Film Reviews
‘Unmarry’ by Jeffrey Jeturian explores annulment as a grueling negotiation with law, memory, and selfhood. Anchored by strong performances, the film is restrained, compassionate, and at times, heartbreaking.
The Gawad CCP Para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video, commonly referred to as Gawad Alternatibo, remains a testament to the enduring power of alternative cinema as a space for voices that push, question, and reimagine. Across narrative, experimental, documentary, and animation short films, this year’s lineup brings together works that move away from familiar formulas and instead sit with stories that are often overlooked, uneasy, or hard to pin down. These films are grounded in lived experience, shaped by personal, political, and social realities, and made with an intent to question how stories are usually told. For 37 years, the Gawad Alternatibo continues to champion alternative filmmaking as a form of resistance.
‘Bar Boys: After School’ follows former dreamers who have already crossed the finish line they once chased, only to find themselves facing a different kind of uncertainty. Ten years pass, and the film places licensed lawyers beside struggling students, showing how ambition does not vanish with success but takes a new shape. The film carries familiar lives forward and opens the story into a reflection on fatigue, compromise, and a form of hope that persists within a system that fails to meet people halfway.
Pelikultura: The CALABARZON Film Festival returns for its 2025 run with new stories and forms of storytelling about Southern Tagalog. The festival is more than a celebration of Southern Tagalog’s pride and diversity, but also a reminder of how cinema is a form of resistance that mirrors the lived realities of the people living in the region. ST Shorts Premiere and #BuhayElbi are the festival's main highlights, highlighting stories about the region as well as homegrown storytellers from Los Baños, where the festival started. Pelikultura continues to become a platform for regional filmmakers and a catalyst for driving regional cinema representation.
‘Showgirls’ leans hard into Verhoeven’s excess, satire, and sharp camp. Its neon world runs on illusion, and that noise turns into a strange pulse. The film pushes forward, slipping between critique and absurdity, and still leaves a mark that sticks.
Film and TV Features
At its core, Gitling interrogates how intimacy is shaped through language; not only the words people speak, but the effort it takes to meet someone across differences.
In ‘The Lunchbox’, a misdelivered meal becomes a story about love that transforms without lasting. Love and meaning don’t need permanence to matter because sometimes the “wrong train” still brings you where you need to go.
From its humble beginnings in Bulacan to its journey to Cannes and now Toronto, ‘Agapito’ stands not necessarily as a banner for all Filipino stories, but as one story tied to a brother, a father, and a community that keeps a humble duckpin alley alive.
Lists Features
If there is a quick, surefire way to showcase the cinema of the Philippines, then look no further than our shorts. From this list alone you would be able to cover almost all of the regions in the country and the diverse cultures at play. But one thing unites them all: that these stories are distinctly and uniquely Filipino.
There’s something here for everyone: the blockbuster, the franchise revival, the arthouse flick. It speaks to how diverse of a year of cinema we’ve had and what made a lasting impact in our cinematic experience. Looking at this more closely, these are also the kinds of narratives that resonated with us emotionally, socially, and politically, whether it’s in a family affair, in the midst of a modern revolution, or in corporate hell.
Philippine cinema in 2025 grappled with the past and the present, and wondered if there is any hope for a better, more just future. Here are the best Filipino films of 2025.
From verifiably chilling classics to frighteningly fun times, here are our spooky picks this Halloween.

