A Look Back At What I Reviewed During 2025: The Best, the Worst and the Honorable Mentions

Before I reveal my top/worst picks of 2025, I hope everyone has a nice, healthy new year and I hope everyone continues to enjoy the reviews that I work on! For the most part, I was able to check out almost every new release that the Dietrich Theater has shown and for those that I may have missed, I will be checking them out fairly soon.

This look back will just consist of films (new releases and film festival selections) that I checked out at the Dietrich Theater only and won’t include any of the other reviews that I have worked on. So, let’s get started and the following are listed in no particular order:

THE BEST: Sonic 3 (a 2024 film I checked out this year); A Complete Unknown (2024); Nosferatu (2024); Dog Man; Conclave; I’m Still Here; A Real Pain; A Minecraft Movie; Sinners; Novocaine; Warfare; Flow; Becoming Led Zeppelin; Sinners; The Accountant 2; Thunderbolts; Final Destination: Bloodlines; How to Train Your Dragon; F1: The Movie; Superman; Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie; 28 Years Later; Fantastic Four: First Steps; Weapons; The Conjuring: Last Rites; Bad Guys 2; Sorry, Baby; Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle; One Battle After Another; Good Boy; Frankenstein; Zootopia 2; David; Avatar: Fire and Ash; The Housemaid

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Mufasa: The Lion King (a 2024 film I checked out this year); Homestead; Paddington in Peru; The Substance; Lee; The Return; Love Hurts; Death of a Unicorn; The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie; A Working Man; The Penguin Lessons; The Friend; Until Dawn; The King of Kings; Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning; Lilo & Stitch; Jurassic World: Rebirth; Materialists; The Life of Chuck; Smurfs; Lilly; The Naked Gun; Freakier Friday; Oh, Hi; Roofman; Black Phone 2; Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere; Wicked; For Good; Predator: Badlands; Running Man; Now You See Me 3; Regretting You; Five Nights at Freddy’s 2; SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants

THE WORST PICKS OF 2025: Wolf Man; Flight Risk; Captain America: Brave New World; Snow White; Mickey 17; Ballerina; Friendship; The Roses; Tron: Ares; Nobody 2; The Monkey; Elio

That is a wrap of my top and worst picks of the films that I have checked out at the Dietrich Theater! I plan on continuing on with writing more reviews of films that I will be checking out at the theater and much more! Besides the new releases and the films I could be checking out during the numerous film festivals that the theater provides, I will also be primarily checking out quite a few recent releases that I have either missed or might revisit (mainly from 2016 to current). I will also have the occasional “throwback” reviews for special occasions, such as holidays, special anniversary reviews, etc. 

So, make sure to keep on checking my Wyoming County Press Examiner reviews page on Facebook where I provide updates of what I will be reviewing! Have a safe and happy 2026!