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My Overdue 12th Blogiversary and 2025 List Additions

25 Monday May 2026

Posted by in Movies, Writing

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It’s always a bit embarrassing when I announce “I’m back and plan to blog more” (as I did with my New Year’s post) and then go incommunicado for months. I had a good, if sad, reason this time, which was the health decline and passing of my mom, which has made 2026 a pretty crummy year thus far, to put it lightly. Struggling with… all that is also the reason I opted to skip NaPoWriMo this year, as much as it pained me to break April tradition.

Nevertheless, as I move on from years of caretaking and its natural ending in heartache, I’m trying to reclaim my inspiration and write more. That includes returning to Rhyme and Reason, and I can’t do that without properly closing out 2025. Thus, I’m kicking off my comeback with a very belated blogiversary post to list my Top 12 films seen last year. This includes both 2025 releases and any older movies watched last year, nine of which have earned a spot on my ever illustrious Top 365 list.

I’ll first give a fond mention of films that I still liked but didn’t make the cut for this list, including A Real Pain, Marty, Here Today, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, I Am Sam, We Live in Time, The Host (2006), Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, Looper, Prey, and Captain America: Brave New World. Plus, there are How to Train Your Dragon (2025), The Naked Gun (2025), and Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, which didn’t make the Top Twelve but are still List-Worthy thanks to their franchises. I certainly didn’t watch as many films in 2025 as I used to, but there were still some definite gems. I will say that 2026 is already outpacing it with how many good movies I’ve gotten to see, so it’s shaping up to be a strong movie year at least.

Thanks to any and all who have read, followed, liked, or commented on this blog over the past 12 years. It’s been a fantastic creative outlet and one I hope to continue utilizing for years to come. Plus, if I’ve gotten even a few people to check out a film they wouldn’t have otherwise, then I count it as a win. Without further ado, here are my Top 12 Films Watched in 2025:

12. The Gorge (2025)

I’m not usually drawn to open Apple TV+ despite its bundled availability to me, but every now and then a real gem drops there. Not everyone found The Gorge as appealing as I did, but I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of boy-meets-girl-with-a-giant-hellish-ravine-between-them. The chemistry of the leads was electric, and it cemented Anya Taylor-Joy as one of my celebrity crushes. Even when the romance gave way to full horror-action mode in the latter half, it was never less than entertaining.

11. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that a celebrated classic like Bonnie and Clyde turned out to be deserving of celebration. I just wasn’t expecting its subject matter to appeal to me, but a great film is a great film. Chronicling their romance and bank-robbing spree in the Depression era, the movie finds ways to humanize the title duo without justifying their deeds, giving a full picture of their legendary infamy.

10. Lost in Starlight (2025)

While non-Ghibli anime films have been typically ignored by the Academy, it’s unfortunate that Korean animation can’t even get a nod from something like the Crunchyroll Awards, leaving Lost in Starlight to be an overlooked footnote in the Netflix catalog. Which is a real shame, because this near-future tale of a woman falling in love with a musician shortly before embarking on a voyage to Mars is absolutely beautiful. The science admittedly falters toward the end, but it’s a tale of cosmic love that deserves more attention.

9. Wicked: For Good (2025)

I won’t deny that Wicked: For Good is a step down from the first film (my #2 for 2024), but I always thought the second half of the original musical was kind of a mess too. Nevertheless, it delivers a darker-toned but mostly satisfying conclusion to the story of Elphaba and Glinda, so ‘twas better than I was expecting honestly. I still think it’s ridiculous that the Oscars snubbed it entirely.

8. Sinners (2025)

Perhaps this seems low for a film that was universally loved last year, but I was still rooting for it during the latest Oscar season. A brilliant genre mish-mash of Southern music and vampire horror, Sinners only increased the cultural cachet of Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan. Many films struggle to get even one right, but it excelled at both the music and the scares.

7. Thunderbolts* (2025)

While I liked Captain America: Brave New World more than most and Fantastic Four: First Steps less than most, Thunderbolts* was (for me) the clear stand-out from Marvel’s roster last year. Bringing together a bunch of who-cares side characters from past projects seemed like a tall order (without James Gunn), but they successfully plumbed their trauma and managed to make heroes out of losers while elevating Florence Pugh’s Yelena to Marvel star.

6. Predator: Badlands (2025)

This was perhaps my biggest surprise of the year. After catching up on Prey and the animated Killer of Killers (also quite good), I respected the Predator franchise but was not ready to embrace its gory glory. Then this effects-heavy romp came along, injecting more aliens, more humor, found-family themes, and a Predator protagonist, somehow making a fan out of me. One of my coworkers called it “a Predator movie for Alien fans,” and that fits perfectly. Between this and Alien: Earth, both franchises are on the upswing.

5. Dead Man Walking (1995)

A “message movie” is always tricky, whether in the hands of Hollywood or Christian filmmakers, so the script of Dead Man Walking had quite a tightrope to walk in tackling the controversy surrounding a Louisiana death row inmate and the nun who advocates for him. Yet writer-director Tim Robbins knocked it out of the park with a carefully balanced portrayal of institutional revenge and spiritual grief, matched by stellar performances from Sean Penn and Oscar-winning Susan Sarandon.

4. Zootopia 2 (2025)

Among Disney’s animated films of the last decade, Zootopia especially felt like it had a universe wide enough for another big case alongside Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. It took almost the full decade, but the wait was worth it. Expanding the world-building and its themes of prejudice via the introduction of reptiles in a mammal-centric society, Zootopia 2 proved to be another funny and thoughtful adventure (while keeping the shippers happy).

3. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

I wasn’t sure exactly where to place Wake Up Dead Man, since it’s not quite as good as the original Knives Out, but I’m simply too big a fan of Rian Johnson’s mystery sensibilities. (Poker Face is very good if you want more at a TV level.) I was afraid it would be too much of a takedown of Christianity, thanks to the ardent atheism of Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc, but Josh O’Connor’s conflicted but earnest priest is an excellent partner/foil as they investigate the death of his divisive superior. The end result is another excellent chapter in a series I hope will continue for many more years.

2. Kpop Demon Hunters (2025)

I had a good feeling about this movie as soon as the trailer dropped, and I watched and loved it the first day it premiered on Netflix, so I feel like I was ahead of the curve before it became a pop culture juggernaut. Yes, I sound like an animation hipster, but I don’t care. With a soundtrack full of bangers, strong Korean representation, and brilliantly vivid animation, Kpop Demon Hunters was an absolute treat for animation lovers like me.

1. Superman (2025)

The jury is still out on how well the new DC Universe will pan out in future installments, but James Gunn certainly kicked things off with a bang. Wacky, aspirational, action-packed, and perhaps a bit overstuffed, David Corenswet’s inaugural appearance as the Man of Steel hit all the right notes for a great superhero movie. It was the highlight of the summer blockbuster season and, in my book, the whole cinematic year.

And so concludes another year of blogging, even if we’re already halfway through the next. As always, here are my own unofficial awards for the year’s films:

Best opening scene:  Thunderbolts*

Best final scene:  Superman

Coolest scene:  Superman

Biggest emotional impact:  Dead Man Walking

Oldest film:  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Most recent film:  Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

Longest film:  Wake Up Dead Man (144 minutes)

Shortest film:  Marty (90 minutes)

Best soundtrack:  Kpop Demon Hunters

Best score:  Sinners

Best special effects:  Predator: Badlands

Most mind-bending: Looper

Most family-friendly:  Zootopia 2

Most mature:  Dead Man Walking

Funniest:  The Naked Gun (2025)

Scariest: Sinners

Best male performance:  Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking

Best female performance:  Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking

Personal favorite poem written: Bonnie and Clyde

Most represented year: 2025, with ten films

So that’s that. There is still a lot I’m dealing with in the wake of this year’s loss, so I can’t make any promises on post frequency or how “back” I truly am, but I do plan to be more active for the rest of the year. After all, there are so many good movies worth reviewing and poeticizing. Thank you to any readers still out there who haven’t forgotten me, and I wish you all a wonderful remainder of 2026!

My 10th Blogiversary and 2023 List Additions

01 Monday Jan 2024

Posted by in Movies, Reviews, Writing

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And here we are at another milestone I never expected to reach, ten whole years for the Rhyme and Reason blog! I realize this year might be described as my least prolific or most neglectful year yet, and I think that came down to two reasons. For one, my Ireland/Scotland vacation back in May, my first international trip ever, threw off a lot of my routines, so it was both a big distraction and the highlight of the year. Secondly, I’ve been devoting a lot of my creative energies to my planned musical, which is progressing nicely, but still has a long road ahead of it. I can’t wait for the day when I can actually share it with the world, just not yet.

I’m still glad, though, that I was able to take part in NaPoWriMo back in April and still churn out the occasional review throughout the year, just to remind anyone out there that I’m still around. My Blindspot series has especially suffered, but I hope to wrap that up quickly in the new year, and maybe, hopefully do better with 2024’s Blindspot list. Hope springs eternal, even in the scattered world of time management.

The past year has been full of ups and downs, but good movies remain a consistent up whenever they come along. Hollywood found its stride in 2023 with some unqualified hits, despite Disney’s financial woes and the various strikes that rocked the movie industry. With my more limited theater-going, I wasn’t sure if I would have enough real favorites to compile my annual Top Twelve list, but there were more hits than I recalled. True, this is the first year that I don’t have a full twelve List-Worthy films to add to THE LIST of my Top 365 favorites, but I’ve included a couple high runners-up to round out my top films that I’ve seen in 2023 (not just 2023 releases). Not surprisingly, animation and musicals are well-represented, with a few more serious entries for good measure.

Before the countdown kicks off, as is tradition, I will pay respects to the outstanding runners-up that are worthy of praise but didn’t quite make the cut, including Shadow in the Cloud, Elvis, Matilda the Musical, RRR, Suzume, The Invisible Man, Living, Sound of Freedom, Last Night in Soho, A Million Miles Away, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Marvels, Blue Beetle, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Journey to Bethlehem, and Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire. Plus, just as I have before with Hamilton and Come from Away, I’ll give kudos to the filmed stage performance of the musicals Waitress and Titanic that released this year. I still can’t quite bring myself to classify such recordings as typical movies, but they are well worth watching.

I can’t help but feel that this list has no resemblance to any critic’s end-of-year list, but these are my tastes and my list. What were your favorite films of the past year? I know I have plenty to catch up on (ahem, Barbie), so I’ll gladly take any recommendations! Now, on to the Top Twelve list!

12. Missing (2023)

Missing was an opportunistic watch, since I saw it on my transatlantic flight to Ireland. I had my doubts that the screenlife storytelling that worked so well in Searching could support another mystery about an online missing person investigation, but this spiritual sequel manages to nail the same level of tension and intrigue, even if its gimmick strains realism a bit. Luckily, the gimmick is well-utilized, keeping the audience guessing throughout.

11. Lincoln (2012)

While I still have a few Blindspots to watch, I somehow made time for this Spielberg biopic that has long been on my shortlist of potential Blindspots. The fact that it didn’t quite rise to the level of being List-Worthy is by no means a knock on the film’s quality, since Daniel Day-Lewis’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Lincoln is everything I could have hoped. Dense with talky politics and strong performances, this film played into my love of Civil War history perfectly. Another viewing could raise it to List-Worthy, since Lincoln deserves every one of its accolades.

10. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Viewed as a casualty of the busy summer movie season, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning may not have quite lived up to its predecessors at the box office, but this Tom Cruise series continues to go strong, staying timely with a rogue A.I. as its villain. While I have some qualms about how it trades out its female leads, Hayley Atwell is a welcome addition, and the thrills and set pieces never disappoint.

9. Elemental (2023)

A sleeper hit, Elemental proved that Pixar’s trademark world-building magic still lives on, this time in a universe of living fire, water, earth, and air elements. While romance has been present before in films like Up and WALL-E, this is the first time they’ve tackled the straightforward rom-com formula, and the result is a charming fable of attraction, prejudice, immigration, and family expectations, with wondrous animation to boot.

8. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023)

While it was hardly a flop, I feel like I’m more positive toward this prequel than most. Focusing on the 10th Hunger Games, decades before the tale of Katniss and Peeta, this return to Panem is a riveting origin story for Coriolanus Snow, proving how even monsters can begin with good intentions. True, it’s rather long with a divisive lack of resolution, but I thought it recaptured the thrills and themes of the original series quite well.

7. Peninsula (2020)

One of the several horror movies I didn’t get to reviewing this past Halloween, Peninsula once again subverts my general aversion to the zombie genre. Another film in the world of Train to Busan, this story expands the action from mid-apocalypse to post-apocalypse as a guilt-ridden thief-for-hire navigates a zombie-infested cityscape, and while it’s not as affecting as the original, it still delivers a pulse-pounding and ultimately satisfying redemption story.

6. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

It’s not often that an animated sequel surpasses its original, but this second Puss in Boots film was a supremely entertaining return to form for a DreamWorks franchise I thought to be dead. Exploring mortality in a surprisingly nuanced way, this fantasy adventure had all the laughs and beautiful animation I could want, easily becoming the biggest surprise of the year.

5. Oppenheimer (2023)

While I didn’t partake in the Barbie half of the Barbenheimer craze, I did go for the serious half, Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated biopic about the father of the atomic bomb. Considering Nolan’s last film Tenet got caught in its own logic, this was a return to form for Nolan, fashioning a mature puzzle box of a film that is as thought-provoking and well-acted as it is long, even without flashy action scenes. In a genre known for its cookie-cutter style, Nolan’s take on the biographical film is entirely his own.

4. The Color Purple (2023)

The last film I saw in 2023, this musical version of The Color Purple took a film to which I already had a strong emotional connection and gave it a brilliant Broadway treatment. While I think Spielberg’s original still edges it out, this new version hit all the notes it needed to and made me cry twice. And what can I say, if something makes me cry, I love it.

3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

There isn’t much more I can add to all the accolades heaped upon the sequel to 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse, so I’ll just acknowledge that all of it is deserved. My full appreciation may depend on how well the finale in this trilogy sticks the landing, but as of now, Across the Spider-Verse built out Miles Morales’ world and beyond with expert nerdy craftsmanship, and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

While the Marvel franchise had further struggles this year, James Gunn provided a crowd-pleasing hit to close out his tenure with Marvel and the Guardians. Milking pathos as well as nostalgia, this last hurrah for Star-Lord, Rocket, Drax, and the rest of the crew gave us one of the most hissable villains in recent memory, as well as one of the most feel-good conclusions.

1. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Tell me I’m not the only one who absolutely loved this movie! I don’t even play D&D, but I do love the fantasy genre, and Honor Among Thieves combined so many elements into a marvelously entertaining package that I instantly became a fan. Every character, every set piece, every inventive special effect, every joke that landed added to my enjoyment and made me wish it could spawn a franchise that would give me more. I love everything about it, which is a rare feat for any movie these days.

And that’s another blog year in the books. As always, here are my own unofficial awards for the year’s films:

Best opening scene:  Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Best final scene:  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Coolest scene:  Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (the shapeshifting chase scene)

Biggest emotional impact:  The Color Purple

Oldest film:  Lincoln (2012)

Most recent film:  The Color Purple (2023)

Longest film:  Oppenheimer (180 minutes)

Shortest film:  Elemental (101 minutes)

Best soundtrack:  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (hey, it has both Rainbow and Florence)

Best score:  Oppenheimer

Best special effects:  Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Most mind-bending: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Most family-friendly:  Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Most mature:  Oppenheimer

Funniest:  Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Scariest: Peninsula

Best male performance:  TIE: Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer and Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln

Best female performance:  Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple

Personal favorite poem written: Thor: Love and Thunder

Most represented year: 2023, with nine films

So there you have it. Not as much representation from films outside of 2023 as in the past, but the last year has definitely provided some winners. I want to thank everyone who has read, liked, commented, or followed in the past year, despite my waning activity. I still want to continue with this blog as a creative outlet for as long as I can, and I do have some lists in mind for the months ahead to celebrate my 10th year of blogging in earnest. Thank you all, and I wish everybody a Happy New Year and a blessed 2024!