John Waters Shares His Favorite Films of 2025: Highlights from Ari Aster’s ‘Eddington’ to Bruno Dumont’s ‘The Empire’

As 2025 approaches, filmmaker John Waters, known as the "Pope of Trash," has shared his curated list of the year’s standout films. This week, Waters highlighted his top ten selections, with Ari Aster’s neo-Western thriller Eddington taking the top spot. The film promises surprising twists and chaotic narratives, capturing the essence of a tumultuous year.

Waters, who has made a name for himself in the realm of camp cinema, included a diverse array of films in his collection. Among them are the franchise horror Final Destination: Bloodlines and the French apocalyptic sci-fi film The Empire, both showcasing his eclectic taste.

Celebrated for his unique insights and bold opinions on cinema, Waters expressed his enthusiasm for these films in detailed commentary.

Here is Waters’ top 10 films of 2025:

1. Eddington, directed by Ari Aster

   “My favorite movie of the year is a disagreeable but highly entertaining tale as exhausting as today’s politics with characters nobody could possibly root for. Yet it’s so terrifyingly funny, so confusingly chaste and kinky that you’ll feel coo-coo crazy and oh-so-cultural after watching. If you don’t like this film, I hate you.”

2. Final Destination: Bloodlines, directed by Adam B. Stein and Zach Lipovsky
   
   “The best sequel to the coolest cinematic franchise ever. Ferocious, fractured and filled with so many scary, twisted surprises—this picture goes beyond trash into a new realm of exploitation art.”

3. Oslo Trilogy, directed by Dag Johan Haugerud
   
   “Three terrific Norwegian films directed by the newest heir to Ingmar Bergman’s throne concerning how complicated yet hopeful and similar all homo and hetero loves and lusts really are. The smartest dialogue about romance in a long, long time.”

4. Sirāt, directed by Oliver Laxe
   
   “Move over, Mad Max. Hurry up, The Wages of Fear. This jaw-droppingly exciting new cinematic road trip to a rave party in the deserts of war-torn Morocco makes those classics look like slowpokes. Tragedy after tragedy of unspeakable intensity make this script the best feel-bad acid adventure ever filmed. It’ll blow your mind … [spoiler alert] literally.”

5. Sauna, directed by Mathias Broe
   
   “Like a modern-day Andy Warhol’s Trash, this sexy and well-acted first feature is about an affair between a hunky, hip gay male who works in a Copenhagen bathhouse cleaning out glory holes and a trans man who now identifies as gay. Cockeyed cunnilingus—a whole new frontier to consider?”

6. Room Temperature, directed by Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley
   
   “A purposely tedious and tender poetic head-scratcher of a film focusing on a family setting up their neighborhood home for a Halloween horror house. Just when you begin hating this film, you’ll suddenly realize—huh? I love it. It’s weird, creepy, and maybe … just maybe, great.”

7. Misericordia, directed by Alain Guiraudie
   
   “An impossibly perverse thriller where murder, closet incest, and the inappropriate attraction to one guilty man collide, leaving the audience stunned by sexual plot twists and a lulu of an ending. Yikes! This one’s off the rails!”

8. When Fall Is Coming, directed by François Ozon
   
   “A touching (and when have you ever heard me use that word?), nonjudgmental drama about a retired whore and her kind but rage-filled, down-low gay grown son, who gets out of prison and teaches her that maybe murder is the right thing to do.”

9. My Mom Jayne, directed by Mariska Hargitay
   
   “A top rate documentary that reveals secret after secret about Jayne Mansfield and her family that will push you to the edge of your seat and possibly make you cry.”

10. The Empire, directed by Bruno Dumont
    
    “I’m not a fan of science-fiction, but when a brutalist spaceship lands in northern France in this film, I fell to my knees to worship the mutant deities onboard. I didn’t realize this script was supposed to be funny until I read the press notes after viewing. It is. Sort of. Not funny ha-ha. Not funny peculiar. But funny ha-ha peculiar, just like the director.”

Waters’ selections reflect not only his taste for the eccentric but also deliver a snapshot of the diverse cinematic landscape in 2025.