Will 2026 be the last year of cinema? Yes, if the prophets of the Netflixpocalypse are correct. But I’ll remain a contrarian on that score and suggest movies will continue on as they always have for the foreseeable future.

Here is my obligatory/traditional annual top 10 list of movies, ranked according to mainstream standards. In other words, weird movies are allowed on this list, but I attempt to rank the 2024 releases according to their general cinematic merit, intended for people who don’t specialize in the surrealer genres. We will announce our staff consensus top 10 weird movies of 2025 on this week’s Pod 366 released on Friday (print list to follow).

There are a fair number of films that might have made this list but for the fact that I didn’t have time to get to them in 2025, including, most notably, Chan-wook Park‘s No Other Choice and Brazil’s international contender The Secret Agent. I expect to see them, and some other worthy movies I hadn’t considered, before awards voting season concludes in mid-January. Some of them may end up deserving inclusion here.

Before the official top ten starts, here are ten honorable mentions, in alphabetical order: Bad Guys 2, Boys Go to Jupiter, Companion, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle;  Eddington, Kill the Jockey, Reflection in a Dead Diamond, The Surfer, The Ugly Stepsister, and Warfare.

And now, the official list:

10. Paddington in Peru: Marmalade-loving bear Paddington travels to Peru to visit his Aunt Lucy, but when he arrives he discovers she has mysteriously disappeared, and he must venture into the Amazon jungle to find her. I don’t really care about the Paddington mythos or canon; I’m just here for the jokes, Olivia Colman as a guitar-playing nun, Antonio Banderas as a seedy riverboat captain and his own ancestors, and Werner Herzog references.

9. Sketch: Young Amber, being raised along with her brother by a single father after her mother’s death, draws pictures of monsters when she gets mad at people—but what will she do when the sketches come to life and start rampaging through town? Exceptional kids’ horror with comedy, kooky monsters, genuine suspense and scares, and a meaningful message that’s psychologically astute but simple enough for kid to grasp. Tony Hale is great as the bereaved father, and the kid acting is superior. Angel Films is a “faith-based” company (producers of the somewhat embarrassing Sound of Freedom, among others), but there is no preachiness (and scant religion) to be found here. Some people were turned off by the ad for a “Sketch” phone app that plays during the end credits, though.

8. Ghost Boy: A 12-year old boy develops a mysterious neurological condition that leaves him in a coma, then conscious but paralyzed and unable to speak; years later, he improves to the point where he’s able to use a speech computer to tell his story. This documentary begins as the ultimate real-life horror story about a man “marooned on the island of myself,” which makes Martin Pistorius’ eventual recovery emotionally profound. Director Rodney Ascher moves away Continue reading TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2025: MAINSTREAM EDITION →

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Here is my obligatory/traditional annual top 10 list of movies, ranked according to mainstream standards. In other words, weird movies are allowed on this list, but I attempt to rank the 2024 releases according to their general cinematic merit, intended for people who don’t specialize in the surrealer genres. We will announce our staff consensus top 10 weird movies of 2024 on this week’s Pod 366 released on Friday (print list to follow).

There are a fair number of films that might have made this list but for the fact that I didn’t have time to get to them in 2024, including, most notably, Sean Baker’s Anora and Robert Eggers‘ Nosferatu. I expect to see them, and maybe some other worthy movies I hadn’t considered, before awards voting season concludes in mid-January. Some of them may end up deserving inclusion here.

Before the official top ten starts, here are ten honorable mentions, in alphabetical order: Alien: Romulus, Animalia, Daaaaalí!, Juror #2, Kinds of Kindness, Megalopolis, Rumours, Santosh, Strange Darling, and The Wild Robot.

And now, the official list:

10. Hit Man: An undercover cop posing as a hit man falls for a woman who solicits his murder-for-hire services. Sounds like a fine film noir premise—and there is tension in the climax—but it plays out like a black romantic comedy. Solidly directed by Richard Linklater, but the discussion rightfully revolves around the performance of Glen Powell, who dresses up (at one point donning a Tilda Swinton wig) to portray a dozen or so individual killers. Briefly released to theaters in order to qualify for the Academy Awards, but most people who saw it did so on Netflix. (There is some controversy in the film world about Netflix’s recent failure to give their projects decent theatrical runs, preferring instead to use even their prestige pictures as digital inventory). Based (very loosely!) on a true story, in that there are no such things as killers-for-hire: they are all undercover law enforcement agents. Think about that when considering how you want to bump off your spouse (just another friendly tip from 366 Weird Movies!)

9. Challengers: Tennis prodigies Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and Art (Mike Faist) meet the enchanting, and even more talented, Tashi (Zendaya) as teens; the trio’s careers take different paths as they form a love triangle over a decade, until Patrick and Art find themselves matched in the finals of a U.S. Open qualifying tournament for their first head-to-head meeting as professionals. The script serves up all the angles with these characters, and you can form a case for rooting for or against any of them. I side with audiences who find the inconclusive ending a bit disappointing, but it doesn’t undo all the good points that came before. The match sequences are thrilling, brilliantly edited and shot from unusual angles, Zendaya is scorchingly hot in a tennis skirt, and there’s a pretty obvious homoerotic subtext for those who dig that kind of thing. From Luca Guadagnino.

8. Mars Express: A pair of private detectives on terraformed Mars investigate the death of a cybernetics student, which (naturally) Continue reading TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2024: MAINSTREAM EDITION →