By the end of 2025, I’ll have been writing about films for ten years. It was January 1, 2016, when I wrote my first review and embarked on my cinematic exploration to expand my tastes. I’ve learned a ton since, discovering many new favorite movies along the way while becoming a major advocate for this art form, and others. The area of my life that I was the most surprised to find impacted by years of critical analysis, spurred by both my writing and my teaching of cinema, was a newfound appreciation for social studies.
History was always my least favorite subject. In some ways, I blame it on the teachers and their less-than-enthusiastic approaches to teaching the topic. One teacher many times asked me if I’d planned on learning the textbook through osmosis, as I‘d often use it as a pillow — a need that was ironically brought on by the attempted reading of it. This disinterest in history carried on long after my degrees were completed, with one phrase always ringing in my ear: “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” When I began seeing the cycles of the past projected in the movies that I’d loved, that sentence started to take on a different shape. It was no longer an annoying phrase thrown at bored students to try and get them to engage with the content. Instead, it became a tangible object shaping the stories again and again as a reminder…or, perhaps, more accurately… a warning of how things are.
Cultural Context became the lens through which I enjoyed looking at films more and more. It’s a complex one, and easy to overapply. We can only apply the context of the culture to the extent to which the individual has kept up with the culture. Thus, if you live in the social media echo chambers, our individual understanding of the current culture can be substantially different. With that insightful understanding of the limitations of my own knowledge of the current culture, I bring my lens in for a look at movies from 2025 that have most resonated with me.
There is an air of grief in the world we find ourselves in; a longing for the past, and more importantly, something that we have lost. The brevity of life and how we use the little time that we have is also resonating as a solid counterpoint to the grief. We are sad for something that is gone that we assumed we would have forever, and now find ourselves questioning our own legacy and the life we have lived, and what we may have left with it.
These two elements are central to a few big movies this year. While these movies were officially released in the year 2025, the life cycles of the films vary greatly. Some were seen a while back at film festivals, some were shelved because of the COVID-19 pandemic, or they were affected by the strikes. Yet, somehow, they seem to be in conversation with each other, implying that these topics are more than just the director’s interests, but those of the culture at large.
The films I’m going to focus on to make this point are: Bring Her Back, The Life of Chuck, and The Phoenician Scheme. However, I think it is worth noting that some of these elements are embedded in Thunderbolts, Sinners, Micky 17, and The Penguin Lessons as well. The first three I saw in relative proximity, and have all been released around the same time. Oddly, the widest release of the three seems to be the hardest to recommend – not because of its quality, but rather the horrific visuals and bleak themes that accompany it.
Bring Her Back is a film about losing the ones we love and how we cope with that loss. Death is ever present in the film, and it goes through some horrific ideas to explore how grief can warp our perceptions of right and wrong. Pulling back from the specific story and looking at the idea of loss and what was lost in that film made me think about the world we find ourselves in. In the ‘90s, my generation was so sure that the world was our oyster, and everything was going to be perfect for us. It’s been nearly two decades since that idealistic dream crashed, and reality set in. We’ve been on a downward trajectory for a while now, and I think we haven’t been able to let it go.
This gets us to thinking about the life we have, and who we are leaving it to. How will we be remembered by those who are here after us? What about those who are here with us right now? The Phoenician Scheme deals with this idea in a comedic way, as Wes Anderson’s dollhouse style storytelling plays out. However, there is something very authentic about the relationship between estranged father and daughter, despite the quirky story unfolding around them. The billionaire starts to evaluate what truly matters. What should we be anxious about? How should we be spending the remaining days we have left? This is something that many people in their ‘40s are having to do. It resonates and seems to permeate the media being released.
Then, there is Mike Flanningan’s adaptation of the 2020 Stephen King short story, The Life of Chuck. This presents as a film told in three acts in reverse order, and contains some of my favorite moments I’ve seen in movies this year. In the first part of the film, which is Act III, we see a billboard that says something along the lines of “39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck!” What that means, and who Chuck is, becomes a centerpiece of the film. It’s also quirky and very existential. There are a lot of deep, philosophical concepts introduced in the less than two-hour runtime. It won’t register or appeal to some audience members, like the woman in my screening who shouted, “That’s it?” as the credits started to roll. For myself, it feels like every frame was burned into my consciousness, and I’ve been unable to stop thinking about and dissecting every instance of this story.
Without spoiling the film, it ultimately poses an optimistic attitude about the time we have on earth. There will be moments of failure, doubt, lies, and loss. We don’t know how much time we get, and even if we did, that shouldn’t stop us from living the best life we can. The good and the bad will come…but we should keep striving for the good.
Now, I had to start thinking about these feelings. Am I seeing the impact of culture on the art that I’m consuming, or am I seeing the topics that I’m grappling with as I turn 43? These are movies dealing with issues that can impact anyone at any time, but they definitely hit hard when we reach “midlife” and start to look down the hill that we currently find ourselves vicariously perched upon. All analysis, ultimately, becomes subjective.
No matter the analytical lens you are using to look at the object being analyzed, it is ultimately the eye of the beholder conducting the analysis. I like to believe that I have my fingers on the pulse of pop culture, and even culture in general. My gym makes the juxtaposition of CNN and Fox News relatively easy, as they are two TVs apart. The same subject tackled by opposing viewpoints and demographics playing out side by side feels like a good way to assess the extremes of our current American society. Yet, we all know that what makes it to the mainstream audiences isn’t the only thing happening in our world. The micro view of our culture can be far more encouraging – and, at other times, concerning. While I know these things are true, I also know that I don’t know so much about what is happening.
So, are my feelings about these themes ever present because society is feeling the way I’m seeing, or am I seeing those things simply because it is how I am feeling? Am I grieving the perceived losses, or is the world? Am I contemplating my own legacy…or is the world? Either way, it is the art that I’ve consumed that got me thinking about it. It has me grappling with topics that I may not be inclined to do so if not pushed by the media. I must choose to deal with these things, but I’m grateful to have the resources in which to use to do these mental exercises. That is the power of cinema; that is the power of art. It is why, as I say at the end of every podcast with the utmost sincerity, keep watching movies.
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