Every year I hand out my #HauntLife Movie Awards, a collection of completely fake, deeply personal honors that exist somewhere between sincere appreciation and gentle bullying. These aren’t about box-office numbers, Rotten Tomatoes scores or what film Twitter decided was important this week.
They’re about moments. Choices. Vibes. The scenes that haunted me, delighted me, confused me or made me pause the movie and stare into the distance like I’d just witnessed a small crime, questioning the choices that brought me here, to this moment.
2025 was a year that gave us genuinely great films, baffling misfires and a few that flew directly into the sun with confidence. Horror continued to be the genre most willing to take risks, documentaries proved once again that reality is often more upsetting than fiction, and a handful of performances reminded me why I keep coming back even when the online discourse gets exhausting.
Some of these awards celebrate craft and commitment. Others exist purely to acknowledge chaos. All of them are made up. Every single one of them is earned. So, welcome to the 2025 #HauntLife Awards, where the trophies are imaginary, the criteria is flexible, the tone is affectionate but honest, and the only real rule is that if a movie made me feel something, it probably ended up on this list.
Let’s begin.
The HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH OF CAGE Award: Nic Cage in The Carpenter’s Son
Only Nicolas Cage could star in a movie about Jesus Christ and somehow make Jesus feel like the supporting character. The Carpenter’s Son doesn’t orbit faith, theology, or scripture so much as it orbits Cage. His eyes. His intensity. His very specific brand of spiritual chaos. Cage doesn’t play the role quietly or humbly; he testifies.
He turns every scene into a sermon, every pause into prophecy, and every line reading into something that feels as close to a religious experience as one can get. At some point you stop asking whether this is appropriate casting and start accepting that this is simply how the Church of Cage operates.
The BEST ACTING VIA HEAD TILT Award: Indy in Good Boy
For years, Michael Myers owned this award, silently admiring his handiwork with that subtle, judgmental head tilt that somehow communicated more than dialogue ever could. But 2025 belongs to Indy in Good Boy. Indy takes the head tilt and cranks it to 11. Curious. Confused. Concerned. Slowly realizing that something is very wrong.
Each tilt says different things, like, I heard that, I do not like that, why are the humans acting like this? It is pure, instinctive acting with no words and no context, just a dog processing horror in real time. Myers tilted his head to admire the chaos. Indy tilts his head because he loves you, and somehow that makes it infinitely more stressful.
MOST DISTURBING DIET PLAN EVER PUT ON SCREEN Award: The Ugly Stepsister
There are a lot of bad diet plans in the world, but The Ugly Stepsister looks at all of them and asks, “OK, but what if we made this as disgusting, painful and emotionally scarring as possible?”
Swallowing tapeworms to lose weight isn’t presented as some shocking gag. It’s treated like commitment. Like discipline. Like the kind of self-improvement people nod along to while pretending this all seems reasonable. That’s what makes it so upsetting and, in a dark way, almost funny. This isn’t vanity played for laughs. It’s body horror rooted in desperation, where progress means willingly letting something live inside you and eat you from the inside out while everyone around you congratulates the results.
The film makes you sit with the idea that this is considered success. It’s grotesque and weirdly hard to shake, like a fairy tale finally stopping mid-story, looking straight at the camera, and admitting what it’s been asking of women the whole time. Kinda makes me glad I chose Jenny Craig.
The MOST AGGESSIVE DISRESPECT TOWARD THE SOURCE MATERIAL Award: War of the Worlds
There are movie adaptations that take liberties, and then there’s War of the Worlds, which treats H. G. Wells less like an influence and more like a suggestion it actively resents. This isn’t a modern update so much as a full-blown act of rebellion against the original novel, stripping away its tension, its intelligence and its sense of awe in favor of noise, confusion and a whole lot of CGI.
Wells wrote a story about humanity’s insignificance in the face of incomprehensible power. This movie watched that and said, “What if we explained everything badly and acted even worse?”
The fact that I was hoping the aliens would win speaks volumes.
The MOST UNSETTLING PROOF THAT THE CALL WAS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE Award: Unknown Number: The High School Catfish
In Black Christmas, the terror comes from realizing the calls aren’t coming from across town or even across the street. They’re coming from inside the house. Unknown Number: The High School Catfish takes that iconic horror reveal and somehow makes it worse by adding unlimited texting.
What starts as a modern mystery about anonymous harassment slowly morphs into a full-blown psychological horror when the truth drops and you realize the villain never needed a mask, a phone trace or a creepy attic crawl space. She just needed a family plan. It’s the rare documentary that makes you nostalgic for slasher movies, because at least those killers aren’t real.
The MOST CONVINCING ATTEMPT TO MAKE US FORGET ABOUT HOBBS Award: Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine
This award goes to Dwayne Johnson for very clearly swinging for an awards-caliber role and actually landing it. The Smashing Machine is Johnson stripping away the franchise armor and aiming straight for something bruised, heavy and uncomfortable. He isn’t chasing crowd-pleasing moments here. He’s chasing credibility.
And honestly, it works. This feels like a deliberate attempt to remind everyone that he can do more than grin, flex and save the day by Act 3. I guess you could say I smelled what The Rock was cooking, and for once, it wasn’t a blockbuster.
And finally….
The STOP OVERTHINKING IT, HE’S SUPERMAN Award: David Corenswet
I haven’t felt this kind of love for a Superman since Christopher Reeve first put on the suit when I was a kid, back when Superman wasn’t a debate topic or a philosophy experiment. He was just a good guy from Kansas, trying to help people. David Corenswet brings that energy back in full. The boy scout vibe. The warmth. The decency. The sense that saving people isn’t a burden or a curse, it’s the whole flipping point. And yes, I’m fully aware this is the Superman a loud chunk of the internet hates, mostly because of their feelings about James Gunn and an undying loyalty to another era of capes and slow-motion angst.
That’s fine. They can keep arguing. I don’t care. Corenswet just shows up and does the job. Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the character. Sometimes you just need to stop overthinking it. He’s Superman.
At the end of the day, these awards aren’t about being right. They’re about being honest. About celebrating the movies that stuck with me, for better or worse. 2025 gave us films that took risks, made bold choices and occasionally made baffling ones, but at least they made me feel something. And honestly, that’s the bar I have set.
So, that’s the 2025 #HauntLife Movie Awards. No trophies. No acceptance speeches. Just a record of the movies that haunted me, irritated me, impressed me and reminded me why I keep showing up year after year. Agree, disagree, argue in the comments on Instagram or Letterboxd if you must. I’ll be over here rewatching the ones that earned their place, waiting patiently for the next batch of chaos.
