The best films of 2025, according to the voices of France Inter

They spend a lot of time in dark rooms for work. Throughout the year, they share their rants and favorites with you. It is to the heart that I appealed for this end-of-year selection. What film will they remember from the very rich production of 2025.

🎬Le choice of Rebecca Manzoni : “The Secret Agent” by Kleber Mendonça Son

Rebecca Manzoni is at the helm of a cult show which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year: The Mask and the Feather. Every week she receives more or less harsh criticism from the comrades around her. And the criticism is rarely unanimous, which is what makes this little theater so special.

History
We are in 1977, under the Brazilian dictatorship, Marcelo goes to Recife to see his family again, his little boy in particular. Marcelo is on the run, under the cover of a double identity. He doesn’t know how to use a weapon but he is threatened for reasons that will be revealed to us two-thirds of the way through the film.

“Kleber Mendonça Filho succeeds in weaving a thriller, a gory film, a political statement (this dictatorship of the 70s and the Brazil of Jair Bolsonaro have points in common) and popular references, with a tribute to cinema, to the theater and to Jaws in particular! The film won two prizes at Cannes (interpretation for Wagner Moura, capsizing, and prize for directing for Kleber Mendonça Filho.) It is my film of 2025… in theaters on the threshold of 2026. We don’t want the retros and other tops to forget it because of this late release.“

🎬Laurent Delmas’ choices: “Nouvelle Vague” and “Miroirs N°3”

A little special treatment for the channel’s cinema man, I granted him the right to choose two films.

“New Wave” by Richard Linklater
“A black and white film directed by an American filmmaker without a star and which tells the story of the filming of a film from the past century? Obviously, on paper, one could express some doubts before discovering “Nouvelle Vague”. But that was without counting on the ever-so-powerful charm of “A Bout de Souffle” by Godard to which Linklater pays a vibrant homage. Without ever falling into a mortifying or funereal nostalgia. Quite the contrary, the film, from start to finish, celebrates cinema, its energy, its actors It is literally an ode to the vitality and energy of the 7th Art.
By telling Breathless in the very style of the New Wave, he pays homage to an era, a band and a creative energy. A luminous film, both testimony and manifesto, which launches a vibrant appeal: make cinema, be adventurers.”

Miroirs N°3 by Christian Petzold
“Presented at the last Cannes Film Festival, the new film by the talented German filmmaker Christian Petzold went somewhat unnoticed, including during its theatrical release. All the more reason to talk again about this strong and delicate work at the same time, carried by a superb duo of actresses: Paula Beer and Barbara Auer. It is the strange and fascinating meeting of two women in a house haunted by a virtual ghost and family secrets.”

🎬The choice of Quentin Lhui : “F1” by Joseph Kosinski

The regulars of Zoom Zoom Zen know, Quentin Lhui likes the sound of engines, especially the big ones. Talk to him about V6 turbo, Interlagos, Tamburello or Abu Dhabi 2021 and you’ll see his eye light up. His choice of film will therefore not surprise you.

History
Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was the F1 prodigy of the 90s until his terrible accident. Thirty years later, having become an independent driver, he is contacted by Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), boss of a bankrupt team who convinces him to return to save the team and prove that he is still the best. Alongside Joshua Pearce (Damson Idriss), a diamond in the rough ready to become number 1, Sonny quickly realizes that in F1, his teammate is also his biggest rival.
A mentor-student duo who really carry the story.

“As an F1 fan, I found that the film sometimes lacked credibility (a few liberties, a few inconsistencies that are obvious when you follow the discipline) but we must recognize that for the general public, it is a successful bet. Brad Pitt’s character is particularly well constructed: his youth where he races against Senna, the accident that shatters everything, the descent into hell, the vices, the game… we see the emergence of a complex, haunted, almost mythological driver. The details matter: the references to the game on his helmet, the map he always keeps in his pocket, this ritual of superstition that rings true for anyone who follows F1 closely.
The racing scenes are impressive, nervous, designed like an adrenaline rush and the film fully embraces its “action film” side, spectacular and very sensory.
In short: a film to see to thrill, without waiting for a stunning story, but with the pleasure of entering a universe that speaks to everyone… even if the purists spot the gaps.”

🎬Le choix d’Alexis Demeyer : “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” de Sepideh Farsi

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is the story of nearly a year of long-distance exchanges between director Sepideh Farsi and a young woman, Fatma Hassona, who lived in Gaza. Sepideh Farsi’s previous film, “The Mermaid”, also evoked a war, that between Iraq and Iran, in the 1980s.

“This poignant documentary focuses on the relationship that the Iranian director, refugee in France, Sepideh Farsi, builds from 2024 with the Palestinian photojournalist Fatma Hassona. We, the spectators, are the “privileged” witnesses of their correspondence via WhatsApp, which reports on the progressive deterioration of living conditions in Gaza.
The young woman with the unforgettable smile will never see the results of her work: her building was bombed on April 16, the day after the announcement of the film’s selection at the Cannes festival. “Put your soul on your hand and walk” is precious for the strength of its subject, but also for its device, of remarkable modesty and audacity, proving the great talent of Sepideh Farsi as a filmmaker, and the beautiful current vitality of the cinema of reality.”

🎬Vincent Josse’s choice: “Tell him that I love him” by Romane Borhinger

“Ah the choice is cruel!” Yes, life is cruel Vincent.
For several years now, Vincent Josse has been sharing his cultural emotions with us, whether stage or cinematographic.

“For a second film, Romane Borhinger displays an unusual virtuosity. She manages to weave two intimate stories. That of Clémentine Autain who wrote about the little girl she was, suffering from having to live with an alcoholic and failing mother and her own. Like the MP, Romane Borhinger lost her mother as a teenager. She was mainly raised by her father. Her mother was taken away by drugs at less than forty years old.
The director follows a hazardous path between the two biographies but finds her voice. She uses several cinematographic genres, documentary, fiction, investigation. She interviews witnesses, draws her son into the story, finds photos, films, her mother’s notebooks and the maternal figures are revealed little by little. To know them better is to begin to understand them and to finally console the little girl who still lives within them.”