The Dublin Film Critics Circle has announced the winners in its poll to determine the best cinematic achievements of 2025. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, an epic blend of horror, music and social history, was the big winner, topping a remarkable five lists: best film, best actor, best screenplay and best cinematography. Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another ran Sinners close in several of those races, but, released as far back as April, Coogler’s film looks to have only blossomed in critics’ estimations.
Michael B Jordan, who plays against himself as charismatic twins setting up a speakeasy in 1930s Mississippi, beat Leonardo Di Caprio from One Battle After Another and Joel Edgerton from Train Dreams to best actor. Autumn Durald Arkapaw, in cinematography, was just ahead of Lol Crawley for his VistaVision work on Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist. Few films have scored quite so strongly since the establishment of the DFCC in 2006.
Emma Stone, star of Yorgos Lanthimos’s black comedy Bugonia, took best actress over Renate Reinsve for Joachim Trier’s Bergmanesque Norwegian drama Sentimental Value. The Irish titles scoring highly included Sinead O’Shea’s Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story and Brendan Canty’s Christy. O’Shea’s film, celebrated internationally since its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024, won best documentary and finished second to Christy, a searing realist piece from Cork, in the competition for best Irish film. The domestic titles completing the top five were Aislinn Clarke’s horror Fréwaka and two further documentaries: Beat the Lotto from Ross Whitaker and Testimony from Aoife Kelleher.
Brendan Canty, hitherto best known as director of the video for Hozier’s ‘Take Me to Church’, took the prize for best Irish breakthrough. Eva Victor, actor and star of the singular comedy Sorry, Baby – an original take on the aftermath of sexual assault – is honoured with the prize for best international breakthrough.
Not much heralded pre-release – despite Coogler’s success with Creed and the Black Panther films – Sinners is confirmed as one of the year’s big commercial and critical smashes. Other films doing well with the DFCC included Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams, a sleeper hit on Netflix, and Corbet’s The Brutalist, an American saga on an epic scale.
The DFCC took the occasion of their annual award to pay tribute to Philip Molloy, who died in June. A versatile critic and all-round journalist, Philip, who wrote for the Irish Press and the Irish Independent, was a voting member at the Circle for some years. “He was truthful. You always felt he said exactly what he felt without any intention to harm or hurt,” director Jim Sheridan said at the time of his death.
The DFCC gathers votes from the capital’s professional film critics once a year. Previous winners of best film have included An Cailín Ciúin, The Power of the Dog, Brokeback Mountain and The Zone of Interest.
BEST FILM
- 1. Sinners
- 2. One Battle After Another
- 3. Train Dreams
- 4. The Brutalist
- 5. It Was Just an Accident
- 6. Sentimental Value
- 7. Flow
- 8. I Swear
- 9. Weapons
- 10. Vermiglio
BEST DIRECTOR
- 1. Ryan Coogler, Sinners
- 2. Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
- 3. Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
- 4. Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident
- 5. Dea Kulumbegashvili, April
BEST ACTOR
- 1. Michael B Jordan, Sinners
- 2. Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
- 3. Joel Edgerton, Train Dreams
- 4. Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
- 5. Robert Aramayo, I Swear
BEST ACTRESS
- 1. Emma Stone, Bugonia
- 2. Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
- 3. Jennifer Lawrence, Die, My Love
- 4. Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths
- 5. Leonie Benesch, Late Shift
BEST SCREENPLAY
- 1. Ryan Coogler, Sinners
- 2. Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
- 3. Jesse Eisenberg, A Real Pain
- 4. Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident
- 5. Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist
BEST IRISH FILM
- 1. Christy
- 2. Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story
- 3. Fréwaka
- 4. Beat the Lotto
- 5. Testimony
BEST DOCUMENTARY
- 1. Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story
- 2. Testimony
- 3. Sanitorium
- 4. A Want in Her
- 5. The Perfect Neighbour
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
- 1. Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Sinners
- 2. Lol Crawley, The Brutalist
- 3. Adolpho Veloso, Train Dreams
- 4. Michael Bauman, One Battle After Another
- 5. Claudio Miranda, F1: The Movie – Arseni Khachaturan, April (tie)
INTERNATIONAL BREAKTHROUGH
Eva Victor – Sorry, Baby
IRISH BREAKTHROUGH
Brendan Canty – Christy