2025 was a mixed bag overall for cinema, but when all was settled, the this year’s Oscar nominees list was pretty good by Academy Awards standards. Nominees such as “One Battle After Another,” “Marty Supreme” and “Sinners” are excellent films worthy of all the praise they have received. But not every deserving film has been nominated.
Here are a few choice films that will receive no recognition at this year’s Oscars that you should watch anyways.
Job hunting is hard. Yoo Man-Su discovers this first hand after being laid off from his job at a paper making company following a corporate buy-out. Years of unwavering loyalty prove worthless as he struggles to find employment in an incredibly competitive job market. Unwilling to lose his upper-middle class lifestyle to his wife’s budgeting plans, Man-Su resolves for a simple solution. To permanently eliminate all of his competition by murdering every other qualified candidate.
“No Other Choice” is brilliant and darkly comedic anti-capitalist satire. As anyone who has tried to find employment recently can attest, the inhumanity of the job market as depicted in this film is barely exaggerated. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and the path out is only big enough for one. Man-Su is driven by the ruthless self interest capitalism breeds. He picks himself up by his boot straps and shoves everyone else down on the way up. What else is he supposed to do? There is no other choice.
If you have never watched a film by Park Chan-Wook, stop what you’re doing and change that. Park is credited with catapulting South Korean cinema onto the world stage with his seminal masterpiece “Oldboy.” His films are like Steely Dan songs given visual form; telling meticulously crafted and incredibly cynical tales of pitiful losers careening to the ground like Icarus.
While all of Park’s films sprinkle humor into extremely unfunny situations, “No Other Choice” cranks the dial up on the hilarity. Murdering innocent people is not very funny. Then you see attempted-murder played out with the physicality and timing of a Buster Keaton film and discover it is actually hilarious. But the humor is constantly contrasted with tragedy. Like a knife coated in sugar, it still cuts deep.
I would like to personally nominate Park Chan-Wook as the most snubbed director of the 21st century. Despite directing modern classics such as “Oldboy,” “The Handmaiden” and “Decision To Leave” he still has yet to receive even a single nomination from the Academy.
I guess Park just has to direct yet another career-defining masterpiece so the Academy can notice him.
“NE ZHA 2”
In order to save his home and resurrect his friend, the infernal spirit prince Ne Zha must conquer a series of trials to gain the blessing of the immortals. In the process coming into conflict with demons, dragons and even heaven itself.
Watching “Ne Zha 2” without any baseline for Chinese cinema is like jumping in a pool; shocking at first but delightful in the end. “Ne Zha 2” has the heart of a Disney renaissance film combined with the epic action of “God of War” minus the spines being ripped out. It is a fascinating combination that makes for one of the year’s most memorable films.
It is odd to put a film seen by 300 million people on a list of overlooked movies, but despite being one of the biggest films of all time “Ne Zha 2” was overlooked at the U.S. Box Office. With well over $2 billion in the bank, it’s obvious that China doesn’t need an American award to validate the quality of “Ne Zha 2.”
The Chinese were right, “Ne Zha 2” rocks. I laughed, I cried and I cheered. The film is an adaptation of an ancient cultural myth and in both look and feel lives up to the legendary nature of its source material.
“CHAINSAW MAN – THE MOVIE: REZE ARC”
Romance is confusing. One day everything is going well, she seems into you and you’re into her. Then she bites your tongue out and explodes. Next thing you know you are riding a shark-man to battle the bomb-woman and a typhoon in the shape of a giant baby. Happens to all of us.
Denji is a hormone beguiled teenager who works as a government sanctioned Devil-hunter keeping the citizens of Japan safe from monsters born of human fear. His average day consists of killing inhuman nightmares and being sexually manipulated by his boss Makima. Seemingly by happenstance Denji finds himself in a picture perfect — and age appropriate — romance with a girl named Reze. But Denji’s short burst of good fortune comes to an incredibly violent and bombastic end.
When Eadweard Muybridge captured “Sallie Gardner at a Gallop” in 1878, I like to think he pictured something like “Reze Arc” would exist someday. You can’t prove he didn’t.
“Reze Arc” is an unabashed gonzo-anime-action film with some of the most breathtaking, mind-bending action sequences ever animated. It is also the best superhero movie of 2025. While I admire “Superman” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” only “Reze Arc” captures the Superhero stories I grew up reading. It is imaginative, ambitious, epic and sincere. Violence and beauty clashing and then blending into a cacophony of color and movement.
