Best of 2025 Entertainment - Favourite Albums, Songs, Movies and TV Shows

• Ninajirachi - I Love My Computer
• Purity Ring - Purity Ring
• Barry Can't Swim - Loner
• Oklou - Choke Enough
• Bootblacks - Paradise
• Turnstiles - Never Enough
• Ghost - Skeletá
• Dlina Volny - In Between [IDIB]
• Rochelle Jordan - Through The Wall
• Lausse The Cat - The Mocking Stars
• FKA Twigs - Eusexua
• Amaarae - Black Star
• The Hives - The Hives Forever Forever The Hives
• Viagra Boys - Viagr aboys
• Addison Rae - Addison
• Wolf Alice - The Clearing
• Wet Leg - Moisturizer
• Little Simz - Lotus
• Laufey - A Matter of Time
• SpiralCaster - Here's To The World As We Don't Know It
• Haai - Humanise
• Soulwax - All Systems Are Lying
• Allie X - Happiness Is Going to Get You
• David Byrne - Who Is The Sky?
• Bad Bunny - DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS
• Aya - Hexed
• Squid - Cowards
• Jo Quail - Notan
• CMAT - Euro-Country
• Pulci Perla - Tatekieto
• Jane Remover - <3

In some parts - this follows on a little from my favourite albums - with Rosalía once more leading the charge.

And with my favourite album tracks interspersed by singles - including from Tyla.

After the first 20-30 we get a more equal playing field - where the order is less important.

I arrange based on a number of criteria - including artistry and musicality, and sheer enjoyment. It's incredible how may of the albums I auditioned for the year had flat deliveries - both in the register and the dynamics of that music - where all of my selected ones excel

I feel that music has never been more eclectic - and there is something for everyone out there - you don't even really have to seek it out - all genres are all still present in the world - with old, established and newer bands mixing things up

. People really can't bemoan the lack of quality - if they feel there has been a quality drop - they're surely listening to the wrong music!

This is a very broad selection!

• Desire - Darkside, Dangerous Drug, Dream Girl, The Judge, Drama Queen, Love Races On, Tell It To My Heart, I Know
• Oklou - Endless, Family and Friends, Blade Bird, Choke Enough, Take Me By The Hand, Harvest Sky, Viscus
• Purity Ring - Many Lives, Place of My Own / Remix, The Long Light / Remix, Imanocean, Betweenyouandshadows
• Dlina Volny - Flair, Dance Me Away, Bliss, Follow Me, Never The Same, Chant
• Ghost - Cenotaph, Peacefield, Lachryma, Satanized, Marks of the Evil One, Umbra
• Barry Can't Swim - Different, Kimpton, About To Begin, Cars Pass By Like Childhood Sweethearts, Like It's Part Of The Dance, Childhood
• Rochelle Jordan - Ladida, The Boy, Doing It Too, Never Enough, Crave
• Ninajirachi - iPodTouch, Delete, All I Am, Infohazard, It's You
• FKA Twigs - Eusexua, Perfect Stranger, Drums of Death, Perfectly
• Wet Leg - Catch These Fists, CPR, Davina McCall, Mangetout
• Enola Bedard - Walk, Want It More, Rouge
• The Hives - Enough is Enough, Bad Call, Paint a Picture, O.C.D.O.D. Legalize Living, Path of Most Resistance, The Hives Forever Forever The Hives
• Turnstile - Light Design, Seen Stars, Never Enough, I Care, Dreaming, Look Out For Me 
• Wolf Alice - Bloom Baby Bloom, Just Two Girls, Bread Butter Tea Sugar, White Horses, The Sofa
• Viagra Boys - Man Made of Meat, The Bag Body, Uno I, Dirty Boy
• SpiralCaster - Sisterworld, Inverted Castle, Black Crystal Lake, We've Always Been Here, Collider, You Don't Care A Lot
• Addison Rae - Aquamarine, Money Is Everything, Fame is a Gun, Headphones On
• Aya - Off to the ESSO, I am the pipe I hit myself with, the names of Faggot Chav boys, Droplets
• Lady Gaga - Abracadabra, The Dead Dance, Shadow of a Man
• Allie X - Reunite, Learn To Cry, 7th Floor
• Amaarae - S.M.O., Kiss Me Thru The Phone pt2, She Is My Drug, Girlie Pop, Fineshyt, 100Drum
• Zara Larsson - Midnight Sun, Blue Moon, Pretty Ugly, Crush, Eurosummer, Hot & Sexy
• Little Simz – Flood, Lion, Only, Young, Free, Don't Leave Too Soon
• Bootblacks - Forbidden Flames, Only You, Wilderness, Leipzig
• Laufey - Lover Girl, Snow White, Silver Lining
• Tate McRae - Just Keep Watching, Revolving Door, Sports Car
• Bad Bunny - PERFuMITO Nuevo, VeLDÁ, EL CLúB, EoO, DTmF, LA MuDANZA
• David Guetta - Beautiful People (With Sia), A Better World (Cedric Gervais), After You (with Kiko, Olivier Giacomotto & feat. Faangs), Gone Gone Gone (with Teddy Swims & Tone and I)
• David Byrne - Everybody Laughs, My Apartment Is My Friend, The Avant Garde, She Explains Things To Me, The Truth 
• Katseye - Gabriela, Gnarley, M.I.A., Gameboy
• Calvin Harris - Blessings, I'm Not Alone, Ocean
• CMAT - Euro-Country, When a Good Man Cries, The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station, Running / Planning
• Tropic Gold - A Place Called Euphoria, Happy, Holy Horror
• Squid - Cro-Magnon Man, Crispy Skin, Building 650
• Pulp - Spike Island, My Sex, Got to Have Love
• Benson Boone - Magical Mystical, Sorry I'm Here For Someone Else
• Jo Quail - Butterfly Dance, KingFisher
• MK - Dior (with Crystal), Come Find Me (with Clementine Douglas)
• Raye – Where Is My Husband!
• Reliqa - Your Touch
• Lorde - What Was That?
• Taylor Swift - Fate of Ophelia
• Saja Boys - Your Idol
• Kendrick Lamar & Sza - Luther
• Tinashe & Disco Lines - No Broke Boys
• Sombr - 12 to 12, Undressed
• Ed Sheeran - Sapphire, Azizam
• Doechii - Denial is a River, Anxiety
• The Favors - Home Sweet Home
• Bruno Mars - Bonde Do Brunǎo
• Sleep Token - Emergence

Most agree that One Battle After Another was the best film of the year, where I have Sinners overall in second place - albeit that forms the top of my separate Horror selection too!

Timothée Chalamet had a strong start and end to the year with A Complete Unknown and Marty Supreme. I had hoped to see the latter over the Christmas period, but I holidayed in Iceland - and Marty Supreme isn't in the cinema here until late January! That's the only film of note that I missed out on!

I'm sure there were a couple of films I overlooked - which I will look to pick up on in the run-up to the Oscars. I watched 22 films in the cinema this year - and the rest across the various streaming platforms. Being in Iceland meant that a load of my subscriptions didn't work - I should probably have invested in a VPN before now - will look to do so the next time I have a long stay in Iceland. 

My Icelandic placement - meant that I had to pay extra for a lot of films that I would have watched free per my subscriptions in the UK. There are of course some licensing variations too - but they were all relatively well priced experiences!

I had a number of films to work my way though over the holiday - and hopefully I covered off most of the essential ones of the year!

• Knives Out : Wake Up Dead Man! [Netflix]
• Dead of Winter [Amazon Prime £]
• Kpop Demon Hunters [Netflix]
• Warfare [Amazon Prime]
• Novocaine [Cineworld]
• Mission Impossible : The Final Reckoning [Cineworld]
• How to Train Your Dragon - Live Action [Cineworld]
• Superman 2025 [Amazon Prime £]
• Spinal Tap II : The End Continues (Vue)
• The Gorge (Apple TV+)
• Jurassic World: Rebirth [Cineworld]
• The Mastermind [Amazon Prime £)
• In The Lost Lands [Amazon Prime £]
• ASH [Amzon Prime : Shudder]
• Wicked : For Good [Cineworld]
• Ocean [Disney+]

There were so many good Horror / adjacent films this year that I separated them out into their own category.

I love Elevated Horror, and mostly hate the splatter stuff (Terrorizer et al!) - here we have a broad selection of the various horror genres - where Horror is still proving to be an excellent format for cinematic innovation and story-telling.

The two most lauded Horror films for this year seem to have been Sinners and Weapons - which also take my 2 top seats in this category. While Sinners is also my second favourite movie of the year - just after after One Battle After Another!

• Companion [Amazon Prime £]
• Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein [Netflix]
• Robbert Eggers' Nosferatu [Cineworld]
• 28 Years Later [Cineworld]
• Bring Her Back [Amazon Prime £]
• Final Destination : Bloodlines [Amazon Prime £]
• M3GAN 2.0 [Cineworld]
• Dangerous Animals [Amazon Prime £]
• 'Drop'[Sky / Now TV]
• Good Boy [Amazon Prime £]
• The Ugly Stepsister [Amazon Prime > Shudder]
• Luc Besson's Dracula - A Love Tale [Amazon Prime £]
• Death of a Unicorn [Sky / Now TV]

A mix of new and old favourites - with a significant smattering of Sci-Fi - including 5 of that genre in the top 10.

Apple TV is proving to be a source of really high quality productions - while Disney owned the top 2 spots this year.

I loved everything about Alien Earth - all the lore and easter eggs - you must watch the spoiler shows on YouTube - to really get how smartly Alien Earth was scripted and visually referenced - drawing on various points of culture, including Peter Pan and even renaissance paintings!

I have some friends who 'don't watch TV' while those are really missing out - as so many current TV Series are incredibly innovative and cinematic - and indeed many directed  by top Hollywood movie directors.