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19 Dec 25
Ordinary lives and extraordinary stories sit side by side in our annual Members' poll. This year we've hit a new record, with almost 3000 Picturehouse-goers sharing their year's most cherished films with us – and the list their votes created is a tribute to truly everything the movies do best.
From genre-crossing masterworks to star-making debuts, bid 2025 adieu and count down ten of the finest films that came to Picturehouse screens this year...
"They gave 40 million dollars to an oddball to make another deeply weird horror film, and he delivered a legit blockbuster," Alex, a Member at Brighton's Duke's at Komedia, opines. "I thought those days were over." Genre fans, have no fear: Zach Cregger's Weapons is here. Thanks to a mysterious, wonderfully spoiler-free marketing campaign, all our Members had to go on before watching the film was Cregger's debut Barbarian, which saw the former sketch comedian mine hide-behind-your-popcorn horror delights from the perils of booking a dodgy Airbnb.
Needless to say, he upped his game with Weapons: a twisty, thrilling blend of suburban nightmares and macabre fairytales, its sprawling narrative embracing modern horror's taste for the psychological (although it certainly doesn't let up on the icky stuff). To say nothing of Amy Madigan's bewigged Aunt Gladys, instant addition to the villain Hall of Fame, it's one of the best – and scariest – surprises of the year. Much like our Members, we can't wait to see what Cregger has in store next. Lara Peters
After a Valentine's Day weekend bigger than Bridget's absolutely enormous pants, it's no surprise that our most-attended film of the year was a perfect match for our Members. Mad About the Boy sees author Helen Fielding adapt her own 2013 novel, where the controversial decision to off Colin Firth's Mark Darcy made national headlines. But Fielding is drawing on the real loss of her husband, Kevin Curran – and it's this delicately felt exploration of loss, love and growth that supercharges the rom-com goodness into a chapter befitting the nation's favourite diarist, embodied once again by Renée Zellweger.
Alongside the buffet of British film darlings (from up-and-coming heartthrob Leo Woodall to no-nonsense Chiwetel Ejiofor and delectably grumpy Hugh Grant) our Members emphasised the film's winning blend of humour and heart. As Julia from Regal Picturehouse puts it: "Endearing, entertaining and with a sense of realism that connected amongst the comedy." All qualities it shares with its heroine, who we love, just as she is. Lucy Fenwick Elliott
Watch our interview with Renée Zellweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Leo Woodall
Whilst we might not have all received a perfectly timed comfort sandwich from John Carroll Lynch, one thing we can guarantee is that under the provision of debut director, actor and writer Eva Victor, our Members have had The Year with the Good Movie with Sorry, Baby. Featuring, as Clapham Picturehouse local Tom put it, "the best human-cat duo since Inside Llewyn Davis," it gives way for a star-making turn not just from Noochie the Cat, but for Victor as one of the most singular new voices in indie cinema - if the vote of confidence in form of producer credit from Academy Award winner Barry Jenkins is any indication.
Peered at largely through a series of open windows and doors, hot-button subject matter is gently handled with a welcome degree of wit, warmth and sincerity, rejecting an easy conclusion at every wood-panelled corner. "Compared to most films that feature sexual assault," Arts Picturehouse Member Atlanta agrees, "Sorry, Baby handles the topic with a rare grace, never turning the experience into spectacle." Consider us and our Members firmly seated for whatever Eva Victor may turn their mind to next. Hope Hopkinson
Much like its own Van Buren Institute, The Brutalist was built to stand the test of time as one of only two January releases amongst our Members' favourites of 2025. A two-part epic standing tall at three hours and thirty-five minutes (with a built-in intermission to boot), Brady Corbet and co. revived VistaVision to break new ground on the American Dream; building a visually and intellectually staggering examination of ownership, immigration and commerce in its ruin.
As Jack, a Member at Clapham Picturehouse puts it, it's "The Great American Novel on screen. As big and as clever as cinema gets, all made for less than 10% of the budget of a blockbuster." With a plethora of perfect performances, props (that chair!), and a big, brassy earworm of a score, it has cemented itself firmly as a modern classic – and the first 200+ minute picture in history whose runtime feels breezier than its lead actor's acceptance speech. HH
How many roads must a man walk down before you hand him an Oscar? Acting superstar Timothée Chalamet's path to world domination would surely always lead him to a stop in Biopic City, but A Complete Unknown, James Mangold's portrait of a young Bob Dylan, won hearts for much the same reason its subject did: defying expectations. Brian, a Member from Crouch End, says "its ambiguity about Dylan's success – and his personality – make it a mature, thoughtful film in the music biopic genre. It's a film that unites audiences, both young and old, through its music and its performances."
What seemed on the surface like standard awards bait turned out to be a considered, evocative and rousing tale of Dylan's rise to fame, rich in folk-scene detail and laden with toe-tapping, perfectly-performed songs – and not just an exceptional lead in Chalamet, but stellar supporting turns from Monica Barbaro, Elle Fanning, Edward Norton, and more. Play it loud! LP
Looking for a more consistently excellent actor-director partnership than Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone? Good luck, babe. But for the pair's fourth collaboration, Stone hands the reins (and her hair) to Jesse Plemons for the brilliantly bonkers sci-fi satire Bugonia, a loose remake of South Korean cult film Save The Green Planet!. But is Stone's big pharma girlboss an alien set on destroying the earth? Will Plemons tinfoil-hatted outsider (and his wary cousin, played by excellent newcomer Aidan Delbis) be the one to stop her? Is stopping her even the right thing to do?
As always, Lanthimos answers these big questions with a pitch-black wit, effortless style, and complete faith in his exemplary troupe of performers. Summed up as follows by Sheila, a Member at Greenwich Picturehouse, it's "equal parts genius and madness: very funny yet heartbreaking, thoughtful and unsettling, provocative, wildly creative, surreal, topical, and uncannily visionary." LP
Writer-director Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Creed) has been a reliable presence on Picturehouse screens for the past decade, but Sinners is his passion project: the first tale he's spun entirely on his own. And what a tale it is. This ferocious, Blues-y epic of vampires in 1930s Mississippi is fronted by Michael B. Jordan in TWO fierce leading performances, and sinks its fangs deep into Black American history, culture and music. In the eyes of Finsbury Park Picturehouse Member Alan, "it's the epitome of style and substance"...something to satisfy our collective thirst for bold, original, blockbuster filmmaking.
If our poll was for Scene of the Year, we suspect that Coogler and co. might just run away with things. From the jaw dropping, time-spanning one-take of newcomer Miles Caton performing 'I Lied to You' in a burning juke joint, to erstwhile Skins star Jack O'Connell leading a murderous, blood-soaked Irish folk dance, Sinners will stay burned into our minds long after the year is over. We danced with the devil, and he followed us home. LFE
Just shy of forty years after tele-documentary John's Not Mad aired on the BBC, deeming then-15-year-old John Davidson the poster-boy of Tourette's Syndrome to the British public, a now-54-year-old John Davidson takes control of his narrative in Kirk Jones' I Swear. True-to-life, moving, and—as its title would suggest—delightfully sweary, we meet John as a young adult in 1980s Galashiels, navigating the onset of a still-misunderstood condition. Never straying into pitying or sanctifying territory (largely owing to Robert Aramayo's stellar central performance as Davidson), it's a true-to-form British drama with a thoroughly modern understanding of disability, unafraid to cast its lens to the hard-to-talk-about.
Many of our Members who voted I Swear onto the podium might've first encountered it at one of our Relaxed preview screenings, designed to give those with additional access needs a welcoming environment to connect with a movie that might connect with them. To put it simply, as Epsom Member Stuart did, "I felt this film," and for one so intimate to play ball with the biggest of blockbusters is to perfectly describe why we go to the movies: for a film to linger longer in the heart than it does on the screen. Spunk for milk? Spunk for milk. HH
Let's face it, a new Paul Thomas Anderson film is the closest thing Picturehouse has to a national holiday. Even still, when a long-percolating Thomas Pynchon adaptation dressed to the nines as a propulsive political thriller laced with Steely Dan and a few small beers arrived on our screens this September, we really weren't to know the half of it. With gas still in its tank (even after burning serious rubber down that road) in its twelfth week at Picturehouse, West End Member Adrien summed it up when he said One Battle After Another is "why we go to the cinema. It's an experience that only the big screen can offer, packed with standout performances, brilliant set-pieces, and a relentless pace."
One such standout performance is in the hands of a perfectly deployed Leonardo DiCaprio, who, despite once being eyed for Boogie Nights' Dirk Diggler, makes his first collaboration with PTA here one to remember. Whether haplessly searching for a phone charger or putting stock in the next generation to do it one more time with feeling, he leads by example and leaves room for a never-more-timely story to sing. A hoot-and-a-half with hope in its heart, adrenaline in its veins and our world at its feet - what could be better than that? As a wise man (Picturehouse at FACT Member, Josh) once said: "Viva la revolución." HH
We can't think of a more delightful victor than The Ballad of Wallis Island – the kind of film we wish for. Between a premiere at our inaugural Picturehouse Create festival, a national Q&A tour with the filmmaking team, and even a live, DVD-esque commentary screening at Picturehouse Central, this homegrown gem barely left our screens in 2025...and Houston, that is NOT a problem.
Tim Key (in an array of exceptional jumpers) and Tom Basden ("Artists don't whiten their teeth!") star in and co-write this quirky, touching and perfectly formed comedy of an eccentric lottery winner who summons his favourite folk music duo to play a private show on a remote island. We're always grateful to Members like Alan from Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge, who make sure that gems like Wallis Island get the attention they deserve: "Out of the blue arrived this utterly charming film, which I saw in its first week of screening. I then told family and friends to see it, and was gratified they loved it too". Whether they're playing to an audience of hundreds or just one or two, it's the gig of a lifetime bringing films like this one to our screens. LFE
There's still time to watch our winners! Find the best films of the year – and maybe the best films of next year – at a Picturehouse near you.
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