Looking back on the first six months of 2025, I find only two certified classics (”Sinners” and “Sorry, Baby”) with a solid chance to make good at the Oscars. The best of the rest include one true-blue crowdpleaser—sorry, Tom Cruise, I’m talking about Brad Pitt in “F1,” one bruising combat film (“Warfare”), one hot horror show (“28 Years Later” edging out “Companion”), one Steven Soderbergh thriller (“Black Bag,” prevailing over “Presence”), one personal documentary (“My Mom Jayne” pulling ahead of “One to One: John & Yoko”) and one sexy package of weird (“Misericordia” that has that field all to itself).
I expect to be dinged for neglecting the big three kid-friendly blockbusters (“A Minecraft Movie,” “Lilo & Stitch” and “How to Train Your Dragon”). Sorry, but I’d rather blow critic dust on the work of a great director who deserves attention even when she’s slightly off her game. I’m talking about Celine Song’s “Materialists” outdoing Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme” and Bong Joon-ho’s ”Mickey 17.”
That’s 9 best picks from me. I’m leaving the No. 10 spot open for you to fill in. Cast your votes in the comments and the winner will show up right here on The Travers Take.
1 - “Sinners”
If I had to stop the clock right now in July and hand out the Oscar for Best Picture, my choice would be “Sinners,” an artful challenge disguised as a blood-lusting vampire free-for-all. Leave it to the knockout team of actor Michael B. Jordan and director Ryan Coogler to have audiences lining up to sample their unique brand of cinema pow. That happens when a game-changer suddenly appears to shake things up in a multiplex drowning in formula. “Sinners” is like nothing you’ve ever seen. It’s divisive, dangerous and primed to explode. I couldn’t have liked it more.
Peter Travers
2 - “Sorry, Baby”
Gifted newcomer Eva Victor uses humor and heart to carve a tale of recovery out of her own DNA and delivers a film to rank with the year’s very best. Though this stunning debut feature stays small in size, it has the power to sneak up and floor you. The title alone, “Sorry, Baby,” seems apologetic about itself. It's as if she was saying, please don’t make a fuss. Well, I'm going to anyway. Life will go on for Victor's traumatized character Agnes; it’s in the bones of the vital script. The traditional Hollywood ending in which happiness is found in someone’s loving arms is not for Victor or anyone who respects the demands of a workable recovery process. Victor has the artist’s gift for accumulating small details into a full-scale human portrait that takes a piece out of you.
Peter Travers
3 - “Warfare”
Not an easy watch, but an essential one. That describes the incendiary, indelible, near-documentary effect of this unique film collaboration between directors Alex Garland (“Civil War,” “Ex Machina”) and Ray Mendoza. It’s based on Mendoza’s experiences as a U.S. Navy SEAL during the Iraq War on Nov. 19, 2006, just after the battle of Ramadi. The recreation is stunning as Mendoza, played by D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and his team take over a civilian home in an Al Qaeda-controlled residential area in order to secure safe passage for American ground forces.
Presented in real time, the film follows the team’s discovery by insurgents and the resulting chaos when a grenade is tossed in their midst. The actors, including Will Poulter, Kit Connor, Joseph Quinn, Charles Melton and Cosmo Jarvis as Elliott Miller, the soldier who lost his leg and to whom the film is dedicated. You may stop breathing from the tension in this remarkable achievement.
4 - “F1: The Movie”
“F1: The Movie” doesn’t spell out “Formula One” in the title, probably because formula, as in same-old-same-old, is what kills most racing movies. All those wheels going round and round, especially for two hours and 36 minutes, can lull you into a trance or worse, a rut. What’s needed in the driver’s seat is a star who can also act, and “F1” has a humdinger in Brad Pitt. Even with a racing helmet covering most of his face, Pitt’s eyes shine on their highest beams, reflecting a classic hotness that defines the art of aging gracefully.
Pitt seems to be having the time of his life, and his joy in the vroom is contagious, but what sticks about his performance is the way he makes sure that we never lose sight of what’s human and striving behind the wheel.
Peter Travers
5 - “28 Years Later”
This zombie epic takes a big swing at what marks the difference between humans and monsters. Before this fearfest comes apart at the seams in its tonally erratic final stretch, we join the family at the core of the film. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his wife Isla (Jodie Comer) and their 12-year-old son Spike (sensational newcomer Alfie Williams) are part of a small community of survivors. Their existence sets off a series of gory confrontations too good to spoil, though watching father and son try to escape an Alpha zombie rushing after them in leaps and bounds is the stuff of nightmares.
Director Danny Boyle is famous for the speedy zombies from the first film, “28 Days Later,” but they come in all sizes and speeds this time. It’s up to screenwriter Alex Garland to set the emotional depth charges, especially in scenes with a mad doctor, strikingly played by Ralph Fiennes. You can feel the isolation in your bones as Boyle ratchets up the tension past unbearable.
Peter Travers
6 - “Black Bag”
This all-star thriller shows director Steven Soderbergh at his stealthy, subversive best. And what star power! Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbinder are dynamite as two married spies, still hot for each other and currently wondering if the other is a mole ready to bring down their elite group of British intelligence agents known as the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
Whenever either one pries too closely into the other's agenda, they use the code term "black bag" to say, back off. That also comes in handy when you're hiding an affair or a more professional betrayal.
Soderbergh shakes and stirs the antics of this underhanded crew into a potent cocktail of sex, lies and double dealing. It's hard to tell who's the biggest fake when all the participants are paid experts in subterfuge. A montage of these characters taking polygraph tests is pricelessly funny and one for the Soderbergh time capsule. Prepare for a blast of twisted, erotic mischief.
7 - “Misericordia”
Don’t think at any moment that you’ve figured out this erotic French mystery from writer-director Alain Guiraudie (“Stranger by the Lake”). You have not. Secrets, lies and sexual and spiritual perversities are all at play.
Lithe, youngish Jérémie (Félix Kysyl, terrific) returns to his provincial town for the funeral of a friend and maybe lover, but ends up in bed with the man’s widow Martine (Catherine Trot), who shows him photos of her husband in a Speedo. That leaves her son Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand) jealous and confused. Ditto a local priest (Jacques Develay), also with a thing for Jérémie.
A murder plot intrudes, but “Misericordia” (Latin for mercy) is all about hot glances and what transpires between them. No spoilers, but you will be transfixed.
8 - “My Mom Jayne”
By investigating the secret corners of the life of her famous mother, Jayne Mansfield, first-time feature director Mariska Hargitay puts the puzzle pieces together of her time with the mother she barely knew and finally, at 61, finds a peace she’s been in search of all her life.
Mansfield died in a car crash on June 28, 1967. Mariska was just three and dozing with two of her brothers in the backseat when the car slammed into the rear of a tractor-trailer. Urban legend claims that Mansfield, then 34, was decapitated. The reports were untrue, like so much of what the world knew about Mansfield, including her daughter.
The documentary, an original HBO film with startling revelations, will make you laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. But no one struggling to reconcile the illusion and reality of a parent will fail to be moved.
Peter Travers
9 - “Materialists”
Celine Song’s deconstruction of romcom clichés makes Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal three parts of a skewed love triangle. After the initial disappointment that “Materialists” is no match for Song’s sublime 2023 debut feature, “Past Lives,” you begin to think through the film and maybe see things you missed.
Most movies fade quickly with audiences. But here’s “Materialists” hanging in there week after week at the box office, daring newbies to wonder what all the fuss is about and others to take a second look. The three characters on deck vainly try to define themselves through cash, cosmetic surgery and a misplaced pride in poverty. Even the prehistoric lovers who bookend the film know the petals will soon fall off the ring of flowers he gives her.
Song suffuses her film with a core of melancholy that gives the lie to unexamined happy endings and presents the audience with a provocation that earns “Materialists” a place on this “best of” list—flaws and all, it’s something you can’t stop talking about.
Peter Travers
10 - [Your Pick Here]
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