MoMA has deemed Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s revenge thriller Cloud one of the best films of 2025
THE CONTENDERS 2025
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Series runs through January 7
www.moma.org
Every year, MoMA screens what it considers the best films of the past twelve months from all over the world, in a series called “The Contenders.” Occasionally, directors are on hand for discussions after. Last month, MoMA showed such 2025 favorites as Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia. Among December’s best are Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, and Ira Sachs’s Peter Hujar’s Day.
Below is a look at some of the other upcoming class of 2025 contenders; keep watching this space for more reviews.
The United States is under a mysterious attack in Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (Kathryn Bigelow, 2025)
Tuesday, December 2, 7:00
www.ahouseofdynamitefilm.com
www.moma.org
In A House of Dynamite, director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim meld John Badham’s 1983 War Games with Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Dr. Strangelove and Sidney Lumet’s 1964 Fail Safe in a gripping thriller told from three perspectives as an unidentified ICBM makes its way to America. On the case are Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), General Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts), and the president (Idris Elba), who are desperately trying to figure out who launched it — and, even more important, how to stop it. The cast also features Anthony Ramos as Major Daniel Gonzalez, Jason Clarke as Admiral Mark Miller, Gabriel Basso as Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington, Renée Elise Goldsberry as the First Lady, Greta Lee as National Intelligence Officer for North Korea Ana Park, Jonah Hauer-King as Lieutenant Commander Robert Reeves, and, practically stealing the show, Jared Harris as Secretary of Defense Reid Baker. Bigelow pulls no punches as the film builds to a sensational finale. The screening will be followed by a conversation with Bigelow, whose previous movies include Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker, and the original Point Break.
SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Joachim Trier, 2025)
Wednesday, December 3, 7:00
www.neonrated.com
www.moma.org
Danish-born Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier follows up one of the best films of 2022, two-time Oscar nominee The Worst Person in the World, which concluded his impressive Oslo Trilogy, with Sentimental Value, one of the best films of 2025 — and the decade, if not the century. Written by Trier and longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, the intimate drama begins with a poetic house stating its raison d’être, establishing itself as a character all its own, then cutting to one of the most tense, uncomfortable, and stirring examples of stage fright ever put on celluloid. Renate Reinsve is spectacular as Nora Borg, an actress who, along with her sister, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), must confront their estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), who wants to come back into their lives upon the death of their mother, his ex-wife. Gustav is a famous filmmaker who has written a deeply personal script for Nora, who refuses to work with him. He instead courts popular American actress Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) for the role as Nora weighs her options. Sentimental Value is a heart-wrenching story of family dysfunction, patriarchal manipulation, trauma, and filmmaking that you won’t soon forget.
CLOUD (『クラウド』) (KURAUDO) (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024)
Tuesday, December 9, 7:00
www.janusfilms.com
www.moma.org
Kobe-born suspense master Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who has made such horror faves as Cure, Pulse, and Creepy as well as such psychological dramas as Bright Future and Tokyo Sonata, is back with an intense revenge thriller that is not for the faint of heart, featuring torture and violence — and a ton of fun. In Cloud, Masaki Suda stars as Yoshii, a quiet, disengaged young man who works at a cleaning factory, supplementing his income as an online reseller, purchasing goods at cut rates — unethically taking advantage of people — and selling them online at exorbitant prices, with no care whether the items are actually legitimate or fakes. He is upset when the owner, Takimoto (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa), offers him a promotion; Takimoto sees promise in Yoshii, but Yoshii has no interest in taking on more responsibility. When one of his deals makes him a lot of money, he quits his job and dedicates all his time to reselling whatever products he can get his hands on, from designer handbags to anime figures. Yoshii alienates his business partner, Muraoka (Masataka Kubota), and moves with his girlfriend, Akiko (Kotone Furukawa), to a house in a small, faraway town, where a young local man, Sano (Daiken Okudaira), insists on being his assistant. As his deals get more and more lucrative and dangerous, Yoshii builds a well-deserved bad reputation as a ruthless operator, and soon a group of men, armed to the hilt, come after him, determined to get even.
Cloud is a fierce, propulsive trip down the internet rabbit hole, where anonymity might feel safe but reality threatens to blow it all up. Yoshii ruins every relationship he has, with clients, customers, Sano, Akiko, Takimoto, et al., seemingly without any care or regard; he spends hours staring at his computer screen, waiting for his items to start selling, with more concern and passion than he has for any human being. And when the posse finds him, he has no understanding why they want him dead. Suda (Kamen Rider, Cube) is terrific as Yoshii; we are initially offput by his herky-jerky movement and disengagement from society, but as everything closes in on him, we also feel compassion for his potential fate. The film is beautifully shot by Yasuyuki Sasaki and expertly directed by Kurosawa, who knows just how to make the audience squirm, especially at unexpected moments. “Grudges, revenge, they’ll only drag you down,” one member of the posse tells another. “Think of this as a game.” It’s a wry comment on how too many people look at the real world these days.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]