2025 was a beautiful year for cinema, especially for Malayalam viewers. Here are a few films that stayed with me. My top picks this year were Homebound, Train Dreams, and Feminichi Fathima.

Homebound is a poetic expression of the pain and angst of the sub altern classes of India. A tale of love and companionship of two boys. One a dalit, the other a muslim. Two wrongs in a right India. One constantly hiding his identity while the other seeks to be just recognised as an Indian. Adapted from a New York Times article by Basharat Peer and directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, Homebound has the financial backing of Karan Johar and Adar Poonawalla, each eyeing a moment on the Academy Awards stage.

Feminichi Fathima directed by Fasil Muhammed is a quiet recalcitrant tale against the patriarchy entrenched within society under the guise of rules made by god and his self-anointed henchmen. Fasil Muhammed commandeered this film with nothing more than a bare minimum cast and a pocketful of rebellious heart. In this tale, Shamla Hamza’s protagonist carries the burden of family: being a mother, a daughter-in-law and a wife to an undeniably thankless and barefaced husband performed with finesse and nuance by Kumar Sunil. The story narrates how the small, sustaining acts that hold family together, the unconditional acts of love become a reprehensible burden she carries. 

Directed by Clint Bentley, Train Dreams quietly unfolds the life of a man making his way as a railroad construction worker in the early twentieth century. The film is set in the rugged and scenic country of the Pacific Northwest. With its dense evergreen forests, snow-capped mountains, and long rivers that cut through valleys beautifully captured on camera, Train Dreams is more about the oldest and largest forests of North America than about trains. Where trees were turned into bridges, trestles, beams and rail lines cut through old-growth Douglas fir and cedar forests. The film poignantly reflects on how time and machines of progress wear down men and the world around them. Train Dreams invites us to look back and reflect on a world that existed before the internet, the smartphones, and the airplanes. This beautiful film deserves your quiet attention. Train Dreams feels like the American counterpart to Perfect Days for me.

Besides the top picks for 2025, there was plenty of cinema which I enjoyed.

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a visceral  supernatural thriller that brilliantly weaponizes the setting of 1930s Mississippi against a terrifying vampire threat. Michael B. Jordan delivers a tour-de-force dual performance that grounds the horror in real emotion, making this a must-watch that leaves a lasting bite.

F1: A must-watch for any Formula 1 fanatic. The story is built on a weak chassis but manages to stick together for the race season. The film’s power unit is its cinematography, best experienced in IMAX, with raw, relentless cockpit shots running wheel-to-wheel with Hans Zimmer’s background score. Engineered down to the finest decal, F1 crosses the checkered flag albeit with a few red flags and a safety car.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery written and directed by Rian Johnson is an engaging stumper which draws inspiration from the greatest detective mystery writers. Daniel Craig fits in well as the suave and eloquent Detective Benoit Blanc. Wake Up Dead Man unfolds as a locked-room mystery, where the church is not just a setting but the film’s moral centre.

I haven’t seen a genre bender like The Gorge in a while, and its strength lies in the chemistry between Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. The film leans into atmosphere and mood, keeping world-building minimal yet effective. Sci-fi, action, and romance are folded into a compact narrative that never feels overbearing.

A House of Dynamite, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, is an edge-of-the-seat doomsday thriller written by Noah Oppenheim. Oppenheim’s precise, detail-driven writing makes this nuclear apocalypse story genuinely unsettling, reminding us we are not in safe hands. The 112-minute film breaks away from a traditional narrative, unfolding instead through a series of roughly 19-minute segments that shift across different characters’ perspectives. This film does what Tom Clancy thrillers aspire to, and does it better.

Challengers, directed by Luca Guadagnino, is unlike any sports film, a homoerotic tale of rivalry and obsession played out on and off the court, with Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan controlling both the serve and the return. In Challengers every actor walks onto the court smashing aces. The cinematography moves like a rally, quick, precise, and unrelenting, keeping the audience in the thick of the action.

Sister Midnight, directed and written by debutant Karan Kandhari, is a madly eccentric film that defies Bollywood norms with a challenging storyline. Radhika Apte delivers a stellar performance, subverting gender stereotypes as a nightwalker, once again proving that she never enters a film without adding something essential to it. This is yet another reminder that IMDb ratings collapse the moment a film refuses to play safe.

Malayalam films that really stood out for me this year include Rekhachithram, Thudarum, Lokah, Diés Iraé, and Ronth: Rekhachithram for its tightly constructed plot, Thudarum for Mohanlal’s stellar comeback, Lokah for the risks it dares to take and Ronth for its unflinching dark truths.

That said, I must admit I am in awe of Rahul Sadasivan’s filmography. Diés Iraé, in particular, was an immensely entertaining horror watch, delivering the jump scares I crave for. It was deeply satisfying, though it’s no Exorcist.

I’m yet to watch One Battle After Another, Weapons, and Eko before the year runs out, films I hear represent cinema at its finest. Wishing my readers a wonderful year ahead, filled with films that stay with you long after the credits roll.