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[Editor\u2019s note: To read our other selections for Best of 2025, see here<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Media comes at us so fast nowadays, and along with the fragmentation of culture that has accompanied the increasing pace of society, it become much too easy to miss great works, be they film, television, or books. Our senior editors offer a few thoughts on older works they discovered this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ryan Reft<\/strong><\/p>\n Michael Gracie\u2019s Better Man<\/em><\/a> hit theaters in 2024, but I only caught it on a long flight recently and\u00a0liked it so much I watched it again on an actual TV during a lazy Sunday afternoon. Most music biopics fail; for example, last year\u2019s A Complete Unknown<\/em>, which focused on the least interesting portion of Bob Dylan\u2019s life, his initial rise to stardom and controversial decision to go electric.\u00a0While the whole Newport Folk Festival angle worked, I think it really helps if you like Bob Dylan. Better to check out 2007\u2019s, I\u2019m Not There<\/a>,<\/em> Todd Haynes\u2019s distinctly postmodern take on Dylan, one of the slipperiest musical characters of modern American musical history. I haven\u2019t seen this year\u2019s Bruce Springsteen biopic, cleverly titled: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere<\/em>, though it does focus on Springsteen\u2019s most compelling period, the dark midwestern Gothic of Nebraska<\/em> and Darkness on the Edge of Town<\/em>, both hipster favorites.\u00a0<\/p>\n Honestly, Straight Outta Compton<\/em> (2015) is probably the best film biopic we\u2019ve seen in the past decade.\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t rank Better Man<\/em> with Straight Outta Compton<\/em>, but it\u2019s definitely better than Unknown<\/em> and Deliver<\/em>.\u00a0 Better Man<\/em> is about former Take That member and solo artist Robbie Williams. Don\u2019t worry, I was only vaguely aware of him or the boy band in which he rose to stardom before watching it. While the story\u2019s arc can be admittedly predictable, the musical numbers are good, and the film has a good sense of humor, probably driven by the fact the main character, Robbie Williams, is played by a CGI chimp [Editor\u2019s note: I originally wrote monkey, but a reader noted it\u2019s a CGI chimp rather than a monkey]. There is no denying that watching a CGI chimp consume massive amounts of cocaine and traverse European stages singing and dancing all while emoting about his daddy complex is surprisingly fulfilling.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always liked the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley<\/em> (does anyone play a spoiled rich ******* like the late great Phillip Seymour Hoffman, \u201cTommy, how\u2019s the peepin\u2019?\u201d) which takes place in and around Sorrento, Italy. I had watched the first episode of the 2024 Netflix series, Ripley<\/em>, based on the same Patricia Highsmith novel, last year and decided it wasn\u2019t for me. But after contracting food poisoning one night while on vacation in Sorrento, I had a whole day in my hotel room. Despite being filmed in black and white (notable for a region awash in color), the series is gorgeous, and the characters, all of them, enormously pissy with one another. Andrew Scott as the conniving Ripley is a devious and disturbing revelation.\u00a0<\/p>\n A couple of years ago I was enjoying the FX series Reservation Dogs<\/em><\/a> (if you haven\u2019t seen the three-season show about a group of indigenous adolescents on a Northeastern Oklahoma reservation dealing with the suicide of one of their close friends, it\u2019s actually extremely funny despite the daunting subject matter and it\u2019s well worth your time), when \u201cCold Damn Vampires\u201d by Zach Bryan played as one of the episodes ended. I\u2019m not really a country music fan, but the song caught my ear, and I eventually dug into Bryan\u2019s 2022 album from which the song came, American Heartbreak<\/em>. I don\u2019t know Bryan\u2019s politics and I don\u2019t want to. What I do know is the album is great especially if you\u2019ve lost a loved one. \u201cShe\u2019s Alright,\u201d about the death of his mother (Bryan has several songs across a few albums about his late mother), rends one\u2019s heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the death of David \u201cTrugoy the Dov\u201d Jolicoeur in 2023, I can\u2019t recommend enough anything by the epic hip hop act, De La Soul. Since his passing, I\u2019ve had their albums on repeat and this year I doubled down particularly on the criminally underappreciated classic, De La Soul is Dead<\/em> (1991) and the masterful Stakes is High<\/em> (1996). With De La Soul on the mind, I should point out, friend of the blog, historian Austin McCoy<\/a> has a new book out on the band, Living in a D.A.I.S.Y. Age: The Music, Culture, and World De La Soul Made<\/a><\/em> in January. Needless to say, I\u2019m excited.<\/p>\n Re: De La Soul and Natives Tongues, my listening habits followed a similar arc when Phife from A Tribe Called Quest passed in 2016, just as ATCQ released its final, but really great album We Got It From Here Thank You 4 Your Service<\/em>. Do I even need to mention 1991\u2019s Low End Theory<\/em> or 1993\u2019s Midnight Marauders<\/em>? Also, Outkast\u2019s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year serves as a reminder that they remain one of this century\u2019s premier hip hop acts. Though I\u2019m going to argue their 1990s work, ATLiens<\/em>, Aquemini,<\/em> and Stankonia<\/em> (technically 2000, but long duree, folks) exceeds their output in the aughts, no shade to Speakerboxxx<\/em>\/The Love Below<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n For the heshers out there, I missed Protomartyr\u2019s Ultimate Success of Today<\/em><\/a> in 2020, but stumbled upon it this year and it\u2019s been in my rotation for the past 12 months. I\u2019ve long hailed<\/a> the Detroit band as a postpunk cry of Motor City pride and angst, but Ultimate Success<\/em> surpassed my expectations even as I listened to it five years after its release. The album features jabs at ICE that were accurate then and prescient now. While some might think it a downer, I find its ability to face America\u2019s darkest impulses uplifting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Katie Uva<\/strong><\/p>\n I have a toddler, and my wife and I are enjoying this special period of time in our lives where we are the main conduits for her media consumption. Consequently we have been leaning heavily on things we liked as kids, and it has been a pleasure introducing things to Cora and reflecting on what we liked about them then and how we perceive them now. Big hits this year have been The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, Pee-wee\u2019s Playhouse<\/em>, Mary Poppins<\/em>, Lady and the Tramp<\/em>, Sleeping Beauty<\/em>, and The Little Mermaid<\/em>. In music, the songs of Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger singing \u201cAbiyoyo,\u201d and The Pointer Sisters\u2019 \u201cJump (For My Love)\u201d have been durable pleasures. We\u2019ve read many books this year, and some of our joint favorites have been Eloise<\/em>, Peter\u2019s Chair<\/em> (by Ezra Jack Keats; the little boy in this story is the same Peter from The Snowy Day<\/em>), Madeline<\/em>, Blueberries for Sal<\/em>, and Each Peach Pear Plum<\/em>.<\/p>\n A little to the side of that, I\u2019ve been casually looking into children\u2019s books for kids who are older than my daughter, and just finished All-of-a-Kind-Family<\/a>,<\/em> which is a classic that I didn\u2019t encounter as a child but greatly enjoyed just now. Originally published in the 1950s, it\u2019s a series of connected vignettes about a Jewish family on the Lower East Side in 1912, and to me was evocative, charming, sweet without being cloying, and fits well into the pantheon of books like Little Women<\/em>, Anne of Green Gables<\/em>, and the American Girl<\/em> series \u2013 books that are populated with lovingly drawn characters, that take seriously the concerns and preoccupations of girls, and that have a rich sense of place and time. I\u2019m hoping my daughter will be interested in these types of stories someday, but for now I\u2019m enjoying visiting and revisiting them myself.<\/p>\n