The Insert July 2025: The Best Films of the Year (thus far)
plus: a new Ratings Page, The Insert: Movie Club
Before I get into this housekeeping post, I want to point out this shiny new 2025 Ratings page. I prefer not to include a rating on my reviews because I think they disincentivize actually reading the review, but I do see the value in hosting a page of them here. I’ll try to update as I see new releases, but for films I’m writing about, expect to see those added a day or two after the review is published.
As some of you probably noticed, I stopped writing the Seattle Theatrical entries a couple months back. There were a few reasons for this that I won’t get too deep into, but top of the list was the fact that I don’t actually care for writing about films I haven’t seen. On a more practical note, most of this readership doesn’t even reside in Seattle.
Instead, I’m going to trial run using monthly posts as a space for a few things.
First, I want to be producing themed programming. These could be based on new releases, world events, or whatever’s on my mind. For this month, I’m going simple, and recommending 5 of my favorite films from the first half of 2025.
Second, I want to write more about older films, which represent the bulk of my movie watching but are sorely underrepresented here. In order to give some structure to what I’m writing about, and hopefully encourage some interactivity with all of you, I’m starting The Insert Movie Club, where I’ll pick a mini 3-ish film project to work through and write about one title.
Lastly, on the topic of interactivity, I subscribe to a few fantastic newsletters (shoutout Evan Reads!) that periodically field recommendations. If any of you reading this ever want one, these posts would be a great space to do so, but you can also always DM me and I’d always be happy to suggest something!
Now that I’m done with all that throat clearing, let’s get to:
Movie Club #1: Directed by Jacques Rozier
Jacques Rozier is one of a few peripheral New Wave directors who has been the subject of more widespread critical rediscovery over the past few years. His debut feature, Adieu Philippine, a summer vacation movie combining renegade, improvisational style with fatalist narrative framing, is one of my favorite discoveries this year. I’ve been anxiously waiting the streaming premiere of Janus Films’ new restorations of Rozier’s work, and they’re finally being added to the Criterion Channel this July. Here’s the description for Directed by Jacques Rozier:
One of the essential but long-neglected voices of the French New Wave, Jacques Rozier was a comedic master whose small yet rich body of work remains ripe for rediscovery. Starting with his feature debut, ADIEU PHILIPPINE, Rozier was determined to explode conventional story forms, combine seemingly incompatible genres and tones, and gleefully stretch his characters’ possibilities to their breaking points.
Overlooked upon its initial release, ADIEU PHILIPPINE has since been hailed as a high point of the nouvelle vague’s youthful energy and experimentation, though Rozier’s four other, lesser-known features— NEAR OROUËT, THE CASTAWAYS OF TURTLE ISLAND, MAINE-OCÉAN EXPRESS, and FIFI MARTINGALE—are just as startling for their emotional complexity, satirical insight, narrative mischief, and humorous, self-reflective examinations of the nature of creativity. Long overshadowed by the films of his peers, Rozier’s core work reveals a brilliant and distinctive cinematic vision.
This month, I’ll be working through Rozier’s four other features: Near Orouët, The Castaways of Turtle Island, Maine-Océan Express, and Fifi Martingale and writing about Near Orouët. If you end up following along, let me know! I imagine this segment will be a work in progress and will morph over the next few months.
Best of 2025 (thus far):
In general, most of my favorite films tend to come out between March and August, when boutique distributors release festival holdovers outside of the awards-season window. This year is no exception, and because 2024 was a strong year for world premieres, 2025, theatrically speaking, has been stacked. Just looking ahead at what’s to come, it would be a fantastic year if even 2 or 3 new films crack this top 5.
1. Afternoons of Solitude (dir. Albert Serra)
Both Afternoons of Solitude and The Shrouds are among my 20 or so favorite features of the century, so I’ve flip-flopped on which should occupy the top spot. A documentary following the bullfighter Andres Roca Rey, Afternoons of Solitude warps the controversial Spanish practice into a supernatural death ritual whose mesmeric beauty is inextricable from its depravity. The film takes all of the throughlines from Serra’s work thus far (the rot at the heart of Western artistic tradition, colonial afterlives, queer erotics, the primacy of the body), and amplifies them to harrowing, obscene extents.
Read my review here:
Afternoons of Solitude is currently in limited theatrical release.
2. The Shrouds (dir. David Cronenberg)
One of David Cronenberg’s most achingly intimate films, The Shrouds heartbreakingly confronts grief as physical and sexual absence by contextualizing itself in the digitally-mediated dystopia of 2025. It’s an inscrutable morass of sci-fi conspiracies, a manifesto on our screen-infested present, a depressive lunge towards the beyond, and somehow, one of the year’s funniest films.
Read my review here:
The Shrouds premieres on the Criterion Channel July 8th.
3. The Periphery of the Base (dir. Zhou Tao)
The Periphery of the Base is a landscape film that takes the vantage point of industrial time. Shot in the Gobi desert near the construction of a mysterious infrastructural project, Zhou turns the desert and its inhabitants into abstracted elements of a grand, supernatural design. The film is demarcated by a series of tour-de-force tele-zooms, a god-like expression of the mechanical apparatus. Few films are as hypnotic or unnerving.
4. Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani)
While I’ve appreciated Cattet and Forzani’s previous exploitation pastiches, this is the first I’ve fully embraced. Reflection in a Dead Diamond is an unhinged Bond riff, a film that pushes the sensual gestures from giallo, soft-core erotica, and yes, classic spy thrillers, to the realm of the avant-garde. The shoestring plot of an aging spy lost in the cinematic memories of his hunt for a Feuilladean villainess is perfectly minimal, granting the directing duo leeway to present a gleeful display of psychedelic insanity without allowing the postmodern subtext to tip the film into self-seriousness. Among other things, a reminder that we should all be taking more inspiration from Seijun Suzuki.
Reflection in a Dead Diamond will release later this year via Shudder
5. Pepe (Nelson Carlos De Los Santos Arias)
An avant-narrative from the perspective of Pablo Escobar’s hippo, Pepe deftly and humorously considers the sociopolitical implications of the animal’s position in Colombian culture through a mixture of nature documentary, docu-fictional ethnography, political thriller, and monster movie conventions. Not only is it formally and politically provocative, it’s also one of the most beautiful films of the past few years.
Read my review here:
Pepe is available to stream on Mubi.
For good measure:
5 Great New Releases Available Now:
Misericordia (Alain Guiraudie)
A murder mystery about the relationship between sexuality and complicity, Misericordia is another of the Guiraudie’s absurdist queer pastorals. Guiraudie’s egalitarian treatment of forbidden desires remains incredibly moving (his style is unmistakably queer as opposed to gay). Close to a perfect movie, and includes a brilliant boner gag.
Misericordia is available to stream on the Criterion Channel and on VOD
About Thirty (Martin Shanly)
This Argentinian comedy about a lonely gay man reminiscing on his shameful past is one of the definitive post-pandemic quarter-life-crisis movies.
About Thirty is available to stream on Kanopy.
Baby Invasion (Harmony Korine)
EDGLRD’s video-game simulation is an overstimulating tsunami of visual vomit that’s as nihilist as it is original.
Baby Invasion is available on VOD
The Empire (Bruno Dumont)
In Dumont’s immaculately designed French Star Wars spoof, blockbuster conventions become a symptom of the dystopian present.
The Empire is available on VOD
Presence (Steven Soderbergh)
Propulsive melodrama meets an innovative formal gambit (a film shot from the perspective of a ghost) in Soderbergh’s best feature in years.
Presence is available on Hulu and VOD
Thank you to everyone who’s been reading this newsletter for the past few years. I recently passed 100 subscribers and can’t believe there are so many people interested in hearing my thoughts.
What are your favorite films of 2025?
Fantastic recommendations Eric! 'Mickey 17' has to be the best of the year for me. I think that Pattinson plays one of the most sympathetic protagonists of the year in it and while his shrewdness is most often played for laughs, I really felt a deep connection to his character throughout.
I was so stoked to see that Criterion is premiering The Shrouds -- I can't wait!!