My 2025 movies zine went up on the patreon at the end of January, and it’s a fun one! At the time of publication I saw 268 2025 movies, 70 of them in theaters, and from 28 different countries. The zine includes my favorite 30 list, which is at the end of this post. But first I’ll share a bit more about the zine!
It’s Just Like That Sometimes, the title of the zine, is a quote from one of the movies — can you guess which? I’ll give you a hint: it’s a movie that’s shown on the cover, and it’s in my favorites list, but didn’t quite make my top 10.
Patreon mail-tier members got their print zines with full-bleed covers, which I think look very nice. The print file everyone got won’t be full-bleed, it’ll just cut a little off the top and side, not a big deal.
I made a “real” crossword for this zine, meaning it has a symmetrical design as you see above…
…but I also made what I called a “chaos” crossword, which is like last year’s 2024 movies crossword (that zine is free here!!), just random and not designed in a pattern. The two crosswords are both pretty big and they have a small amount of overlap, like a clue from one puzzle pointing to an answer from the other puzzle, which I think is fun!
And then I did a connect-the-dots for the back cover, a buuuunch of movie recommendations for different categories, and a bunch of poster drawings!
Even with those two big zine puzzles, there were still a ton of 2025 movies that didn’t make it into either crossword (or maybe got a mention in a clue, but weren’t an answer), so I made an extra (free!) 2025 movie trivia puzzle, which is on the free patreon here. It’s not a crossword, but a scrappier puzzle; I think it works best as a supplement to the zine, as you can use the zine to help find answers, but it can stand alone.
Patreon members, in addition to the zine, got a sticker sheet (which I had printed by sticker ninja!) and a lino block printed patch! I dug out my lino block printing tools after it had been maybe around 15 years since I last used them. I’m a bit rusty but it was fun!!
I printed them on cotton fabric sample squares that I got from my old job years ago, so everyone got a different fabric. I also got other smaller stickers printed, including these shiny little guys:
I printed a bunch more stickers, some of which will be going into the February envelopes. February is the last month of the patreon packages as they’ve been, with extra stuff; starting in March the prices will drop and packages will switch to zines only. I haven’t finalized my plans for February’s extra stuff (besides the stickers)—any requests?!
And one last patreon thing: I made ANOTHER new zine, to send out on each member’s birthday month! It’s a little bit inspired by my original Do Stuff! zine from 2007, a collection of different stuff I like. I think it’s a ton of fun!!
So now we’ve made it to my favorite 2025 movies. First, my top 5 documentaries. I saved a lot of docs for last, after I completed my list/zine, since I don’t include docs in my main list, so I caught up on a couple of these after I finished the zine.
My top 5 docs of 2025 (at the time I’m writing this): The Encampments, Pavements (which is only about half doc, but close enough), Grand Theft Hamlet, No Other Land, Come See Me in the Good Light. There are still several on my watchlist, including Orwell: 2+2=5 (I’m impatiently waiting on a dvd from my library holds!), Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, The Settlers, Banned Together, Zodiac Killer Project, Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Goodbye Horses, Mistress Dispeller, Cover-Up, and Union, to name a few!
The standard note I always say in movie posts: Use the website or app JustWatch to find where things are streaming! If I put that here for each movie it’ll change so soon. Also, a new note: if you have a vpn account and can change what countries you watch movies from, you can use the site streamwithvpn.com to check if movies are available that way. I watched several 2025 movies on mubi with my vpn set to different countries because my smart tv lets me change countries!
And now, my 30 favorite movies of 2025!
I saw so many, and so many were great, I decided to draw the line at 30 this year because I didn’t want to leave any of these out! The order is extreeeemely flexible, like I kept changing it up until the last day when I hit export on the zine, and now it’s only final because it’s in print, but I could almost hit shuffle on all 30 and be fine with it!
30. The Ballad of Wallis Island
29. The Toxic Avenger
28. Heart Eyes
27. Night Call
26. Dreams
25. The Testament of Ann Lee
24. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
23. Bugonia
22. Bunny
21. Wake Up Dead Man
20. The Ugly Stepsister
19. Universal Language
18. Blue Moon
17. Companion
16. The Naked Gun
15. Sentimental Value
14. Happyend
13. The Mastermind
12. Sorry, Baby
11. 28 Years Later
And now we’re in the top 10!
10. No Other Choice
9. Train Dreams
8. One Battle After Another
7. The Secret Agent
6. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
And now the top 5… I actually had a few days when I was planning on calling this a five-way tie for first because I couldn’t decide on the order. For a long time (like, most of the year) I had Sinners at number 1. In the end, I rewatched all five of these, and I landed on a weird order based partially on wanting my list to be uniquely mine, hah! Twinless is the one that rose up the highest above the first viewing—I liked it a lot out of the theater, but I hadn’t even had it in my top 10 most of the year! My rewatch was, like, so good—it was better than I remembered and I just absolutely loved it and basically want to spread the word so everyone knows it’s worth checking out. Anyway, all five of these are fantastic and basically tied and you should see all of them!!
5. Weapons. So ridiculous. So much fun. Just a bonkers time.
4. The History of Sound. Beautiful and heartbreaking and thoughtful and there’s mending even.
3. Sinners. I mean, it broke the record for most oscar noms of all time, which is shocking because it’s horror, but it’s just THAT GOOD.
2. It Was Just an Accident. Intense and also quite funny. So human. Also a great double-feature with The Secret Agent.
and 1. Twinless. Unique, so funny, also so sad, a spectacular twin performance from Dylan O’Brien, extremely rewatchable with a different experience the second time (watch it the first time without knowing anything more than this! don’t spoil yourself!)—it’s on hulu now, go watch it!!
Every 2025 movie I watched is in this letterboxd list. It feels silly to do honorable mentions when my list was 30 long, but I want to shout out a few that were some of the most FUN movie watching times of the year: Hot Spring Shark Attack (a Japanese horror comedy that is HILARIOUS), AJ Goes to the Dog Park (a VERY scrappy diy comedy, tons of wacky fun), and Two Sleepy People (a very independent comedy I was lucky to get to see at a theater, great time). And a final mention to the crafters: you’ll be amused watching the weird thriller Sew Torn at the things she does with thread!
What were YOUR favorite movies of 2025?!
Lee Does Stuff 