Best of 2025

It’s the season of reflections on the past year and I thought I would join in with a quick list of highlights for the year.

Best films for me were the Chinese comedy-drama Her Story, the very-long-but-worth-it The Brutalist, the fun new French blockbuster The Count of Monte Cristo, and the Hong Kong drama about a funeral business, The Last Dance.

Best TV was the second season of Andor and the first season of Pluribus. Both were sci-fi shows that went far beyond their genre expectations. Black Swan, the Danish documentary about white-collar crime, was also excellent.

Best books included Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, about Facebook’s culture and global ignorance; Octavia Butler’s Parable series; and Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed.

Best games for me were Astral Chain and Street Fighter 6. A much larger number are still unfinished, and Donkey Kong Bananza, Hollow Knight, and Ghost Town were all hugely enjoyable during the time I spent with them. Wobbly Life is also a great co-op game to play with a six year-old.

My only small resolution for 2026 is to keep writing this blog–I really do enjoy the process of putting my thoughts down into a short review or blog post.