3rd Quarter of 2025: Best & Worst

 3rd Quarter 2025: Best & Worst

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host David, and today you’re in for one of the shortest episodes in the four-year history of Cinema Wellman. 

The 3rd quarter of the year consists of the months of July, August, and September and in 2025 those three months saw a total of 221 movies screened so you’d think there would be a lot to talk about today.

The reason why this episode is going to be so short is that these three months coincided with three major projects here so a bunch of movies were removed from consideration this quarter. 

You may remember our Shark Week project where we screened 17 mostly bomb shark movies in one week.

We already covered those, so that box is checked.

Then Dakota suggested the “63 in 63” project that has us screening one new film for each year we’ve spent on the planet, so 1962-2025.

Plenty of excellent recommendations and bombs on that list, but that’s a later episode in and of itself.

And don’t forget all of the cat movies screened while we had Delta as a guest.

Those films have been covered as well, and even though Delta will be returning for a week, he’s bringing a friend this time which means ANOTHER special guest for a future episode. 

So, that means the sample size of “Best & Worst” films of the 3rd quarter of 2025 is kind of small, but “you win some, you lose some, some get rained out, but you get dressed for them all.”

So here we are. 

Two bombs to stay away from and three movies we think are worth a look.

That’s it.

Five movies in total. 

Not much, but some doozies nonetheless.

And I didn’t bother with ranking either side since  the lists are so small.

We will begin as we always do, which is at the bottom of the cinematic barrel. 

The Invisible Boy (1957)

AP/90 m/IMDb: 5.3/directed by Herman Hoffman

Help me IMDb; “A ten-year old boy and Robby the Robot team up to prevent a Supercomputer from controlling the Earth from a satellite.”

They dragged poor Robby the Robot into this mess because he was so expensive to build for 1956’s Forbidden Planet that they were obligated to use him in another project.

In this film, Robby goes over Isaac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics that forbids him to permit bodily injury to a rational being, and I really wish Robby violated that rule and killed Timmie. 

You are the reason this film is on this list Timmie, and you know it. 

One more bomb to go before a few good films you may actually like to see. 

 War of the Worlds (2025)

PG-13/91 m/IMDb: 2.5/directed by Rich Lee

One of the many things I enjoy about my job is talking about movies with Crystal.

As I’ve mentioned before, Crystal has seen everything and we seem to be pretty synched up with what we enjoy.

So I was recently surprised when she told me she had watched War of the Worlds.

“Tom Cruise War of the Worlds?” I asked.

“Nope. Ice Cube War of the Worlds,” was her reply.

I had two immediate thoughts; I need to see that, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to end up on an episode.

Crystal told me that Ice Cube spends very close to 100% of his screen time shown on a monitor yelling at people to watch out.

Turns out that almost everyone’s screen time is spent on a monitor of some sort or other. 

This is one of those “COVID movies,” and I get that. 

What I don’t get is why it was delayed until 2025 where it absolutely looks like ONE OF THOSE COVID MOVIES!

Just release it during COVID!

The pickins’ were thin!

Oh, and 2nd billed as “NASA Scientist Sandras Salas is Eva Longoria, so…there’s that.

Now three movies we think are worth a look starting with one of the last movies I saw at the AMC before cancelling my A-List subscription.

 F1: The Movie (2025)

PG-13/155 m/IMDb: 7.7/directed by Joseph Kosinski

I am a fan of F1, albeit a new fan, but there’s no doubt that it’s an exciting sport with thrilling storylines carried out all over the globe.

It’s the perfect sport for a movie, and it’s also possibly the most difficult sport to film as well. 

My son-in-law, Lucas, is a huge F1 fan and he’s turned Dakota into one as well.

They even walked out to the F1 Theme at their wedding reception!

So now I’m a fan, and there was no doubt that I’d be seeing this. 

Lucas and Dakota also suggested I see it in IMAX, which made total sense for this film that’s designed to be an immersive experience and also a two hour advertisement for the sport that succeeds on both of these levels. 

A couple of the in race scenarios were a bit NASCARish for me, but Brad Pitt was serviceable as a veteran gun-for-hire driver, and the racing sequences were terrific.

The sound at the AMC IMAX was a little much for me, and I actually needed to move my seat away from a particularly loud speaker early on.

This kind of movie experience is one thing I will miss once theaters, as we know them, disappear.

That time may be coming sooner than we think. 

Junk Head (2017)

NR/100 m/IMDb:7.3/directed by Takahide Hori

IMDb: “In a distant future, humanity has lost its ability to reproduce. An expedition is sent to an underground city where artificial humanoids are still fertile.”

This Japanese stop-motion anime film was impossible to look away from.

The characters may be mechanical, but they have more emotional range than many humans working in film these days. 

We’ve praised stop-motion animation here before and have first hand knowledge of how painstakingly difficult it can be to create. 

This is a magical film that I would have missed if it wasn’t for my work friend Hannah who recommended it to me after seeing it and thinking I’d enjoy it.

I love getting great movie recommendations from people I know. 

It’s always fun comparing notes afterward.

So just one more to go in this 3rd Quarter Best & Worst and it comes with an apology to my friend Andrew. 

 Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

M/100 m/IMDb: 7.1/directed by Joseph Sargent

IMDb: “Thinking this will prevent war, the US government gives an impenetrable supercomputer total control over launching nuclear missiles. But what the computer does with the power is unimaginable to its creators.”

I swear that once AI helps seal the deal on the robot apocalypse we will all look back at movies like this and boy will we feel stupid!

These movies are like a blueprint for the takeover!

They told us exactly how it would happen, and we still couldn’t see it coming!

At any rate, this is a fun 70s spy thriller in which ALL of the computers you see are ACTUAL working computers!

This movie was state of the art at the time!

The reason Andrew deserves an apology is that he was visiting during the “63 in 63” project and was at Cinema Wellman for 1970.

Instead of screening this, which he would have enjoyed, I went off the board and went for Pufnstuf which will be in the Bottom 5 episode when that project is discussed.

That was so bad.

Sorry, Andrew.

Well, that’s a wrap from here at Cinema Wellman as we briefly recapped the Best & Worst of the 3rd Quarter of 2025.

We hope you’re with us next time as Delta is back for a visit along with one of his housemates who will get their very own episode!

16 movies being screened for that episode!

Be seeing you then, and until then, take care.