The best movies, books, and albums of the year

The Best Movies of the Year

Every year, there are at least a handful of movies that demand we stop what we're doing and pay attention, and 2025 was no exception. Here are just a few of our favorite movies of the year. See the full list here.

• One of Them Days. Dead broke? You’re not alone. In one of the year’s most boisterous and breezy comedies, Keke Palmer and SZA play two scrappy denizens of Los Angeles who have just one day to scrape together the $1500 they need to pay rent on their cruddy apartment. 

• The Mastermind. Kelly Reichardt’s almost-a-comedy about a hapless art thief in 1970s Massachusetts is a vivid portrait of a guy who’s had everything handed to him and still manages to be a lost soul. Josh O’Connor’s slippery performance holds the movie steady.

• Sinners. Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers returning to their Mississippi Delta hometown after surviving World War I and a stint in Chicago. They’ve got money to set up a juke joint. Opening night is a success, until—or perhaps because?—a trio of bloodsucking white folk musicians show up at the door.

See our best movie performances of the year here.

The Best Books of the Year

In a hard year, books can be a lifeline and a balm, a place to retreat and regain our grounding. Among the many entertaining, delightful, poignant, and treasured new works of fiction and nonfiction that were published this year, the very best offered fresh perspective and a strong voice to cut through the noise. See the full list here.

• A Truce That Is Not Peace. Miriam Toews’ first book of nonfiction in more than 20 years begins with a fictionalized premise: she is asked, in advance of a literary festival in Mexico, to consider the question, “Why do you write?” And she finds it so impossible to conjure an answer that will satisfy the event’s director that her appearance is canceled. This momentary obstacle, an amalgamation of real experiences, becomes a rich, long-term project.

• One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. In October 2023, journalist and author Omar El Akkad took to social media to condemn those who had nothing to say about the horrors inflicted by the Israeli government on the people of Gaza in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” The sentiment informed his searing book.

• Things in Nature Merely Grow. Sometimes it’s the simplest language that best communicates the most complex of experiences. In Things in Nature Merely Grow, Yiyun Li employs clean, penetrating prose to tell a story of extreme personal tragedy.

See our list of best memoirs here.

The Best Albums of the Year

Below the surface of the mainstream, music had a wonderful year—making the task of whittling down 2025’s best albums to a top-10 list maddeningly difficult. See the full list here.

• Live Laugh Love. Ten years ago, the rapper Earl Sweatshirt put out I Don’t Like Sh-t, I Don’t Go Outside, a titular expression of angst and depression to rival Nirvana. His latest title, Live Laugh Love, brandishes the irony of his early years to deliver a comparatively upbeat though evermore complicated work, a shift brought on by the promise and anxieties of marriage and fatherhood.

• Debí Tirar Más Fotos. Pop-wise, 2025 was Bad Bunny’s year. This vibrant opus celebrates Puerto Rican rhythms by bridging reggaeton and Latin trap with the acoustic sounds of previous generations, like salsa, plena, bolero, and perreo.

• Lux. For her third full-length album, Spanish pop visionary Rosalía sings in 10 different languages, collaborates with the London Symphony Orchestra, and communes with the sacred teachings of various nuns and female saints.