The Brighton Film Club presents the Films of the Year 2025 after another stacked year for our screens. As usual, these are films released into UK cinemas or made available on streaming sites between January and December. Unfortunately, that leaves a few that fall precariously between Christmas and early New Year to contend for the 2026 list, despite featuring in lists of other publications such as Marty Supreme, Hamnet and Sentimental Value (and possibly Anaconda - here's hop

When does a magic trick cease to be a magic trick? How do you split judgement between the merits of something on a creative level and the actual underlying substance of what you are watching? Two (of many) questions to ponder when watching Avatar: Fire & Ash. This franchise is constantly baffling. It breaks ground in terms of the very fundamentals of film development and generates huge numbers at the box office. All the while it confounds critics and audiences whose bums no d

Another year where the number of albums in the below list has had to be bumped up and still doesn't do justice to what's been released. I present to you, after the customary squabbles and more shuffles than a Vegas casino, The Brighton Film Club’s Albums of the Year 2025: 50. Divorce - Drive to Goldenhammer 49. Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out 48. HotWax - Hot Shock 47. Heartworms - Glutton For Punishment 46. Little Simz - Lotus 45. Tyler, The Creator - DON'T TAP THE GLASS 44. Al

Eternity is a film with a great idea that doesn’t quite reach the sum of its parts. It’s a common thing. The hook is so good that you expect everything else just to fall into place. Unfortunately, it’s easy to notice where this hasn’t quite cohered. It’s a shame as it really is a great idea and such an enjoyable film to watch. You’ll root for it, you’ll recommend it and it’s mostly delightful. In a Good Place-esque sci-fi depiction of the afterlife, Joan must choose between s

Cinema box offices look to be getting another shot in the arm with the release of Wicked: For Good and it certainly proves the value in filming sequels back to back. It’s a great encore and finish to the story a year on from the first although it may just fall a little bit below its predecessor. Sometimes you just can’t argue with giant cinematic spectacle and this film rides its run time beautifully. As before, some of the musical sequences are extraordinary and performances

It’d be easy to assume that Nuremberg, at two and a half hours, would feel like the sort of thing you’d have to sit through in history class. A worthy but rather weighty endeavour. The reality? This is as zippy and fast-moving as any action-based war film, just with court rooms replacing battlefields. The history here is, of course, of monumental importance and you may know your fair share but the film gives some hugely fascinating morsels of information and insight to the ev

Now You See Me: Now You Don’t is in some ways just like a real magic trick. It’s designed for fun and entertainment and is hard to take your eyes off but, underneath it all, you know it’s an illusion. Unlike a magic trick, you can see right through this to the cash grab, rushed, manic and frankly baffling inadequacies that lie within. It’s such a strange experience. On the one hand a tone-deaf, woefully written, laughably poor sequel to a pair of films that, whilst not exactl

You’ve got to give the Predator franchise some props for constantly trying different things. Like its titular hunters, it’s sneakily crept up on its competition in the action film genre and is getting to become a really strong franchise as a whole. This despite the respective films not exactly tying in to each other. Predator: Badlands is another striking addition and really goes for originality, putting a Yautja (the official name for the ‘Predator’ species) in the lead role

The Running Man (2025) is not quite a remake of the ‘80s Schwarzenegger movie but instead a different and more faithful version of the book written by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. It’s also the return of Edgar Wright and another chance for Glen Powell to stake his claim as THE current action star (who hasn’t yet been in a superhero film). Sadly and shockingly, it may not even be the best ‘Stephen King as Richard Bachman’ adaptation this year, let alone th

Whilst it might sound strange to describe Bugonia, a film wherein two conspiracy theorist Ufologists kidnap a CEO on suspicion of her being an alien, as Yorgos Lanthimos’ most ‘accessible’ film it might just be a correct statement. Lanthimos is rightly celebrated for his arthouse idiosyncrasies and has the awards and critical consensus to back that up and Bugonia is absolutely not a film where he suddenly ‘breaks mainstream’. Nonetheless, there’s something about the more stri

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is very much a ‘capture the mood of a specific moment in time’ biopic rather than an audience-friendly, ‘dance in the aisles’ type. A music biopic will often live or die on its ability to capture the ‘feel’ of the artist it is representing. In that respect, this is a fantastic depiction of The Boss in this era but probably not one that’s going to get any non-believers on side. Trying to get inside the head of the man as he records the dark

A story so wild that it can only be true certainly applies to Roofman, one of this year’s best little surprises. The absolutely insane story of Jeffrey Manchester, an escaped convict who lived inside a Toys R’ Us for months whilst slowly falling in with the local community and finding some sort of sense of self in the early 2000’s. Told with noughties nostalgia, zippy pace, humour, pathos, light, shade and everything in between by a cast teeming with stars, this is a wildly e