One Battle After Another Tops Sight And Sound 2025 Poll

The last month of every year means publications, websites and cinephiles worldwide unleash their favourite films of the year.  Sight And Sound have and Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another is their Best Film of 2025.

Whilst we may not always agree with Sight And Sound, BFI’s internationally renowned magazine is loved by both fans and the industry. The magazine’s international pool of more than 100 critics voted in the poll.

Anderson’s films are no strangers to yearly poll, The Master (2012) first time atop the list. Phantom Thread in 2018 made it to second place and Inherent Vice landed in tenth place back in 2015.

Paul Thomas Anderson commented on the news : “Fk yeah! It takes my breath away a bit, honestly. I remember reading Sight and Sound, as we all do, from when I was so young, and now to have a film that they called the best film of the year… it’s amazing. I can’t wait to see what it looks like in print. My first response was “Fk yeah!”, and I stand by that!”

Sight and Sound Editor-in-Chief Mike Williams  also commented: “Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the greatest American filmmakers of his generation, and One Battle After Another is his most prescient, urgent film yet. Having topped the poll in 2012 with The Master, he returns with a searing portrait of America that lays its contradictions, its violence and its hopeful idealism bare. One Battle burrows deep into the fractures in society that we can see all around us, while delivering the sheer exhilaration of pure, absolute cinema. It’s a worthy winner in a strong year for film.”

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, an electrifying musical exploration of history and culture, comes in second place. This was his most personal project to date fusing blues, hip-hop and soul into a fresh take into the horror genre. Kelly Reichardt’s smartly crafted drama The Mastermind lands at number three. Josh O’Connor is superb as a rudderless everyman who fumbles a small-time art robbery, an ingenious evocation of 1970s suburban Massachusetts.

The list also included twenty-eight films featured primarily not in the English language. Some of those films 4: SIRĀT (Oliver Laxe), 6: It Was Just An Accident (Jafar Panahi), 10: Resurrection (Bi Gan), 11: Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier), and 19: The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania),

Here’s the Top 10 list:
1. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER (Paul Thomas Anderson) Review /Podcast Review
2. SINNERS (Ryan Coogler) Review /Podcast review
3. THE MASTERMIND (Kelly Reichardt) Review
4. SIRĀT (Oliver Laxe)
5. THE SECRET AGENT (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
6. IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (Jafar Panahi) Review
7. SORRY, BABY (Eva Victor) Review
8. WEAPONS (Zach Cregger) Review / Podcast Review
9. DRY LEAF (Alexandre Koberidze)
10. RESURRECTION (Bi Gan) Review

Sight and Sound’s Winter 25/26 Issue will be available digitally on 8th December and on newsstands from 11th December.