Here’s the Captain’s Top 10 Films of 2025!
(With a few Nic Cage special mentions.)
4th Annual Golden Cagey Awards!
Nicholas Cage is here again, celebrating another year of The Golden Cagey Awards. And once again he is nominated for three films that came out in 2025.
The first film nominated is The Surfer, a contained psychological thriller about a man desperately wanting to buy his old family home and trying to come up with the funds, while battling the Australian heat and a bunch of violent surfers who keep messing with him. This film gets pretty trippy at times, eventually delivering on that wild Nic Cage acting style we all know and love.
The other film was Gunslingers, finally another western with Nic Cage, sadly he isn’t the star like he should be. This is Nic Cage at his most unhinged, playing a retired outlaw, turned preacher. This was maybe the most fun out of the three movies, only being hindered by the low budget. It was one of those films that had a much bigger movie in mind, but was limited by the fact it most likely didn’t even get a million to fund it. Still a super fun watch that is now streaming.
And lastly, The Carpenter’s Son, advertised as the Nic Cage Jesus movie. Which in my head meant he would be playing Jesus, and the story follows his son, who may or may not be the Antichrist. But that was just me I guess coming up with a more interesting plot, as Nic Cage is just playing Joseph (I think that’s right) the one married to the virgin Mary. They’re on the run because demons aka Satan is after Jesus, who just up and murders people. Nic Cage gives a more subdued performance than the other three films mentioned. Still would have been better if he was the one playing Jesus though.
The WINNER for best Nic Cage film of 2025 goes too…
The Surfer. A contained psychological headtrip that shows off Cage’s range of acting that isn’t just him going wild.
Now I guess we can get to the other films on the list, here are the top 10 best films of 2025, presented by The Cagey Awards.
The nominees are….
10. Code 3 – One of my favorite Nic Cage films is Bringing Out the Dead, directed by Martin Scorsese. I feel like it is his most underrated and less seen film as I never hear anyone talking about it. It’s hard to really do a film about paramedics, just based on the misery they witness every night. Sean Penn did Asphalt City a couple of years back and I kid you not, maybe the most depressing movie ever made. So, to try and make a comedy dealing with almost the exact same topic is a very long shot to take. But thanks to great casting with Rainn Wilson, a lot of the dark humor worked, as he is playing a man burnt out on all the crap he has seen over the years working this job. But he finally got a nice boring job and can finally retire. And this is just the last day of him on the job. It’s fantastic, not sure too many saw this one, check it out, it is currently streaming on Hulu.
9. Night of the Reaper – I wasn’t expecting much, as it paints itself as a typical slasher type horror movie. But it really subverts your expectations, delivering a super fresh take on the genre. It’s the type of movie that knows the tropes, so it plays with them to throw you off, making sure you don’t know what’s actually happening or guessing the twist. The film isn’t perfect, I felt like it maybe had too many plotholes, maybe some stuff that was rushed like the killer’s motivation makes no sense. Or even how the killer was found out made little sense. Maybe that was due to budget constraints or possibly it is the result of just how the story is told, as there is more going on here than your typical slasher, so to hide that maybe some things in the plot needed to be sacrificed. I’m okay with it, as long as the end result was a fantastic movie. This was my top pick for Horror Month and is one you shouldn’t miss out on.
8. Deathstalker – This is a remake of the super low budget and super cheesy 80’s Conan knockoff film that garnered several sequels. This remake however is by Steven Kostanski, who stumbled a bit with his Munchies style film Frankie Freako the following year. This movie however is his return to form, with over-the-top gore and SFX, as Steven is a pretty well know special effects guy. This movie is a straight up blast, topping the original, which isn’t very hard as it isn’t known for being a good movie. I love sword and sorcery films, which have been lacking in recent years. This is pure nostalgic fan service, hearkening back to films like Krull or Red Sonja. Absolute must see for fantasy fans, gorehounds you name it. And you can’t ignore how great it is to see practical effects.
7. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die – This movie is pure insanity. Something like this shouldn’t even exist nowadays, since no major studio in their right mind would ever produce it. But somehow, it managed to get made and it’s pretty amazing even if no one actually saw it. It isn’t without its flaws, as it uses absurdist humor, which might not be for everyone. Everything Sam Rockwell says and does is flawless no matter what. Just from the opening, the film manages to grab you, telling this diner of strangers that he’s gathered a group of them hundreds of times, in different combinations to save humanity from AI. I wasn’t as invested in some of the group’s backstories, but they are told to you for a reason. Like the teachers that upset the teen drones and like the Bodysnatchers they have to flee the school. Or the mom who lost her son in a school shooting, who meets a group of parents who also lost children, but oddly seem okay with it. I’d mark this down as a must see and should maybe be higher on this list.
6. Roofman – Based on a true story and from what I could tell, got it correct. Even down to casting Channing Tatum as the lead since the real life guy looks a lot like him. His real life love interest however looks nothing like Kirsten Dunst. I wasn’t expecting much from this, but this movie really blew me away. I love how likable Channing Tatum’s character is, so much so that you’re rooting for him to get away at the end. Since it is based on a true story, you kind of already know how this ends up for him, but it didn’t stop me for wishing he’d just keep driving.
5. Eddington – This director is pretty hit or miss with me, more miss. But I loved this movie. It’s a very subtle comedy, not really outright a comedy, at times a satire. The film is long, but not at any moment was I ever bored. I found myself fascinated by Joaquin Phoenix’s character and where this was all going. Which leads to murder, conspiracies, shootouts… There’s a lot going on is this movie. A homeless man comes to town with COVID, infecting our sheriff Joaquin Phoenix’s character, as he rants and raves about not needing to wear a mask or how there’s no virus in town, meanwhile, he has it and it probably spreading it. There’s also commentary on social media, data centers taking over towns, conspiracies that grow and fester. I genuinely loved this movie way more than One Battle After Another.
4. Train Dreams – From the trailer, I was assuming this was just going to be a boring, introspective look at trains or something. However, this is not boring in the slightest. I was pretty enthralled by this at almost every moment, mainly because of the heavy tone the film carries, like anything could happen to any of these characters. And it mostly does. You mostly follow Joel Edgerton’s character who works as a logger in the 1920’s. A very dangerous job that could get you killed at any moment. The standout performance comes from William H. Macy as Peeples, an explosives expert. I’m sad this wasn’t nominated for more categories at the Oscars because it really deserves it.
3. Marty Supreme – It seems like ol’ Timmy blew his shot at winning an Oscar, claiming how much he hates ballet and opera, but be honest, who cares about ballet and opera other than folks in ballets and operas? What I love about this movie was how much it was basically Better Call Saul. But instead of it being about lawyering, it’s about ping pong. Marty is just Slipping Jimmy (Saul), running grifts and scams to gather up enough money to take a trip to Japan, to enter a ping pong tournament. And we kind of just follow him as every scam and grift gets him in even crazier situations, one after another. Much like another movie by this director Good Time. Also basically the same plot. Marty is a fast talker, usually getting himself in a world of trouble, like sleeping with the wife of the guy in charge of running this big ping pong event he so desperately wants to be a part of.
2. The Long Walk – A whole bunch of movie adaptations of Stephen King novels came out in 2025, and this was by far the best. I really went back and forth on giving this the number one spot, that’s how much I enjoyed this movie. First off the acting is superb. The two leads are so good that I know for a fact that they will someday win an Oscar. Hell, I think they should have been nominated for this film. One of those actors is actually the son of the late great character actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. And like his father, he has acting chops. The story is also riveting, as you know only one person can win this game, so you’re looking at a lot of doomed kids who you all quickly learn to love. It’s so wonderfully filmed as well, as the kids are just going down a straight path, with the camera walking right along with them. It helps give you this feeling that you the audience are with them, putting yourself in their shoes, growing your bond with each character. It’s also very clear how much The Hunger Games ripped this story off. Hell, they even got the same director to film this. But even that is brilliant, who better to direct than the guy who spent his time ripping it off.
And the best film of 2025 award goes to…
1. Weapons – Weapons tells you right away what is happening you just don’t notice until later. The ending had me laughing and cheering, reminding me of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with its brutal absurdity. The movie is told in a nonlinear style like Pulp Fiction, switching perspectives to shed light on earlier events. I wasn’t crazy about how often it cuts away right when something happens, which takes some air out of the horror. The theme here is parasites. It isn’t hammered home, but it’s there. The film is narrated by a little girl we never see, who tells us what happened in this small town. At 2:17 AM, seventeen children leave their homes and vanish into the night, except for one. Alex. Julia Garner plays Justine, their teacher, a flawed woman with a drinking problem who becomes the town pariah. Parents accuse her of having something to do with the missing kids. The angry parents are led by Archer, a furious father played by Josh Brolin. She is harassed, vandalized, and later sleeps with her ex, Paul, a married cop who immediately tells his wife, leading to further trouble. The horror builds slowly, using dream jump scares that actually matter to the plot. Justine visits Alex and finds his parents sitting silently in the dark with newspapers covering the windows. Archer’s story line shows his obsession with rewatching the security footage in case he missed something. It is also revealed he was the one harassing Justine. Paul is portrayed as a loser cop who encounters a junkie. That junkie later breaks into Alex’s house and finds his zombie-like parents and the missing kids in the basement. Paul investigates alone and comes back under a spell. Everything leads to Alex’s house and the creepy old lady living in his house. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. The ending is a blast, and it is worth seeing at least once.
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