10. The Secret Climax
What’s it about: During Brazil’s military dictatorship, former professor Armando flees to a small town in the north, escaping a rich man who’s decided he’d rather Armando wasn’t alive anymore. As Armando makes plans to leave Brazil, his enemies begin to close in, and if you’re curious how that plays out, I have some bad news for you.
I don’t always love a slow-burn story. And maybe that’s a fault on my part, maybe I should learn to get off the movie/show’s back, accept a languid pace, and not constantly ask when they’re getting to the fireworks factory. (Certainly Bone Tomahawk taught me to be careful what I wish for in that regard, that particular fireworks factory was unpleasant.) But I do ask one thing of a slow-burn narrative: be worth the wait. I expect a pay-off worthy of the gradual build-up, and in this reviewer’s opinion, The Secret Agent doesn’t come within a country mile of that.
The vast majority of The Secret Agent’s nearly three hours of runtime (a mere two minutes shorter than the longest nominee) is putting pieces in place. Armando arrives in the town of Recife, gets settled in an apartment complex housing multiple such political refugees, reconnects with his son, and considers an exit from Brazil, while the rich man who wants him dead for… reasons?… dispatches assassins who grow gradually closer. And then, nearly 150 minutes in, things start to kick off properly, and it looks like we’re going into an entertainingly terrible assassination attempt. Things spiral out of control for specifically the antagonists, it looks like we’re heading for a total implosion of the forces against Armando… and then we time-jump forward from the late 70s to the present day. See, we’d also been occasionally cutting to a researcher in 2025 who was transcribing recordings regarding this case for some reason, probably ongoing attempts to figure out the extent of the damage caused by the military dictatorship, it’s not clear, and just as the movie’s getting interesting we cut back to her tracking down Armando’s son to say “Welp, sorry your dad got murdered somehow, but seems like he was an okay guy.”
There’s also a whole side story about a human leg found inside of a shark that becomes a folk legend to the point of becoming a horror movie monster (the leg, not the shark, it’s weird), but that goes absolutely nowhere.
Over on Recovered, Keith and I talked about a Phantom of the Opera adaptation that only fully made sense in the context of 1930s China, and outside of that context, a lot of the messaging and character choices fell flat. I think we’re in the same spot here. Ultimately I think that this movie is made by and for Brazilians who already understand that Brazil in the 70s was messed up and good people just got swallowed in the corruption, and without that cultural context (or only having what I got from I’m Still Here, which had nothing to say about rich oligarchs), I was adrift in this movie. Why did ruining Armando’s workplace not sate his rival’s need for payback? Why was murder necessary? How is it possible that as the killers and corrupt cops seemed minutes away from turning on each other and forgetting Armando, that it still ended like it did?
I don’t understand why this beat out fellow Foreign Film nominees It Was Just an Accident or No Other Choice for an overall Best Picture nomination. Or Jay Kelly, Weapons, or even KPop Demon Hunters. (Not Superman, I loved it but we are not pretending that a superhero movie not directed by Ryan Coogler had a legit shot at the shortlist.) Hell, I’m first in line to name the faults of Wicked: For Good but at least it had an ending. I don’t understand why the competent but simple and understated performance by Wagner Moura beat out Oscar Isaac, Jesse Plemmons, Paul Mescal, or even Brad Pitt in other films we’re about to discuss for a Best Actor nomination.
Frankly I don’t even know why it’s called that. He’s not an agent and is insufficiently secret, it makes no sense.
Films of 2025: Time of writing, it’s #44 out of 48, over Love Hurts (which also didn’t make its story make sense, in that case due to the zero chemistry between the leads) and under Avatar: Fire and Ash (which also has an unfavourable ratio of set-up to payoff but manages an ending).
Best Pictures: I think I’d place this one at #70, over The King’s Speech and under Green Book, I said what I said.
9. Manchester by the Tree
What’s it about: Robert Grainier works seasonally as a logger, returning in the off-season to his wife and baby daughter. He is haunted by a horrific act of racially-motivated murder he not only failed to stop, but briefly inadvertently aided, and as a result feels tragedy is constantly stalking him. And I guess he was right to feel that, because tragedy surely finds his family as he’s on his way home one year. In the wake of this, he struggles to find a meaning to the remaining decades of his life, finding only brief moments of grace before passing alone and unnoted.
Like a previous BP nom that it feels like everyone got into but me, Manchester by the Sea, this is a treatise on grief, and how some losses never truly leave you. And if that’s what you’re into, fine, here it is, and I can’t imagine a better version of that specific narrative. It’s spectacularly well-shot, and has some solid performances from an understated Joel “Young Uncle Owen” Edgerton, Felicity “Jyn Erso” Jones, and briefly William H. “Hasn’t Done a Star War” Macy, who wow time has caught up with.
But if “Grief, man, I dunno” is not a theme you’re willing or able to rock with, if you suffered two major losses in recent years, and just hit the anniversary of one of them right before watching this movie, maybe it won’t fully land. Maybe “Part of you dies with them and it will never, ever come back” isn’t what you’re wanting to hear right now. And if that’s the case, it may end up feeling like this movie has no third act. Like half of this movie is Grainier not knowing what his life even is post-tragedy and never finding an answer, and maybe “he finds grace and beauty during his first and only plane ride” isn’t enough.
It is beautifully shot, but I feel some more powerful movies got overlooked for this one, which reached its main point in 45 minutes then kept drifting for nearly an hour.
I do appreciate that it was the shortest one, I’ll give it that. But it doesn’t help this one’s cause that the shortlist had a different movie about loss and grief that also finds its way to “It is possible to heal.”
Films of 2025: If “I rank this three spots under Another Simple Favor” isn’t the meanest thing anyone will ever say about this movie I don’t know what is. It’s at #41, over Captain America: Brave New World (although I’d rewatch that one faster) and under the new remake of Silent Night Deadly Night, which managed a progression of events in a satisfying way, which shouldn’t have been a hard bar to clear.
Best Pictures: I’ll put it at #61, under a different movie about someone not dealing well with a tragic loss, Hamlet, and over another movie that skirted on beautiful landscape shots to wallpaper its thin narrative, Nomadland.
8. Forrest Chump
What’s it about: Marty Mauser feels it’s his destiny to be the world champion of table tennis, the first to make the sport break out in America, and because this is his destiny it doesn’t matter who he steps on, offends, or betrays to make it happen. The problem is, all those offenses and betrayals are now standing between him and making it to the championships in Japan, so he’s gonna have to hustle like he’s never hustled before.
The first of two entries on this list that, on close examination, is actually a farcical comedy that just happens to be filled with characters that don’t know they’re in a comedy. Marty Mauser is akin to The Gang from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He’s engaging enough to watch that you get invested in his largely delusional journey to be the world champion of table tennis, but a bad enough person that you’re okay with the fact that he’s almost certainly not going to succeed. Sure he has talent at the game, but he’s also so arrogant that he gets himself banned from the sport, yet still believes that if he can get himself to Japan and face off against the reigning champ that beat him, everything will work out. Every dollar he’s conned or stolen, every person of influence he’s offended, every friend or lover he’s betrayed, he truly believes that it’ll all wash clean once he’s world champion.
Which in a biopic (say, A Complete Unknown from last year), would absolutely be the case. But while this movie does borrow several elements from actual ping pong player Marty Reisman, it files off enough serial numbers to count as fiction, is free to frame Marty as a manipulative dirtbag unwilling or unable to recognize that other people also have wants, and so the consequences of Marty Mauser’s actions just keep dogpiling on him. The sheer amount of chaos descending on Marty and his absolute inability to foresee any of it is actually very funny if you can vibe with it, and with the fact that nobody in this movie is actually playing it as a comedy. That said, it’s only 12 minutes shorter than The Secret Agent, and the character that anchors all but one scene is remorselessly unpleasant. Marty Mauser sucks. But Chalamet plays the hell out of him as someone who truly believes he’s a day away from greatness and cannot comprehend that anyone else’s thoughts and feelings might also matter.
That said… while I understand the Safdie brothers (only one of which made this while the other failed to get The Rock an Oscar nomination for The Smashing Machine) like to make unconventional casting choices, the presence of Trump supporter and reigning Worst Canadian Kevin O’Leary is hard to ignore or forgive. Even if his completely blank, utterly uncharismatic delivery of “I was born in 1601. I’m a vampire,” lived rent-free in my head for weeks.
No, I’m not kidding, his character tries to convince Marty to throw a game by claiming to be a 350 year-old vampire, but with all the acting talent of Steven Segal doing a fight scene without leaving his chair.
If you can vibe with it, it’s entertaining, but I had to use the phrase “If you can vibe with it” so it’s ranked where it’s ranked.
Films of 2025: I have it at #25, under the overlooked It Was Just an Accident and just barely over Steven Soderbergh’s subtly sexy spy thriller Black Bag.
Best Pictures: I reckon I’d place this one at #59, under My Fair Lady (Henry Higgins is also a piece of work) and over Million Dollar Baby. Do I think Marty deserves a more uplifting ending than Maggie Fitzgerald? Maybe not, but was his journey more entertaining to watch? Sure was.
7. 2 Fast, 1 Furious
What’s it about: Formerly famous race car driver Sonny Hayes is recruited by his old pal and former teammate Ruben to join his struggling Formula One team, which puts him at odds with younger driver Joshua Pearce. The two must find a way to work together if their team has any chance of winning the champeenship Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi.
The least surprising trivia fact I have heard or expect to hear about this movie is that it was initially envisioned by director and co-writer Joseph Kosinski as a legacy sequel to Days of Thunder, the Tom Cruise vehicle that ended Don Simpson’s reign over 80s Hollywood. Not just because this was made by the director of Top Gun: Maverick, probably still the gold standard of legacy sequels, but because this movie is soaked in legacy sequel energy. An aging veteran who used to be the best in the game is pulled back for one last chance at glory while still needing to mentor a younger successor? That is pure strain legacy sequel stuff. But I guess Tom Cruise said no, so they search/replaced the name of the main character and in came Brad Pitt and here we are.
This is the most disappointed I’ve been to miss a Best Picture nominee on a big screen since Arrival, because these racing scenes must have been killer on IMAX, and extra exhilarating in DBox or 4D or whatever your local theatre calls the chairs that move alongside the movie. They were already pretty gripping on my (admittedly nicely large) TV, in a theatre they were probably amazing. But the 155 minute runtime (five minutes over Marty Supreme, seven minutes under The Secret Agent) felt like a lot back in June, so here we are.
Simple fact is, Kosinski got where he is by knowing how to deliver a crowd-pleaser. I get the urge to rewatch Top Gun: Maverick once a week (but who has the time). And while sure the main strength of this movie is the race sequences, both in the speed and in Sonny’s slightly underhanded strategizing, the actual character beats between Sonny, Joseph, and Kerry Condon as the team’s head technician also work.
It isn’t deep, but as a movie, I did overall dig it.
Films of 2025: A respectable but not huge 22, over Predator: Killer of Killers (not the best Predator movie last year but still fun) but under Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning (possibly the reason Tom Cruise turned this one down?).
Best Pictures: I’d place it at 46, over fellow “Veteran vs rising star” flick The Artist and under Chicago (better ratio of entertainment per minute).
6. Netflix’s Guillermo del Toro’s Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein
What’s it about: After his mother dies in childbirth, Victor Frankenstein becomes determined to conquer death itself, eventually creating life out of assembled corpse bits. But his creation has some notes vis a vis Victor’s parenting skills.
I guess it’s been 31 years since the last major motion picture to attempt a back-to-basics adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, so why not take another swing at Canonically Accurate Frankenstein? And who better to take it on than the only person to ever win multiple Oscars for suggesting that a Universal horror monster could get it? Okay, Jacob Elordi’s Creature doesn’t fuck as much as the fish man from Shape of Water but you believe maybe he could.
This movie is gorgeous. The sets, the design of the Creature, the cinematography, this movie looks incredible. And it is held up by amazing performances by Oscar Isaac as Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as his creation, and Mia Goth as, admittedly, a girl-boss’d up version of Frankenstein’s love interest. Albeit in this case the attraction is entirely one sided. Throw in Charles Dance as Frankenstein Sr. and Christoph Waltz as Victor’s financier, and you have a spectacular cast.
That said, it is basically just Frankenstein. Is it the best looking version of this story? I assume so. The best retelling of the original source material? There’s every chance, but that’s something that several future episodes of Recovered will have to grapple with, time and God permitting. But, end of the day, a gifted filmmaker wanted to make Frankenstein and Frankenstein is what we got. But it’s a version of Frankenstein that absolutely earned a place on the Best Picture shortlist which frankly (and steinly) is an impressive feat in and of itself.
Films of 2025: I place it at 14, over our other “The monster is still better than capitalism” story Predator: Badlands but under the sadly overlooked No Other Choice.
Best Pictures: I’d put it 43rd, under the prescription strength comfort movie Going My Way and over One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I SAID WHAT I SAID
Next page: All thriller, little filler
