It’s been a strange year of movie watching for me, I’ve enjoyed introducing my kids to some classics (well not exactly classics) of the past but I haven’t watched nearly enough new films, no matter when they were made, but there were a couple of standouts. My top ten are all films I had not seen before this year.

Conclave despite the reveal has some stunning cinematic moments and builds tension and drama through a tight, taut script, great cinematography and a fantastic cast.

I saw Conclave last January and it held best film for a long time but that now goes to A House of Dynamite (which I wrote about here).

Kathryn Bigelow’s tense, blow by blow account of the inside of the key rooms in the event of a nuclear attack on the USA. It quite rightly ends where it does and maintains interest and drama the whole way through. I said,

And it is this pressure cooker of having to make immense decisions in a highly compressed time-frame is at the heart of the latest movie, Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite. The film shows from three different angles what happens in the 18 minutes between detection of and landing of a nuclear missile in the continental USA. The film superbly captures the tension and pressure as regular humans show up to work and then have to deal with, not a training simulation, but the real thing – a nightmare come true.

Champions & The Secret Life of Walter Mitty were both sweet and heartwarming (mostly). Wallace & Gromit never let you down.

Hundreds of Beavers is funny, original and at least 30-40 minutes too long.

I got my Wes Anderson and Tarantino fixes by filling in some gaps in the catalogue with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou & The Hateful Eight respectively.

The Running Man is better than the original and Edgar Wright always infuses his films with great energy, swagger and a killer soundtrack. Yet I think it could have been even better, it flagged across the finish line I think.

Thunderbolts* is the most original and funny Marvel film for a while and offers a glimmer of hope. Captain America: A Brave New World shows the way not to go.

Films seen at the cinema: Conclave, Captain America: Brave New World, Superman & The Running Man. Every year I tell myself to go the cinema more because I enjoy it and every year it ends up being less than half a dozen times.

1. A House of Dynamite
2. Conclave
3. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
4. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
5. The Running Man (2025)
6. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
7. Hundreds of Beavers
8. The Hateful Eight
9. Champions
10. Thunderbolts*

Other films watched the first time included: X-Men First Class, Playdate, Wonder Woman 1984, Heads of State, The Rundown, The Amateur, Tenet, The World’s End, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Barbie, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Carry-On, Borderlands, The Fall Guy, Captain America: Brave New World, The Last Duel, Joker, Hit Man, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

Tenet was easily the most disappointing as I’m a big Nolan fan. The rest were all OK.

In terms of rewatches I enjoyed again Civil War, Roadhouse (2023), Argo, The Peanut Butter Falcon & Moneyball

Here are my previous years lists: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019