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The Popcorn Junkies - The TOP 10 FILMS OF 2025

·32 min·2 clips

Begonia turns a conspiracy-driven hostage story into a reveal that forces Hayden to rethink who was mad.

1. Popcorn Junkies Movie Reviews uses this episode to rank the top 10 films of 2025 by UK release date. 2. Hayden leads the list as the host and reviewer, and Steven appears only in the Fantasy Fan Fellas promo inserted into the recording. 3. The episode’s purpose is to explain which 2025 films Hayden would recommend and why they worked for him in their own terms. 4. Hayden says the UK rule means films like Nosferatu and Baby Girl count as 2025 titles for him, even if they were 2024 releases elsewhere. 5. He starts with a framework that films should be judged relative to what they were trying to do, not compared like-for-like. 6. The Ballad of Wallace Island is his number 10, and he calls it “quaint, gentle, blisteringly funny” with Tom Basden, Tim Key, and Kerry Mulligan. 7. Superman lands at number 9, and he credits James Gunn’s direction and David Corenswet’s casting for reviving his interest in the character. 8. The Phoenician Scheme sits at number 8, and Hayden says Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, and Bryan Cranston helped it click. 9. His number 7 is a film about Tourette’s syndrome centered on John Davidson, with Robert Aramayo, Peter Mullen, and Maxine Peake in key roles. 10. Train Dreams is number 6, and he connects Joel Edgerton’s performance to a life across logging camps, family, grief, and seasonal work in Idaho. 11. Eddington is his number 5, and he frames it as a paranoia-driven story about Sheriff Eddington, Travis Bickle, and a final act he calls “gonzo madness.” 12. Together takes number 4, and he describes it as a supernatural body-horror film about Dave Franco and Alison Brie’s codependent relationship. 13. Marty Supreme is number 3, and he compares its pace to ADHD, with Timothee Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Josh Safdie all singled out. 14. Begonia is his number 2, and he says Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, and Aidan Delbis anchor a story about an alien theory that changes under a major reveal. 15. One Battle After Another is number 1, and he names Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infinity. 16. He says One Battle After Another, Eddington, and Begonia all made him feel on edge in a “paranoiac age” shaped by truth, conspiracy, and mistrust. 17. The tone is conversational and strongly opinionated, with long run-on reviews, parenthetical jokes, and repeated back-and-forths with himself. 18. The format is a countdown with interruptions for sponsor reads, then a closing batch of honorable mentions and listener prompts. 19. People who like film rankings with detailed opinionated breakdowns. 20. People avoiding spoilers and long monologue-heavy movie talk.

As heard by us

A loose top 10 that becomes most interesting around Train Dreams and Eddington.

Popcorn Junkies' year-end top 10 for 2025 is strongest when it pauses on a few clear reactions instead of simply moving down the list. It gives Train Dreams a quietly soothing reading and treats Eddington as a chaotic, cult-classic outlier that lingered long after release.

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Why you'd press play

You want a 2025 film list that actually picks fights and defends them.

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