00:00One Battle of Manoeuvre and Sinners are incredible films, hopefully they're going to get a lot of Oscar nominations.
00:04You've probably seen them, you've probably seen them.
00:06So I want to shine a light on ones that you might not have seen.
00:13Hello, my name is Jacob Sturworthy, I'm Chief Film and TV Correspondent, and these are my top films of 2025.
00:20And one of those is a film called On Falling.
00:23My name is Aurora, I work in a warehouse as a picker.
00:27Did you know that already?
00:29I'm sorry.
00:32What did you do for the weekend?
00:33I had to do a couple of things at home.
00:34Boring.
00:35What is it with your generation?
00:37I'm 65 and I'm out and about getting at that, getting at the baby.
00:40Remarkable debut from Laura Carrera, it's a Portuguese-British co-production.
00:44It stars a lady named Joanna Santos as a Portuguese immigrant who is working at a warehouse, a delivery store warehouse, I won't name names.
00:52But she suffers a life of isolation amid poor working conditions and the film is a social realist drama that shows how that can affect someone's mental health.
01:03I can't actually quite believe it was a debut, it was that assured.
01:06Laura Carrera clearly has a shining career ahead of her.
01:10The next film is one that you need to watch with all your family.
01:13It's the film from this year that, if there's any choice, this is the one you pick.
01:16And it's The Ballad of Wallace Island.
01:20We'll always have this island.
01:21And your beautiful music.
01:23Go!
01:23Oh yes!
01:24Directed by James Griffiths and it's co-written and stars Tom Badstin and Tim Key.
01:29The film will slay you, it will make you howl with laughter, it will make you feel all kinds of emotions.
01:34But ultimately it will just warm your heart and that's what you want around Christmas time.
01:38It sells Tim Key as a super fan of a musical, folk musical duo who reunites them despite the fact that they are no longer in touch.
01:47They're ex-lovers and he kind of strands them together on Wallace Island.
01:53And yeah, old wounds resurface and all at the same time you've got a super fan just watching them not believing that he's actually there.
02:01Witnessing his favourite musical duo.
02:03Tim Key, man.
02:04Tim Key.
02:04He, you know, stand-up comedian who can actually tap into a range of emotion that for me it ranks as one of my most affecting performances of the year.
02:14When was the last time you played together?
02:16I'm quite a private person to be honest.
02:18I know you are.
02:20But go on, what happened?
02:21The Ballad of the Wallace Island just for me stood out in a year of films that were quite hard-hitting or quite serious or violent and gory.
02:31It really stood out as a, just a warm blanket of a film.
02:35You knew I was coming, right?
02:38Yeah.
02:39Yeah.
02:40Number three is a film that didn't get a wide release in the UK at all.
02:43It's called EFUS.
02:45Gentlemen, let's play.
02:48He's out!
02:50The vote has been passed to begin construction on the currently unnamed middle school in Douglas.
02:55Let's go, last one.
02:57Let's make it count.
02:57Very strange title, but not a very strange film.
03:02The film is very simplistic, actually.
03:04It's about a group of friends who play baseball on an outfield that's getting closed down.
03:11It's getting built over.
03:12It's getting renovated on.
03:13And they've got one last game of baseball to play.
03:15And they do it over the space of this film, which is set over one day.
03:19It's a day in the life baseball hangout film.
03:22Carson Lund is a director and a writer, and it feels like he is a big fan of Richard Linklater.
03:26It's got a days of confused feel, but less frenetic than that.
03:30It really is, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, because I love films like this.
03:34It's a film that you can watch and take in all of the grounded performances where the characters are on screen for just a little bit of time,
03:43but they feel so multi-layered.
03:45It's immensely intricately written.
03:47But you can also just throw this on and have it on in the background, and it feel like a really soothing accompaniment.
03:53The fact that this film can do both of those things suggests it's a real highlight of the year.
03:58You will want to shout from the rooftops yourself at the people you know to watch Ephus.
04:02They may throw the Ephus.
04:04Ephus pitches a type of curveball so unnaturally slow that it confuses the batter.
04:09Makes him lose track of time.
04:10It's kind of like baseball.
04:11I'm looking around for something to happen.
04:13Poof, game time.
04:14We're at the stage of this where you should probably mention One Battle After Another and or Sinners,
04:20which are both fantastic films, and I really recommend them.
04:23But for me, I'd like to shine a light on other films, because everyone is shining a light on those films.
04:28So for me, the next one on the list is Bugonia.
04:31Good morning, Corey.
04:32Good morning, Michelle.
04:34I believe every company should strive to form a diverse table to empower people of different skills and...
04:41Every time.
04:42What is it?
04:43Skills and identities.
04:44To foster a new generation of...
04:45Okay, let's go again.
04:47Confession.
04:48I don't love Yorgos Lanthimos' back catalogue as much as many others do.
04:53I think for me, the favourite has been the highlight so far, but the others have all left me wanting.
04:58And I think I like either the start of the film, I like the mid-section of the film, I like the end of the film without loving the whole thing.
05:05Bugonia, for me, felt like the most cohesive Yorgos Lanthimos film to date,
05:09insofar that I really loved it from the first second to the closing shot.
05:13Welcome to the headquarters of the human resistance.
05:18Where's my hair?
05:19Your hair has been destroyed.
05:22To prevent you from contacting your ship.
05:25What ship?
05:27Your mother's ship.
05:29Okay.
05:30Emma Stone is better in this than she was in Poor Things, and she won an Oscar for Poor Things, so take from that what you will.
05:38And Jesse Plemons, who is just going from strength to strength, is really working at the top of his game in Bugonia.
05:45The plot is to die for.
05:47It's a guy who is a conspiracy theorist who believes that there is an alien race invading the planet, disguising himself as humans,
05:55and he abducts Emma Stone's company CEO because he believes that she is one of these aliens,
06:00and she starts to realise that he might not be the full ticket, so plays along with him, and it feels like a play.
06:07It feels like you're watching two titans just duke it out on stage, and when you're sat in a cinema, that's a really thrilling thing to see.
06:15Yorgos has made his best film yet with Bugonia, and it's not going to be for everyone, but what Yorgos' film is.
06:25So my favourite film of 2025 made me feel all the emotions. It's I Swear.
06:32Johnny D!
06:33It's called Tourette's Syndrome. I say things that I shouldn't.
06:36What can you do?
06:37Do you want to come in for something, too, John?
06:39Oh, fuck off, you wanker!
06:41Well, it's nice to meet you, too.
06:43Sorry.
06:44If you do anything here that you can't help, you never apologise.
06:48I Swear is a real-life tale of John Davidson.
06:51Growing up in 1980 Scotland, one day he developed Tourette's.
06:55This was at a time when people didn't know really what Tourette's was, and he got himself into a bunch of scrapes because of this condition that people were not educated about,
07:07that people just couldn't understand and didn't understand for a long time, actually.
07:12John Davidson is a remarkable human being, played in this film by a remarkable Robert Aramayo.
07:17He finds himself in all kinds of situations, and people accuse him of being disrespectful.
07:23They accuse him of being inappropriate.
07:24He just wants to go out and have a beer.
07:26He wants to go out and dance with a girl.
07:29He just wants to go out and have a good time without his Tourette's impeding that.
07:35But it does time and time again, and it broke my heart.
07:39John Davidson, I've read a lot about him off the back of this film, and I am in awe.
07:43I urge you to check it out.
07:47You're welcome.
08:06You're welcome.
