My favorite books, movies, and more from 2025!
I love making recommendations for media and receiving recommendations from others when it comes to media.
Even if I don’t absolutely love whatever media a person shares with me, I’m always fascinated to find out what art means the most to the people in my life. Similarly, if there’s a piece of media I love, it’s great getting to experience that thing for the first time vicariously through someone else I’m showing it to.
With that in mind, I’m going to indulge in recommendations. Today, I’m sharing a list of most of the new medial I finished in 2025 and highlighting some of my favorites.
The only rules are that I can’t have experienced the media before (for example, I reread All Systems Red in 2025, but since I’ve read it before it didn’t make the list) and I need to have finished it. (I played most of Claire Obscure: Expedition 33 last year, but didn’t finish it before 2026, so it doesn’t make the list.)
I’ll write a little bit at the top about my favorite piece of media in each category and write a little about my runner up at the bottom of the section. I’ve also denoted the media I experience that was in contention for my favorite/runner up with an asterisk (*) and my very favorite with two asterisks (**).
Without further ado, here’s what I loved from 2025!
Books
Once Was Willem is a fantasy novel published in March by M.R. Carey who describes the book as “Folk-horror … set in the 12th century.” It follows a being who was born Willem in England who had a very brief life. Willem’s parents seek the help of a wizard with malicious intent. Mind you, the wizards malice is not particularly to spite the parents, but rather, he sees a way to grant their wish in a way that is technically what they asked for while also adding the well of his own eternal youth.
I wrote a lot more about the book in a previous blog post, but TLDR I loved the characters and how hopeless their odds feel. It’s very rare I get to see characters fighting a villain without suspecting how and if the villain will be defeated.
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sarafi by S. A. Chakraborty
Starter Villain by John Scalzi
Superbetter by Jane McGonigal
Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton
Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey **
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells
The Tatami Time Machine Blues by Tomihiko Morimi, translated by Emily Balistrieri *
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells
The Story of Kullervo by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Tatami Time Machine Blues by Tomihiko Morimi is a book that I didn’t think I loved until I finished it. It’s a sequel to a book I’ve never read. The novella follows a set of Japanese university students who accidentally discover time travel and—in a rather silly series of events—try to retrieve an air conditioning remote while also keeping all of time and space from collapsing in on itself.
I didn’t find the characters particularly lovable, but I think that’s why I loved them. None of them really knew what they were doing and much of the gag is that the reader figures out various time shenanigans before the characters do, thus further highlighting their ineptitude and our own.
Albums
I have such a hard time describing why some music speaks to me more than other music. It usually comes down to lyrics and I know I like Kendrick’s lyrics in GNX. I’ll find myself repeating a line from “wacced out murals” or “reincarnated” under my breath when I’m trying to get through something tough. Some of his softer stuff from this album—like “gloria” or “luther” hasn’t fully clicked with me yet (which is a little odd since I loved Mr. Morale top to bottom) but I ultimately enjoy listening to everything on this album and imagine everything will continue to grow on me as Kendrick’s music usually does.
GNX **
Mufasa: The Lion King
Avelon is Risen *
To Love a Thing That Fades *
The Ninth Hour *
God, I really loved so much music that I listened to this year that picking a second is hard, but I think it would be disingenuous to pick anything but To Love a Thing That Fades as my runner up. Vincent Lima’s debut full album is a reflective interpretation of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice (which also happens to be at the center of one of my favorite pieces of media of all time: Hadestown.) I’ve tried to spend the past three or four years reflecting on the past and why certain things happened the way they did and why I have behaved the way I have in certain situations.
I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet and there’s still plenty for me to discover, I’m sure—but I feel like as certain things have felt more solid and visible over the past few months, this album—and Vincent Lima as an artist—met me where I was in a big way.
TV Shows
Andor dares to ask the question: What if Star Wars was good?
I’m mostly joking. Star Wars is maybe my favorite series of all time and I love nearly every part of it, I love it so much and I have so many problems with it.
Andor feels like some described the themes and ideas of Star Wars and then summarized the events of two or three movies to someone who was a much more talented writer than George Lucas. And that person then made a show that surpasses the original movie to the degree that I does nearly feel like a completely different thing.
Yet what makes me love it so much is how it’s able to couch serious political messages in talk about alien spiders and space wizards. Andor is a show I’d recommend to anyone and that is not the case for anything else from Star Wars.
Interior Chinatown *
Steven Universe Future *
Heavenly Delusion (Tengoku Daimakyou)
Andor (season 2) *
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End *
Alien: Earth
Hazbin Hotel (season 2)
I want to be clear: In any other year, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End would have run away with this. It’s maybe the perfect show? I can legitimately see myself rewatching this show over and over without getting sick of it.
It uses the fantastically long life span of elves in so many fantasy novels to tell a story that does have fantasy adventure, but is also a meditation on the passage of time and what memories we treasure and how that molds us. Over the course of more seasons, I can easily imagine this becoming my favorite show period.
Live Theater
A magical thing happened to me at the theater this year. While seeing a production of Frozen at a local community theater—about 20% of the way through the show—one of the lead actors had to call out sick. The show came to a full stop for probably 30 minutes and then an under study had to step in for the remainder of the performance.
Obviously this is not the sort of thing that one roots for to happen when they go to the theater and I very much wish I got to see the original lead’s performance. That said, it is the kind of thing that makes a show feel special when it does happen. It was absolutely thrilling and whatever other thoughts I have about the show as an object, this was my favorite live theater experience of the year.
Shucked
Waitress
Buried Child *
Jekyll & Hyde
Frozen **
I don’t know how much I can talk about Buried Child, even descriptively, because it is both absurdist and upsetting and deeply American. I watch this play (also at a local theater) and thought to myself, “What happened to us that means we don’t write great American plays anymore?” And the answer, of course is: The kind of stuff that spurs people to write great plays is happening right now—it’s just no one has the time to write them, or else no one has the desire to spotlight them, or else no one has the time to see them.
The easiest way to describe it is the story of a man who has lived on a Midwest farm most of his long life slowly has members of the two subsequence generations of his family return home after traumatic life events.
I had a college professor recommend Sam Shepard (the playwright) to me, and I’ve neglected actually seeing his stuff until now. If I had my way, I’d sit down every last person who lives in the U.S. to watch Buried Child and have them write me an essay on it. (Consequentially, most of the U.S. would hate me and probably not get what I wanted them to get from the play.)
Video Games
If the game was better optimized for PC, Monster Hunger Wilds would be just about everything I want from a video game as an adult: Fighting big monsters in a well realized world using systems that are as deep as I want them to be.
It’s sort of that simple. I feel like I’m on an adventure and playing a fighting game and feeling really cozy when I play Monster Hunter. There’s a flow state I can achieve that makes me feel very zen. I love it!
Monster Hunter Wilds is my favorite game that I technically finished this year and constantly think “Man, I need to boot that up again.”
Monster Hunter Wilds **
Nobody Saves the World
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle *
Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Arkham Knight
Pikman 2
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Fraud *
I’d nearly forgotten how much I love Indiana Jones before I played Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
It was so much fun to just go on an adventure. This one takes place between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade and follows Indy trying to unravel the mystery of “The Great Circle” a line around the globe that you can draw through most of the cradles of civilization.
That’s kind of it. Also pretty quick and simple for this entry. Do you like video games even a little? Do you really like Indiana Jones? Play this game. This game is Indiana Jones, arguably more than multiple movies have been.
Movies
I have a deep fear at times that art is like a drug and I am a user who has abused it.
I have had a fear that the amount I entrench myself in media and art to the degree that I am not engaged with the world around me. I have feared that when I write something—a book or blogpost—that I’m a giving someone else a cheap hit, that I’m pedaling bread at the front of the circus. That art—specifically fiction—is a way for people to numb themselves to the world.
I say without exaggeration that The Kiss of the Spiderwoman made me believe in art again. This is a movie that show that, yes, art is an escape—yes, media can be shallow and silly, but even when that is the case that doesn’t mean it is without value and meaning for those to experience it. Art and fiction give us voice and power and it give us people we can aspire to be who we might not otherwise be and that can change everything.
I probably am too intrenched in media. I probably need to be more active and engaged with my community. But I have not forsaken art.
Justice League Dark
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Transformers One
Look Back *
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Promare *
The Monkey
Paddington *
Paddington 2 *
Teen Titans: The Judas Contract
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Son of Batman
Justice League vs. Teen Titans
Pacific Rim: Uprising
Mickey 17
Hundreds of Beavers *
We’re All Gonna Die *
Sinners *
Assault on Arkham
Paddington in Peru *
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Mad Max
2001: A Space Odyssey
Mufasa: The Lion King
Megan 2.0
The Fablemans *
Predator
Superman *
The Phoenician Scheme *
Batman: Bad Blood
Thunderbolts
Godzilla Minus One
K-Pop Demon Hunters *
Kiss of the Spiderwoman **
Jason and the Argonauts
Fantastic Four: First Steps
Predator: Killer of Killers
Predator: Badlands *
Wake Up Deadman *
Avatar: Fire and Ash
If you have ever enjoyed slapstick humor in any form, if you have any love for the craft of film making, if you enjoy joy—then you should watch Hundreds of Beavers.
It’s a movie I’d almost forgotten I’d watched near the start of the year with some friends, then I heard it mentioned in a podcast and my love for this movie immediately came back.
The movie is about a man who find himself trying to get the skins of hundreds of beavers in order to impress the father of a woman and marry her. The beavers are less than thrilled to be hunted and the situation escalates.
To say anything else would be to diminish it. 90% of the people I know would have a great time with this movie and 95% of that 90% will probably never watch it.
It’s the kind of art that was made with passion and care. It is very easy to imagine a world where this movie doesn’t exist because of time or money or lack of enthusiasm, but the fact that it does come together and is so good is part of what makes it incredible.
*****
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Light Keeper Chronicle: The Unspoken Prophecy is available for physical purchase from Schuler Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon or wherever you read ebooks.
The Wilderlands is available for physical purchase now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon or wherever you read ebooks. The audiobook is also out now on most major platforms.