2025 cinema has been many things, including being the year two different Geraldine Viswanathan movies inexplicably featured the Kenny Loggins/Dolly Parton song “Island in the Streams.” It’s also the year Pedro Pascal has been a delightfully common presence in movie theaters. A decade ago, Pascal had barely appeared in the realm of feature-length movies. Now, he’s headlining all kinds of movies, from indie Westerns to massive superhero blockbusters. With all of Pascal’s 2025 motion pictures already hitting theaters, it’s time to ask the fabled question: which of these are the best films of the year?
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Not every movie Pedro Pascal appeared in this year was worthy of his immense talents, but he certainly gave his all in each of these motion pictures. Plus, this eclectic array of titles reflected his commitment to appearing in all kinds of art. Ahead, let’s look at this man’s incredible year by ranking his 2025 movies from worst to best.
4) Eddington
Eddington sees writer/director Ari Aster crafting a modern Western thriller around COVID-19 protocols and digital misinformation in May 2020. It’s an intriguing concept, but one executed with surprisingly flat filmmaking (the wildly varying and audacious visuals of Aster’s Beau is Afraid are M.I.A. here) and so much surface-level execution. Whether it’s just boiling COVID-era society to familiar buzzwords like “social distancing” or the reductive depiction of rural New Mexico citizens, Eddington’s conceptually grand ambitions result in a movie nowhere near subversive or surprising enough to live up to classic Lizzie Borden or Samuel Fuller movies. Pascal is solid as Mayor Ted Garcia, but he’s not in nearly enough of the movie to save Eddington from its listless impulses.
3) The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Given how enjoyably gregarious Pascal has been in the likes of Saturday Night Live, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, or his hammy Maxwell Lord in Wonder Woman 1984, it’s impressive how good he is as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It’s not a standard Pascal performance, but he’s still effective as an emotionally suppressed numbers guy. A scene where Richards confronts his son, Franklin, about how he doesn’t want his kid to grow up to be like him is a fantastic example of Pascal’s delicate touch with understated drama sequences. As a whole film, First Steps is a solid exercise, though its emotionally aloof nature keeps it from flaming on to its fullest potential.
2) Freaky Tales
Freaky Tales deserved so much more in its theatrical run. Though it never got the theatrical push it needed, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s audacious anthology feature focusing on supernatural and weirdo stories in 1987 Oakland, California is still an exciting trip. Among those stories is a yarn about criminal Clint (Pascal) navigating unspeakable tragedy after he decides to lead a law-abiding life. It’s a great role for Pascal, who displays angry vengeance, assured confidence, and complex grief all throughout his richly engaging performance. Plus, he does a great job leaving an impression without overshadowing the rest of the ensemble cast. Pascal’s co-stars Ji-yong Yoo and Jay Ellis still leave immense impressions, a fantastic reflection of how Pascal doesn’t consume every film he touches.
1) Materialists
Writer/director Celine Song was never going to make a follow-up feature that could possibly live up to her directorial debut masterpiece, Past Lives. The best movie of 2023 is an immense act to follow, and while Materialists doesn’t come close to matching its quality, it’s still a solid movie in its own right. Flaws like weird pacing and a miscast Dakota Johnson don’t distract from the striking visuals and deeply moving emotional moments. Song’s just so skilled at executing bittersweet moments of people being so close yet so far away from love, it’s impossible not to be moved.
Plus, her gift for working well with actors means that Pascal really excels here as the charming loveboat of any woman’s dreams. While it’s a role certainly playing on Pascal’s real-world heartthrob status, he’s by no means coasting on pre-existing internet memes to sell his Materialists persona. Pascal’s exquisitely charming in his Materialists screentime, and he especially nails his character’s final and most vulnerable scene. In a crowded year for Pedro Pascal cinema, leave it to a master like Celine Song to make a movie like Materialists that still distinctly stands out.
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