As I have gotten older, I am not afraid of having a good old-fashioned ugly cry in the cinemas when the time calls for it, and hell, I probably got emotional just writing this list (Spoiler: I did, and Hamnet isn’t even on this list because it’s 2026). Sometimes, they are tears of grief or tears of joy, and even still, sometimes, they are tears of anger. Okay, and sometimes they are all of those tears and more at the same time.
Emotion is a core part of the cinema experience. If you can’t get us to respond emotionally to your characters and/or the situation, I am sorry you failed to make a great work of art.
Our Highly Commended Films in 2025 are: Elio, The History of Sound, Holy Cow, Kangaroo, The Last Journey, The Lost Bus, Nuremberg, Regretting You & Wake Up Dead Man
Our Highly Commended TV in 2025 are: The Last of Us, Paradise, PLUR1BUS & Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
So, without further ado, these are the works of film and television of 2025 that emotionally wrecked us. Be warned that there will be significant spoilers ahead.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
Well, this might be the biggest surprise of 2025, because I honestly walked into the screening not thinking much about it, which meant I was caught completely off-guard when I found myself bawling about halfway through. It is a caring and understanding film about what grief looks like when you have lost the one you love.
If there were a winner for a show that came out of nowhere and took over the internet, then Heated Rivalry would win for sure. However, what it is also is a profoundly moving work of people trying to define what their love is over almost a decade.
On the surface, The Life of Chuck could just be one of those weird arthouse experiments that pop up every year. What if we told a person’s life story in reverse? And if they had kept it like that, it would have passed by us like a ship in the night. But this one got its hooks in me because it is more than just its premise; it is a meditation on death, on life, on the end.
This is one of the films that shows just how important casting is. Because you could have had the same setup, with the same dialogue, and I could have seen this film fall flat on its face. But here, every step, every death, every tear was earned because the cast gave it their all, and you can’t help but get caught up in it.
There are a lot of ways that you can insert emotion into your artistic works, and for Warfare, one of the main ways they undertake that is through the medium of authenticity. They capture every moment of fear, loss, grief, terror, disaster, and hope through the lens of the people who were there on that day. It is profoundly compelling because that reality does not let you separate yourself from their world.
Best Emotional Work of 2025: Andor
Directed by – Ariel Kleiman, Janus Metz & Alonso Ruizpalacios
Written by – Tony Gilroy, Beau Willimon, Dan Gilroy & Tom Bissell
Television might get a little leg up here because it has the space and time to cover a multitude of emotions in its runtime. However, this final season of Andor came in swinging and used every tool in its box of tricks to build a world you are emotionally invested in from the first line to the closing credits.
This is a series that can have someone dance to a techno bob while emotionally collapsing, who can have a character fight their way through a hospital just to kill their father figure who they also sort of hate, and who gives us a lead character who we knew back in 2016 was going to die, and yet they still crafted his story with the care and thought of someone with a world of possibilities ahead of them.
I wish we had gotten more, but then sometimes it is something ending that makes it hit home as much as it did.
What are your favourite emotional moments of cinema from 2025 that made ugly cry in the theatre? Let us know which film you would have chosen as your number one in the comments below.
By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.
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Credits – All images used were created by the respective studios and artist of each films
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