A Minecraft Movie took in nearly a billion dollars at the global box office, so you’re bound to know at least a few people who enjoyed its theatrical run, though you probably didn’t anticipate filmmaker Luca Guadagnino would name it as one of the best movies of the year. The Challengers and Queer director, whose Call Me By Your Name was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, named the movie as one of his favorites, alongside projects like Sirat, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Silent Friend, and 28 Years Later.
Guadagnino, as well as dozens of other directors, revealed their favorite movies of 2025 to IndieWire. The filmmaker’s complete list is as follows:
Sirat (Oliver Laxe)
Urchin (Harris Dickinson)
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (Christopher McQuarrie)
Orwell: 2+2=5 (Raoul Peck)
Yes! (Nadav Lapid)
Kontinental ’25 (Radu Jude)
What Does That Nature Say to You (Hong Sang-soo)
Dracula (Radu Jude)
Silent Friend (Ildikó Enyedi)
Cover-Up (Laura Poitras & Mark Obenhaus)
I diari di Angela – Noi due cineasti (‘Angela’s Diaries’), Chapter Three (Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucci)
Huí jiā (Tsai Ming-liang)
Boorman and the Devil (David Kittredge)
28 Years Later (Danny Boyle)
A Minecraft Movie (Jared Hess)
Filmmakers like Pedro Almodóvar, Fede Álvarez, Sean Baker, Nicole Holofcener, and Karyn Kusama all contributed to the piece, though Guadagnino was the only one to include A Minecraft Movie. And, while many other filmmakers included brief explanations behind their choices, Guadagnino did not, leaving fans to speculate about the metric he used for his selections.
The Divisive Reaction to ‘A Minecraft Movie’
Much like 2023’s A Super Mario Bros. Movie, there’s a lot more behind a movie’s response than just its critical scores. While Mario had previously earned a live-action movie in 1993, it failed to capture the excitement behind the video game franchise effectively. 20 years later, the fandom for the characters grew all the more passionate, and by partnering with Illumination, the studio behind Despicable Me and Minions, it was a perfect harmony between franchise mythology and an intended audience, resulting in that movie taking in $1.361 billion despite only earning a 59% positive score on aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
Minecraft might not have the decades of history like Super Mario, but in the 14 years since its debut, the video game has undeniably become a cultural sensation, infiltrating all corners of media and merchandising. Had A Minecraft Movie merely been 90 minutes of someone playing the game, it likely would have taken in hundreds of millions, but add in the appeal of Jack Black and Jason Momoa and it’s easy to see how it could take in such a major haul, even against a critical score of 48%.
Between the sprawling nature of the game and the staggering box office totals, a sequel was officially announced this past October. Whether or not the follow-up makes it onto Guadagnino’s year-end list is a question that won’t be answered until 2027.
A Minecraft Movie
2
/5
- Release Date
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April 4, 2025
- Runtime
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101 minutes
- Director
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Jared Hess
- Writers
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Chris Galletta, Gavin James, Chris Bowman, Neil Widener, Hubbel Palmer
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