our favorite first-time watches of 2025 • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada

Simply put, there is no shortage of films to fall in love with. Every single year, you’re practically guaranteed to discover something new via a like-minded friend’s recommendation, by digging through your own watchlist, or maybe even by reading an article such as this one *insert knowing wink here*. When we go to the repertory cinema or pop on a non-new release at home, aren’t we all just chasing the euphoric high that comes with having the thought, “Where has this movie been all my life?!”?

And so, to ring out 2025, our contributors have written love-at-first-sight letters to over 30 films, which we promptly intercepted and pasted into this virtual scrapbook. The result is a mélange spanning genres and centuries: black-and-white pre-Code dramas and ’50s Western-noirs give way to colorful ’90s cyberpunk odysseys, to Godzilla fighting toxic sludge monsters, to a cheetah riding in a motorcycle sidecar. In short, there’s something here for every type of watchlist.