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the best films of 2025

The Fopp Report

we’ve rounded up the films that stole our hearts in 2025, check out our top picks below and grab a free copy of the fopp report in store.

the substance – Fopp film of the year

Coralie Fargeat has managed to combine the plastic reality goodness of Re-animator with the social commentary of They Live to make a new horror classic which is even parts stylish and nasty. Demi Moore delivers a career best performance (which also bagged her an Academy Award Nomination) as Elisabeth, a former star of the 1980s who is struggling to find her way in the modern landscape of Hollywood. Moore is supported by her opposite ‘Sue’ played by Margret Qualley, who is everything Elisabeth wants to be but might just be the key to her happiness. The performances, the stylish directing, the bounding synth score and the copious amounts of blood and body horror come together perfectly which has really resonated with audiences since its release and we are proud to name it our 2025 Fopp Film Of The Year.

queer

Daniel Craig has moved from the works of Ian Flemming to this William S. Burroughs adaptation of Queer. Craig gives a career best performance in this surreal but moving account of an ageing William trying to find love in Mexico City. Luca Guadagnino has crafted a woozy unreality that perfectly reflects the writing of Burroughs which is complemented by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’s score and a number of choice anachronistic needle drops. Queer has ushered in a new era of Daniel Craig’s career which we are very excited to see what may come next.

flow

Taking the world by storm and even shocking the entertainment landscape by winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Gints Zilbalodis’ Flow is a beautifully animated tale of Cat trying to survive a flood with a cast of other animals the cat meets along the way. With no dialogue, Flow manages to pull at your heart strings and create a captivating narrative with its picturesque visuals and lush score by Rihards Zaļupe & (Director) Gints Zilbalodis. The team from Latvia has put us all on notice and we are waiting patiently for their next project.

a complete unknown

The best biopics have a way of making you forget you’re watching one person you know play another, and with A Complete Unknown, Timothee Chalamet slips into the skin of Bob Dylan so convincingly that happens. James Mangold starts the film as young Dylan breaks into the Folk world, and then sensibly focuses on his rise and ultimate perceived betrayal by going ‘electic’, stopping there and just giving us Dylan at his most complex and compelling. Despite being supported by a fantastic ensemble including Edward Norton & Monica Barbaro, it’s Chalamet’s electric performance that steals the show.

28 years later

After 20 years of waiting, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return to one of our best homegrown horror franchises with a sequel that enriches the story of a Britain savaged by the deadly rage virus, mutating those infected into violent zombies. Newcomer Alfie Williams delivers a gut-wrenching performance as Spike, a young boy who has only known the horrors of a Britain besieged by monsters, on a quest to find his purpose in this hellish world. 28 Days Later is a film of profound emotion, and it’s one of the best horrors in recent years.

The Last Showgirl

Pamela Anderson returns to the big screen sparking a huge career renaissance with Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl. As Las Vegas is leaving the glitz and the glamour of the showgirls behind, Anderson’s Shelly must come to terms with the world she has known all her life slowly falling to pieces around her and reconnect with her estranged daughter (played by Billie Lourd). Backed up by a stellar supporting cast of Kiernan Shipka, Dave Bautista and Jamie Lee Curtis, along with the stunning 16mm cinematography of Autumn Durald Arkapaw, The Last Showgirl is a perfect epitaph for the bigon age the Las Vegas Show and those who gave up everything to be apart of it.

The End

Coming from the world of documentaries and making his narrative feature film debut, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End comes out the gate swinging with a post-apocalyptic musical. Tilda Swinton leads a cast of Michael Shannon, George Mckay and Moses Ingram as a mother trying to lead her family through a devastating environmental catastrophe. Boasting music & lyrics by Joshua Schmidt & Marius de Vries, The End pushes the boundaries of what a musical can achieve and we look forward to seeing what Oppenheimer does next.

f1: the movie

Director Joseph Kosinski’s F1 The Movie is pure adrenaline on wheels, crafting an engaging story within the high-stakes world of Formula 1. Brad Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, a washed-up racing legend who is persuaded into mentoring rookie Joshua “Noah” Pearce (Damson Idris) and save Javier Bardem’s struggling team. Following the exhilirating visuals from Top Gun: Maverick, Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda continue to deliver breathtaking sequences that feel impossibly real, while Hans Zimmer’s score keeps your heart in overdrive. For sheer spectacle and speed, F1 The Movie burns rubber with style.

weapons

Last night at 2:17 am every child from Mrs. Gandy’s class woke up, got out of bed, went downstairs, opened the front door, walked into the dark …and they never came back… Zach Cregger has crafted a perfect mystery in this Stephen King-esque town that pulls you in and makes you care about the town’s residents. Sporting a killer ensemble cast including Julia Gardner, Josh Brolin, Benedict Wong and Alden Ehrenreich, each taking the lead in their own stories as the mystery gradually reveals itself. Cregger has planted his flag in the ground as one of the new voices in horror and left his mark on Pop Culture by unleashing Gladys into the world who will go down in history alongside other classic villains.

Director Ryan Coogler delivers one of the best original blockbusters of the year with Sinners. Ambition is on full display; the film expertly genre-mashes period drama, musicals and supernatural horror, each complementing each other to explore race, power and communal trauma in 1930s Mississippi. Michael B. Jordan brings his A-Game when playing twin brothers Smoke and Stack, while Jack O’ Connell’s charismatic portrayal as the enigmatic vampire Remmick is both unsettling and intriguing to watch. The extended ensemble cast are equally as brilliant, with Miles Caton performing one of the strongest feature film debuts in recent memory. Topped off with striking visual design and a beautiful score from Ludwig Göransson, Sinners showcases a deep appreciation of blues music, brings blood-soaked terror and explores the fragile line between virtue and vice.

Fresh off the multiple Academy Award wins for Parasite, Bong Joon Ho is back with his adaptation of the Edward Ashton novel Mickey7. Robert Pattinson gave not one but two amazing performances as Mickey along with a top tier supporting cast of Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo. In this very ambitious science fiction epic, Director Bong manages to blend comedy and political satire with heady concepts but pulls it off to make an adventure we will be coming back to again and again.

Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore effort in the director’s chair, A Real Pain, lifts you up and breaks you down scene to scene, telling the story of two wildly different cousins who travel through Poland in honour of their beloved grandmother. It’s touching, heartbreaking and genuinely funny, with most of that emotional clout anchored by a career-best performance from Kieran Culkin as the complicated Benji. Eisenberg does an excellent job of tackling the weight of history and puncturing it with humour, without it ever feeling like it undermines things.

gladiator II

Get ready to return once more to Rome’s glorious Colosseum, as Oscar-nominated director Ridley Scott delivers another epic of mammoth scale with Gladiator II, pitting heroes old and new against a host of tyrannical villains. Indie favourite Paul Mescal stars as Lucius, an honourable soldier taken prisoner by a war-crazed Rome and thrust into a series of battles that will test his every limit. Oscar winner Denzel Washington steals the show as the deliciously flamboyant Macrinus, while fan favourite Pedro Pascal is the fearsome General Acacius, troubled servant of the mad twin emperors.

i’m still here

Set in 1970’s Rio de Janeiro during the military dictatorship of Brazil, I’m Still Here is the harrowing tale of a fight for freedom in the face of persecution. Based on one of her children’s autobiography in later years, the story of Eunice Paiva’s fight for her family, and later for the truth is an emotional gut punch that is both shocking and frightening. Fernanda Torres’ Oscar nominated turn as Paiva is nothing short of sensational, bringing real depth to the mother and wife who was dragged through an almost unthinkable ordeal.

bring her back

Directors Danny and Michael Philippou continue their descent into horror with their sophomore feature Bring Her Back. Orphaned stepsiblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) fall under the care of Laura (Sally Hawkins), whose maternal warmth hides something far darker. Hawkins shines in the role, impressively balancing kind-heartedness and menacing obsession, creating an antagonist that’s both chilling and tragic. Barratt and Wong ground the film emotionally, with their sibling bond making the terror hit harder. Brutal, bleak, and unnerving, Bring Her Back doesn’t shy away from pain and grief.

Everything a horror sequel aspires to be, director and writer Parker Finn has crafted a follow-up that is even more viscerally terrifying than the original, packing in meatier scenes of gore and nerve-shredding jump-scares, while introducing a brilliant new cast of characters unfortunate enough to become entangled in the cosmic horror of the smile virus. Naomi Scott delivers a horror all-timer performance as pop sensation Skye Riley, struggling to cope with the pressures of stardom after a traumatic accident, all while singing (and writing) some genuinely catchy pop tunes.

2073

in 2073, samantha morton and naomi ackie guide us through a world close enough to recognise but unsettling enough to feel like a warning. this dystopian future isn’t distant or fantastic, it feels like a twisted echo of now, where decay seeps into buildings, surveillance is constant, and class divides leave many on the brink. kapadia’s direction blends documentary style with speculative storytelling in a way that feels natural rather than experimental for the sake of it. the images stay with you, not because they’re grand, but because they feel possible. the critical praise and festival attention make sense — 2073 feels like a warning, a glimpse of a future that still might be avoided if we choose to pay attention.

parthenope

A sun-soaked Naples comes alive in a poetic meditation on beauty, memory, and longing. Celeste Dalla Porta radiates charm and magnetism, while sumptuous production design and Lele Marchitelli’s evocative score elevate every frame. Directed by Paolo Sorrentino and also starring Gary Oldman, Parthenope is warm, elegant, and endlessly enchanting, a luminous triumph from one of contemporary cinema’s most celebrated directors.

caught stealing

Caught Stealing finds Darren Aronofsky cutting loose with a bloody, darkly comic crime caper set in 1998 New York. Washed-up baseball star Hank Thompson, played by Austin Butler, takes a favour too far when asked to cat-sit, spiralling into a world of organ theft, Russian and Hasidic mobsters, and a relentless detective. Butler is magnetic and bruised, supported by Zoë Kravitz, Regina King and Vincent D’Onofrio. Aronofsky’s gritty visuals and absurdist streak bring the chaos to life. Stylish, violent and unpredictable, it’s pulp crime done to perfection.

the roses

Searchlight’s reinvention of The War of the Roses casts Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch as a marriage at war, and it is gloriously entertaining. Both leads are electric, turning every scene of domestic warfare into a masterclass in timing and intensity. Under precise direction, the story is sharp, stylish, and relentlessly engaging. Darkly comic and compelling, The Roses is a modern classic of marital melodrama and a showcase for two of the finest actors working today.

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