AFI Fest Review: Standout Films of 2025
Image Description: Collage of movie posters for Bugonia, Mārama, L’étranger, Rental Family, 1001 Frames, The Voice of Hind Rajab, The Chronology of Water, and Yes!
Image Description: Emma Stone’s Michelle Fuller off camera while being held captive in a basement.
Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025)
Reviewed by Nina
Yorgos Lanthimos’ adaptation of Jang Joon-hwan’s “Save the Green Planet!” (2003) does not disappoint, giving audiences an equally touching and unsettling take on the sci-fi cult classic. Imbuing the remake with his typical dark absurdist flair, Lanthimos drags the original satire to new heights by recontextualizing conspiracy theories and class divides in an era of online echo chambers, greenwashing, and hollow corporate tokenism. This is a cautionary tale about what happens when you have a conflict – or, as Emma Stone’s gratingly condescending CEO likes to put it, a “dialogue” – between parties that value completely different things, and consume entirely different sources of information.
“Bugonia” is at once incredibly unserious, yet nonetheless uncompromising in its social commentary. Following two cousins’ plot to kidnap the “girlboss” CEO of a fictional pharmaceutical company, the film deftly critiques a spectrum of ideologies that have become increasingly removed from reality. Whether it is cultish corporate work culture or internet warnings of an alien invasion, you can never fully believe any of the characters in the film – and that’s the point. In a “post-truth” era, Lanthimos points out that everyone is engaging in a dialogue, but no two parties are ever having the same conversation.
Rating: 4.5/5
Image Description: Meursault rests his head on Marie’s stomach, gazing at her while she sunbathes.
L’étranger (The Stranger) (François Ozon, 2025)
Reviewed by Giselle
The latest adaptation of Albert Camus’ tour-de-force “The Stranger,” felt like… drinking a cup of tea and smoking a cigarette on a crisp summer morning. It took a leap of faith – readapting the Golden Boy of philosophical novels after it was last readapted in 1968 – and doing it in complete black and white as well as in its native language, French. The film follows the novel thoroughly, going through the story of a young French man, Meursault, who irrationally kills an unnamed Arab man, and the subsequent trial that follows. The film, like the novel, explores concepts typical of absurdist philosophy. Meursault is the definition of nonchalant man. He’s indifferent to his trial, his decision to murder a man, and his own life because – well, what does looking for meaning in anything do for anyone?
The film features stunning performances from Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, and Swann Arlaud, that bring justice to the complexities of the novel’s characters. There were various moments where I would have audibly gasped (had it not been a silent theater… obviously…) due to the sheer care and talent that went into every scene. And it was in French! And black and white! Which made me feel like the best kind of pretentious moviegoer. All in all, though, it was a gorgeous film that, having read “The Stranger,” I felt brought justice to the novel in the best way a film could.
Rating: 4/5
Image Description: Four Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteers clamor around a phone in their office.
The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania, 2025)
Reviewed by Nina
Equal parts compassionate, devastating, and enraging, “The Voice of Hind Rajab” recounts the dwindling hours in which emergency responders scrambled to save a 6 year-old Palestinian girl from being murdered by the IDF. Based on the real account of Hind, who was trapped for hours in a car with the bodies of her relatives as she begged volunteers at the Palestine Red Crescent Society for help, Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania recreates the tragedy of January 29, 2024, using the original 78 minutes of recorded audio from Hind’s emergency calls.
The emotional reality of this film is palpable, perhaps owing to the fact that the first day of shooting was the first time the cast heard Hind’s voice. The actors’ reactions to the call are raw, and occur in real time; thus, the horror that unfurls onscreen is a one that is quickly matched and shared by viewers stationed in the theater. Ben Hania’s merging of real footage, audio, and photographs with the fictional recounting of the events is so incredibly well done, and so deeply gut wrenching. “The Voice of Hind Rajab” serves as a masterclass in both grief and storytelling, offering a personal glimpse into decades of Palestinian displacement and genocide – all while remaining a highly personal, moving film unlike anything I have seen before.
Rating: 5/5
Image Description: A woman in a red dress grabs her skirts while performing a haka.
Mārama (Taratoa Stappard, 2025)
Reviewed by Nina
Director Taratoa Stappard’s “Mārama” is a positively gripping feature film debut, and is the first installment in a set trilogy of Māori gothic horror. Breathing startling new life into the horror genre (and the film industry as a whole), “Mārama” lays bare the violence of British colonialism through a meticulous, grim, and powerful story of a young woman as she painstakingly excavates her own dark and elusive history. Set in Victorian England, this period piece expands on a literary and cinematic tradition in a manner that is at once long-awaited, yet strikingly contemporary. Stappard’s intergenerational tale is simultaneously immediate and incredibly far-reaching, treating the intersection between female bodies and indigenous knowledge as an ultimate site of gothic horror. This film is at once frightening, beautiful, and nauseating – yet remains absolutely compelling, and unforgettable.
Rating: 5/5
Image Description: Imogen Poots stares at a character off-camera.
The Chronology of Water (Kristen Stewart, 2025)
Reviewed by Giselle
Wow wow wow! This was a film I’ve been waiting for since I heard about Kristen Stewart’s decision to make her directorial debut. It’s based on the memoir of the same name, based on and written by Lidia Yuknavitch. I was probably scrolling through Tik Tok or Instagram when I discovered Stewart’s announcement to direct it. She claimed that the moment she read the memoir, she knew she wanted to transfer the breathless story to the big screen herself. She worked for eight years to turn this into a movie, so stakes were high. I took it upon myself to read the memoir before the film came out, and was unsurprised at how incredibly stunning it was. Yuknavitch tells a startling tale of childhood trauma, addiction, and healing through art, that is viscerally, and at times, jarringly, honest.
And the film… did not disappoint. It was vulgar, truthful, sometimes hard to look at, and ultimately intense and heartbreaking. In a Q&A afterwards, Kristen Stewart confirmed that the structure of the film was meant to emulate a female orgasm – rises, falls, and an ultimate, breathtaking, climax. Also – the film stars Imogen Poots, who is absolutely phenomenal. She is a gift to grace the scene, a true actress who you can see poured her all into the role. Stewart’s directorial debut was nothing short of stunning and I can’t wait to watch it again.
Rating: 4.5/5
Image Description: Y stares into camera with a general on his left and a duck in his arms.
Yes! (Nadav Lapid, 2025)
Reviewed by Nina
“Give up, my baby. Give up on the sea… Submission is happiness.” To put it lightly, Israeli director Nadav Lapid pulls no punches. This EDM-fueled, three-act bender delivers a scathing indictment of his home country in the form of a two and a half-hour fever dream. Following the tumultuous lives of two struggling artists who make a living by entertaining the unhinged elites of Tel Aviv, “Yes!” delves into the murky waters of what it means to be a complicit creative in the midst of a global crisis. When the protagonist, Y, is commissioned to write a new Israeli war anthem, he falls into a rapid moral spiral that betrays just how lucrative war can be.
Inspired by George Grosz’s unsettling painting “The Pillars of Society” (1926) which depicts the disturbing merriment of German leaders amidst the rise of Nazi party, Lapid’s uncompromising film shocks viewers out of a global indifference to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. As stated by Lapid himself, the film works from a clear place of urgency, and desperation: “When you see the apocalypse, and you’re a filmmaker, you have no other choice. You have to make a movie.” Lapid’s “Yes!” delivers on this bitter sentiment, serving as a rare catalyst of a film that leaves its audience feeling condemned, uncomfortable, and irrevocably changed.
Rating: 4.5/5
Image Description: A schoolgirl stares up at a man on a bridge.
Rental Family (Hikari, 2025)
Reviewed by Giselle
Maybe I was just emotional, maybe I’m a sucker for a good feel good movie, maybe, maybe, maybe… maybe this was just a fucking good movie. Like, finally-half-decent-original-plot-good. Little-Miss-Sunshine–real-adulthood-meets-innocent-childhood-good. Written and directed by Hikari, a Japanese filmmaker known best for her direction of the hit series “Beef,” and starring Brendan Fraser, who most notably won the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar for 2022’s “The Whale,” the film follows the classic narrative of an out-of-luck actor living in Japan who’s stuck doing stupid commercials, last-minute auditions, and just waiting for his big break. Fraser’s character Phillip catches his “break” when he’s hired by an agency that specializes in acting – acting in real people’s lives. From getting hired to star in a fake wedding, to acting as a reporter so an old-time director can finally feel like he’s getting recognized…. The agency’s goal is to create fake scenarios to generate real-life happiness. But when Phillip gets hired as a stand-in dad – as you can imagine, the lines between real life and acting start to get all mixed up. Phillip quickly discovers that helping other people not only eases their lives and loneliness, but also his own.
After the film, I was lucky enough to sit in on a Q&A with Hikari, Fraser, and actress Mari Yamamoto, who was electric. It was obvious that the three of them were oozing with passion and a deep love for the film they made. The film, which takes place in Japan, is not only visually stunning to look at, but also bears a deep respect and authenticity to the culture it is representing. Director Hikari based the film’s storyline off of real life businesses in Japan. She grew fascinated with this idea that people could pay to create make-believe scenarios that created real-life happiness. Ultimately, it speaks to this idea that permeates the film – all anything anybody really wants is some company, someone to stop by and remind them that they can still exist in someone else’s eyes.
This is a film clearly made with delicate care and passionate artists. Go watch it! Take your family! And remind yourself that everyone feels lonely every once in a while… but loneliness isn’t forever.
Rating: 4/5
Image Description: A woman sits in a chair in the middle of a warehouse, gazing forward with her legs crossed as her bag rests on the floor.
1001 Frames (Mehrnoush Alia, 2025)
Reviewed by Nina
“Blaire Witch Project” meets audition room nightmare in Mehrnoush Alia’s gripping feature debut. A found-footage retelling of “One Thousand and One Nights” shot entirely as audition tapes, “1001 Frames” traps audience members in the perspective of a famous male director as he screen tests women for the role of Scheherazade in his next big project. Part mockumentary, part psychological thriller, this film interrogates the relationship between artistry and exploitation with indignation, urgency, and a deep level of sensitivity.
Shot underground in Iran, “1001 Frames” stitches together a web of increasingly disturbing encounters that offers its audience a unique blend of confrontation and much-needed catharsis. In the wake of #MeToo and the Woman Life Freedom movement, 1001 Frames forces viewers to grapple with the age-old question: When are we complicit, and when are we bearing witness? And what do you do with what you can no longer ignore?
Rating: 4/5
