It’s hard to talk about 2025 without talking about Sinners. No matter how stacked the year has been for horror, this film has emerged as one of the most talked-about, most debated, and most admired releases not just of the year, but of the entire 2020s so far. For many viewers (myself included), Sinners isn’t just a standout horror film; it’s a defining one.

The 2020s have already cemented themselves as one of horror’s most adventurous decades. Filmmakers are bending the genre into new shapes, merging social realism with the supernatural, turning trauma into literal monsters, and reviving classic subgenres with modern anxieties baked in. Halfway through the decade, it’s striking how many films already feel definitive, not just memorable.