2025 – PopCult Reviews

Spring 2025 Digest

Podcast Episodes
Nickel Boys/Dog Man
The Seed of the Sacred Fig/The Room Next Door
The Electric State/I’m Still Here

Movie Review – Eddington

Eddington (2025)
Written and directed by Ari Aster

I wrestled with making this or One Battle After Another my top film of the year, and I ultimately decided this should be the one. That likely won’t surprise longtime readers, as I haven’t hidden my love of Ari Aster’s work. Like everyone else, I was a little thrown off by Beau Is Afraid, but I still loved that film. There was an honesty in how Aster addressed the anxieties of the modern age—the creeping, agoraphobic paranoia that feels as if it has swallowed American society whole. He understands that we are living in a time where reality is warped to a breaking point, and with that comes a deep, growing sense of unease. If I had to compare Eddington to another film, I’d probably say Todd Haynes’s Poison: a contemporary horror story that leans more toward the slow-burn dread of Carcosa than a gory slasher.

Movie Review – One Battle After Another

One Battle After Another (2025)
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

One of the best film experiences I had in 2025 was seeing One Battle After Another with my sister. It was her first Paul Thomas Anderson film, and when we exited the theater she remarked that it might have been the best film she’s ever seen. Unlike me, she is not obsessive when it comes to movies; most of her viewing is limited to films she watches with her kids. That’s not to say they are bad ones—I’ve been recommending a lot since we moved back. Still, it was a special thing for me to introduce her to one of my favorite filmmakers, especially with a film as incredible as this one.

Movie Review – No Other Choice

No Other Choice (2025)
Written by Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Lee Ja-hye
Directed by Park Chan-wook

It’s always struck me as strange, bordering on obscene, how completely hands-off society is when it comes to job placement. We build entire educational systems around the promise of employability, saddle people with debt, tell them to “do everything right,” and then, at the moment where guidance would actually matter, shove them into the dark and say good luck. Even with a degree, even with experience, the expectation is that you will wander an increasingly incoherent job market on your own, refreshing dashboards like a lab rat pressing a lever for food pellets that never arrive. The application process is almost entirely online now, regardless of what boomers insist about “walking in and demanding a job.” I’ve played the LinkedIn game; I found nothing of substance. My wife did too and only ended up employed because of someone one of my sisters happened to know.

Movie Review – Train Dreams

Train Dreams (2025)
Written by Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar
Directed by Clint Bentley

So many people speak about finding meaning in life. Something I’ve come to understand is that humans are awakening apes. We are clever creatures, cobbling together technology that can do amazing things, but we remain deeply blind when it comes to understanding our interior lives and forming meaningful connections with others. So much of our existence consists of things that simply happen, with little to no reason. We’re born to random people who may or may not be fit to raise us. We’re randomly born into an economic class that profoundly shapes the direction of our lives. Nature treats us coldly; a tornado can appear without warning and decimate everything you’ve built. Perhaps your economic class shields you from that devastation to some degree.

Movie Review – Bugonia

Bugonia (2025)
Written by Will Tracy
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

In the West, we are no longer living in a shared reality with our neighbors. I think COVID accelerated this, with the internet acting as a pipeline of ideological sludge that has led to a backslide reminiscent of the Dark Ages, but with smartphones. I have a family member who has fully embraced a reactionary mindset, going so far as to become a flat Earther. When someone has deteriorated that far into mental illness, it is beyond the ability of their family members to help them; only someone professionally trained will have the patience, while I am too emotionally entangled. This person has always held fringe beliefs, but it was through the internet that they linked up with similarly delusional people; a feedback loop of insanity. Bugonia is a film about people who cannot accept that the source of so much suffering in our world is human cruelty and instead fall back on increasingly incoherent explanations.

Movie Review – Sentimental Value

Sentimental Value (2025)
Written by Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier
Directed by Joachim Trier

It is becoming increasingly harder to find humanity on the screen in the 21st century. It started when finance conquered Hollywood in a hostile takeover. For a long time, there were a considerable number of studio heads who balanced the commerce of film with artistry. That battle was completely lost by the end of the 2010s. With AI coming into proliferation, we’re now gazing out at a bleak landscape of soulless content that will make the commercialism of the 1980s look quaint by comparison. Yet this list of films I’ve been working on is full of filmmakers I believe are trying their best to maintain a sense of humanity in cinema. Their work does not make much money and is not seen by as many eyes as most of the films in your local multiplex, but they express ideas and themes that are essential to examine if we are to understand what it means to be human.

Movie Review – Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme (2025)
Written by Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
Directed by Josh Safdie

2025 was the year we saw the results of the great Safdie Brothers split. Benny gave us The Smashing Machine, which also served as an opportunity for Dwayne Johnson’s reinvention as a serious, Oscar-worthy actor. It wasn’t a terrible film, but it didn’t evoke the same emotions in me as the films on my favorites list this year. I’m not writing Benny off; his performance and involvement in the television series The Curse was phenomenal. When it came to directing feature films in 2025, it was Josh’s time to shine. Marty Supreme was hyped to an extreme degree, which is always risky, but it ultimately lived up to that hype, emerging as one of the best pictures of the year while building on the themes the Safdies established as a duo.

Movie Review – I’m Still Here

I’m Still Here (2025)
Written by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega
Directed by Walter Salles

In 1964, Brazil experienced a military coup, supported by U.S. forces, against then-president João Goulart and his proposed social reforms. These reforms, including land redistribution, expanded labor rights, and the nationalization of key industries, alarmed conservative politicians, business leaders, the Catholic hierarchy, and much of the officer corps, who framed his government as a step toward communism. The U.S.-backed dictatorship dismantled democratic institutions and installed an authoritarian regime that would last twenty-one years. The dictatorship ruled through censorship, political repression, torture, and forced disappearances, while promoting a narrative of “order” and economic modernization. Though the regime oversaw periods of rapid industrial growth, these gains were unevenly distributed and came at the cost of civil liberties, deepening inequality and leaving lasting scars on Brazilian society that continue to shape its politics and collective memory today.

Movie Review – It Was Just An Accident

It Was Just An Accident (2025)
Written and directed by Jafar Panahi

In 2022, Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was arrested while inquiring about the status of two fellow filmmakers who had been detained by authorities. He became the third director taken into custody in less than three weeks. After initiating a hunger strike, Panahi was released 48 hours later. He was barred from leaving Iran while under investigation and was subsequently tried. It Was Just an Accident won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but the filmmaker was not permitted to leave the country to attend. In December 2025, Iran’s government sentenced Panahi in absentia to one year in prison and imposed a two-year travel ban over alleged “propaganda activities.” During this period, he was also prohibited from joining any political or social organizations. This ruling came a decade after many previously banned Iranian film organizations had been allowed to reopen.