Movies I Watched in 2025

thiskurt 2026-01-04 Media

All of these reviews are crossposted on my letterboxd.

1. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008, US)

This was a perfectly fine era of comedies, but it did not start the revolution we thought it would.

A Segel penis on every corner, we would say, Dracula muppets on every tv channel, between episodes of the Campbell Soup's Segal Penis Hour of course, we would all get to date Mila Kunis. Alas. Not in Musk's America.

Nice to get a glimpse into a lost world filled with Jason Segel's penis.

3.5/5 - Letterboxd

2. Palm Springs (2020, US)

If I had to be trapped in a time loop with someone, Cristin Milioti would not be the worst choice, neither would Andy Samberg, really.

Gotta love a good time loop movie. Is there even a bad time loop movie out there? I don't think so, my theory is that if you try to write a bad time loop movie a muse traps you in a time loop forcing you to keep rewriting the movie until it's perfect.

That's why there are never any sequels, well, except for Happy Death Day 2U, I guess that movie was just perfect in the first loop.

Anyway, I absolutely loved this movie.

5/5 - Letterboxd

3. Heretic (2024, US)

Aw shucks, sweet and family friendly on the surface/in the parlor, academic in the next room, dark hocus pocus and human sacrifice in the basement, and desire for control beneath it all.

But enough about filing an insurance claim, this movie is about religion.

We all know the one true religion, Chekhov's rusty nail board, now there's a prophecy.

4/5 - Letterboxd

4. The Monkey (2025, US)

This is just what children's toys used to be like, before everyone went all health and safety.

3/5 - Letterboxd

5. Fear Street: Prom Queen (2025, US)

Those have got to be some sharp axes. They slice through everything like a Katana.

I suppose I cared a bit about.. Megan? No, Melissa, the slightest bit of character development there was in the whole movie.

You're right, copper, this was worse than '78.

This is the most lesbian teasing I've ever seen in a movie, no, this is the most unfulfilled lesbian teasing I've ever seen in a movie.

2.5/5 - Letterboxd

6. The Drop (2014, US)

I'm still not sure what she wants from me, but this is the movie we watched together.

Anyway, yeah, I liked it, I don't know if there's a conclusion this movie has, but I'm a sucker for crime stuff.

Also Matthias Schoenaerts, Belgian actor, Michaël R. Roskam, Belgian director, this is probably why it ended up on the list and I'm sure they all enjoyed working with James Gandolfini and Tom Hardy as I enjoyed watching them.

3.5/5 - Letterboxd

7. The Third Man (1949, US)

Beautifully shot, but somehow scored by the people that did the Spongebob transition music.

Uses every trick in the book of the era, you could easily use it as a reference and rebuild the whole '40s movie making bag of tricks.

Atmospheric, bleak, gloomy, tense, and a wonderful twist, still part of me feels that it didn't amount to that much in the end.

4/5 - Letterboxd

8. Thursday Murder Club (2025, UK)

The cast carries this movie, but there's only so far you can carry a midrange episode of a midweek detective show on BBC 3.

Still, I do hope they continue on with this series, even if this one didn't really pack much of a punch.

2.5/5 - Letterboxd

9. The Man From Earth (2007, US)

Didn't really work for me. It all just felt too staged and unnatural.

The different characters being professors of various fields, and one young student, could've led to an interesting back and forth each with their own perspective, but I felt like their characters never amounted to much or felt in any way real.

The flow of the conversation is firmly in one forward direction, it's just a single individual's take and not a very remarkable one.

This might work better written out than as a movie; you wouldn't have the intrusive smarmy soundtrack for one.

2.5/5 - Letterboxd

10. Denial (2016, UK)

This review may contain spoilers.

And then they won and no one had to deal with this kind of nonsense again.

4/5 - Letterboxd

11. The General (1926, US)

An absolute masterpiece of cinema. Action, stuntwork, physical comedy, montage, all of it on point.

The plot is largely there to allow for two excelent extended train chase scenes, something modern movies are really missing out on, some set pieces and Buster Keaton having to go down enemy* lines to, literally, bag a baddie.

Few action movies ever reached the highs set by this movie.

*It should be noted all of the main characters here are on the side of the dunces-- I mean confederates and the movie is entirely uncritical of that. Not that it says anything about the conflict in particular, though.

4.5/5 - Letterboxd

12 Modern Times (1936, US)

The culmination of Chaplin's Tramp character. Dealing with labour, unemployment, poverty, prison, tragedy, and romance with all the humour and sentimentality that makes him unique amongst his slapstick contemporaries.

Give that poor women some shoes!

4/5 - Letterboxd

13 Nosferatu (1922, DE)

Nosferatu jogging around the city lugging a big coffin around in the middle of the day, his eyes frantically darting around, is one of the funniest things I've seen.

Nosferatu's shadow creeping up the wall as he's stalking towards Ellen's bedroom is one of the creepiest things I've seen.

3.5/5 - Letterboxd

14 The Last Laugh (1924, DE)

What a movie. A simple, but absolutely devastatingly tragic story.

And, yes, F.W. Murnau's camera work is great, mature beyond its years. Nothing to be improved on. The dream, and drunk haze, sequences are fantastic and the score is thrilling

The acting is a far cry from the naturalistic acting we'd go for today, but Emil Jannings absolutely embodies a man who has had his heart ripped out and completely lost his identity, purpose and dignity.

But, fuck those neighbours man.

I've never seen a movie so openly mock its own cop out ending. I fully expected it to cut to him alone and drunk in a corner somewhere.

I suppose only a ridiculous, idiotic fantasy could seem like a way out of the economic malaise of '20s Germany.

4.5/5 - Letterboxd

15 Wake Up Dead Man (2025, US)

This movie just started auto-playing on Netflix, and I hadn't watched any of the others yet, so I decided to watch them in reverse order, I might as well.

I think this is my favourite of the three. Benoit Blanc is completely formed here, and he has a beard as he obviously should have.

What I missed most watching the later, I mean earlier, ones after this is that we start with following the likable protagonist here. I very much liked the priest character.

Meeting him first, then the unlikable suspects and then have Benoit Blanc come waltzing in is the right way to do it in my opinion.

As far as watching this one first, it's obviously no issue, these are all standalone, and you have the benefit of being introduced to Benoit Blanc at his most well formed.

4.5/5 - Letterboxd

16 Glass Onion (2022, US)

In my reverse order watching of these movies I watched this one second, but, you know, the other way around. Well, not in reverse, I just mean, you know what I mean.

Like everyone, it seems, I liked this one the least.

Among Us, Lockdown, it's surprising how quickly three years can feel dated if you lean into things to hard, but I mean the Covid thing didn't leave you many option, you would either strangely ignore it or doom yourself to being very obviously set at a very specific time.

I liked the first half quite a bit, but after the mid-point flashbacks it went downhill. I really like the previous, well next, one, but this should've taken itself more serious, or have been more genuine.

I will say, Dave Bautista's wig was a glorious thing to behold.

3.5/5 - Letterboxd

17 Knives Out (2019, US)

I ended up watching this last out of the three, and this really is an excellent series.

However seeing Benoit Blanc without a beard in this is all wrong. He clearly needs one, glad they figured that out in the later movies. It's like when you watch Prescription Murder and his coat is too neat and his hair is all proper.

"You are a pack of vultures at the feast: knives out, beaks bloody," he said it! He said the line!

This one definitely has the best twist, not just twist resolution, of all three of them, but I still think I like the latest one best.

I also think it learned all the wrong lessons of its own success for the second one.

But Benoit Blanc is a great character and I hope we get to see more of him.

4/5 - Letterboxd

18 The Holdovers (2023, US)

I liked it even better this time.

4.5/5 - Letterboxd

19 Cold Souls (2009, US)

This movie doesn't seem to be quite up to the task to answer the questions it asks itself, but it's still has its moments.

It's funnier than I thought it would be, it has less to say about what it would mean to have your soul extracted, but it's still sweet and human.

It has more to say about economics than about the soul.

Paul Giamatti is always a joy to watch, seeing act 'without a soul' was spot on and hilarious.

If you let it be what it is and don't fault it for not being what it isn't, you'll enjoy this.

3.5/5 - Letterboxd

20 Havoc (2025, US)

Could hardly distinguish the gunshots from all the fireworks that were going off while I watched this.

2.5/5 - Letterboxd

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