I really like that my list this year has movies spanning 97 years. It's a pretty fun mix of genres too -- not shocking, as I am an eclectic and omnivorous movie watcher.
Anyway, here's my list!
1. Conagher (1991) A rough-mannered cowboy (Sam Elliot) keeps crossing paths with a homesteader (Katherine Ross) and her adopted children, often helping them out of some difficulty or other, all while insisting he's going to be leaving the area any day now, he's totally not sticking around to look after her and figure out if her missing husband is ever coming back, nope, he's totally disinterested...
2. The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) A former military intelligence officer (George C. Scott) is asked to investigate a list of people, but before he can, the man who made the list dies mysteriously. And then people on the list start to die, too. What can the connection be? Why do so many of these people have very peculiar faces? How many ways can you disguise Kirk Douglas? SO many questions! Also, I've never found George C. Scott particularly attractive, but maybe I've just been watching the wrong movies...
3. Desperate Journey (1942) A WWII British bomber crew (Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, Alan Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Ronald Sinclair) survive a crash landing behind enemy lines and daringly attempt to sneak their way back to Allied territory. This movie gallops along, flinging our heroes from one tense and worrisome situation to another, but somehow never feels rushed. Instead, it feels like an exciting series of adventures, each one making us more and more invested in the characters.
4. Glass Onion (2022) Quirky and laconic detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) attends a house party thrown by a gazillionaire (Edward Norton) on a private island during the Covid-19 shutdowns. People die. Blanc figures out how and why. There are twists on twists on twists, one of which I loved so much, it bumped this much higher on my list than it would have been otherwise. This is the first movie I've seen that deliberately included the Covid-19 shutdowns in the storyline, complete with the face masks and the social distancing and the special rules for rich people, which was pretty interesting. Because I don't have Netflix, I only got to see this because our local theater showed it on the big screen for a couple of days. So happy that they did!
5. Salty O'Rourke (1945) A gambler (Alan Ladd) needs to pay off a debt fast, so he buys a race horse and hires a jockey and does some dubious paperwork shuffling and falls in love with a school teacher (Gail Russell) and makes a lot of other bad decisions, but it all works out okay because this is a comedy. I especially loved the sidekick played by William Demarest, of whom I grow and more fond with every movie I see him in.
6. The Invisible Man (1933) A scientist (Claude Rains) turns himself invisible and slowly goes mad. This movie makes no secret of the fact that the special effects are the main star of the film, and I am absolutely here for them.
7. The Pirates of Penzance (1983) A band of jolly pirates (but are they?) led by a Pirate King (Kevin Kline) bids farewell (but do they?) to their apprentice (Rex Smith) when he comes of age (but does he?) and decides he will stop being a pirate and become a law-abiding citizen (but will he?). Absolute madcap delightfulness from beginning to end, in the best Gilbert-and-Sullivan-but-make-it-1980s-instead style imaginable.
8. Kim (1950) A British soldier's orphaned son Kim (Dean Stockwell) passes as a native of India to spy for the British, aided and mentored by the mysterious Mahbub Ali (Errol Flynn). It's based on the Rudyard Kipling classic, but streamlined, and with a lot more for Errol Flynn to do than his character was granted page time for in the book.
9. Libeled Lady (1936) A rich young thing (Myrna Loy) is libeled by a newspaper, and the editor (Spencer Tracy) responsible for running the libelous story cooks up a doozy of a plot to convince her not to sue the paper. It involves his fiancée (Jean Harlow) and a slick-talking writer (William Powell), a sham marriage, and all the screwball hijinks the screenwriters could dream up and toss at the characters. I will probably enjoy this a lot more the second time I watch it, but I only just watched it for the first time a few days ago and haven't had time for a second viewing. Still, it wound up on this list, which means I did like it more than most screwball comedies...
10. The Gold Rush (1925) A hapless but plucky prospector (Charlie Chaplin) tries to find gold in Alaska, but mostly finds problems and trouble and a lot of snow. We saw this in the theater with my brother and his family, and it was the first silent film my niece and nephew had ever seen. (My own kids had seen a couple before that, but years ago.) It took them all about ten minutes to get used to the storytelling style, and then they all had a rollicking good time enjoying all of Chaplin's hijinks. And, as a bonus, we all went to Alaska about a month later, and my nephew was able to relate historical things we saw regarding the actual Alaskan Gold Rush to things he saw in this movie. I love it when fiction can bring real history to life for people that way!
Well, that's my list! Have you seen any of these? Did you make a list of favorite films you watched in 2025 too? Please share!
I've been collecting my top ten new-to-me movies in posts like this for twelve years now. You can find all of them at the bottom of this page.
