AFI’s Top 10 Films of 2025: Oscar Blueprint or Major Snubs?

The American Film Institute (AFI) has unveiled its list of the 10 best films of the year, and surprisingly, this is more or less a blueprint for the Oscar-contending American films — I don’t think they missed any.

That said, what a horrible list — if this is what represents the best of 2025 then it’s been a truly abysmal year.

AFI’s TOP 10

• “Avatar: Fire and Ash” (20th Century Studios)

• “Bugonia” (Focus Features)

• “Frankenstein” (Netflix)

• “Hamnet” (Focus Features)

• “Jay Kelly” (Netflix)

• “Marty Supreme” (A24)

• “One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros.)

• “Sinners” (Warner Bros.)

• “Train Dreams” (Netflix)

• “Wicked: For Good” (Universal Pictures)

There are zero surprises here, unless you really thought “The Testament of Ann Lee,” “Weapons,” “F1,” or “A House of Dynamite” had a chance. All of these films were predicted to appear on the AFI list. If anything, I see this as AFI taking the bait and looking like total fools in honoring “Wicked: For Good” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” — two films that should not make any top 10 list and are only here because of popularity.

The AFI nominees can be seen as a sort of precursor in the Oscar race. Over the past decade, AFI’s top 10 film selections have aligned closely with the Academy’s Best Picture nominations, typically matching seven or sometimes eight eventual nominees. This means that, unless they got it perfectly right this time around, we can cut two titles out of the ten listed above.

AFI’s eligibility rules declare, “Stories need not be presented in the English language if incontrovertibly American,” meaning that they include “significant creative and/or production elements from the United States,” which means “Sentimental Value,” “It Was Just An Accident,” and “The Secret Agent” were not eligible.

That said, and for obvious reasons, AFI did manage to include a “Special Award” for Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just An Accident.”

Here are AFI’s Top 10 TV shows of 2025:

• Andor (Disney+)

• Adolescence (Netflix)

• Death by Lightning (Netflix)

• The Diplomat (Netflix)

• The Lowdown (FX/Hulu)

• The Pitt (HBO Max)

• Pluribus (Apple TV)

• Severance (Apple TV)

• The Studio (Apple TV)

• Task (HBO)