What do you like, and why do you like it? Personally, I have to practice answering this question. I get influenced by what others like. I have an internal judge telling me what I should and shouldn’t like. When I do know I like a thing, it’s not easy to quantify why I enjoyed feeling whatever it made me feel.

This past year, to practice figuring out what I like and why I like it, I rated and wrote a couple sentences about every single thing I watched, read, or listened to all year. As of today (late December), I’ve written 115 reviews of the movies, television shows, theater productions, books, albums, and podcasts I consumed in 2025. Whew! Here are the ones I enjoyed the most.

Film

Sometimes even as a grown-ass adult you unabashedly love the most popular kids movie of the year. KPop Demon Hunters brought me the most joy by far this year. The art, the characters, the story, the songs all hit just right.

Rental Family was unexpectedly beautiful and had my heart in its hands in the first ten minutes.

Several documentaries left their mark on me this year. I sunk my teeth into The Quilters (on craft and purpose), The Speed Cubers (on friendship and competition and autism), Come See Me in the Good Light (on loving life), and Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey (on rehabilitating an amazing creature).

Television

Hands down my favorite TV series released in 2025 was Dying for Sex, a story about two things relevant to my interests: devoted friendship and squeezing every last drop out of the days you have left on this planet.

I also fangirled hard over the new seasons of Hacks (Deborah and Ava 4eva) and Severance (just gets weirder in the best ways).

Honorary mentions: Adolescence rocked me. Families Like Ours stuck to my ribs. The Bear’s new season kept up its whole vibe. Operation Space Station inspired awe. The Last of Us left me a smoldering pile of ashes. Couples Therapy fed my inner voyeur. A Man on the Inside got me to laugh-cry both seasons.

Theater

In 2025 I let my inner theater kid loose and saw more Broadway shows than I had in years.

Sarah Snook blew my mind playing all 26 characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray. I laughed my butt off with friends at Death Becomes Her. My tiny heart grew several sizes seeing Real Women Have Curves with my mom and my sister. The Come From Away live stage film on Apple TV+ cracked me open as much as it did when I saw the show at the theater.

I also loved Oh, Mary!, Beetlejuice, taking my preteen to see Wicked on Broadway, and the Merrily We Roll Along live stage film.

Books

I didn’t read nearly as much as I hoped to in 2025, but the most absorbing and affecting novel I could not put down was Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir All the Way to the River got stuck in my craw, and seeing her on tour connected me to the depth of her story even more. I also loved Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time and Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity.

Music & Podcasts

My favorite album to rage-bop to this year was Lily Allen’s West End Girl. Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving was the perfect chaser. Thanks to the movies and the show, all three Wicked soundtracks got a ton of playtime in our household as well.

I didn’t do much podcast-listening this year, but We Can Do Hard Things continues to speak to my heart, and I admire what Ramit Sethi is doing in the personal finance space at Money for Couples.

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Writing things down helps me understand them more, and compiling this list helped me see two things. First, I consumed a lot of mediocre stuff this year as a matter of habit or convenience or FOMO. Second, I found almost all the things I enjoyed most via human versus algorithmic recommendations.

As I look at other best-of-2025 lists publishing this month, I also see how much stuff I never got to this year. There will always be more to enjoy than time to enjoy it. How do you pick what you give your time and attention to? Tell me your secret.