but Jurassic World Rebirth brought some Spielbergian charm to this otherwise familiar retread.

And The Geek's Movie of the Year is...

Superman!

Out of everything I watched in 2025, Superman stands above the rest for me.

Not just because it was James Gunn at his most unhinged, or the pitch-perfect casting of David Corenswet, or the fact that it's really just a fun time at the movies. But because in an age of cynical cinema and even more cynical reality, Superman dared to be bright and colorful and hopeful.

In a year full of great movies, Superman felt both timeless and timely with a lesson everyone really needs right now: kindness is punk rock.

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It was a great year for movies for me! Congratulations, Superman! And I hope more movies like you come out next year. Thanks for reading and I hope you've had a great year! See you in 2026!