Going into 2025, I made one of my New Year’s resolutions to watch as many new movies as I could, and I have to say, I’ve done pretty well. For the past 12 months, I’ve been documenting my favorite new movies across the best streaming services, and now it’s time to wrap things up with my list of favorites from December.
Frankenstein (2025)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Age rating: PG
Runtime: 150 minutes
Where to stream: Netflix (US, UK, and AU)
Out of all the best directors out there, I couldn’t think of anyone else other than Guillermo del Toro to reimagine Mary Shelley’s classic novel in the modern age. From costume and makeup design to cinematography, Frankenstein is quintessentially del Toro.
Based on the gothic novel, it follows the story of the clever but egotistical scientist Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), whose obsession with the secret of life gets out of hand when he creates a new life form, deemed ‘the Creature’ (Jacob Elordi).
Split into two acts told from the perspective of both characters, Frankenstein is faced with the consequences of his risky experiment when the Creature is unleashed into the world. But despite his monstrous appearance, he’s not as dangerous as the world perceives him to be.
Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
Director: Rian Johnson
Age rating: PG-13
Runtime: 144 minutes
Where to stream: Netflix (US, UK, and AU)
Just like its first and second installments, Wake Up Dead Man packs another star-studded ensemble cast including Josh Brolin, Glenn Close, Josh O’Connor, and Jeremy Renner – and let’s not forget Daniel Craig, who’s incredible as detective Benoit Blanc.
Set in New York, Wake Up Dead Man takes a more gothic approach, which is starkly different from its predecessors. When Monsignor Wicks (Brolin) is murdered, Benoit Blanc is called to investigate his mysterious death, questioning his closest acquaintances from the parish. This includes the newly appointed Father Duplenticy (O’Connor), who has a troubled past, Wick’s right-hand woman, Martha Delacroix (Close), and alcoholic town doctor Nat Sharp (Renner).
Companion (2025)
Director: Drew Hancock
Age rating: R
Runtime: 107 minutes
Where to stream: Prime Video, HBO Max (US); Now TV (UK); Prime Video (AU)
Another movie from this year that I finally caught up on was Drew Hancock’s Companion, a dystopian sci-fi thriller that I found more entertaining than most Black Mirror episodes. It also stars Sophie Thatcher, one of today’s rising scream queens, you know and love from Heretic (2024) and Yellowjackets.
Iris (Thatcher) and Josh’s (Jack Quaid) romance is new and fresh, and the two are preparing for a weekend away with Josh’s friends at a remote lake house. Starting off as an exciting getaway, things take a left turn when one of them is found dead, sending the weekend into chaos. It quickly turns into a fight for survival when it’s revealed that one of the guests is, in fact, a companion robot.
Mickey 17 (2025)
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Age rating: R
Runtime: 137 minutes
Where to stream: Prime Video, HBO Max (US); Now TV (UK); HBO Max (AU)
Although Mickey 17 received average reviews, I very much enjoyed its comedic elements and the wider satirical commentary. Besides, I will watch anything if it’s got Robert Pattinson in – I’m seriously obsessed.
To escape the wrath of a loan shark, Mickey Barnes (Pattinson) and his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) join a spaceship crew whose mission is to colonize an ice planet named Niflheim. While Timo becomes a pilot, Mickey enrolls as what the crew calls an ‘Expendable’, a highly controversial job where a new clone of him is generated after he dies on each dangerous expedition – but things go very wrong when he’s accidentally cloned twice.
The Roses (2025)
Director: Jay Roach
Age rating: R
Runtime: 105 minutes
Where to stream: Hulu (US); Disney+ (UK & AU)
Ensemble casts can really help a film soar, and that’s how I felt when watching The Roses – another film whose theatrical release I missed. Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch are spitefully fighting it out? What more could you want?
For married couple Ivy (Colman) and Theo (Cumberbatch), everything is perfect on the surface; stable jobs and well-behaved kids make up their picture-perfect life. But when Theo’s career plummets while Ivy’s skyrockets, resentment brews, bringing out their competitive sides and changing their lives for good. How far will each one go to spite the other?
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Age rating: R
Runtime: 100 minutes
Where to stream: HBO Max (US); Now TV (UK); Foxtel Now, Binge
When I found out that Schoenbrun’s masterpiece I Saw the TV Glow was finally available to stream in the UK, I had to give it a rewatch. If you grew up being obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks – this is for you.
In this psychological horror, teenager Owen (Justice Smith) struggles to come out of his shell. Still, when he bonds with older student Maddy (Jack Haven) over a shared fascination with a late-night TV show, he begins to blossom. But as the two become more infatuated with the show, its oddly comforting world, which they resonate with, begins to interfere with their own lives, leading them to question their true identities and sense of reality.
If I could wipe any movie from memory just to experience it again for the first time, I’d look no further than here.
About a Boy (2002)
Directors: Paul Weitz & Chris Weitz
Age rating: PG-13
Runtime: 101 minutes
Where to stream: Fubo (US); Now TV (UK); Paramount+, Foxtel Now, Binge (AU)
You should know me by now, if I see a late ’90s or early ’00s flick starring Hugh Grant, I’m pressing the play button – and it’s even more alluring when Toni Collette and Nicholas Hoult’s names are on the cast list.
Wealthy Londoner Will Freeman (Grant) lives a careless and child-free, and is the only one in his group of friends who’s single without a family. To attract women, he starts attending single parent meetings where he pretends to have a child.
Amidst the run of single mothers he encounters, he meets 12-year-old Marcus (Hoult), a charismatic kid going through a rough time with school bullies while living with his chronically depressed mother (Collette). Will reluctantly lets Marcus into his life, but as their bond blossoms he teaches Marcus how to be a cool kid at school, while Marcus’ infectious character helps Will to mature.
No Country For Old Men (2007)
Directors: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Age rating: R
Runtime: 122 minutes
Where to stream: Paramount+ (US); Paramount+, Netflix (UK); Stan (AU)
When it comes to crime thrillers, no one does it quite like the Coen brothers. Their Oscar-winning flick Fargo (1996) set the standard, and No Country For Old Men (2007) proved they still have it.
In 1980 rural Texas, welder Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) discovers the violent aftermath of a drug exchange gone wrong, coming across a suitcase filled with $2 million cash. Instead of reporting it to the police, he takes the money for himself, but he doesn’t know that psychopathic murderer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is hired to retrieve it, and will kill anyone who gets in his way.
Meanwhile, aging lawman Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is also on the lookout for Moss, hoping to reach him before Chigurh – or else lives will be spared.
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Director: Adrian Lyne
Age rating: R
Runtime: 119 minutes
Where to stream: Fubo, Paramount+ (US); Paramount+, Prime Video, Now TV (UK)
Another thriller that made a lasting impression on me this month was Fatal Attraction, a movie that has been sitting in my watchlist for ages. To put it short, I gave it 4.5 stars on Letterboxd, so that should tell you how much I enjoyed it.
New York-based lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) is happily married to his wife Beth (Anne Archer), with whom he has a child, Ellen. When Beth and Ellen go away for the weekend, Dan has an affair with a woman he just met, Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), with both agreeing that it would be a casual fling.
When Alex shows interest in seeing more of Dan, he breaks off all contact with her, but her behavior only grows more aggressive, and she starts to stalk him. As her actions get progressively worse, and even life-threatening at times, Dan’s realizes that his priority isn’t to conceal his affair, but to protect the lives of his wife and young child.
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