It’s that time of the year again. The time of year when we look at all of the movies we watched over the past 12 months and pick the best of the best. Welcome to the best sci-fi, fantasy, and horror movies of 2025.
So what made the cut? Where do your favorites rank? Let’s run it down and see how it all played out.
Payakan is ready for his close-up. © 20th Century Studios15. Avatar: Fire and Ash
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times. Never doubt James Cameron. The man who made Aliens, Terminator 2, Titanic, and more doesn’t waste years of his life on something that’s not epic and awesome, and Avatar: Fire and Ash is certainly that. In fact, if anything, it might be a little too epic and awesome because it does feel like three movies turned into one. But this time around, Cameron gets deeper, goes darker, and leaves Pandora in a place where this could be the end, but we hope it’s not. Read our review here.
14. Predator: Badlands
Who would’ve thought Predator would be one of the most versatile franchises around today? With Badlands, director Dan Trachtenberg gives the series its first theatrical installment in years and shows it can comfortably slip into more action-adventure territory. It’s such a compelling and charming movie and so well made that if we’re lucky, it won’t be too long before Dek and Thia grace the big screen again. Read our review here.
13. Final Destination Bloodlines
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so by that logic, we fell in love with Final Destination Bloodlines after the first trailer dropped. Great kill after great kill and a sweet sendoff for Tony Todd made this worth waiting 14 years for, and a pivot to theaters for, and it’s the type of movie that’s great on its own and with a crowd. Here’s our review.
12. The Long Walk
We’re still kind of stunned by how powerful The Long Walk is. The idea is so simple. The execution of it is so grounded. And the relationships built in this harrowing, violent, post-apocalyptic landscape are so touching and relatable. Director Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of this Stephen King story is a film that flew under the radar this year but, in the years to come, will be viewed as one of the best King adaptations ever. It’s a perfect balance of horror violence, thematic resonance, and acting magnificence. Read our review here.
11. KPop Demon Hunters
There’s a good reason KPop Demon Hunters became one of the most talked-about movies of 2025. It’s easy to say that the movie’s status as a streaming exclusive—passed to Netflix by Sony as part of a broader deal—gave people easier access than a theatrical release. But it’s stayed in people’s hearts and minds ever since it debuted this summer for its winning trifecta of a K-pop soundtrack replete with earworms; a wonderfully sincere voice cast performance that made main trio Rumi, Zoey, and Mira standout characters; and sumptuous animation that could dazzle and make us giggle in equal measure. This was Huntr/X’s year, and they definitely showed us how it’s done, done, done. Here’s our review.
© Hulu10. Predator: Killer of Killers
Thank goodness Prey wasn’t a fluke, and the Predator franchise got three great installments in as many years. With an anthology structure that includes Vikings, ninjas, and WWII pilots, Killer of Killers feels like a film made for the fans even more than its live-action sibling Badlands. It’s not scary, but it’s got one slick action beat after another, some engaging characters, and looks great to boot. Now if only it could be in theaters. Here’s our review.
9. Presence
Remember earlier this year when Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh made a first-person POV ghost movie that everyone was talking about? Unfortunately, only the first part of that is true. Most people didn’t talk about Presence, but they should have. Soderbergh did indeed make a first-person POV ghost movie that turns the horror genre on its head by allowing us to both think and experience life from the other side of existence. It’s not scary, but it’s very creepy and insanely beautiful and poignant.
8. Ne Zha 2
Ne Zha 2 is an animated film we’ll probably forever feel a touch of melancholy about, because we won’t be able to experience it in IMAX for the first time again. Granted, the film front-loads itself to catch moviegoers up to speed, assuming they hadn’t watched the first film, but the feeling of being overwhelmed stretches on in a more hyped-up way. This movie never lets off the gas; it’s got gross-out humor to pop the kids in the audience, some poignant writing for the parents to get misty-eyed, and some surprisingly brutal and fully realized action choreography that puts both other animated and live-action features to shame. It’s a film that feels undersold, no matter how hard you try to put into words how engrossing it is, and everyone owes it to themselves to watch it and discover that for themselves. Here’s our review.
7. Weapons
Zach Cregger’s follow-up to his 2022 breakout Barbarian is another wild, unpredictable horror ride, but Weapons levels up in both scope and story. The premise—one day, without warning, an entire class of kids goes missing—is intriguing, and the explanation behind the mystery (as well as how all the characters react to it) gets scarier the deeper Weapons digs into it. And aside from an entertaining ride, the movie also gave us another gift: an instant and lasting horror icon in Aunt Gladys. Read our review here.
6. Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro’s return to the gothic was one of the year’s most anticipated for good reason, and the wait well and truly paid off with this gorgeously melancholic take on both the legendary monster and its titular creator. Frankenstein is awe-inspiring to look at in practically every shot, but beyond its delicious cinematography and inspiring production design, it’s the story of Jacob Elordi’s creature and its complicated relationship with Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein that makes it such a wonderful standout. Here’s our review.
The Life of Chuck © Neon5. The Life of Chuck
So if we said that The Long Walk at #12 was going to be remembered as one of the great Stephen King adaptations of all time, what does that say about The Life of Chuck here at #5? Well, the same thing, really. King’s work just had a great year. Case in point, this wholly earnest Mike Flanagan adaptation has it all. It’s wondrous. It’s mysterious. It’s heartbreaking, beautiful, and revelatory all rolled into one. The film explores the life of a man, told in reverse, as a way to dissect what’s really important—and we haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since we saw it. Read our review here.
4. Bugonia
The latest collaboration between director Yorgos Lanthimos and star Emma Stone adapts the 2003 South Korean sci-fi film Save the Green Planet!, though it feels like a story eerily of the here and now. Stone plays a CEO whose corporate-honed powers of manipulation prove only somewhat useful when she’s kidnapped by a conspiracy theory-obsessed man (Jesse Plemons) who’s convinced she’s an alien plotting to destroy Earth. The truth emerges, eventually, but the tense, freaky, thought-provoking journey Bugonia takes to get there is the movie’s real reward. Here’s our review.
3. Superman
James Gunn’s return to superhero moviedom had the weight of the world on its shoulders—or really two, between Earth and Krypton. The new DC cinematic movieverse thankfully kicked off with an immediate charm in Superman, rooted in David Corenswet’s fantastic turn as the Man of Steel. With effervescent chemistry with both friends and foes, Corenswet leads an all-star cast to give us not just one of the best Superman performances of the 21st century, but the thing Superman has been giving us for generations of comics: hope for a better tomorrow. Read our review here.
2. Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc
A very short list of films evoked the uncanny sense of the insurmountable creative weight of an entire country’s artistic merits on display this year, but Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc was one of them. While the film does have the caveat of adapting a manga arc exclusively for theaters—a trend we’ve seen to varying effect in anime of late—what it did as an adaptation was nothing short of incredible. Chainsaw Man exists as an anomaly in the anime universe. A seinen series in shonen clothing. Something that always felt too weird to break into the mainstream, let alone be in theaters as a bona fide movie. But Tatsuki Fujimoto’s tale about a boy (with chainsaws for arms and a head) and his summer romance (with an explosive, manic pixie dream girl) hit home as a story that was as viscerally romantic as it was crushingly heartbreaking.
What’s more, it was a whole cinematic experience, not a stitched-together chimera of anime episodes shuffled into cinemas with a cliffhanger ending. It was a complete, resolutely told tale. Sure, it hasn’t gotten the award nods of its contemporaries, but Reze Arc was the best animated movie of the year. Here’s our review.
© Warner Bros.1. Sinners
Sinners is a cool, slick, gory vampire movie. Sinners is a powerful character study of twin brothers struggling to survive. Sinners is a love letter to music, history, and culture. Sinners is all of those things and more, which, on paper, might seem impossible. But in the hands of director Ryan Coogler, along with his frequent star Michael B. Jordan, it all worked masterfully. Sinners is one of those rare movies that transcends genre and classification as a way to achieve perfection. It’s wildly original, surprising, imaginative, and more. One of those movies that does everything so right it feels like a miracle. Which Sinners most certainly is. Here’s our review.
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