Hideo Kojima Names His Best Films of 2025
Artis Kenderik
Hideo Kojima shared his list of the best films of 2025. The selection includes both high-profile hits — such as the horror film Heretic starring Hugh Grant and the thriller Sinners by Black Panther director Ryan Coogler — as well as European auteur cinema, including the Danish drama The Girl with the Needle.
Kojima’s top 10 films of the year are:
- Conclave — a political thriller about behind-the-scenes intrigue during the election of a new Pope, starring Ralph Fiennes;
- Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In — a Hong Kong action film set in the Kowloon Walled City, where a newcomer is drawn into a brutal gang war;
- The Girl with the Needle — a Danish historical drama about a seamstress who becomes a serial killer of infants;
- Love Lies Bleeding — a neo-noir starring Kristen Stewart as a gym owner who falls in love with a bodybuilder and gets pulled into a criminal story;
- Quand vient l’automne (What Happens in Autumn) — a French drama about an aging woman fighting for the right to remain in her home;
- Sinners — a horror film by Get Out director Ryan Coogler about twins returning to their hometown in the American South in the 1930s;
- Heretic — a psychological horror starring Hugh Grant about two Mormon missionaries trapped by a maniac;
- Sirat — a drama about the search for a missing daughter among rave parties in the Moroccan desert, winner of the Cannes Jury Prize;
- The Shadow’s Edge — an action film starring 71-year-old Jackie Chan, who comes out of retirement to hunt down a gang of brilliant thieves. Kojima had previously highlighted this film among his favorites;
- Sentimental Value — a Norwegian drama from the director of The Worst Person in the World about two sisters reconnecting with their filmmaker father for the sake of his new movie.
Kojima noted that the films are listed in the order he watched them, not ranked by preference. The director is well known for his love of cinema and regularly shares his impressions — cinematic techniques often serve as a source of inspiration for his games.
Previously, the director shared his thoughts on the ending of Stranger Things, a series he began watching during one of the most difficult periods of his life.
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