By Dennis Hartley
(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on December 13, 2025)
Yes, it’s that special season…for those obligatory “top 10” lists. Keep in mind, I can’t see ’em all; these picks are culled from the first-run features that I reviewed this year. Alphabetically:
Birthright – As Queen Eleanor muses in The Lion in Winter: “What family doesn’t have its ups and downs?” Writer-director Zoe Pepper’s twisted dark comedy thriller is like a 21st-Century take on James Goldman’s classic tale of family dysfunction. In this case, the prodigal son has not returned to the manor for a brief visit, but for an indeterminate stay.
Cory (Travis Jeffrey) and his very pregnant wife Jasmine (Maria Angelico) have been hit with a double whammy: Cory has been laid off and the couple have been evicted. Broke and desperate, Cory shows up on the doorstep of his upper middle-class parents’ estate and asks if it’s okay that they stay a few days . His judgemental father (Michael Hurst) and ice-queen mother (Linda Cropper) seem wary at best. They agree, but with some “tough love” caveats. As temporary lodging morphs into “taking up residence”, family tensions mount, old wounds reopen and an epic battle between father and son for the title of King of the Castle ensues. This is the most trenchant Australian social satire I’ve seen since Don’s Party.
Color Book -Everyone processes grief differently. In the case of recently widowed Lucky (William Catlett) and his 9 year-old son Mason (Jeremiah Daniels) there lies an additional complication in the healing process: Mason is developmentally disabled and doesn’t appear to understand why his mother is no longer with them.
Now more than ever, Lucky’s paternal instinct drives him to bond with his son; and even if Mason isn’t registering the same emotional pain over their mutual loss, he wants to do everything in his power to be a comforting and reassuring presence for him. But Mason’s chief concerns remain steadfast: drawing in his coloring book and watching televised ball games.
Lucky hits on an idea to break the impasse: he’ll take his son to his first pro baseball game. It’s perfect…a father and son bonding experience that will make Mason happy and get both of them out of the house for a day. What ensues is a veritable Homeric journey across the Atlanta metro area, driven by Lucky’s determination to get his son to the ball park on time to catch the game, regardless of any number of obstacles.
They say there is beauty in simplicity, and this is a simple story, beautifully told. It’s an astonishingly assured debut for writer-director David Fortune, shot in black and white by cinematographer Nikolaus Summerer. A truly compassionate drama that keeps it real at all turns, capped off by two outstanding lead performances. Color Book is a must-see.
Four Mothers -SIFF’s 2025 Opening Night Gala selection is the latest from writer-director Darren Thornton (A Date For Mad Mary). James McArdle stars as a gay novelist about to embark on an important American book tour. While he is excited about the prospect, he is torn about what to do about his mother while he is away (he’s her caregiver).
Adding to his stress level, he is unexpectedly saddled with taking care of three additional elderly women when several of his friends drop their mams off with him before heading off to a Pride festival for a weekend (he’s too nice a fellow to say no).
A delightful dramedy inspired by the Italian film Mid-August Lunch (my 2009 SIFF review). Bolstered by crackling dialog (co-written by the director and Colin Thornton) and endearing performances all round (particularly by Fionnula Flanagan as the writer’s mother, who steals all her scenes without uttering a word). (Streaming on Apple TV)
Nouvelle Vague – A heady and freewheeling backstage drama/fan fiction from Richard Linklater about the making of Breathless, the film that ushered in the French New Wave. Linklater not only offers a “fly on the wall” perspective with an uncanny recreation of the original production (right down to the camera work, film stock and screen ratio), but renews your faith in a medium that has become more about bombast, box office, and back end than characters, concept, and conflict. Full review (Streaming on Netflix)
One Battle After Another – It’s tempting to call Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling action-thriller/sociopolitical satire “one chase after another”, as it doesn’t pause often for a breather. Upon a second viewing (which I enjoyed more than the first) I detected more nuance. While the chase scenes are expertly choreographed, breathtakingly filmed (in vintage VistaVision) and genuinely exciting, it’s the little details I loved. The populous cast is uniformly excellent, but stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn are at the peak of their powers here. Certain elements evoke the anarchic political spirit of late 60s/early 70s films like Punishment Park, The Strawberry Statement, Zabriskie Point, and Getting Straight, but One Battle After Another can simply be enjoyed as pure, exhilarating film making for grownups. Full review (In theaters and streaming on PPV)
Sorry, Baby – Mumblecore is alive and well, as evidenced by SIFF’s 2025 Closing Night Gala selection. Written, directed and starring Eva Victor (who you may recognize from Showtime’s Billions) this dramedy is a sometimes meandering but generally affable portrait of an independent young woman’s long recovery in the aftermath of a traumatic betrayal of trust. Victor slowly reveals her character’s arc in episodic fashion, using a non-linear timeline. Solid performances all around in a story that chugs along at the speed of life. The film left me thinking about something Mr. Rogers once said…“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” He was right, you know. (Streaming on HBO/MAX)
U Are the Universe -As Elton John sang, it’s lonely out in space. Especially if there’s no Earth to come home to. Andriy (Volodymyr Kravchuk) is the pilot on a garbage scow loaded with nuclear waste destined for disposal on one of Jupiter’s moons (it’s just his job, 5 days a week). When he gleans that the world’s entire population has been wiped out by a cataclysmic event, he’s saddled by the realization he may be the last living human in the universe.
Considering that there is an ample yet finite supply of food on the ship, Andriy has calculated he can survive for a while, but obviously not as long as he would have expected, had the Earth not been destroyed. His growing sense of existential despair is kept somewhat in check by the presence of his onboard AI technical assistant/personality-enhanced companion Maxim, which at least gives him “someone” to interact with.
Then, one day, out of the vacuum, a glimmer of hope. He receives a voice-only communication from a Frenchwoman named Catherine, who tells him she’s the sole occupant of a space station on a collision course with Saturn (she figures she only has a couple weeks before there’s an earth-shattering kaboom). Andriy now has a raison d’être; he immediately sets course for a rescue mission (despite Maxim’s dire warnings about his ship’s limited power reserves).
While this may be familiar territory (with shades of 2001, Solaris, Silent Running, and Miracle Mile), Ukrainian director Pavlo Ostrikov’s film (which was in the midst of wrapping production in Kyiv in 2022 as Putin began sending salvos of missiles into the city) is armed with a smart script, tight direction, a nuanced performance by Kravchuk, and a beautiful statement on love, compassion and self-sacrifice-adding up to one of the best genre entries I’ve seen in some time.
Vermiglio – Once I got pulled into writer-director Maura Velpero’s intimate World War 2 family drama Vermiglio (winner of the Silver Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and Italy’s Official Selection for the 2025 Academy Awards), I didn’t want it to end. Imbued with shades of The Leopard, The Last Valley, and Little Women, this is a simple, yet universal tale that transcends the era it is set in (which is captured with great verisimilitude). It works as both an elegy to the final vestiges of Old World traditionalism and as a harbinger of post-war mores. Naturalistic performances all around. Lovely cinematography by Mikhail Krichman (that lush Alpine scenery paints itself). An honest, raw, and emotionally resonant film. Full review (Streaming on Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and other platforms)
Waves – While it is set on the eve of the 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, in some respects writer-director Jiří Mádl’s riveting political thriller could have been ripped from today’s headlines.
In 1967 Prague, a young man named Tomás (Vojtěch Vodochodský) lives in a cramped apartment with his younger brother Paja (Ondřej Stupka). Tomás is Paja’s legal guardian. The conservative and apolitical Tomás is concerned about rebellious Paja’s increasing involvement with an anti-regime activist group. One day, he is chagrined to learn that Paja has sneaked off to an open audition for a job as an assistant to a popular but controversial radio journalist. Tomás rushes down to the station to intervene, but stumbles into landing the gig himself.
While he cannot foresee it, Tomás is about to get swept up into the vortex of tumultuous political upheaval in his country, culminating in the August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces (the film is based in part on the rousing story of how Czech Radio managed to keep broadcasting, even after Soviet troops forced their way in and seized control of the main studios).
Waves plays like a mashup of Three Days of the Condor and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and is a welcome throwback to films that hit that sweet spot between historical sweep and intimate drama. Oh, and don’t forget to support your favorite independent journalists, because democracy dies in…well, you know. Full review
Yanuni – Tribeca’s 2025 closing night selection is a riveting eco-doc that profiles Indigenous rights activist Juma Xipaia (the first female Indigenous chief of her people in the Middle Xingu) and her husband Hugo, who heads up a government special ops team that locates and shuts down illegal mining operations in Brazil’s Amazon region.
Richard Ladkani’s doc unfolds like a Costa-Gavras political thriller; early on in the film we see harrowing footage of Juma participating in a protest outside of the National Congress Palace in Brasilia where riot police suddenly fire a fusillade of live rounds into the crowd. A distraught Juma kneels beside a tribal activist who appears to be gravely wounded, pleading for him to respond (he doesn’t) until fellow demonstrators pull her away, out of the line of fire.
Juma, we learn, is no stranger to the threat of violence; she has survived a number of assassination attempts over the years and continues to be under threat. Yet she soldiers on, fighting outside and (eventually) inside of Brazil’s political system for her people…as does her husband (Juma and Hugo form an eco-warrior power couple).
Ladkani follows Hugo and his team on several missions; these scenes play like they are straight out of an action film, but instilled with an all-too-real sense of danger (the illegal miners are frequently armed and rarely happy to see the government commandos). Mining has been prohibited since Brazil’s Federal Constitution of 1988, as it not only wreaks havoc on the Amazonian ecosystem, but has a number of negative health effects on the Indigenous peoples of the region.
Ladkani’s film is slickly made and lushly photographed, but doesn’t pull any punches regarding its heavy subject matter. When you consider 10,000 acres of the Amazon rainforest are destroyed every day, the sense of urgency here becomes all the more palpable. (Streaming on eventive and Apple TV)
…and just for giggles
Holy Krampus…have I really been writing reviews here for 19 years?! I was but a child of 50 when I began in November of 2006 (I was much older then, but I’m younger than that now). Here are my “top 10” picks for each year since I began writing for Hullabaloo.
(You may want to bookmark this post as a handy reference for movie night).
[Click on title for full review]
2007
Eastern Promises, The Hoax, In the Shadow of the Moon, Kurt Cobain: About a Son, Michael Clayton, My Best Friend, No Country for Old Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, Paprika, Zodiac
2008
Burn After Reading, The Dark Knight, The Gits, Happy Go Lucky, Honeydripper, Man on Wire, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Visitor
2009
The Baader Meinhof Complex, Inglourious Basterds, In the Loop, The Limits of Control, The Messenger, A Serious Man, Sin Nombre, Star Trek, Where the Wild Things Are, The Yes Men Fix the World
2010
Creation, Inside Job, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, Little Big Soldier, A Matter of Size, My Dog Tulip, Nowhere Boy, Oceans, The Runaways, Son of Babylon
2011
Another Earth, Certified Copy, The Descendants, Drei, Drive, The First Grader, Midnight in Paris, Summer Wars, Tinker/Tailor/Soldier/Spy, The Trip
2012
Applause, Dark Horse, Killer Joe, The Master, Paul Williams: Still Alive, Rampart, Samsara, Skyfall, The Story of Film: an Odyssey, Your Sister’s Sister
2013
The Act of Killing, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, Computer Chess, 56 Up, The Hunt, Mud, The Rocket, The Silence, The Sweeney, Upstream Color
2014
Birdman, Child’s Pose, A Coffee in Berlin, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Kill the Messenger, The Last Days of Vietnam, Life Itself, A Summer’s Tale, The Wind Rises, The Theory of Everything
2015
Chappie, Fassbinder: Love Without Demands, An Italian Name, Liza the Fox Fairy, Love and Mercy, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Song of the Sea, Tangerines, Trumbo, When Marnie Was There
2016
The Curve, Eat That Question, Hail, Caesar!, Home Care, Jackie, Mekko, Older Than Ireland, Snowden, The Tunnel, Weiner
2017
After the Storm, Bad Black, Becoming Who I Was, Blade Runner 2049, A Date for Mad Mary, Endless Poetry, I Am Not Your Negro, Loving Vincent, The Women’s Balcony, Your Name
2018
Big Sonia, BlacKkKlansman, Fahrenheit 11/9, The Guilty, Let the Sunshine In, Little Tito and the Aliens, Outside In, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, Wild Wild Country, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
2019
David Crosby: Remember My Name, Dolemite is My Name, Driveways, The Edge of Democracy, The Irishman, Monos, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Putin’s Witnesses, This is Not Berlin, Wild Rose
2020
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Desert One, Love Spreads, Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, Pacified, 76 Days, Tommaso, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Weathering With You
2021
Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, Fire Music, Heist of the Century, Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time, The Last Film Show, The Paper Tigers, The Pebble and the Boy, Surge, Waikiki, Whelm
2022
Day by Day, Drunken Birds, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, The Integrity of Joseph Chambers, The Man in the Basement, Moonage Daydream, My Love Affair With Marriage, Nude Tuesday, Sweetheart Deal, Polystyrene: I Am a Cliche
2023
Adolfo, Downtown Owl, Hey, Viktor!, I Like Movies, L’immensità, The Mojo Manifesto, Next Sohee, Once Within a Time, One Night With Adela, Ride On
2024
Bonjour Switzerland, The Dog Thief, Hacking Hate, In Our Day, Linda Perry: Let it Die Here, The Old Oak, Rainier: A Beer Odyssey, Restless, Solitude, Under the Grey Sky
