Generally movie critics simply know what they like. And when you could have a consensus fave just like the #1 movie of the 2025 IndieWire Yr-Finish Critics, they will’t maintain again. In reality, the #1 movie of the critics survey is the exact same because the #1 on IndieWire’s personal in-house Greatest Motion pictures of 2025: “One Battle After One other,” with 101 of the 148 critics who voted on this 12 months’s survey having it someplace on their High 10 ballots. To not point out that 43 of these 101 mentions have been #1 picks.
That’s a far greater share of total mentions and #1 placements than even final 12 months’s winner, “Anora,” acquired. And whereas there was a break up resolution final 12 months, with Brady Corbet topping our survey for Greatest Director for his extraordinary work on “The Brutalist,” this 12 months “One Battle” director Paul Thomas Anderson took Greatest Director honors as effectively.
What’s outstanding about such reward for one movie is how far-flung the critics who voted in our ballot actually are: Sure, the bulk by far continues to be from the U.S. or Canada, however six continents are once more represented this 12 months — even when the variety of voters on this survey continues to say no every year as increasingly more critics go away the business.
Contributors included writers for IndieWire, The Hollywood Reporter, Filmmaker Journal, Movie Remark, Display Worldwide, Reverse Shot, The Irish Instances, Der Spiegel, BBC Tradition, The Boston Globe, Vulture, Rolling Stone, The Movie Stage, Toronto Star, and lots of extra, in addition to freelance and workers journalists for newspapers, magazines, and web sites from throughout Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australia — along with everywhere in the U.S. and Canada.
About 76 p.c of all of the voters hailed from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico (with a full two-thirds from the U.S. itself), however among the many different nations represented are Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India, Japan, Poland, Serbia, South Korea, and Turkey. All members have been required to vote just for movies that acquired theatrical, streaming, or VOD releases within the U.S. over the previous calendar 12 months. You possibly can see a full record of the critics who voted on the second web page of this text.
As at all times, IndieWire employs a ranked-choice poll of 10 movies from every voter to find out the general record: First-place votes obtain 10 factors, second-place votes obtain 9, third-place votes eight, and so forth. Greatest Director was decided by a ranked-choice poll of three administrators from every voter, utilizing the identical factors scale system however awarding three factors to first-place votes, and so forth.
Learn the complete outcomes of the 2025 IndieWire Critics Survey beneath.
Greatest Movie
1. “One Battle After One other” — 573
2. “It Was Simply an Accident” — 501
3. “Sinners” — 479
4. “Sentimental Worth” — 391
5. “The Secret Agent” — 336
6. “Marty Supreme” — 259 (7 first place votes)
7. “Practice Desires” — 259 (5 first place votes)
8. “Sirat” — 206
9. “Hamnet” — 183
10. “Sorry, Child” — 177
Greatest Director
1. Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After One other” — 199
2. Ryan Coogler, “Sinners” — 68
3. Kleber Mendonca Filho, “The Secret Agent” — 58
4. Jafar Panahi, “It Was Simply an Accident” — 56
5. Josh Safdie, “Marty Supreme” — 47
6. Oliver Laxe, “Sirat” — 28
7. Joachim Trier, “Sentimental Worth” — 25
8. Mascha Schilinski, “The Sound of Falling” — 24 (extra first place votes)
9. Clint Bentley, “Practice Desires”
10. Guillermo del Toro, “Frankenstein”
Greatest Efficiency
1. Rose Byrne, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You”
2. Ethan Hawke, “Blue Moon”
3. Wagner Moura, “The Secret Agent”
4. Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet”
5. Timothee Chalamet, “Marty Supreme”
6. Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners”
7. TIE: Benicio Del Toro/Sean Penn, “One Battle After One other”
9. Amanda Seyfried, “The Testomony of Ann Lee”
10. Renate Reinsve, “Sentimental Worth”
Greatest Documentary
1. “The Excellent Neighbor”
2. “Predators”
3. “Orwell 2+2=5”
4. “My Undesirable Buddies: Half 1 — Final Air in Moscow”
5. “Afternoons of Solitude”
6. “Put Your Soul on My Hand and Stroll”
7. “Come See Me within the Good Gentle”
8. “Cowl-Up”
9. “2,000 Meters to Andriivka”
10. “The Story of Silyan”
Greatest Cinematography
1. “Practice Desires”
2. “One Battle After One other”
3. “Sinners”
4. “Frankenstein”
5. “Resurrection”
6. “The Secret Agent”
7. “Marty Supreme”
8. “The Sound of Falling”
9. “No Different Alternative”
10. “Sirat”
Greatest Screenplay
1. “One Battle After One other”
2. “It Was Simply an Accident”
3. “Blue Moon”
4. “Sentimental Worth”
5. “The Secret Agent”
6. “Sorry, Child”
7. “Sinners”
8. “Weapons”
9. “Marty Supreme”
10. “Practice Desires”
Greatest Worldwide Movie
1. “It Was Simply an Accident”
2. “Sentimental Worth”
3. “The Secret Agent”
4. “Sirat”
5. “The Sound of Falling”
6. “Misericordia”
7. “No Different Alternative”
8. “My Undesirable Buddies: Half 1 — Final Air in Moscow”
9. “Caught by the Tides”
10. “Resurrection”
Greatest First Characteristic
1. “Sorry, Child”
2. “Eephus”
3. “Pillion”
4. “Friendship”
5. “Acquainted Contact”
Greatest Movies Opening in 2026
1. “Lifeless Man’s Wire”
2. TIE: “Currents”/”Blue Heron”
3. “Miroirs”
4. “Pillion”
5. “The President’s Cake”
Proceed Studying: 2025 Critics Ballot: The Greatest Motion pictures of the Yr, Based on 148 Critics
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