2025’s Top 10* Movies and Messaging on Disability
In a year where the Academy Awards chose to nominate films featuring the r-word, and trope-tastic storylines about people with disabilities, it feels vitally important to recognize the films that got it right, either through disability representation (in front of and/or behind the camera), accessible production, and/or accessible exhibition assets.
While I am only one person, and the disability community is certainly not a monolith, these films set a good example of how to do better by people with disabilities, portraying us with nuance and intersectionality, and representing our sizable slice of 28% of the population in all its diverse and multifarious beauty.
Recognitions include Accessibility Practices and Assets, Disability Messaging, Authentic Casting, and Disability Behind the Camera
Disclaimer: This list is completely subjective and what I’ve seen is entirely dependent on my whims and the vagaries of chance. Please note, however, that as a jury member of the International Documentary Association, as festival director for Access:Horror Film Festival, and as a programmer for several other festivals, I saw 500+ films in 2025, which makes me well-informed about the media landscape, but I definitely did not see everything.
Bring Her Back
⭐ Authentic Casting
As the festival director of Access:Horror, it pleases me immensely whenever I see disabilities portrayed realistically in horror as more than a cheap plot device, with storylines clearly informed by lived experience. Throw in Sora Wong’s incredible central performance as a blind foster daughter, and you have one of the most deeply unsettling films of the year. Be forewarned: not an easy watch.
Caregiving
⭐ Disability Messaging
This documentary from PBS reframes the crisis facing the US healthcare system right now as a crisis in caregiving, highlighting both problems faced by caregivers and those seeking care. The film is exceptionally strong at talking through the historical underpinnings of the issue and highlighting possible solutions.
Come See Me in the Good Light
⭐ Disability Messaging
An intimate portrait of the poet Andrea Gibson and her partner, this film talks candidly about her struggles with mental health, suicidal ideation, and her diagnosis and eventual death from terminal illness. The film illustrates queer joy in the face of it all, and defiantly celebrates a life well-lived.
Deaf President Now!
⭐ Accessibility Practices | ⭐ Disability Messaging
The story of how Gallaudet University came to have a Deaf president is certainly one for our times, about solidarity and struggle, the nuances of media messaging, and how politics and policy shape the realities we live through. Definitely worth a watch to reflect on how movements are shaped and organized in turbulent times, and to marvel at the collective wisdom of D/deaf and disabled organizers.
Life After
⭐ Disability Behind the Camera | ⭐ Accessibility Practices
Reid Davenport’s latest film focuses on the way euthanasia is used to provide a way for the disabled to die before ever offering a chance to improve how we live. Given that the Disability Day of Mourning just passed, this film is a timely watch that helps process collective grief for those whose lives are traditionally undervalued.
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore
⭐ Disability Behind the Camera | ⭐ Accessibility Practices
Director Shoshannah Stern, through a series of candid conversations with actress Marlee Matlin (CODA; Switched At Birth), works through the challenges she faced as the first Oscar winner in the Deaf community. While the film details sexism and misogyny faced both personally and professionally, the indomitable spirit of Matlin and her tenacity come through above all.
Seeds
⭐ Disability Messaging
Brittany Shyne’s feature documentary debut is a wonder — a feat in cinematography and storytelling, a richly detailed black and white portrait of a family of Southern Black farmers. The themes of ableism, as well as the flexibility and ingenuity that come from crip wisdom recur again and again throughout this story of generations of farmers and their struggles.
Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi)
⭐ Accessibility Practices | ⭐ Disability Messaging
Stellan Skarsgard, one of several Oscar nominees from this film, recovered from a stroke in 2023, which forced the process of filmmaking to change, and in so doing, also forced a change in storytelling. Not only are the behind the scenes processes worth celebrating, but also the incorporated subplot that discusses ableism in the film industry. The film’s ending showcases an important path forward in storytelling: righting wrongs through accommodation and collaboration.
Sinners
⭐ Accessibility Assets
While this film did not explicitly include disability messaging, Ryan Coogler has shown himself time and time again to be an ally to the d/Deaf and Disabled communities. With the release of Sinners on HBO, he ensured that the film would be presented with Black American Sign Language (BASL), creating both visibility and access for the broader intersectional Deaf community that is so often overlooked in the conversation.
Wicked: For Good
⭐ Authentic Casting | ⭐ Accessibility Practices
Many people in the disability community have received this film as an insult, but regardless of how you interpret Nessa Rose’s storyline, Marissa Bode’s performance is a thing to behold. Getting an authentically cast wheelchair user in a fantasy film feels like a miracle in this day and age of AI and visual effects, and her performance in the role is exceptional.
Personally, I interpret the complex disability politics of the second Wicked movie as an expression of the messy ways that people who are marginalized can employ lateral violence when the principles of disability justice are jettisoned in favor of political hierarchy. Imani Barbarin’s takes on the film are well worth seeking out, and I would encourage folks to seek out the film in conversation with her Instagram feed if possible.
Not all of these films will be for all people, but I believe heartily in the power of each of these films to transform the narrative landscape for fiction and non-fiction. Time will tell if any of them is vindicated at the Academy Awards, and more broadly, what effect these films will have beyond this cultural moment, but hopefully these films will give you a place to start thinking about change in a larger sense, and linking accessible production practices to better disability media messaging.
