So what movies did you love or hate inside your magic hermetic bubble?

It’s listing time again! In today’s entertainment consumption sphere, all experiences must be pitted against each other and assigned numeric values that are ultimately arbitrary to anyone except the writer themselves. It’s just this fun thing some of us love doing even though the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.

I saw 34 films in theaters in 2025 that were actually released in 2025, a 14.7% increase over 2024’s list, still climbing post-COVID. That number doesn’t include ten Academy Award nominees I caught in theaters in 2025 that were officially 2024 releases, but which I saw later outside the house as part of my annual Oscar Quest.

Of those 34 releases, 12 were sequels, prequels, or chapters in an ongoing universe or venerated popcorn-flick IP. 6 were reboots, remakes or do-overs. Only 4 were superhero films. 3 were Stephen King adaptations. 6 had scenes or noteworthy extras during or after the end credits. 7 were screenings at the 34th annual Heartland Film Festival, some of whose makers are still seeking an American distributor. 3 were primarily in languages other than English.

One shocking discovery when I tallied everything up: I saw zero animated feature films in a theater, which hasn’t happened since 1995. Even in 2020 when I only saw four total films on big screens, one of them was Pixar’s Onward. So that’s pretty disappointing. And I refuse to count the new Avatar just to make myself feel better.

Here’s the annual rundown of what I didn’t miss in theaters in 2025, for better or worse, starting as always at the bottom. This doesn’t include the 2025 films I watched on streaming services, which will receive their own listicle (and will include three animated films!). Links to past excessively wordy reviews and sometimes bizarrely construed thoughts are provided for historical reference. As a fun challenge, this year I tried something new: given how much I already overwrote about each of them throughout the year, this time I allowed myself just one sentence each. No parentheses, no em-dashes, no semicolons whatsoever, though obviously many are the same old run-on stream-of-consciousness so y’all know it’s still me typing and I’m not shelling out bottom-dollar for crappy AI to do my own amateur hobby-work for me.

On with the countdown!

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