Monthly Archives: December 2025

My Top Movies for 2025

My Top Ten Movies of 2025

  1. Nuremberg—Russell Crowe at his best
  2. One Battle After Another—So much stuff going on… all of it compelling
  3. F1: The Movie—Good story…amazing visuals
  4. Materialists—A different sort of romcom…Dakota Johnson stunning
  5. After The Hunt—Polarizing film, yes, but I like it
  6. The Ballad of Wallis Island—Sweet quirky tale…memorable characters
  7. Black Bag—Soderbergh’s compact mystery
  8. Mickey 17—Another Bong Joon Ho goofy story…Pattinson brilliant
  9. Marty Supreme—Everything clicks in this one, especially Chalamet
  10. Hamnet—Jessie Buckley and cast deliver an emotional payoff

*****Ten more movies I liked a lot in 2025…

The Running Man

The Phoenician Scheme

Novocaine

Eleanor The Great

Highest 2 Lowest

Song Sung Blue

Eternity

Death of a Unicorn

Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

*****A few more movies I liked in 2025…

The Housemaid

From the World of John Wick: Ballerina

Regretting You

The Amateur

Love Hurts

The Penguin Lessons 

Friendship

Good Fortune

Jurassic Park: Rebirth

I’m Still Here

Drop

*****And Four Movies I DID NOT like…

Warfare

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

The Smashing Machine

Sinners

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The Housemaid

An ad for the new movie The Housemaid suggests that moviegoers will want to see this film for a second time. Presumably to piece together all the film’s plot elements. 

Once is enough for me. The film’s “bloody violent content” is a smidge over-the-top for my taste. YOU, on the other hand, might be totally okay with it!

The Housemaid is a suspenseful, psychological thriller. The stars are attractive. All are talented. The story is unraveled cleverly. And, along with the tension, The Housemaid even has a few chuckles. Good movie. Just grisly.

There are signals early on in the story that things in this beautiful house are not quite right. Would a suburban housewife like Nina (Amanda Seyfried) actually hire as a housemaid a woman who looks like Minnie (Sydney Sweeney)? Especially when she has a handsome hunky husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar) who is a perfectionist?

It’s soon revealed that Minnie is a recently paroled convict who is sleeping in her car. She needs the gig, even if her rather spartan room is at the very top of the house. Minnie works hard to keep Nina pleased with her work, despite her uneasiness with Nina’s erratic behavior.

As the tale unfolds and more is revealed, we learn things about Andrew, his man cave (where he likes to watch of episodes of Family Feud) and his controlling mother (Elizabeth Perkins). And what about the swarthy handyman (Michele Marrone) seen lurking in the yard doing random tasks? And Cece (Indiana Elle), Nina’s daughter from a prior relationship?

NO SPOILERS HERE! What transpires in The Housemaid are events you might have guessed were coming. But you will enjoy it more, I think, if you just allow things to happen and let yourself be surprised/amazed by what unfolds.

The Housemaid is directed by Paul Feig who knows how to assemble a suspenseful movie. Writer is Rebecca Sonnenshine from Freida McFadden’s novel. The Housemaid is rated R for “strong/bloody violent content, sexual assault, sexual content, nudity and language.” 

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Hamnet

Jessie Buckley! Bravura performance! Awards worthy!

Hamnet (not a typo) is slow, dark and moody. But, like the words you sometimes see posted next to online videos, “wait for the end!” Not to spoil things, but the third act of this new movie serves up a nice payoff.

Agnes (Buckley) is an earth mother, a free spirit type of woman. A birder. She even has a glove she wears to keep talons from piercing her arm. She runs through the woods.

Will (Paul Mescal) spots her, they hook up, marry and have three kids. Two girls and a boy, Hamnet. They live in a woodsy idyll with family close by. Emily Watson appears as Will’s mom Mary. Will, by the way, is Will Shakespeare.

Childbirth is not always easy, even in our modern times. 440 or so years ago, it was a real challenge, especially so for Agnes. And then, to lose her beautiful boy… 

Well, speaking as one who knows, the loss of a child, at any age, brings a pain that is unfathomable. The hurt is palpable, emotionally and even physically. 

Agnes grieves. Will grieves. Following the death of their young son Hamnet, Will goes back to London where he writes and stages his classic tragedy, Hamlet.

The depiction of the Globe Theater in the film is impressive. The real Globe exists in London but was deemed not appropriate for Hamnet. The one is the movie was built especially for the film. But it gives a good feel for the intimacy of the Globe, back in the day.

Interestingly, the man who plays Hamlet (in the stage play) is Noah Jupe who is the older brother of Jacobi Jupe who plays young Hamnet. 

Hamnet is being marketed as a mass appeal type of movie but it does still have a tinge of artsy-fartsy. Yes, it delivers an emotional punch and yes, the acting is superb. It has its sweet, light moments. But the feel is that this is an “important” film, which is something you should know going in. 

Hamnet is one of the answers to the question: Why don’t they make movies for grownups anymore? Well, they do. And this is a movie for grownups. (AARP recently published its annual list of “Movies for Grownups” and Hamnet is included.)

Hamnet is directed by Chloe Zhao who co-wrote the script with Maggie O’Farrell who wrote the novel that the movie is based on. Hamnet is rated PG-13. 

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