Paradoxically, as I get better at choosing movies and TV and video games and become more attuned to what I’ll like and dislike, these end-of-year lists get more difficult to write. What did I watch or play this year that I most enjoyed? How about everything? Well, almost everything. The “still trying to make Jared Leto happen” vehicle Tron: Ares* and the “Michelle Pfeiffer and most of this cast deserve better than this complete mess of a holiday outing” Oh. What. Fun. very much did not hit with me and left me feeling angry afterwards for having wasted my time, but I’m not in the mood to dog out those films any more than I have already done both in private and a second ago. Let’s focus on the positive and the films I liked or that shook me to my very core, and how can I not extoll their wonders and virtues? Any time some jerknerd tells you that Hollywood or the larger worldwide industry of film and television is out of ideas, you can comfortably gesture to this list – already non-exhaustive – and affix an incredulous look on your face. 

And as much as these end-of-year wrap-ups and lists tend to be backwards-looking out of necessity, brevity, and by definition, I’d also like to highlight a few projects that are coming up in 2026 about which I’m particularly excited. On screens both big and small, there are things to scare and thrill you and there’s even more to come.

The Spooky Stuff

Even though it came out in the first half of the year and it’s usually a misguided notion for a person, especially me who sees most of my best stuff in festival season in the second half, to decide on my favourite that early, there’s nothing else that drove a stake so deep into my heart and stayed in my thoughts more than Ryan Coogler’s vampire tale Sinners in 2025. A blood-soaked reminder of the power of music and one of the year’s best performances by Michael B. Jordan in a dual role, Sinners felt like a breath of fresh air. It also has my favourite single scene of 2025 that celebrates the strength of Black music, fashion, and culture in only a couple of minutes. Sinners also comes complete with a post-credit sequence that made me appreciate what these types of scenes can accomplish, and which almost made me stay in the theatre to watch Sinners all over again (I did not do this for a few reasons, chief among them that I did not have a ticket). 

Zach Cregger’s Weapons came with a ton of hype and pressure for the filmmaker to follow up his 2022 hit Barbarian with something even scarier and off-the-wall, and in my opinion, he understood the assignment. Bolstered by two terrific performances by Julia Garner and Amy Madigan, Cregger used his razor-sharp wit to carve through ‘sophomore slump’ expectations. I’m glad to see, at least, Madigan earning well-deserved awards attention from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Critics Choice Movie Awards because her Aunt Lydia might be the most iconic villain of the year. Well, except for John Lithgow…

I wrote a little about James Ashcroft’s The Rule of Jenny Pen (one of my early favourites of 2025 and possibly my favourite John Lithgow performance), describing Lithgow’s Dave Crealy as “exuberantly sinister.” Playing against a hapless and pitiful Geoffrey Rush as a tyrannical, puppet-wielding abuser, Lithgow’s Crealy was one of my favourite and most incisive onscreen villains in 2025. The unique and unexpected interplay between the two was made even more thrilling by setting it against the unusual backdrop of a long-term care home. And did I mention the creepy puppet?

One of my favourite scripts of the year was from Drew Hancock’s whip-smart Companion, starring one of my favourite horror leads, Sophie Thatcher (who I’ve also enjoyed quite a bit in Showtime’s Yellowjackets and the 2024 horrors Maxxxine and Heretic. Companion is, in essence, about the humanity of a “companion robot” as she comes to grips with her identity, while also allowing her crumb-bum of an owner (Jack Quaid) to entangle her in a complex plot to steal twelve million dollars. It dovetailed nicely with another ‘sex robot becomes self-actualized’ story I enjoyed very much this year in Sierra Greer’s debut novel ‘Annie Bot’ which I would also love to see adapted to a film at some point. 

The Heavy Stuff

I saw all of the following movies at TIFF this year, and in a fairly compressed period of time so the heaviness of these projects – all very different from one another and affecting in a variety of ways – had a bit of a cumulative effect on me. By the end of the Festival, even more than most years, I felt a palpable weight on my mind and soul, but it was ultimately a cathartic one that I was glad to have shouldered. 

On paper, a musical telling of the story of a religious sect – the Shakers – like The Testament of Ann Lee is not something that should have resonated so much with me. I’m not a religious person and musicals are very much not my, ahem, tempo. But Mona Fastvold’s examination of Ann Lee, portrayed by the almost unfairly multitalented Amanda Seyfried, threw me for a loop. Seyfried has a magnetism that matches the energy of Lee and allows you, as a viewer, a small glimpse at what the Shakers would have seen in her and spurred them to join and follow her movement even as their persecution looms large. The songs and choreography elevate The Testament of Ann Lee well beyond what it appears to be on the surface. Ann Lee’s is one of those stories that, after it was over, I was astounded that no one had told it before. Turns out, what the world was waiting for was Fastvold and Seyfried to bring it to life through the dance and song and evocative movement that the Shakers used to embody their worship and faith. 

Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams, now on Netflix, tells the turn-of-the-century story of Robert Grainer (Joel Edgerton), who’s hardworking and devoted to his family, and is just all-around good. This was another adaptation that surprised me with how deeply it affected me. We follow Grainier through his life as he experiences both triumphs and crushing hardships and it’s all set against the stunning, picturesque vistas of an untarnished Pacific Northwest (though it can be argued, maybe, that Granier’s work at clearing forests and building railways is the beginning of that tarnishing). I read Denis Johnson’s novel on which Train Dreams is based and which has long been considered to be adaptation-resistant, as well this year and it’s become one of my favourite books. 

There was no movie and frankly a scant few experiences of any kind in 2025 that affected me to my core like Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab. Based on the true story of a Red Crescent attempt to rescue a 6-year-old girl trapped under fire in Gaza, the use of the recordings of Hind Rajab’s call to the rescue agency made this one of the most singularly harrowing film experiences I’ve ever had, let alone in 2025. Every tension-filled moment feels authentically disturbing as your heart pounds along with the Red Crescent workers desperately trying to untangle the innocent Hind Rajab from the worst kind of violence. Words barely seem to do it justice as it’s something I can only recommend you experience on your own terms. Please seek out The Voice of Hind Rajab even if it’ll leave you dazed and angry and forever altered and enraged at the atrocities being afflicted on the people of Palestine. It’s, without a doubt in my mind, the most important film I saw in 2025 and more than worth weathering the storm of emotions it’ll conjure. 

What I’m Looking Forward To

I always keep a bit of a running list of teasers and announcements for the following year in order to keep an eye out for some of the buzziest titles in the film festivals and the press releases I get ahead of those films’ releases. When I was going through this brain-dump, I was surprised at how many titles are slated for 2026 that already have me combing through press releases and industry trade magazines in hopes that they’ll end up at a festival or with an advance screener on offer. This is just a couple of them.

As a true 90’s kid, Gregg Araki was one of the earliest filmmakers to influence my tastes as a teenager and into my 20’s. I loved and love the uninhibited wildness of movies like Nowhere (1997), The Doom Generation (1995), and The Living End (1993). Even the soundtracks of those films influenced my musical tastes and introduced me to many of my favourite bands. So I was thrilled to find out that Araki has a new film called I Want Your Sex premiering at Sundance this year. This one stars Olivia Wilde as an avant-garde artist who takes on a “sexual muse” which seems very much in Araki’s wheelhouse. I’ve always loved the way he blends comedy and horror with provocative arthouse weirdness, and I Want Your Sex looks like vintage Araki.

Natalie Erika James follows up the incredible Relic (2020) and the Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A (2024) with a new horror called Saccharine that I’m hoping makes it onto the festival circuit this year. It stars Midori Francis as Hana, who is a medical student who takes up the consumption of human ashes as part of an online weight-loss trend. It sounds like the spiritual successor to The Substance that I’ve been craving for almost two years.

I got a taste of some very excellent Irish horror this year with both John Farrelly’s An Taibhse and Aislinn Clarke’s Frewaka (also don’t you dare miss Carol’s piece on the latter) which only whetted my appetite for more. Oddity director Damien McCarthy unleashed one of the hands-down scariest trailers I’ve seen all year with his preview of Hokum, which comes to theatres in May. Starring Adam Scott as a “reclusive novelist” who holes up in an assuredly-haunted Irish inn to scatter his parents ashes, I can’t wait to see what kind of spookiness Hokum has in store.

2025 was a pretty tough year for most people I know, and at least in my case, the movies and books I’ve listed here have (mostly) given me some relief from the strain of the world. I hope that, if the last year brought you stress or troubles of any kind, that you found some respite from them in the art and stories you chose. And, pals, I hope 2026 is an easier ride.

*Oddly enough, I both listened excessively to the Nine Inch Nails’ soundtrack toTron: Ares and purchased the tie-in novelty popcorn bucket which I have since repurposed as a flower pot. It’s fascinating to me how the ancillary Tron-tent has brought me so much more joy than the mainline film that I hated almost every agonizing, Leto-laden minute of.

Sachin Hingoo is extremely ready to put a bow on 2025 and bury it in that stupid popcorn bucket.