In some aspects, writing New Year’s Eve listicles gives me less stress and anxiety than writing full reviews. Briefly summarizing my thoughts on media spares me from writing multiple paragraphs on a take that might or might not already seem obvious, then watching the review bomb for reasons I often fail to understand. However, I didn’t post a new listicle last December due to some discontent with my format. Some of my entries, especially from 2023, felt too short to do their subjects justice. As a compromise, every movie I’ll recommend here – including some with unfinished reviews in my drafts folder – will receive more than one sentence of praise from me.
2024
Monkey Man
The directorial/screenwriting debut of Indian-British performer Dev Patel, Monkey Man remains my favorite action-driven movie from 2024. The Oscar-recognized Tae Kwon Do black belt recipient let Hindu folklore and Hong Kong action films inspire underground fighter Kid (Patel)’s distinctively compelling, and visually-luscious, journey of revenge against an elitist and transphobic Indian government. In a stimulating reclaim of Hindu culture, Patel and a cast of convincingly sympathetic or detestable performers explore his religion’s capability for reinterpretations that either inspire and unite, or corrupt and oppress.
- Starring Dev Patel as Kid/Monkey Man
- Co-stars and supporting cast include several other Indian actors
- Directed by Dev Patel
- Written by Dev Patel, Paul Angunawela, and John Collee
The Wild Robot
The 2024 roster of Best Animated Feature Oscar nominees ended up the first that I finished watching before the Academy announced the winner. Chris Sanders’ return to directing and writing animation marked the only one of the five that I saw theatrically, and earned a spot alongside Oscar winner Flow in my top two. Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o’s deftness at vocally bringing forth both Roz’s mechanical and tender-hearted qualities helps ensure an emotional adaptation of Peter Brown’s story of finding familial love and purpose after a tragedy.
- Starring Lupita Nyong’o as Roz
- Supporting cast includes Pedro Pascal as Fink and Stephanie Hsu as Vontra
The Killer’s Game
This action-packed love story doesn’t provide half-Filipino-American entertainer Dave Bautista’s most-acclaimed or greatest movie of this timeframe; it feels more like the type of project for a wrestler with less experience than him in dramatic or artistic fare. (Then again, he has confessed in interviews his lack of prior experience in love stories.) Anyway, an engaging romance and an entertainingly diverse array of enemies – including an uncharacteristically devious appearance from part-Korean Canadian Pom Klementieff – contribute to one of the more pleasurable guilty pleasures I’ve seen Bautista in.
- Starring Dave Bautista as Joe Flood
- Supporting cast includes Pom Klementieff as Marianna Antoinette, Sir Ben Kingsley as Zvi Rabinowitz, Lee Hoon as Goyang, Marko Zaror as Botas, and some other Korean fighters
2025
A Nice Indian Boy
The deepest cut in this list places Indian-American actor Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff in a romance light on external obstacles. The lack of distractingly contrived threats appears to have ensured strong chemistry between the major characters, and compelling drama within Naveen Gavaskar (Soni)’s family.
- Starring Karan Soni as Naveen Gavaskar
- Co-starring Sunita Mani as Arundhathi Gavaskar, Zarna Garg as Megha Gavaskar, and Harish Patel as Archit Gavaskar
- Supporting cast includes Peter S. Kim as Paul and Sachin Sahel as Manish, among others
- Directed by Roshan Sethi
- Original play written by Madhuri Shekar
KPop Demon Hunters
Engrossing internal conflicts, stylish animation, and widely-appealing songs resulted in an effective mystical demonstration of music’s eternal worth in expression and influence. Despite my general disinterest in KPop, this surprise hit marks my favorite Sony Pictures Animation movie since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
- Starring Arden Cho (speaking) and Ejae (singing) as Rumi, May Hong and Audrey Nuna as Mira, and Ji-young Yoo and Rei Ami as Zoey
- Co-starring Ahn Hyo-seop and Andrew Choi as Jinu, and Yunjim Kim and Lea Salonga as Celine, among others
- Supporting cast includes Ken Jeong as Bobby and Lee Byung-hun as Gwi-Ma, among others
- Directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans
- Screenplay by Maggie Kang and Danya Jimenez, among others
- Songs written by Ejae and multiple other Asian musicians
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Back when I blogged mainly about Marvel, I once wrote that the Fantastic Four deserved a special place in my heart, since Cartoon Network’s reruns of the team’s 1967 TV series comprise my earliest memories of Marvel. However, consistently dismal receptions towards their 2005-’15 live-action movies helped convince me to stick to comics and cartoons when it came to learning about the family. After the casting of Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards helped attract me towards The Fantastic Four: First Steps, that movie’s retro charms and fascinating depiction of new parents’ tribulations elevated it to one of the most pleasing – if far from the most poignant – entries I’ve seen from Marvel’s Multiverse Saga.
- Starring Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic
More Favorite Movies
- Wicked: After I chose the first half of Chinese-American director Jon M. Chu’s Wicked adaptation as my favorite 2024 movie I saw theatrically, I wrote an “uncharacteristically early” review, because I felt I had to blog something before the year ended. Even after the sloppy pacing of Wicked: For Good could make me say that the musical’s second act hasn’t been changed for the better, because the writers knew Chu, Part I and the best scenes of For Good remain poignant spectacles.
- Sinners: My favorite original live-action movie of 2025 happens to boast more significant Asian-American representation than the first two movies I’ve seen from Ryan Coogler, relatively speaking. Second-generation Chinese-American immigrants Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bo Chow (Chinese Malaysian/Filipino-American Yao), and mixed-race Mary (part-Filipina-American Hailee Steinfeld) all only hold supporting roles, with the Chows as the film’s only explicitly Asian characters. Unlike the either non-existent or forgettable Asian characters of Creed and Black Panther, the aforementioned people from Sinners – the only one of these three titles produced by Coogler’s half-Filipina-American wife Zinzi – all reveal unique motivations and relatable subplots, and distinctive perspectives on the Great Depression.
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