‘Jay Kelly,’ ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Pluribus,’ ‘Task’ and More on AFI’s Top 10 Films and Television of 2025 Lists
The American Film Institute has revealed its picks for the best 10 films and TV shows of 2025.
Its top films are, in alphabetical order: Avatar: Fire and Ash, Bugonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Jay Kelly, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sinners, Train Dreams and Wicked: For Good.
Quite a lot of crossover between AFI and the National Board of Review’s top 11 (the winner is separate from the top 10) with Avatar: Fire and Ash, Frankenstein, Jay Kelly, Marty Supreme, NBR winner One Battle After Another, Sinners, Train Dreams and Wicked: For Good doubling up. Looking at the last few years, AFI matches Oscar’s Best Picture top 10 about 8/10 on average. Last year, for example, went 8/10 with A Real Pain and Sing Sing being replaced at the Oscars by I’m Still Here and The Substance. The first part of Wicked was on last year’s AFI list as well as nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
AFI’s top 10 TV shows of the year are, in alphabetical order: Adolescence, Andor, Death by Lightning, The Diplomat, The Lowdown, The Pitt, Pluribus, Severance, The Studio and Task.
Adolescence, Andor, The Pitt, Severance and The Studio were all selected for their recent Emmy-winning seasons while Death by Lightning, The Diplomat, Pluribus and Task all came in after last season’s Emmy eligibility window.
In addition, AFI is honoring It Was Just an Accident, from dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who earlier this week was sentenced by Iran to a year in prison in absentia, with a special award. Panahi recently won three Gotham Awards for the film as well as a Best Director win from the New York Film Critics Circle.
This year’s juries — one for film and one for television — included Lily Gladstone, Lauren LeFranc, Patton Oswalt and Thomas Schlamme; scholars Mark Harris and Leonard Maltin along with representatives from Syracuse University, USC, UCLA and UC Santa Cruz; critics Ann Hornaday, Janet Maslin and Peter Travers; and members of the AFI Board of Trustees. The panels were chaired by AFI Board of Trustees member Jeanine Basinger, chair emerita and founder of the film studies department at Wesleyan University, and AFI Board of Trustees Vice Chair Richard Frank, former chairman of Walt Disney Television and president of Walt Disney Studios.
AFI’s honorees, which will be celebrated at a January 9 luncheon in Los Angeles, recognize movies and TV shows deemed culturally and artistically representative of this year’s most significant achievements in the art of the moving image.
“For more than a quarter of a century, AFI Awards has held the flag high for community without competition,” AFI president and CEO Bob Gazzale said in a statement. “It is AFI’s honor to celebrate these creative ensembles as one, as together they have proved the power of art in challenging times.”
AFI Top 10 Motion Pictures of the Year
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Jay Kelly
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Train Dreams
Wicked: For Good
AFI Special Award
It Was Just an Accident
AFI Top 10 Television Programs of the Year
Adolescence
Andor
Death by Lightning
The Diplomat
The Lowdown
The Pitt
Pluribus
Severance
The Studio
Task
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- ‘Jay Kelly,’ ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Pluribus,’ ‘Task’ and More on AFI’s Top 10 Films and Television of 2025 Lists - December 4, 2025
- ‘Frankenstein’ to Receive Visionary Honor from Palm Springs International Film Awards - December 4, 2025
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‘Jay Kelly,’ ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Pluribus,’ ‘Task’ and More on AFI’s Top 10 Films and Television of 2025 Lists 
‘Frankenstein’ to Receive Visionary Honor from Palm Springs International Film Awards 
Robert Yeoman to be Honored with American Society of Cinematographers’ Lifetime Achievement Award 
National Board of Review: ‘One Battle After Another’ Tops in Film, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor; Netflix Lands Four in Top 10