Timothy S. Johnston’s Best Movies of 2025 |

Timothy S. Johnston’s Best Movies of 2025

I love films. I think that’s clear here at Life After Gateway.

Each week, in addition to my regular writing process, I post new trailers, review movies, write articles about my favourite directors, post important movie news and rumours, and more.

What’s also obvious are my preferred genres: Science Fiction, Thriller, Horror, Mystery, and Suspense. I view films with a lens toward those genres, generally speaking. That being said, I fully recognize a great movie when I see it. Each movie in the below list offered me something special, which meant I had to flag it as one of the best — transformative, immersive, inspiring, gripping — of the year.

When I take a step back and study my list, I realize that the top four all include gripping, edge-of-the-seat tension. The others are visually beautiful or feature wonderful performances worthy of viewing.

You can be the judge, but it’s a phenomenal list of films:

TSJ’S Top Films of 2025

7. Train Dreams

After viewing this film, which stars Joel Edgerton and based on the 2011 book by Denis Johnson, I didn’t actually consider including it on my list. After all, it’s not exactly in my preferred genres. But, the next day, the story stayed with me. I was still thinking about it. It’s a haunting and solemn examination of one man’s journey through the American experience, but it isn’t exactly uplifting. The protagonist doesn’t achieve fame, fortune, or glory. He’s simply a man. He never knew his parents. He doesn’t have a past or roots. He drifts through life, trying his best to manage, but ends up experiencing something in the American Northwest that was majestic, painful, and torturous. Train Dreams is a beautiful film that will stick with you. It’s also a lesson for us about the transient nature of life. Our lifespans are so short … so insignificant. It’s important to make the best of what we have while we can.

6. Frankenstein

Director Guillermo del Toro is a brilliant artist. His films have an ephemeral quality to them that absorb and entrance audiences. This film is no exception. The palette and visuals are captivating. There is a lack of tension in the story — which is odd — and some roles were miscast, but the artistry involved is clear. The sets, the design, the costumes, the visuals … all are insanely beautiful. Frankenstein was a joy to watch.

5. Nuremberg

Here’s my full review, which I posted in December. This is an important film that people should see. It’s not perfect, but it features a perfect performance. It’s worth seeing just to watch Russell Crowe, and once the trial starts, I dare you to turn away.

4. A House of Dynamite

Talk about tension. This movie is gripping. The structure is interesting and took a bit to get used to, and many people have cried foul about the ending, but A House of Dynamite is meant to be thought-provoking and ambiguous. It features fantastic filmmaking by Kathryn Bigelow, who directed The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. Her movie, Strange Days, is one of my favourites. This is a fantastic movie.

3. F1

This movie gave viewers exactly what it promised. No more, no less. It’s a visual feast with exciting music and a fun story. It’s a “popcorn film,” and as such, I had to admit that it’s everything one could ask for in a Summer blockbuster. It’s highly entertaining and deserves a spot on the list. It features the underdog sports trope of a man trying to achieve redemption. When he’s offered a second chance, he reluctantly accepts the opportunity … and he didn’t even realize it was something he wanted. F1 is eminently rewatchable and is an eye-popping spectacle. It deserved a spot on my list of the year’s best.

2. Sinners

This is a gripping film and also quite unique. The connection between history, music, and horror had me spellbound. The blood, gore, and violence was perfectly intermixed with emotion, love, desire, hope, and dreams. This movie is riveting.

1. Weapons

My full review is here. Weapons is creepy horror crossed with procedural in the same realm as Prisoners and Silence of the Lambs. It’s a fantastic film and I am still thinking about it, weeks after viewing. I wrote in my review that, “Weapons is the movie of the year,” and I stand by that. It also featured one of the most compelling and chilling villains in movie history. It’s a great mystery featuring wonderful performances, especially that of Josh Brolin. I highly recommend this movie. It is so intense, creative, and gripping that I dare you to watch it and not think about it the next day. Or the next one. Or the ones after that. For me, Weapons was the movie of 2025.

Note: I want to single out Josh Brolin this year. I almost added Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Story to this list. For me it was the best of the three Knives Out movies, and Brolin was fantastic in it — this was a special year for the actor.

———

Each day, I post one carefully curated news item from the Science Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Horror, and Suspense genres. Follow or subscribe to my blog and start your days dialed in to the exciting worlds of Timothy S. Johnston!

———

Follow TSJ on Facebook.
Follow TSJ on X.
Follow TSJ on Instagram.
Follow TSJ’s Blog Life After Gateway, featuring one carefully curated news item from the world of Science Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Horror, and Suspense each day. Enter your email in the “Subscribe to Blog via Email” widget on the right.

———

A Blanket of Steel by Timothy S. Johnston and from Fitzhenry & Whiteside, LTD. is the recipient of the 2024 GLOBAL Thriller Award GRAND PRIZE and the 2024 CYGNUS Award First in Category.

— Timothy S. Johnston, 31 December 2025

———

Praise for Timothy S. Johnston’s A Blanket of Steel

“Fans of Clive Cussler’s NUMA Files will be delighted with Timothy S. Johnston’s undersea novels. Truman McClusky and Dirk Pitt are cut from the same adventurer’s cloth.” — Nick Cutter, author of The Deep and The Troop

“Action that ranges from close range combat to torpedo-fueled attacks. The result is a thriller that keeps moving from confrontation to confrontation … with constant danger and the vast depths of the ocean as a setting, there is always reason to keep reading.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Read the book and prepare to be blown away by one of the best writers I have ever had the pleasure to read. Timothy S. Johnston is simply amazing.” — FIVE Stars from Readers’ Favorite

“A Blanket of Steel is not simply a ‘daring do’ thriller … It’s prescient.” — Amazing Stories

“A priority selection. An action-packed story that is hard to put down. A Blanket of Steel is outstanding.” — D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer, Midwest Book Review

“Innovative technology, Mac taking risks no one else would dare and thinking his way through to brilliant solutions … But the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been before. This is it. The countdown to the final battle … Johnston does an excellent job of keeping the tension taut as he plays with the reader’s perceptions of characters we thought we knew and trusted …” — SFcrowsnest

“Expect to be left breathless. Trust me here. Please. I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN.” — Michael Libling, author of The Serial Killer’s Son Takes A Wife and Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels

———

A BLANKET OF STEEL is out now!

WATCH THE GRIPPING BOOK TRAILER HERE.

FOR PURCHASE OPTIONS CLICK HERE

———

A Blanket of Steel from Timothy S. Johnston and Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Ltd.

Book Cover & Jacket Copy:

AN UNSTOPPABLE THREAT!

A mysterious assassin has murdered Cliff Sim, Chief Security Officer of the underwater colony, Trieste. Cliff was a mountain of a man, highly trained, and impossible to defeat in combat. And yet …

Someone brutally beat him and left his broken body in a secret Chinese facility at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

And included a calling card for Truman McClusky, Mayor of Trieste.

Taunting him.

Mac has led the underwater colonies in their fight against the world’s superpowers. Climate change has devastated the surface; nations suffer famine, drought, rebellion, rising waters, and apocalyptic coastal flooding. But now, as Mac leads the underwater colonies to freedom and independence, he’s faced with the gravest threat of his life: a Russian assassin, hellbent on killing Mac and everyone he cares for. Now Mac must uncover the identity of the killer, face him in combat, and at the same time lead people in battle against the largest underwater force ever assembled. It’s Mac’s final test, and to win the war, he must use every tool at his disposal, including the most surprising and devastating underwater weapons ever invented.

If Mac fails, all hope is lost for the future of human colonization on the ocean floors.

But the assassin could be anyone …

Watch your back, Mac.

A Blanket of Steel is the most gripping thriller yet in The Rise of Oceania.

FOR PURCHASE OPTIONS CLICK HERE

The other books in The Rise of Oceania series by Timothy S Johnston:

The War Beneath 9781771484718
The Savage Deeps 9781771485067
Fatal Depth 9781554555574
An Island of Light 9781554555819
The Shadow of War 9781554556007