The Best Nollywood Films of 2025

2025 has been a year filled with cinematic gems in Nollywood. Films arrived as responses to history and violence, while experimenting with memory and form. Across cinemas, festivals, and streaming platforms, Nigerian filmmakers pushed genre and scale, while still circling the same enduring question: how can authentic stories be told in Nigeria?

It was a crowded year: films like Farmer’s Bride and The Herd came close to defining it. Both showed flashes of ambition—arresting cinematography, an eye for atmosphere, and a willingness to grapple with Nigerian anxieties. The Herd, in particular, felt eerily timely, brushing up against a national climate shaped by fear and recurring reports of violence. But for all their promise, these films ultimately faltered with unresolved arcs and narrative gaps. What ultimately separates the films on this list from those that didn’t make it is completion. This listicle covers works that knew what they wanted to say and carried that intention through. Together, they reflect a Nollywood that is no longer content with mere prolificacy but is concerned with precision.

Arranged in no particular order, these films lingered, visually, emotionally, politically, and in our hearts, and in doing so, helped shape what Nigerian cinema looked and felt like in 2025.

My Father’s Shadow

In Culture Custodian’s review of Akinola Davies’s My Father’s Shadow, the film is described as an “unflinching reflection of the Nigerian condition.” Anyone who has seen the film can attest to Akinola’s relentless portrayal of the socio-economic and political landscape of late 90s Nigeria. The film’s lead, Folarin (Sope Dirisu) moves through Lagos with his two children: Remi and Akin (brought to life by Godwin Chiemerie Egbo and Chibuike Marvellous Egbo). Folarin needs his owed salary, and his employer isn’t budging. Amidst this, Folarin decides to take his children on a tour around Lagos. This tour allows the film to touch on military dictatorship, the fear and terror their presence inspires on Lagos streets and the Big Brother-esque atmosphere they create. 

The film’s depiction of these social and economic tensions is one of the topical points. Another conversation the film holds is the unfiltered banter between father and sons around responsibility, manhood, and being present. The film doesn’t prioritize a melodramatic tone to override the importance of this conversation. 

When Nigeria Happens

Ema Edosio’s When Nigeria Happens is a wry, deeply Nigerian meditation on resilience. The film follows 6 dancers determined to beat Nigeria’s systems and daily indignities, only to discover, slowly and inevitably, that Nigeria always wins. The story is punctuated by bursts of dance, movement, and physical expression. Having travelled widely across international film festivals before finding vibrant reception at home—screening at S16 Film Festival in 2024 and Ake Festival in 20245—When Nigeria Happens has resonated deeply with Nigerian audiences.

Film journalist Seyi Lasisi captures this connection perfectly, noting that “it doesn’t, at any point, feel like a voyeuristic and judgemental tour, it felt like a journey.” In a playful, meta twist, the film’s energy spills beyond the screen: at several screenings, the lead characters dance live for the audience, collapsing the boundary between cinema and lived experience. Together, these moments make When Nigeria Happens a shared, kinetic encounter with the country itself.

Landline 

A psychological drama that utilizes the time loop technique, Landline tells the story of a woman whose husband, a military officer, must make quick decisions over a phone call to save her from being murdered. Marking Dele Doherty’s feature debut, the film relives the military officer’s ordeal after he learns of the impending attack and the plan with his wife to outsmart the assailant. With each failed attempt, the time loop reverts to the default as events weirdly repeat, heightening tension and suspense. A Culture Custodian review compares Doherty’s film to Moyinoluwa Ezekiel’s The Beads (20204) where the same lead actress Zainab Balogun is also trapped in a time loop, and Taiwo Egunjobi’s The Fire and the Moth for parallels in “noirish charm”.

The critic further points out that: “Together with other minimalist approaches in characterization, setting, and plot, Doherty positions himself as an avant-gardist.” Doherty himself has cited inspirations from Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Ethan Hawke’s The Black Phone to justify some scenic representations in his film. With its immense attention to detail and the adoption of a narrative style that is atypical of Nollywood productions, Landline poses as an intriguingly audacious project, one of the best entrants in the country’s filmscape this year.

Suky

Ola Cardoso is widely regarded for his exceptional cinematography within the modern Nigerian film industry, with a body of work that includes the modern classic Breath of Life, which made significant waves two years ago. With Suky, he makes his entry into production and directing in an excitingly noble action drama, centering the story of a young man on the quest for revenge following the brutal murder of his father, a local boxer. The titular character in the film is portrayed by James Damilare who, for most of the adrenaline-driven drama, wears a reticent, morose mien that artistically masks his contemplative yet vengeful disposition.

As noted in a Culture Custodian feature story, “for someone traumatized by the loss of a father and fuelled by revenge, this is understandable.” Cutting across themes of crime, politics, betrayal, and revenge, the film relies on a powerful cast that includes Bimbo Ademoye, Olarotimi Fakunle, Ibrahim Yekinni, Femi Adebayo, and Tobi Bakre. From its carefully contrived protagonist to a powerful motive and an overall unified plot set against the backdrop of combat sport, Suky offers satisfactory thrills that are shorn of redundancies. 

Katangari Goes to Town

Katangari Goes To Town, directed by Reuben Reng, became the first Nigerian film to premiere on Prime Video this year, starring Segun Arinze in the lead role as a retired police inspector who is summoned from his modest home in Plateau state to unravel the murder of a wealthy cousin in Abuja. The whodunnit film has a cast that includes Iretiola Doyle, Sani Mu’azu, Gbubemi Ejeye and Munachi Abii, among others, with the film addressing family dynamics, marital issues, friendship, and betrayal over a quietly suspenseful plot where everyone is a suspect.

Beyond the taut storyline, which is probably slightly tainted with what seems like laid-back acting, the murder mystery film shines with plausible motives, relatable sociocultural context and local fervour. An Afrocritik review considers it a successful domestication of the whodunnit genre, with the film being “reminiscent of Hollywood’s Knives Out”.  Another review on The Nollywood Reporter stresses the film’s astute visual and auditory investments, noting the use of lighting and shadow for suspense and adoption of “haunting score” with peacock shrieks for “emotional beats”.

Say Who Die

Humour, an intimate part of Nollywood’s eclectic filmography, gets a deserved treatment in Say Who Die, a film written by Lani Aisida and directed by Paul Utomi. Capturing family intrigues, secrets, betrayal and a run-in with the underworld, the film unpacks the lives of Orion and Omon, a set of identical twins portrayed by Oiza Abu and Meyi Abu respectively, as their paths intersect within the family. An artful black comedy that mocks the morbidity of death, Say Who Die employs a lively basilectal English, yet it is far from a run-of-the-mill Nollywood narrative.

It distorts the idea of morality, drawing faint comparisons in stylistic defiance with Kenneth Gyang’s New Nollywood-pacesetting film, Confusion Na Wa. A Culture Custodian review reflects invitingly on the film’s interpretation of comedy, highlighting “the script’s steadfastness to writing dialogues, characters and situations relatable to the average Nigerian” and acute portrayal of vulnerabilities as strong points. For its bold cinematic foray, swift-footed pacing and use of everyday conversational language in a cosmopolitan setting, Say Who Die stands out as a must-watch for the typical Nollywood cinephile.

The Fire and The Moth

Directed by Taiwo Egunjobi, The Fire and the Moth is another indication of Nigerian filmmakers tapping into the world’s cinematic history and identity. Akin to No Country For Old Men, Egunjobi’s film carved an identity for itself despite its kinship with this Hollywood title. The Fire and the Moth tells the story of cultural identity and patriotism amidst the chase for material possession. Saba (a mute but great Tayo Faniran), a smuggler, is in possession of a stolen cultural artifact.

When Saba becomes aware of the artifact’s monetary value, he gets obsessed with selling it off to the highest bidder. The film exposes how cultural nationalism and patriotism gets defeated in contests with financial gain. The film and, by extension, its characters doesn’t labour itself with the cultural import of the artifact. There are occasional references to its importance and relevance to the Yoruba people but this gets quickly shoved aside for the characters’ interest. These divided but personal motivations act as willing action propellers. 

Over The Bridge

A Culture Custodian review of Tolu Ajayi’s Over The Bridge details how the film is similar to titles like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, Ema Edosio-Deelen’s Kasala!, Damilola Orimogunje’s For Maria Ebun Pataki and others. The similarity lies in Over The Bridge’s detailed-oriented storytelling and ability of its filmmaking department, from costume, sound, cinematography and acting, to communicate the film’s story.

The story is about Folarin (Ozzy Agu), a banker whose company is constructing a much-awaited Lagos infrastructure project. Deals get made and Foalrin, a supposedly self-righteous professional gets caught in the web. The film is about corporate scandal and the weight of responsibility towards the self in a corrupt space. Also, the film is about psychological displacement (felt by Folarin) and the geographical displacement forced upon residents of Agboyin whose community was destroyed to accommodate the newly-constructed project. 

Son of The Soil

The action or crime drama holds its place among the various tropes that constitute the foundations of what is today considered Nollywood, with films such as Rattlesnake, Isakaba, and State of Emergency painting sordid pictures of Nigeria’s criminal atmosphere. Son of the Soil, a film directed by British-Chinese filmmaker Chee Keong Cheung, adds an interesting dynamic to the industry’s flourishing filmography, capitalising on an international collaboration that is led by British-Nigerian writer and actor Razaaq Adoti, presenting a story that thrives on a central plot while maintaining the artistic integrity of the genre without prevaricating. 

A Culture Custodian review rightly acknowledges this, noting that, “with its attention to graphic details that include artful cinematography techniques and its acute reflection of the local slum environment from which the story emerges, Son Of The Soil poses as a bold social commentary and proposes a new direction in contemporary storytelling for the Nigerian audience.”

Water Girl 

While numerous narratives draw on African spirituality and mythology, Water Girl relocates one such belief beyond its indigenous origins, interrogating how Igbo cosmology is perceived and reimagined within a diasporic context. This film, written and directed by Nnamdi Kanaga and set in Montana, the United States, offers an understanding of the Ogbanje enigma, juggling between the physical and surreal with commendable ease.

It tells the story of Kamsi, an Ogbanje girl whose mother is in a race to save her from dying. A Culture Custodian review notes the use of sound effects and other reference points through which the filmmaker  “stimulates the minds of viewers so they are constantly reminded of and realigned with the thematic forays of the film.” Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the film, beyond its symbolic, subtle discourse on water, is an unpredictable trajectory that resists the moral justice that is common to the final acts of several Nollywood films.

Radio Voice

Isioma Osaje’s Radio Voice is narratively frugal. The film does not try to create an unearned backstory for some of its inconsequential characters and that’s one of its numerous strengths. There’s a complete and obsessive centering of its major characters, Uche, a single mother, and Karo, a grieving widower. In a film industry that frustratingly pits female characters against each other, it’s admirable that even when it subtly teases it, the film doesn’t make the uneducated decision of building an enmity between the female characters: Uche (Nancy Isime) and Blessing (Damilola Adegbite). Rather, the film is devoted to their shared interest and collective effort toward reviving each other’s stories and career path. 

A large part of Radio Voice revolves around finding Uche a sense of restoration and balance in an uncaring world. However, the film’s issue is that despite its female-leaning angle, it doesn’t fully address Andy and Hakeem’s criminal act against Uche. The film presents a humanist and compassionate approach that seems detrimental to treating online harassment and cyberstalking. Aside from the commendable judgmental stare of the board members at Andy and his eventual arrest, the film doesn’t expose the male offenders to public scrutiny as it does to the female character who suffered public humiliation. It’s symbolic of how men are protected from the consequences of their degeneracy and violent acts while such grace isn’t socially and culturally extended to women. Ultimately, we cannot fix our patriarchal society until we start exposing men to public scrutiny and holding them accountable for their criminal acts against women.