Best of 2025
The year's most goated music, movies & more.
Another year hurtling toward oblivion.
2025 felt like the first year of the future. The robots are finally taking over, social media isn’t even social anymore, the brain rot has emerged from our screens like the girl from The Ring to engrain itself into our living reality. The bugs on your windshield aren’t coming back.
Against all odds, Good Stuff endures. I feel a little optimistic about where culture is headed right now. Smart people with good taste are finding new ways to win. There are worse things to argue about than Geese.
GOOD STUFF launched January 1, 2024. Thank you to every single person who read, shared, or subscribed in the year since. It’s been a beautiful and exhausting year, and I’ve learned a lot about what fuels me and how much fuel I have. Next year we level up.
Here’s the best things I heard, watched, ate, wore and more this year…
Best Songs (apple / spotify / audiomack)
2025 felt like the Year of the Weirdo, full of eccentric artists pushing back against convention. Sometimes it sounded like floating through the sands of time (“You got time and I got money,” “blade bird”). Sometimes it sounded like getting your shit rocked (“POP OUT,” “Trinidad”). Music is usually great when the world is on fire, and this year was full of it.
Dijon — “Yamaha”
Smerz — “You got time and I got money”
Nourished by Time — “Max Potential”
Famous Pluto, Shallipopi & Zerrydl — “Ewo”
Joeyy — “Fruit”
Bon Iver — “Everything Is Peaceful Love”
EsDeeKid — “4 Raws”
Hannah Cohen — “Dusty”
bassvictim — “Forever salty”
Nino Paid — “Be Safe”
Bb trickz — “Super”
Playboi Carti — “POP OUT”
Safe Mind — “Standing on Air”
Alex G — “Afterlife”
Devstacks ft. Swapa — “Parlay”
Fine — “Portal”
Geese — “Trinidad”
Dave ft. Kano — “Chapter 16”
Dove Ellis — “To The Sandals”
fakemink — “Music and Me”
Erika de Casier — “Miss”
Asake & Tiakola — “BADMAN GANGSTA”
MexikoDro — “No Date”
Oklou — “blade bird”
diamond* ft. Tezzus — “Bada Bing, Bada Bøøm”
Blood Orange ft. The Durutti Column, Tariq Al-Sabir, Caroline Polachek & Daniel Caesar — “The Field”
Yunosa — “Y0lo”
Jason Isbell — “Good While It Lasted”
Jim Legxacy — “i just banged a snug in canada water”
YoungBoy Never Broke Again — “Priorities”
Protect — “Cartoon Network”
kels! — “Yes Cuddy”
dexter in the newsagent — “Special”
Tml Vibez, Dj 4kerty & Young Jonn — “Paper”
Snuggle — “Water in a pond”
OsamaSon — “Fool”
Navy Blue — “Orchards”
Yaego & KUČKA — “Ketamina”
Clarry Berry — “gucci”
Pooh Shiesty — “FDO”
Best Albums
I spent a lot of time thinking and writing about albums this year, and they are still essential for conversation. None were perfect, and that’s fine. Better to take the leap and be messy than play it safe.
Dijon — Baby
Hannah Cohen — Earthstar Mountain
Playboi Carti — MUSIC
Geese — Getting Killed
Bon Iver — SABLE, fABLE
Nourished By Time — The Passionate Ones
Safe Mind — Cutting the Stone
Justin Bieber — SWAG
Car Culture & Physical Therapy — Rest Here
bassvictim — Forever
Navy Blue — The Sword & The Soaring
Smerz — Big city life
Jim Legxacy — black british music (2025)
Oklou — choke enough
Venna — MALIK
Oneohtrix Point Never — Tranquilizer
Clipse — Let Got Sort Em Out
BashfortheWorld — Migo in America
KP SKYWALKA — I Tried To Tell You
Snuggle — Goodbyehouse
Every 2025 movie I watched, ranked
Friendship
Weapons
F1
Sinners
Superman
Eddington
Sorry, Baby
The Fantastic 4: First Steps
Thunderbolts*
Materialists
The Phoenician Scheme
Happy Gilmore 2
Opus
Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever
Black Bag
Captain America: Brave New World
Absolutely cooked list. I nearly spit my Diet Coke Lime out when I looked at my Letterboxd to gather this intel. Four comic book movies?? The Bryan Johnson documentary? The fact that Happy Gilmore 2 nearly cracks the top half is sickening. Either movies were terrible this year or I’m too washed to have gotten to any of the good ones yet. Check back here around Oscars SZN to find out. And yes that’s how bad Black Bag is.
Best Movies Not From 2025 I Watched in 2025
Speaking of Oscars SZN, I didn’t include any ‘24 noms below but wrote about them here.
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Grizzley Man (2005)
Prince: Sign ‘o’ the Times (1987)
Amadeus (1984)
Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
Ratatouille (2007)
Her (2013)
Kids (1995)
The Beach (2000)
The French Connection (1971)
Best Food
Rainbow Cookie Cake (JR & Son, Williamsburg)
Wood-roasted chicken (Stissing House, Pine Plains)
The Dennis sandwich (Parisi, Nolita)
Everything bagel with scallion cream cheese (Utopia Bagels, Whitestone)
Famous smothered burrito meal (Anita’s New Mexico Style Mexican Food, multiple locations)
Best Clothes
Best of the Rest
Timothée Chalamet, The Chair Company, Keith McNally, the magazine renaissance (L’Etiquette, HighSnobiety, i-D, Vanity Fair, Have a Great Day, Sap), Oasis, Max Evasion, Just Salad, Substack, actually finishing The Power Broker, UK rap, Johnny Novo eating chicken, 24 in 24: Last Chef Standing, “SpongeBob big guy pants ok.”
Worst of 2024
AI, Addison Rae’s album, protein, not having enough time to go to restaurants (or better yet write this newsletter), the Miami Dolphins, how every TV show sucks now, Andrew Cuomo, tariffs, Sydney Sweeney discourse, Kendrick/Drake beef, Labubus, authoritarianism, Taylor Swift, “SpongeBob big guy pants ok.”
Ok that’s all, folks. Go spend time with your family, have ChatGPT put grandma in the Marty Supreme jacket, and I’ll see you next year.
Can’t go wrong with Do the Right Thing. Great list.
Good stuff!