Best Argentine Movies of 2025: A Top 40 in a Time of Crisis
Despite shrinking funding and growing uncertainty, Argentine filmmakers continued to release bold, vital work. These 40 titles capture a cinema navigating crisis without surrendering its creative force.
Argentine cinema has been taking sustained, potentially fatal blows. As if drastically slashing subsidy budgets and reducing them to a handful of films per year were not enough, inept bureaucrats at the helm of the INCAA spend their time publicly disparaging a national cinema admired around the world. The most recent and deeply disappointing Mar del Plata Film Festival was a clear display of this lack of care, as well as of a profound ignorance of the field—an ignorance that, as has become customary in libertarian or far-right circles, is worn as a badge of honor.
An already precarious landscape for local filmmakers became even more fragile when it emerged that, buried in a couple of seemingly minor clauses of the proposed Labor Reform Law (not yet passed, though all signs suggest it eventually will be), key articles of the Film Law guaranteeing independent funding are set to be repealed. Should those provisions pass as written, the INCAA would lose its financial autonomy and become entirely dependent on annual allocations decided by the Ministry of Economy. Given this administration’s views on Argentine cinema, one can safely assume those funds would be minimal—if not nonexistent.
And yet, Argentine cinema persists. Films continue to be made, however possible. Festivals are still organized—and attended. Movies still find their way to screens, even when that means a single weekly time slot at an INCAA theater (yes, you read that correctly). And people continue to think about the future. Thanks to initiatives such as Fuera de Campo, which laid bare the material and spiritual hollowing-out of the Mar del Plata festival, as well as countless showcases, WhatsApp groups, and online debates, cinema remains alive. It is true that people do not take to the streets to defend it the way they do for other causes—but that may say less about Argentine cinema than about the moment we are living in, one in which more immediate urgencies leave little room for cultural battles.
Even in this climate, films continue to exist—and to be made, albeit in smaller numbers. This year alone delivered a striking number of must-see titles, along with many others that once again make it clear that creativity is still alive, that generational renewal is underway, and that filmmakers are actively rethinking how to adapt to a new reality that, with any luck, will not last more than a couple of years. None of this diminishes the severity of the situation: some filmmakers have left the profession altogether; others survive on television series, small audiovisual jobs, teaching, or whatever work they can find. Still, there is a shared conviction that something new will emerge from this wreckage.
What follows below is a list of 40 Argentine films, plus a few extras, released throughout 2025—whether in theaters, on streaming platforms, or at film festivals where they have yet to receive a local commercial release. The following list is further proof that Argentine cinema exists, and will endure whatever stands in its way.
Top 40:
- 1. Nuestra Tierra (Landmarks), by Lucrecia Martel
- 2. Las corrientes (The Currents), by Milagros Mumenthaler
- 3. El príncipe de Nanawa (The Prince of Nanawa), by Clarisa Navas
- 4. Tortuga persigue a tortuga, by Víctor “Kino” González
- 5. Pin de fartie, by Alejo Moguillansky
- 6. La noche está marchándose ya, by Ramiro Sonzini and Ezequiel Salinas
- 7. El mensaje (The Message), by Iván Fund
- 8. Belén, by Dolores Fonzi
- 9. Un cabo suelto (A Loose End), by Daniel Hendler (Uruguay)
- 10. ¡Caigan las rosas blancas! (Let the White Roses Fall!), by Albertina Carri
- 11. La virgen de la tosquera (The Virgin of the Quarry Lake), by Laura Casabé
- 12. Los renacidos (The Reborn), by Santiago Esteves
- 13. LS83, by Herman Szwarcbart
- 14. 27 noches (27 Nights), by Daniel Hendler
- 15. 3000 km en bicicleta (3000 km by Bike), by Iván Vescovo
- 16. Luciano, by Manuel Besedovsky
- 17. Hijo mayor (The Eldest Son), by Cecilia Kang
- 18. Diciembre (December), by Lucas Gallo
- 19. Gatillero (Trigger Man), by Cris Tapia Marchiori
- 20. Suerte de pinos (A Kind of Luck), by Lorena Muñoz
- 21. Tesis sobre una domesticación (Thesis on a Domestication), by Javier Van de Couter
- 22. Presente continuo (Present Continuous), by Ulises Rosell
- 23. Los días con ella (Days with Her), by Matías Scarvaci
- 24. La mujer del río (The Woman of the River), by Néstor Mazzini
- 25. Los días chinos (Chinese Days), by Santiago Loza
- 26. Vieja loca (Crazy Old Woman), by Martín Mauregui
- 27. Nuestra parte del mundo (Our Part of the World), by Juan Schnitman
- 28. Miss Carbón (Queen of Coal), by Agustina Macri
- 29. Dice que…, by Alejandro Fernández Mouján
- 30. La mujer de la fila (The Woman in the Line), by Benjamín Ávila
- 31. Las reglas del juego (The Rules of the Game), by Matías Szulanski
- 32. El mundo al revés (The World Upside Down), by Agostina Di Luciano and Leon Schwitter
- 33. Jota Urondo, un cocinero impertinente (Jota Urondo, an Impertinent Cook), by Juan Villegas and Mariana Erijimovich
- 34. Después, la niebla, by Martín Sappia
- 35. Nancy, by Luciano Zito
- 36. El atardecer de los grillos, by Gonzalo Almeida
- 37. La noche sin mí (The Night Without Me), by María Laura Berch and Laura Chiabrando
- 38. Olivia, by Sofía Petersen
- 39. Nueve auras (Nine Auras), by Mariano Frigerio
- 40. Mazel tov, by Adrián Suar
Two Re-releases:
- –Historias extraordinarias (Extraordinary Stories), by Mariano Llinás
- –Adiós Sui Generis (Goodbye Sui Generis), by Bebe Kamin
Two Co-productions:
- –Cuando las nubes esconden la sombra (When Clouds Hide the Shadow), by José Luis Torres Leiva (Chile)
- –Bajo las banderas, el sol (Under the Flags, the Sun), by Juanjo Pereira (Paraguay)
