2026 media

11 Jan, 2026

Favorites from 2025

Note—I do not date long series.

Tokyo Godfathers (2003)
Truly the greatest Christmas movie to end/start a year. Perhaps the happiest, no-nonsense no-blurry-reality-shenanigans Kon movie—with, as always, wonderful and full of life animation. In less words: 2000s urban loneliness about the unwanted and unseen.
10DANCE (2025)
Kokuho (2025)
Most three-hours movies have this issue: opening too many scenario paths and, due to time constraint, not exploiting all of them¹. That being said, even though it is only January, I am pretty sure it will stay the prettiest movie of the year: camerawork and acting-wise (the actors are in their early 30s and even learnt kabuki²!).
All the Long Nights (2024)
A good surprise, nothing exceptional, but that's probably the nicest part about it. PMS is definitely real and its representation is much appreciated, but I would have found it more interesting to choose to depict endometriosis or PCOS³.

Hamnet (2025)
No Other Choice (2025)
Funniest movie of the year and we're only in February. Smoothest transitions and incredible camerawork, as always. I found it very interesting to see layoff as loss of identity, masculinity ('provider' man), and the protagonist's attempt at regaining it through bodily control—his opponents, his wife, his rotten tooth. In the end, has he truly won?
Marty Supreme (2025)
Timothée Chalamet has damn interesting projects! I have yet to see Uncut Gems from Safdie Brothers but I was absolutely thrilled—no one can top the audacity of a pathetic dude like the protagonist. So much second-hand embarassment, clearly not stemming from empathy, but something closer to cringe, in somehow a good way.

Pluribus (2025)
I have to state I am in the middle of watching Better Call Saul—I cannot really compare Seehorn's acting yet, but she truly deserved that prize. Anyway, definitely give it a try. I'm not sure if it was the original purpose but I am getting a profoundly anti-AI message from it, which honestly feels refreshing with eveyrhting that's been going on lately.

Bridgerton Season 4 (2026)
I am still a firm believer that nothing could ever top Season 2 again, design set and clothing decreased in quality ever since then... However, the hetslop remains fascinating, and I am more than intrigued by the lesbian period piece storyline—I cannot wait to see how it will play.

I can recently only think of Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) by Scorsese as an exception. Not influenced by the fact I watched it in a 14-hour plane and had nothing else to do.↩
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuho_(film)↩
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/polycystic-ovary-syndrome ↩