12 Days of Recapsmas 2025, Day 11

The 12 Days of Recapsmas continues…. somehow! 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 November 2025! You can view the full list by clicking the image below.

Before we begin.. yeah. We are 21 days into January and still recapping 2025 with nothing new stirring for 2026, but believe me, we have a lot of great articles planned for the year. January has just kind of been a crazy month.

1. Bugonia (2025)

Bugonia (2025) is the 4th collaboration between auteur Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, and is a completely electric film from start to finish. Yorgos and Emily have never failed to make a staggering work of art together, whether that be 2023’s Poor Things or, the honestly harrowing film, The Favourite from 2018. 2025 was full of paranoid political thrillers, which is an accurate reflection of American society in the last year. We had Eddington, then One Battle After Another, then finally we topped the year off with Bugonia. All three share a similar vibe of political paranoia while each film tackles a completely different subject. It was a great year for political films in 2025. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons engage in a battle of mental fortitude against each other in Bugonia, while the viewer is left feeling like Aidan Delbis’s character, Don, confused yet sincerely hoping for the right thing to happen. Bugonia landed in my top 4 for 2025 releases, which is nothing to sneeze at in any way considering the top 3 is One Battle After Another, Avatar: Fire and Ash, and Wake Up Dead Man. 2025 ended in such a spectacular way, and Bugonia really helped “save” what felt like a year with very few event films. Bugonia is just a wonderful movie that manages to have fun whilst tackling and depicting extremely grim actions and discussions.

Emma Stone as Michelle Fuller, Aidan Delbis as Don, Jesse Plemons as Teddy, Bugonia (2025)

2. Jurrasic Park (1993)

The shock that my wife felt when I told her I had never sincerely sat down to watch Jurassic Park could have powered our town for the rest of the month. We watched this before setting out on a road trip for my birthday, where we embarked on a journey from Portland to Spokane, WA to visit their Barnes and Noble. This particular Barnes and Noble is one of the few in the country that carries the entire Criterion Collection, which was having its semi-annual 50% off sale at the time. She said it was completely unacceptable for me to turn 26 without ever having seen this. She was correct. And so was everyone else about this movie from the time it released to the end of time. It is fantastic. What we did to deserve Steven Spielberg, I will never know.

3. Thief (1981)

Thief was one of the many blind-buys my wife and I acquired from the previously mentioned 50% off Criterion sale.

The wife and I at Barnes and Noble with a stack of happiness.

Now this is a movie I have not been able to get out of my head since we first watched it. It takes you places you never expect, makes you laugh when you least expect, and shocks you when you least expect. The fact that this was Michael Mann’s debut film is dumbfounding. James Caan gives an unforgettable performance as Frank, and Robert Prosky as Leo is so despicable that you can’t help but cheer at his final frame in the film. This really is the working mans heist film, there is nothing like it out there. Thief (1981) is a gorgeous film that is over before you realize it’s even started. You want so much more from this world and to see if Frank finally gets to live out his dream, and then it ends. It’s okay though, at least we eventually got Heat (1995). So glad I chose this to be a blind watch during that weekend!

4. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

First and foremost- Netflix, please, GIVE THESE FILMS A WIDE RELEASE IN THEATERS! We were lucky enough that a single theater in our area was showing this for 3 days, right before Thanksgiving. My wife is possibly the biggest Knives Out fan of all time, so we made a trek out 30 minutes into the country to a random local theater we had never heard of before just so we could see this on the big screen. And yeah, it was so great we went back the next day to see it again. It is completely unlike the previous 2 entries, and while it may have the most vulgarity and vitriol we have seen in a Knives Out film yet, it is also the kindest and most sincere of the series so far. Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc is as sharp as ever in this, and after his impressive performance in Challengers, Josh O’Connor plays an excellent case-partner as Father Judd. I also want to commend Rian Johnson because his camerawork is as good as it’s ever been in this. It’s just a wonderful film all around, especially if you have some unprocessed religious trauma.