The Best High-End Horology Timepieces of 2025

While many brands bowed to the prevailing trends of 2025 with downsized case sizes, expressive dial colours, a newfound taste for shaped watches, and a deluge of stone dials, the art of high-end horology was, thankfully, not forsaken. A particularly prolific year, we’ve seen some impressive horological innovations from wafer-thin or high-speed tourbillons to an innovative take on the chronograph, an entirely handmade watch and a couple of chiming masterpieces for good measure. So, let’s bid farewell to the year while we enjoy the mechanical fireworks of the six best high-end horology timepieces of 2025.

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Jumbo Chronograph RD#5

Marking the fifth opus of AP’s R&D saga and a blueprint for future chronographs, this mechanical masterpiece, combining a flyback chronograph and a flying tourbillon, is the unquestionable 2025 king of chronographs. Rethinking the reset or interface function of a chronograph, AP ditched the traditional heart cam and hammer system, replacing it with three spring-loaded racks that store energy from the mainspring and release it to reset and advance the counters. The result: an incredibly light, smooth, and speedy activation of the pushers that responds to pressure like the keys on a smartphone. Packed with innovative features too numerous to mention here, the mind-boggling complexity of the calibre 8100 is housed in an incredibly thin 4mm-high movement with a peripheral rotor. However, the look is classic RO Jumbo, with the mandatory petite tapisserie Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50 dial, paired with a historic font for the logo. Limited to 150 pieces, this enticing stocking stuffer will set you back just over a quarter of a million Swiss francs.

For further insights into this smooth operator, click here.

Blancpain Grande Double Sonnerie 15GSQ

Given the fact that Grand Sonneries are considered the queen bee of complications, imagine being able to select not one but two chiming melodies on demand? Well, Blancpain has pulled off this remarkable feat with its Grande Double Sonnerie, the brand’s most ambitious and complex creation to date, with a flying tourbillon and a retrograde perpetual calendar to boot. An eight-year project involving 1,053 components protected by 21 patents, you can choose a traditional Westminster chime or an original four-note sequence dreamed up by Eric Singer, rock drummer and vocalist of the rock band Kiss. To switch between the two chimes, Blancpain came up with an ingenious yet simple solution: a column wheel. Powered by the manual-winding calibre 15GSQ with a flying tourbillon and an integrated perpetual calendar, the dazzling mechanics and equally dazzling hand-finished components are revealed front and back inside the 47mm x 14.5mm gold case. If you happen to have a casual CHF 1,700,000 tucked away, you too could be the proud owner of this chiming wonder.

For more information on this fabulous watch, don’t miss our in-depth article.

Breguet Expérimentale 1

Abraham-Louis Breguet was an intrepid polymath who revolutionised watchmaking with his technological breakthroughs without losing his neck. Bridging the past and future, Breguet unveiled the Expérimentale 1, an intrepid, technological watch that reasserts the founder’s spirit of innovation and writes the first chapter of a new R&D line – the seed for future calibres. Giving A.L. Breguet’s tourbillon and constant force escapement a radical 21^st-century boost, the frequency has been pumped up to 10Hz for enhanced precision, and controlled magnetism ensures a stable impulse to the constant force escapement. A formidable ally in the battle against friction, this new escapement also decouples the impulses transmitted to the balance from the escape wheel’s rotation and, by extension, from the rest of the gear train. Unlike a Swiss lever movement, the inertia of the tourbillon cage has almost no influence. By decoupling these two functions, it was possible to conceive a 10Hz oscillator in such dimensions. Housed in a contemporary 43.5mm gold case from the Marine collection, the regulator-style dial is inspired by a historic pocket watch (no. 3448) and retails for EUR 320,000.

Read all about the Expérimentale 1 here.

Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon

Undaunted by any attempts at usurpation, the King of Thin consolidated his reign in 2025 with the mind-bendingly thin Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon. Presented in the classic 40mm Octo Finissimo case, with a thickness of just 1.85mm, Bulgari’s tourbillon trumps its own record-breaking tourbillon of 2018 (3.95mm) and Piaget’s 2mm high Altiplano of 2024. Instead of stacking components, all the parts are arranged on a horizontal plane, using the caseback as the mainplate. Thinner than a 5 franc coin, creating this lean machine was like designing a racing car, shaving microns at every possible turn. Fitted with a sapphire glass on the front and three smaller ones on the back, the skeletonised movement reveals the large barrel on the left and the hours and minutes in the top half, with the tourbillon and wheels below. A prodigious mechanical creation, the Ultra is paired with an incredibly slim 1.50mm-thin titanium bracelet. Limited to just 20 pieces and retailing for EUR 750,000, the only question remaining is: how will Bulgari surprise us next?

Find out all the secrets behind the creation of this lean machine in our video and article here.

Chopard L.U.C Grand Strike

Chopard also unveiled its most complex watch to date, flaunting a Grande and Petite Sonnerie, a minute repeater and a tourbillon regulator compressed into a 43mm 18k ethical white gold case. Drawing on its experience with the Full Strike, which uses sapphire crystal gongs, the acoustic purity of the L.U.C Grand Strike is akin to someone tapping a wine glass with a knife. With no background noise or “ghost” strikes, the watch is further equipped with a series of security mechanisms to prevent damage and a stop-seconds mechanism for precision time-setting. The unimpeded view of the 686-part calibre front and back reveals a microcosmic world of intricate mechanical parts and impressive finishings. Equipped with two barrels, one for the strike work mechanism (12 hours) and the second for the time (70 hours), each is wound via the crown. Covered by the Poinçon de Genève and COSC chronometry certifications, Chopard’s L.U.C Grand Strike is a master class in the art of chiming watches and retails for CHF 780,000.

For a detailed description of Chopard’s chiming marvel, click here.

Ferdinand Berthoud Naissance d’une Montre 3

Karl-Friedrich Scheufele has been very busy this year running up and down the stairs between Chopard’s high-end L.U.C manufacture in Fleurier and Chronométrie Ferdinand Berthoud’s workshop on the top floor of the building. The operative words here are “traditionally manufactured”; not the hollow claims tossed around by so many brands, but entirely crafted by hand, with watchmakers and artisans using historical tools and methods and not a CNC machine in sight. To pull this cross-disciplinary project off, FB assembled 80 craftsmen in a dedicated workshop who worked for 11,000 hours over six years. The result: a superb wrist chronometer with a constant force mechanism in the shape of a fusée-and-chain transmission with movement architecture inspired by Ferdinand Berthoud’s Astronomical Pocket Watch no. 3. Presented in a 44mm gold case, the breathtakingly beautiful finishings of the hand-wound calibre are executed by hand with the assistance of a 6.7 x magnifying glass. A sublime rarity: only 10 pieces will be made at a rate of 2 per year, priced at CHF 850,000.

To admire this handcrafted beauty, please click here.