Halftime: The best movies of the first half of 2025
'Eephus,' 'Sinners,' 'The Life of Chuck' and more
It’s June 30, which marks the halfway point of the 2025 movie year, and it’s been fairly strong, if top-heavy, movie year so far. Here are my favorite films of the first half of the year:
1. Eephus
Carson Lund’s film about the final day of a New England baseball beer league, leading up to the characters raging against the literal dying of the light, is funny, poignant, and the best baseball movie in years. It’s a clear homage to Goodbye Dragon Inn, set on the other side of the world. And while it’s not streaming yet, I expect this to reach cult status once it is.
2. Sinners
Ryan Coogler’s new film is his first to be based on a completely original idea, and it’s a triumph- a rollicking musical adventure featuring vampires, massive musical numbers, and lots and lots of oral sex. Beyond the fantastic performances from Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Delroy Lindo, and newcomer Miles Caton, it’s the most sonically impressive film in recent memory.
3. The Life of Chuck
I get it, most people found this Stephen King adaptation about the end of the world, through the lens of one man, way too cornball, and also that nobody saw it; perhaps it wasn’t a great idea for the trailers and ads not to offer any indication of what the movie is about. But I fell under its spell, even though I’ve never especially admired director Mike Flanagan’s work before.
4. Friendship
The awkward comedic persona of Tim Robinson from the great sketch show I Think You Should Leave, transfers seamlessly to his first movie starring role, featuring Robinson trying and failing miserably to befriend Paul Rudd.
5. The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson’s latest features another of his Bad Dads (Benicio Del Toro, this time) gaining a redemption arc, with the help of the usual massive ensemble cast that this time includes Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, and many others.
6. The Shrouds
David Cronenberg’s latest is a great movie about grief, and specifically its interaction with modern technology, and how trauma can make people see bizarre conspiracies everywhere. Fantastic work by Diane Kruger, playing three different roles, and Guy Pearce as the polar opposite of his The Brutalist character.
7. Rats!
Another one that has “future cult hit” written all over it, this comedy from directors Maxwell Nalevansky and Carl Fry is set in a small Texas town and features constant chaos, much of it brought upon by an out-of-control cop (Danielle Evon Ploeger).
8. Black Bag
It’s going to be a Year of Three Films for Steven Soderbergh, and the best one (of the two I’ve seen so far) is this enjoyable spy picture, featuring a married couple (Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett), engaged in gamesmanship with their co-workers. Didn’t do great at the box office, but it certainly deserved to.
9. Art For Everybody
This documentary about the late artist Thomas Kinkade, which I kept missing at film festivals, was finally released this year, and it’s my first nonfiction film of 2025 so far. Directed by Miranda Yousef, the film balances Kinkade’s success, his quest for respectability, and his downfall, while also having full access to his family, as well as a cache of “secret” art that was never released in his lifetime.
10. Pee-Wee as Himself
Another great nonfiction exploration of a deceased artist, this film tells the full life story of Paul Reubens, featuring extensive interviews with the performer before his death. Director Matt Wolf includes lots of Reubens’ pushback, including times when the subject stopped cooperating with the filmmaker. A fine anecdote to all those hagiographic docs these days, in which the subject is also the executive producer.
Honorable mention: Pavements, F1 The Movie, Sorry, Baby, Colleyville, Riefenstahl, Holding Liat, Ladies and Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music, Materials, Caught by the Tides, Presence