Flasz On Film

In further effort to add context to my end-of-year rankings for the year 2025, which included a top 10 and a list of honorable mentions to boot, here is some more insight as to why you might not be able to find some movies that you might have championed among the ones I chose to highlight. And these are ones that I simply couldn’t see because as of writing of my lists, they weren’t out in the UK at all.

Just like the short list of five films I missed this year that could have potentially ended up on my best-of rankings, the movies listed below are ones I seriously look forward to and over the coming weeks and months I hope I will be able to see them and write some words about them as well.

Marty Supreme

The other of the solo Safdie movies released this year (the first one being Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine), Marty Supreme has technically opened in the UK on Boxing Day, but I will only be able to see it after New Year’s Day, mostly due to how this film is being rolled out nationally. This has been lauded in all corners as one of the most potent movies of the year, though my interest in seeing this is weirdly colored by an academic interest in using this movie as a compare-and-contrast study of how these two solo efforts from the Safdies, who are no longer working as a team, inform their previous work.

Is This Thing On?

Say what you want but I like Bradley Cooper’s trajectory as an actor-turned filmmaker. He somewhat reminds me of Ben Affleck, whose directorial works I also happen to enjoy a lot, Live by Night notwithstanding. So, I am looking forward to this prestige-adjacent drama about a marriage falling apart, and how life and art intersect to tell what I can only hope is going to be an emotionally-charged story.

Rental Family

Speaking of emotionally-packed narratives, I am also seriously looking forward to seeing Rental Family, perhaps because based on what I know about it, it reminds me a little bit of Lost in Translation. Maybe this could be a case of misplaced excitement, but these kinds of stories about men stepping up to the plate tend to win me over more often than not.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

I have to admit that I know very little about If I Had Legs I’d Kick You but based on the collective praise poured on it over the course of the year, it has wound up on this list as a movie I need to check out when it finally lands in cinemas here. Between the Sundance buzz, numerous festival awards, critical acclaim, and potential Oscar momentum building behind it, it is definitely one to watch.

No Other Choice

Park Chan-wook’s latest piece, which is supposed to get its theatrical release in the coming weeks, comes with incredible praise. Although my relationship with Park’s movies is a little bit patchy, No Other Choice is definitely a movie I would like to see as soon as it is available to me. Who knows? Maybe this is also a movie that is likely to walk away with the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.

Sentimental Value

While on the subject of international movies with awards potential, Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier is another title that has just about opened in the UK after Christmas but I have not been able to find it playing anywhere near me. Though my knowledge of Trier’s movies is limited to Thelma (which I happened to like a lot as an arthouse play on Carrie and The Exorcist), Sentimental Value is a movie I’d like to see.

The Testament of Ann Lee

My interest in The Testament of Ann Lee has very little with the movie itself. In fact, I don’t really know what it is about or who’s in it. What I do know is that it is written and directed by Mona Fastvold, who happens to have written (or co-written) three movies directed by Brady Corbet, i.e. The Childhood of a Leader, Vox Lux and last year’s The Brutalist. Therefore, I remain excited about this movie that quite a few critics liked across the pond.

Hamnet

Finally, there’s Hamnet. Although from what I gather the response to this movie has been of the love-it-or-hate-it variety and the story looks tailor-made to function as Academy catnip, Chloe Zhao does have what it takes to push my buttons the right way. And I also happen to like Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, so there’s that.