The American Film Institute (AFI) announced today the AFI Awards 2025 honorees. The recipients include 10 outstanding motion pictures and 10 outstanding television programs deemed culturally and artistically representative of this year’s most significant achievements in the art of the moving image.

Afi Motion Pictures of the Year

“Avatar: Fire and Ash”
“Bugonia”
“Frankenstein”
“Hamnet”
“Jay Kelly”
“Marty Supreme”
“One Battle After Another”
“Sinners”
“Train Dreams”
“Wicked: For Good”

Afi Television Programs of the Year

“Adolescence”
“Andor”
“Death by Lightning”
“The Diplomat”
“The Lowdown”
“The Pitt”
“Pluribus”
“Severance”
“The Studio”
“Task”

Afi Special Award

“It Was Just an Accident”

“For more than a quarter of a century, AFI Awards has held the flag high for community without competition,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI President & CEO. “It is AFI’s honor to celebrate these creative ensembles as one, as together they have proved the power of art in challenging times.”

Honorees will gather and be recognized on Friday, January 9, 2026, at the annual AFI Awards private luncheon at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills — an event favored by the entertainment community for its informal intimacy and its inclusive acknowledgement of excellence.

Fiji Water is returning as the Official Water Sponsor for the event and will keep luncheon honorees and attendees hydrated with Earth’s Finest, iconic 500mL bottles made from 100% recycled material (rPET).

AFI Awards celebrates film and television arts’ collaborative nature and is the only national program that honors creative teams as a whole, recognizing those in front of and behind the camera. All of the honored works advance the art of the moving image, inspire audiences and artists alike and enhance the rich cultural heritage of America’s art form. When placed in a historical context, these stories provide a complex and rich visual record of our modern world.

AFI Awards selections are made through a jury process where AFI Trustees, artists, critics and scholars determine the year’s most outstanding achievements and provide artistic and cultural context for the selection of each honoree.

This year’s juries — one for motion pictures and one for television — included artists Lily Gladstone, Lauren LeFranc, Patton Oswalt and Thomas Schlamme; scholars Mark Harris, Leonard Maltin and more from Syracuse University, the University of Southern California, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, Santa Cruz; members of the AFI Board of Trustees; critics Ann Hornaday, Janet Maslin, Peter Travers and others from TV Guide, Vanity Fair and more. The juries were chaired by AFI Board of Trustees member Jeanine Basinger (Chair Emerita and Founder of the Film Studies Department, Wesleyan University) and AFI Board of Trustees Vice Chair Richard Frank (former Chairman of Walt Disney Television, President of Walt Disney Studios, President of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences).

The 2025 recipients join a distinguished group of previous AFI AWARDS honorees whose works define the art form and contribute to our rich cultural legacy. View past AFI AWARDS honorees.

About AFI Fest
The American Film Institute (AFI) is a nonprofit organization with a mandate to champion the moving image as an art form. Established in 1967, AFI launched the first comprehensive history of American film and sparked the movement for film preservation in the United States. In 1969, AFI opened the doors of the AFI Conservatory, a graduate-level program to train narrative filmmakers. The Conservatory, which counts Deniese Davis, Affonso Gonçalves, Susannah Grant, Matthew Libatique, David Lynch, Melina Matsoukas and Rachel Morrison as Alumni, is ranked as one of the top film schools in America. AFI’s enduring traditions include the AFI Life Achievement Award, which honors the masters for work that has stood the test of time; AFI AWARDS, which celebrates the creative ensembles of the most outstanding screen stories of the year; and scholarly efforts such as the AFI Catalog of Feature Films and the AFI Archive that preserve film history for future generations. AFI exhibition programs include AFI FEST Presented by Canva and year-round exhibition at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Maryland. AFI Movie Club is a destination for movie lovers from around the world to celebrate and engage with the art form every day. Other pioneering programs include workshops aimed at increasing diversity in the storytelling community, including AFI DWW+ and the AFI Cinematography Intensive Workshop. Read about all of these programs and more at AFI.com and follow us on social media at Facebook.com/AFIFEST, X.com/AFIFEST, Instagram/AmericanFilmInstitute, TikTok/@AmericanFilmInstitute and YouTube.com/AFI.