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 from mere movie analysis with this one, and directs a few eerie dream sequences based on Pistorius’ own vague memories of his years of hallucinations as a bonus.

7. Sinners: Black twin gangster brothers return from Chicago to their small Mississippi town in 1932 to open a juke joint with the help of their guitar-prodigy cousin; the complication is, vampires show up on opening night. Moving from period piece to horror, this black spin on From Dusk Till Dawn is a bloody good time at the movies, with smoking musical numbers throughout. Although the movie is perhaps a little too long, the scene embedded below is one of the absolute best sequences of the year. This better win “Best Soundtrack” or there will be hell to pay…

6. Black Bag: A top British intelligence agent is given the task of ferreting out a traitor from 5 possible suspects—one of whom is his wife. James Bond for adults, with verbal cat and mouse games replacing car chases and a hero who’s devoted to marital harmony instead of chasing Bond girls. Subtlety rules as Steven Soderbergh masterfully underplays the tension and Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett nail stoic operatives who can’t betray an emotion to save their lives—unless they think they have something to gain. 

5. Little Amelie, or the Character of Rain: A 2 1/2 year old Belgian child living in Japan experiences the world for the first time and bonds with her Japanese nanny. Uniquely imaginative animation presented from the perspective of a child; it features bravura storybook scenes of Amelie having a psychedelic awakening from her first taste of chocolate, using giant wildflower petals as slides during her first experience of spring, and parting the sea like Moses on her first trip to the beach. The idea of leaning into childhood solipsism (Amelie believes herself to be God) is a sly and humorous motif, expanded from a Japanese folk belief. From the philosophical, fancifully autobiographical novel “Amélie et la métaphysique des tubes” by Amélie Nothomb (famous in Belgium).

4.  Weapons: In a small American town, all of the children from an elementary school class–except one–mysteriously disappear in a single night. This horror/mystery is beautifully scripted, mosaic-style, following individual characters who each hold a piece of the puzzle before finally coming together for a classically satisfying conclusion. Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys is what Nicolas Cage was supposed to be in Longlegs. I doubt director Zack Cregger has a better movie in him, but I’ll enjoy seeing him try.

3. One Battle After Another: A burnt-out former radical (Leonardo di Caprio) races to save his abducted daughter from a fascistic army colonel (Sean Penn). Tremendously entertaining, if at times excessively broad and logically strained, satire based very loosely on Thomas Pynchon‘s “Vineland,” containing more code words and secret passages than any other movie you’ll see this year. I preferred it when Paul Thomas Anderson went full Pynchon in Inherent Vice, but this slightly watered-down variant should mop up at the Oscars. Chase Infiniti, who plays abducted daughter Willa, has a name that Pynchon himself might have dreamed up for a minor revolutionary.

2. Universal Language: The lives of a civil servant, a tour guide, two girls searching for a way to thaw a banknote buried in the ice, and a turkey magnate collide in a Winnipeg where everyone inexplicably speaks Farsi. Matthew Rankin‘s sophomore feature feels like a breakout for the Winnipeg director set to take the crown of Canadian absurdity away from Guy Maddin with this bizarrely funny jaunt that ends on a surprisingly moving note. Also #3 overall on our staff consensus list of 2025’s Best Weird Movies.

1. Bugonia: With the aid of his dimwitted cousin, a troubled man (Jesse Plemons) kidnaps a corporate executive (Emma Stone) who he is certain is an Andromedan alien in disguise. Yorgos Lanthimos creates Hitchcockian tension in the battle of wits between the obstinate Plemons and the desperate Stone (who uses every rhetorical trick in the corporate book to try to talk her way out of captivity), breaks it up with black humor, and goes for broke in the apocalyptic finale. It’s a remake of the wonderful (and canonically weird) Korean cult hit Save the Green Planet! that improves on the original. Since almost no one (outside of the dedicated readers of this site) saw Green Planet, the plot will be new to most folks. Also #8 on our staff consensus list of 2025’s Best Weird Movies.

See you in 2026!