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 June 2025! You can view the full list by clicking the image below.
1. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
This summer we embarked on a nearly impossible mission, which was to watch all of the Mission: Impossible films before the release of The Final Reckoning. It was an amazing journey that resulted in Ethan Hunt becoming one of my favorite characters in cinema, and falling in love with a franchise I was utterly clueless about. Throughout all of these group watches with friends, I was steadfast in my belief that the original was the best so far, even maintaining that opinion in the face of the strongest Ghost Protocol defenders out there. That was until we got to Fallout. Our core of Ethan (Tom Cruise), Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson, or more affectionately called Becky Fergz during our watch-through) are all at their best here, Henry Cavill’s conniving performance as Walker is an excellent foil to Cruise’s battle scarred yet still loyal Hunt. The real star of the movie is Vanessa Kirby as The White Widow. Every word she says is pure velvet. I could listen to her just say the name John Lark for 9 hours and I would still have given the movie a 10/10. These movies are all built around big stunts, big personalities, and big payoffs. This movie has it all and executes them flawlessly over the course of this conspiratorial action thriller. To me, it is the most “Mission: Impossible” Mission: Impossible movie. It manages to have fun without it coming at the expense of the plot, writing, or action. Just a perfect action movie.
2. Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (1964)
We now go from the multi-hundred million dollar budget action spectacles of the Mission: Impossible series to the 6th Zatoichi film, Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (1964). It surprises me how little the Zatoichi franchise is talked about today in the context of Samurai films. You would think by browsing movie forums, Reddit, and Letterboxd lists, that Kurosawa and Kobayashi were the only ones who did it right while jokingly mentioning Lady Snowblood and Lone Wolf & Cub for their use of extreme amounts of blood that they aren’t really “serious” films. Samurai movies have the ability to gain exposure much easier in the era of social media, but Zatoichi still hasn’t caught the masses attention yet. The series itself is very simple to grasp. Zatoichi is a blind masseur who has mastered the blade, and usually gets into some hijinks as a result of either his incessant need to be a man of chivalry or love of gambling. From what I’ve gathered by watching 9 of the 26 films in this franchise, it is fairly formulaic but I love it all the same. Zatoichi is played by the legendary Shintaro Katsu during the entirety of the franchise. I would normally have these on while at work but stopped at the 10th film due to the brothel setting and haven’t found time to watch it outside of work. Mark my words, though, the Zatoichi journey will continue in 2026. As for the film itself, it is definitely my favorite of the series so far. Directed by Kazuo Ikehiro, this film is one of the most beautifully stylistic samurai films I have ever seen. Ikehiro’s camerawork is top notch for this being his second film. This film feels like a true evolution of the franchise and should be talked about in the same breath as Kenji Misumi’s Samurai Trilogy. The action, comedy, and drama are all perfectly balanced here to create a criminally underrated classic.
3. Thelma & Louise (1991)
Story time! My wife picked this up while we were visiting a movie store in London (lets go region-free players!) and we spent the rest of the honeymoon excited to get home and watch this for the first time. The standard criterion blu-ray was stunning and safely made the trip back to the States with us. Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise (1991) is an absolute blast about friendship, womanhood, and resilience. When we finally sat down to watch it, we were shocked at how stacked this cast was! Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, and Brad Pitt!? Susan Sarandon’s Louise and Geena Davis’s Thelma are absolute knockouts in this, both performance and looks wise. You can’t help but root and cheer for them during their journey. This is a classic, I don’t need to get down into the weeds for this one, it’s a perfect summer movie about the right people meeting each other at the wrong time.
4. 28 Days Later (2002)
Danny Boyle’s lo-fi zombie masterpiece 28 Days Later (2002) thunderously re-entered the cultural zeitgeist upon the announcement of a 28 Years Later (2025) trilogy. This movie was widely inaccessible for the longest time, even for rentals, until close to the release of 28YL. Personally, this was a movie I grew up with and had some trauma bound to it as a result of my dad. He enjoyed showing me horror movies I was way too young to watch, such as this, REC (2007), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and Evil Dead II (1987) when I was around 8 years old. I have since gone back as an adult and conquered what I have dubbed these “trauma films” that gave me endless nightmares as a kid, but surprisingly, 28 Days Later was one of the last of these movies to be conquered due to just how inaccessible it was for the longest time. For those wondering, the final movie I need to overcome is the original Final Destination (2000). I tried and just couldn’t do it a few years ago. Anyways! I am counting this as a first time watch even if I have seen the film before just because this was the first time watching it as a non-terrified sentient being. The movie is shot in a handheld format at what seems to be 240p. As annoying as that is to a lot of people (especially those who want a 4k release), I think it works perfectly as a device for conveying the story of the film. The best use of it in the movie is when Cillian Murphy’s character, Jim, escapes a military camp and begins stealthily taking out soldiers. There is an overhead shot that looks like it is from a decrepit security camera, but for some reason the genius of that shot in the context of the film was seared into my mind. 28 Days Later is, in my opinion, the most innovative zombie movie of the 21st century to this day still. The hopelessness and shock you feel through Jim at the beginning of the film, the family dynamic between Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns), and the slow burning romance between Jim and Selena (Naomie Harris) are all perfectly balanced that when the insane military shows up you are genuinely terrified for all of them. The villain deaths are all extremely satisfying. It’s just a great movie. 28 Years Later was a phenomenal film as well, and I have extremely high hopes for The Bone Temple to take the crown once we are able to spend more time with The Jimmies. Thank you Danny Boyle.
And that concludes June’s Recapsmas 2025! Thanks for reading.
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