The 25 best film performances of 2025

We’re starting with a two-fer here. Del Toro was excellent in “One Battle After Another” as Sensei Sergio, a role for which an Oscar nomination is all but guaranteed. However, he doubled up on Anderson's in 2025. Del Toro was also the star in Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” and while that isn’t Peak Wes Anderson, it is quite good, and he is quite good as the lead.

“One Battle After Another” is packed to the brim with notable actors, but Chase Infiniti held her own with all of them. In a breakthrough role she got in part owing to her martial arts training, Infiniti was asked to carry parts of “One Battle,” and she did. It’s a real “The birth of a movie star” performance.

Okay, we’ll only do one more “One Battle After Another” actor, but shout out to the several other actors we could name, including, you know, the star Leonardo DiCaprio. Penn, though, is doing things as the movie's primary antagonist. His performance as Lockjaw is bananas, but always compelling. He may already have two Oscars, but a third could be in the offing.

Just because a performance is getting a ton of awards buzz doesn’t mean we inherently like it. Remember when Renee Zellweger won for “Judy?” And speaking of Penn, we wouldn’t have given him an Oscar for “Mystic River.” Buckley, though, may already have her name etched in the Best Actress Oscar, and we aren’t going to protest. As the (fictionalized) wife of William Shakespeare in “Hamnet,” Buckley gives a performance that mixes classic melodrama with the nuance of modern dramatic acting. Are the tears from the audience well-earned?

Okay, so as a movie, “Anemone” is flawed. That can happen with a first-time director and screenwriter. So what was Daniel Day-Lewis, one of the greatest living actors, doing in a debut feature film? Well, his son made it. Ronan Day-Lewis got Daniel out of retirement, and that alone makes “Anemone” worth it. The material isn’t the best the Oscar winner has gotten, but he elevated it with all his abilities.

This might be the year of wondering, “Which guy is Jack O’Connell and which guy is Josh O’Connor,” but O’Connell is the one who was in “Sinners.” He’s the head vampire, a music-loving, step-dance-crushing, Irish vampire that has been around for decades on end. A movie such as Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” needed both a compelling antagonist and a complex antagonist. O’Connell helped make that happen.

We thought Michael B. Jordan was solid enough in “Sinners,” but we are generally not as high on him as most. However, we also didn’t want to only reserve praise for the film for, you know, the white guy. Fortunately, Lindo usually delivers performances worthy of praise. The actor did a good job in his supporting role here. Also, he’s in the next “Godzilla x Kong” movie, and that’s going to be awesome.

We aren’t talking about Keery’s work in “Stranger Things.” That’s a TV show. It just has episodes that are essentially movie-length. He had the most important role in the meta, experimental quasi-documentary “Pavements” about the band Pavement. Keery plays Stephen Malkmus in the film-within-the-film, but he also plays Joe Keery. Or, rather, “Joe Keery,” a pretentious version of himself, grappling with trying to become Malkmus for the movie.

Richard Linklater likes to work with the same actors repeatedly, and after standing out as the only female character of note in “Everybody Wants Some!!,” Deutch and Linklater reunited for “Nouvelle Vague.” The film is about the making of Jean-Luc Goddard’s “Breathless,” an iconic work of French New Wave. Deutch plays Jean Seaberg, the American actress who starred in “Breathless.” That left her to try and recreate Seaberg’s movie star magic, but Deutch also had to play Seaberg acting but also not acting. Oh, and she had to do a lot of it in French.

Tillman was a genuine unknown until he got cast in “Severance,” a role for which he won an Emmy. While his film work will certainly increase, he’s already managed one scene-stealing turn. Tillman is one of several overqualified actors in tertiary roles in “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.” He plays the captain of a submarine and seems to be having the time of his life. Crucially, though, he is able to convey, and transfer, that feeling to the audience.

Wes Anderson likes to work with a lot of the same actors, but new faces get worked into the mix as well. Many of them become staples, and Cera would make all the sense in the world as a new Anderson regular. In “The Phoenician Scheme,” he fits right in, delivering deadpan hilarity in both flavors of his character. We won’t say more than that. Also, he’s fun in “The Running Man,” a movie that was desperately in need of more fun.

Quaid, in addition to getting frequent shoutouts on “The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast,” was busy in 2025. He had a substantive role in four different movies. While he’s solid in “Novacaine,” a perfectly fine action-comedy heavy on the gore, we are here to highlight his work in “Heads of State.” We were talking about how “The Running Man” needed more fun. “Heads of State,” which takes itself zero percent seriously, is loaded with fun. That includes a wonderful microwave performance from Quaid as a gung-ho CIA agent.

Hmm…well, “Weapons” came out in August, and awards bodies have already started lauding Madigan, so it’s probably fair game to talk about her turn in the movie a bit. The phenomenon that was “Weapons” featured a lot of Madigan love, based both on surprise for her turn and how good it was. Let’s just say there’s more to Aunt Gladys than meets the eye.

“The Accountant 2” is better than “The Accountant” because it adds some buddy-adventure elements. Now, the plot is still very dark, probably too much so for the best version of this franchise, so hopefully, if they make a third film, they just roll with the best elements of the second movie. That is to say, give us a bunch of Bernthal’s Braxton hanging out with Ben Affleck’s Christian. Bernthal’s going aggro in his performance, but it’s got a spark to it, and a lot of humor to it. He is a big part of what makes this sequel work more than the original.

Zellweger hadn’t been in a movie since 2019’s “Judy.” That movie was mediocre, Zellweger wasn’t very good in it, and she still won the Oscar for Best Actress. This was annoying in and of itself, and then her speech was also far from endearing (though everything is on a sliding scale after Adrien Brody’s speech after winning for “The Brutalist”). All that is to say that when we heard a fourth Bridget Jones movie was coming out, we were ready to get our knives out. Instead, “Mad About the Boy” proved quite good, and Zellweger was quite good in it. Add in her turn in “Only Murders in the Building,” and we’ll consider “Judy” a wash.

Originally, we accidentally wrote “Leslie Nielsen” instead, which is apt. Neeson stepped into the shoes of the comedy legend with the same initials for the reboot of “The Naked Gun.” The kind of movie being spoofed in this film is slightly different from the original trilogy. It’s, well, it’s the kind of movie Neeson makes most of the time. Of course, the magic in the first couple of “Naked Gun” movies is in people playing things straight. Neeson knew how to do that, and he also apparently knew how to sell the comedy subtly. “The Naked Gun” proved to be a hilarious watch, the movie from this year that generated the most audible laughs.

In one way, “The Smashing Machine” did not succeed. It flopped hard at the box office. In another way, though, it did exactly what was hoped. Johnson wanted the chance to make a serious, dramatic movie, and he is very good as Mark Kerr, the early MMA fighter battling drug issues. He’s gotten some awards and love already, and an Oscar nomination is plausible.

Look, when Stone shows up in a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, you know she’s going to deliver. She’s a two-time Oscar winner, and she isn’t even 40! Do we need to start considering Stone getting on Meryl Streep’s level someday? It won’t be for “Bugonia,” because Jesse Buckley exists. However, Stone will likely add another Oscar nomination, a deserved one at that.

Plemons has a lot of fans, both because of his work and because he and Kirsten Dunst are everybody’s favorite couple about which to say, “I guess I’m just a little bit weird because, like, isn’t it crazy my favorite celebrity couple is Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons?” Dunst was solid in “Roofman” in 2025, by the way, but Plemons excelled in “Bugonia.” That movie is essentially a two-hander between Plemons and Stone, and it is so hard to make that compelling.

Since we’ve already shouted out some TV work, Hawke was excellent in “The Lowdown.” He gives a very different performance in “Blue Moon.” This is the second Linklater movie from 2025 we are mentioning, because Linklater had a great 2025 himself. Hawke plays Broadway royalty Lorenz Hart in a turn that is captivating and empathetic. Fortunately, Hawke was able to balance out the restraint of his work in “Blue Moon” with his wild-eyed turn in “The Lowdown.”

Outside of his native Australia, Edgerton has gotten limited awards love. “Train Dreams” has changed that, though. It’s a deceptively complex movie about, as Bob Ferguson would say, life, man. Life! Edgerton has to drive a story that is not rich with cinematic incident, though no less compelling for it. Many people love “Train Dreams,” and they wouldn’t if not for Edgerton.

There are always one or two standout members of the ensembles in Benoit Blanc mysteries. Sure, as per usual, Daniel Craig is a delight as Blanc in “Wake Up Dead Man.” His collaborator this time is a priest played by Josh O’Connor, who is good. Close, though, really stands out. So now we wonder: Will Close break the record for most acting Oscar nominations without a win? It’s a weird kind of history to make, but remarkable nevertheless.

Okay, so “Jay Kelly” turned out to be less than revelatory. It doesn’t seem likely Sandler will win an Oscar, but he might finally get nominated. All things considered, it would be a fair nomination. “Jay Kelly” is more of a dramedy than an outright drama, but Sandler does substantive acting work, which he has done before. Plus, if we praise Sandler for turns like this, and the Academy honors him for turns like this, we might get less garbage like “Happy Gilmore 2.”

“The Testament of Ann Lee” is a musical about the founding of the Shakers, a Christian religious sect that is, um, eccentric. They were founded by Ann Lee in the 1700s, and Seyfried plays her in this film. Now, many people who see “The Testament of Ann Lee” may come away from it confused, alienated, or even put off. It’s a distinctive film. Most who see it, though, will at least be able to say, “Seyfried was excellent.”

Chalamet is an odd guy, and he’s become polarizing, but the work on the screen almost always delivers. He came oh-so close to being the youngest Best Actor winner for his turn as Bob Dylan. For “Marty Supreme,” he might get the Oscar this time. He’s carrying a frenetic Safdie film as a character who is as exasperating as he is captivating. Hey, that’s what Chalamet is like for a lot of people! Say what you will, but Chalamet is basically locked in for a third Oscar nomination by the age of 30. He’s one of the acting forces of his generation.