As 2025 comes to a close, it’s time for one of The Playlist’s favorite annual traditions: covering the top 10 films list of cult director John Waters. At this point, we know what to expect from a Waters list. Bold, auteur-driven cinema, usually with a queer bent, will be championed, with French directors especially at the fore. Waters’ list for 2025 is no different, but, as always, there are a couple of surprises. So let’s see what one of moviemaking’s great eccentrics promotes this year…
Waters’ choice for #1 will be provocative, but also a tad predictable: Ari Aster‘s “Eddington.” Predictable how? Well, Waters also had Aster’s previous film, “Beau Is Afraid,” top his 2023 list. Waters must see a kindred spirit of sorts in 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,” Waters writes about “Eddington.” “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.” Strong words, but then a film as divisive as “Eddington” deserves a rewatch or two before full consideration.
The other two top spots of Waters’ list go to “Final Destination: Bloodlines” at #2, and Dag Johan Haugerud‘s “Oslo” Trilogy (or, alternatively, “Dreams Sex Love” Trilogy) at #3. “Ferocious, fractured, and filled with so many scary, twisted surprises—this picture goes beyond trash into a new realm of exploitation art,” Waters said of “Bloodlines.” Waters also proclaimed Haugerud as “the newest heir to Ingmar Bergman’s throne” with his three films, and claimed they have “the smartest dialogue about romance in a long, long time.” Quite an endorsement there.
Elsewhere on the list, three French auteurs Waters is always a fan of: Alain Guiraudie‘s “Misericordia” at #7; François Ozon‘s “Fall Is Coming” at #8; and Bruno Dumont‘s “The Empire” at #10. And French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe also made the list at #4 with his Cannes favorite “Sirāt,” a film Waters called “the best feel-bad acid adventure ever filmed.”
The rest of the list are films that skew towards Waters’ perennial interests. Mathias Broe’s “Sauna” comes in at #5, about an emergent romance between a gay male and a trans man in Copenhagen; Waters likens it to “a modern-day Andy Warhol’s “Trash.”” Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley‘s “Room Temperature” follows “Sauna” at #6, a genre-bending film about a family redecorating their home into a Halloween fright house. And Mariska Hargitay‘s doc “My Mom Jayne,” about the actress’ late mother Jayne Mansfield, clocks in at #9; a tender and tragic look at the late-1950s Hollywood sex symbol.
Check out John Waters’ entire top 10 movies of 2025 list here. As always, each title is worth checking out even if, as per usual with the European films, it may take a while for them to reach US audiences in theaters, on streamers, or otherwise.
