The recently concluded 2025 was a very strange year for the seventh art. Unpredictable takings, great directors and actors who have not convinced critics or the public, new talents who have come forward and an instability that has effectively become a rule. This is why it is useful to go and look at which films you should recover, perhaps you have missed them, perhaps you have dismissed them without discovering them. Instead they have so much, so much to offer you.

“40 Seconds”

You still have time to catch it in the theater and trust me, it’s an unmissable cinematic experience. “40 seconds” by Vincenzo Alfieri is the best Italian film of the year hands down, and unfortunately one of the best examples of how difficult our audience is, and misses important opportunities. The assassination of Willy Monteiro Duarte five years ago, which profoundly shocked Italian public opinion, is the starting point through which Alfieri guides us into that human, cultural ecosystem called the Italian suburbs. A jungle so different and ultimately always the same. Male chauvinism, patriarchy, crime that is transmitted from generation to generation, abandoned youth without prospects, poverty and degradation shows them to us for what they are: a kingdom that is above all cultural rather than material. Filmed in a simply divine way, with a direction from the actors that made your wrists tremble, “40 seconds” was almost ignored by the Italian public in the cinema, in favor of much more disengaged films, also wanting to be indulgent with our society and its problems. Even more interestingly, it is a civil film but never rhetorical, national-popular or sappy, it embraces a simply incredible realism and knows how to affect us in a profound and never banal way. A pearl.

“One battle after another”

Paul Thomas Anderson with “One Battle After Another” created a film that was much talked about and, ultimately, absolutely set aside by the public, who did not take up this latest challenge of his, this film capable of being a total representation of our present (not just American). Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti, are the main faces of a cast that shows us humanity in a not so distant and not at all dystopian future. In the USA of tomorrow (let’s do it today) fascism dominates, it is an institution, not even a hidden one. Now grotesque, now ferocious, pervaded by incessant black humor, “One battle after another” tells us about a family of revolutionaries relentlessly pursued by a psychotic military man, by a supremacist Masonic lodge, and is a mix of pulp, action and political satire. Inside, we see the decline of democracy, of the West which has ended up in the hands of the worst, the most ignorant, the most violent. A simply sumptuous display of direction, as usual halfway between innovation and homage to classicism, “One battle after another” perhaps scared the audience, this audience which, if it doesn’t already understand everything from the trailer, won’t leave home. It is one of the great political films of our time, another proof of talent from one of the greatest directors of contemporary cinema. You can find it (unfortunately) already streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+.

“Black Bag”

A noir, one of the real, sinuous, elegant and fascinating ones, yet another author’s brushstroke from a great director with a great cast at his service. The extraordinary tradition of the spy thriller from across the Channel is sublimated by “Black Bag” by Steven Soderbergh, which with Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan, takes us into a canvas in which the professional and the personal go hand in hand, a game of shadows between spies, to find a mole, a traitor within His Majesty’s secret services. Armed with exquisite dialogue, a disturbing energy and a seductive aesthetic, “Black Bag” however has a cold soul like its protagonists. More than Ian Fleming, it refers to the fiction of Agatha Christie, Frederick Forsyth, John le Carré, who made Great Britain a model to imitate in the mystery genre. Unfortunately, even in this case the box office was very ungenerous, with a film that who knows, perhaps ten years ago would have won more than a few statuettes. “Black Bag” also becomes a metaphor for the complete loss of certainties in the modern geopolitical scene, where there is no loyalty, no coherence and no certainty. In the Services there are no allies, there are no ideals, there is only the game and those who live and die for it. Available on Now TV, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.

“A House of Dynamite”

The fact that Kathryn Bigelow’s new film was so ignored not only by the Academy, but even before that by an institution like the Venice Biennale, truly cries out for revenge. One of the most scandalous juries that the Lagoon has ever seen in the last decade, shrugged in front of his perfection of direction and composition, his ability to make tension become the very oxygen of this magnificent thriller. Structured on the overlap of multiple points of view regarding a mysterious nuclear device that is about to hit the United States, the film includes a first-rate cast, composed of Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Jason Clarke, Anthony Ramos, all called to be the many faces called to deal with this nightmare that is about to rain from the sky. You can find it on Netflix, naturally it deserved to spend much more time in theaters, as it deserved much more consideration from critics, the American one of course, who as usual only accept analyzes of this type when they are covered in patriotism and optimism. “A House of Dynamite” is a political thriller that takes us back to the times of the height of the Cold War, with which we embrace the total vulnerability of our lives, of our present in the face of an international chessboard led by crazy, ignorant and above all incompetent men. Absolutely one of the best films of the year. Available for some time on Netflix.

“Good Boy”

There’s also room for horror in this ranking, and what horror. “Good Boy” by Ben Leonberg is a real gem, it is one of those cult films that we would once have defined as genre films, but in reality, its elegance goes hand in hand with the originality of composition and with this brilliant idea: a horror film where the protagonist is a dog. His name is Indy, he is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, and is called to confront a dark presence, determined to take Todd, his owner, in the throes of a deep depression. In that little house lost in the woods, a duel will take place between this faithful, courageous and intuitive dog and this evil entity. It is impossible not to fall in love with this film, as well as not to understand the magnificent metaphor of the concept of depression as something already within us, to be fought with empathy. More than visual horror, “Good Boy” relies on the concepts of the unknown and oblivion, it is a psychological horror, but it works like a Swiss watch. Even in this case, it would have deserved to be in theaters more, word of mouth was effective but at the moment you can only find it on streaming. “Good Boy” is yet another demonstration of how this genre remains, even today, the freest, the most surprising, in the face of so much sterility and artificiality that has now infected the industry. You can catch it on Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video.