2025 is almost over. Literally, today is the last day. I’m always surprised by the end of a year, as it seems like we just rang it in. Wasn’t that just a few months ago? No? It was a whole year ago? Huh.

But one of my favorite activities to indulge in as a year wraps up is to pick out the highlights in entertainment. What did I watch or read that ignited my imagination and all of my fangirl instincts? My favorite things may not be yours but that’s part of the fun. Taste is subjective, and a discussion about this kind of thing helps you get to know someone and may give you some recommendations of things you may not have thought to try.

So, what are some choices from 2025, both in the grander culture and for me specifically? Keep in mind, choosing just one thing as the best of the entire year for everyone is downright impossible since there are a lot of different factors to consider, like box office, award recognition, viewership, sales, reviews, personal preference, etc. So here are a few things that critics and audiences loved, and then one or two things from each category that I loved.

Books

Public Picks: Websites, publishers/distributers and other places that rank books almost always tend to have several lists. There’s one for fiction, one for nonfiction, ones for different genres, ones for different age groups, etc. So if I tried to go over every book we’d be here all night. But a few that stood out this year include Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins, Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yaros and Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green.

My Pick: Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasch. I absolutely adored the first book in the Royals and Romance series, The Nightmare Before Kissmas, and it ended up being my favorite book of 2024. Now in 2025, I have to give it to the sequel. In this world, holidays have royal families and whole kingdoms to run them, using magic that comes from the joy the holidays create among regular people. In the first book we met Coal, the heir to the throne of Christmas, as he navigated family issues and a potential arranged marriage, all while falling for the crown prince of Halloween. In this volume, we meet Coal’s younger brother, Kris, as he investigates the kingdom of St. Patrick’s Day because of possible magical theft, and catches feelings for his rival, crown prince Loch. The main characters are SOOOO likeable in these books, the banter delightful, the stakes high but not too high, and I love seeing representatives of my favorite holidays fall in love. I hope there’ll be more books in this series, but in the meantime I’m happy to check out more of Raasch’s work.

Movies

Public picks: Horror and superhero films had a big year, with movies like Sinners, Weapons, 28 Years Later, Superman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Thunderbolts, etc. A Minecraft Movie took the top spot for the box office. Some of the best reviewed films are listed here, and I had to scroll a bit before I started seeing movies I recognized.

My Pick: K-POP DEMON HUNTERS!!!! Reading a previous post of mine, you might not find this pick surprising, but it’s not just because I’m a K-pop fan. This is the movie I don’t think anyone saw coming this year. It was quietly released on Netflix last summer and has been everywhere ever since. This article from U of T does a good job summing it’s impact up, but for me, when I saw all the cosplayers at Fan Expo and the fan art and all the Halloween costumes, I knew this was something special. The soundtrack is phenomenal, the animation gorgeous, the characters wonderful, the message impactful. Can’t wait for the sequel.

TV Shows

Public picks: IMDB has a list of best shows of 2025. Honestly? Aside from Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, I don’t think I’ve seen any of these. Let’s try a couple of other lists. Nope. Guess I’m not picking up what some people are putting down.

My Picks: Haunted Hotel and Twisted Wonderland.

Yes, there’s Hazbin Hotel, and I love that one too (season 2 is definitely a contender for top pick of the year for me). But I’m going with Haunted Hotel because of how much I liked it and how much that surprised me. Another Netflix entry, this one came out just before Halloween, and the premise is what it sounds like: it’s an animated horror/comedy about a hotel run by a family that happens to be really haunted. The main characters are quite fleshed out (pun intended) and endearing, the ghosts are funny and frightening, it’s not afraid to touch on serious topics but still keep the laughs, and my favorite character is a demon trapped in the body of a little boy from the 18th century.

And Twisted Wonderland? How to describe it to the uninitiated? Take one-part magical boys’ school with different houses/dorms, one part Disney Villains, and cap it off with gorgeous anime. You get the world of Twisted Wonderland, where a regular teen finds themselves in an alternate world in a school based on The Great Seven (Maleficent, The Evil Queen, Ursula, Scar, Hades, The Queen of Hearts and Jafar), though in this world they aren’t considered villains but heroes and leaders. Twisted Wonderland started as a video game out of Japan, and this isn’t a fan project; it’s fully licensed by Disney. There have been manga adaptations and now a full-fledged anime out this year.

So, play this ranking game with friends and family over New Years. See what you can agree on and learn a little about each other while you do it.

Happy New Year!