The 12 Days of Recapsmas continues! For the uninitiated: over the last few years, I have kept a list of my 4 favorite first-time watches for every month of the year, and end up with a great way of seeing my favorite 48 movies of that year. This will be a recurring series on Anatomy of a Film, where I break down my favorite discoveries for the year. Let the 2025 recap continue with our four favorites from March 2025! You can view the full list by clicking the image below.
1. The Wild Robot (2024)
Today’s list will begin with Chris Sanders’ The Wild Robot! We have been in a reinassance of excellent animated films in the last 10 years, and The Wild Robot joins the pantheon of instant modern animated classics, up there with the ongoing Spiderverse series, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), and Pixar’s Soul. I could stare at the films stunning visual aesthetics for days, and truly regret not having gone to see this in the theater when I had the chance. The Wild Robot follows Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), a robot who gains sentience and feels a need to protect a small bird, named Brightbill (voiced by Kit Connor), after being involved with an accident that led to the death of its mother. Watching Roz go through the journey of motherhood is as tender as it is heartbreaking, and if you’re a parent to any type of creature, from human to a pet, you’re guaranteed to shed a few tears. The film features a star studded cast of voices with great performances all around. I am happy to say I will be seated for the sequel, whenever that finally happens.
2. Rap World (2024)
It was a Friday night this spring break when a good friend of mine came to visit us in Oregon. Good vibes were all around, smoke in the air, eyes red, and our group all had one question for him that night: “What the hell is Rap World?”. We booted up YouTube, and basked in all 55 minutes and 41 seconds of Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar’s darkly comedic masterpiece. Set in the suburban realm of Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, 4 20-somethings set out to record a rap album over the course of a fateful evening. It is a fairly indie film, with only 633k views on YouTube at the time of writing this. It perfectly captures the energy of a group of small-town losers in the late 2000’s. The film is extremely energetic and keeps you on your toes with mico-jokes layered in every line. That night, we all were scream-laughing, until we weren’t. Those who have seen the film know what I mean by that. This is not only a film you should know nothing about when you watch it, you should just watch it here, free and straight from Conner O’Malley:
3. Mickey 17 (2025)
Mickey 17 is the much awaited, and highly anticipated follow-up to Bong-Joon Ho’s Best Picture Winner, Parasite (2019). Though it was supposed to release a full year earlier, in March 2024, It finally was released in March 2025 after constant delays from the studio and the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes. Mickey 17 is a quirky political sci-fi comedy featuring Robert Pattinson as all of the Mickeys, Naomi Ackie as Nasha, Steven Yeun as Timo, along with Mark Ruffalo as Kenneth Marshall and Toni Collette as Ylfa. I actually think this is quite an underrated film for the year, and portrays some much needed political optimism after the hellish year we have been enduring in the states. Pattinson and Ackie have a great romantic chemistry in the film and Ruffalo delivers a great analogue to Trump’s narcissistic insanity. Bong-Joon Ho delivers a hilarious, “dark-woke” liberal optimist sci-fi film that we need more of in today’s climate.
4. Black Bag (2025)
2025 definitely feels like the year I came to appreciate directors more and more. Steven Soderbergh is a director I had always heard of in name but was never naturally drawn to his mainstream “Oceans” series. This year, with his releases of Presence (2024) and Black Bag (2025), I’m happy that changed. Black Bag is, so far, my favorite Soderbergh to-date. He really brought special performances out of two of my favorite actors, Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. Black Bag is a smart yet restrained secret-agent-mystery-thriller in which MI6 agent George Woodhouse (played by Michael Fassbender) must investigate a list of possible traitors, which includes his wife, Kathryn St. Jean (played by Cate Blanchett). It plays more like a golden age noir film rather than that of a James Bond or Mission: Impossible film, and the writing and pacing of this movie work perfectly in this tight 94-minute runtime. One of the best husband movies of all time.
And that concludes March’s Recapsmas for 2025! Thanks for reading.
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