#33: time doesn't exist yet it controls us anyway

belated best of 2025

This time last year, I wrote about implementing my own Steven Soderbergh-esque seen/read diary to chart my engagement with culture over 12 calendar months.

Initially I had wanted to map how efficiently I was engaging with media and art, chart what platforms I actually used and also see just how much I was spending time with, fearing I was overconsuming rather than actively consuming. While I’m not sure it triggered any real revelations, I do think I became more mindful because I was having to record and in a way hold myself accountable. I guess it’s an individual choice as to whether that in and of itself is a useful way to enjoy anything, but I think it’s worked for me. I feel like I watched less trash and wasted less time on things because I know I’d have to confront looking at it at some stage in the future.

Interesting data points (because you know me, I’m a simp for data):

• Annually I lament the usefulness of my TV licence, and yet: I used BBC iPlayer 68 times, and watched specific programmes on BBC channels 20 times (interesting to find that I watch more in a catch-up capacity). None of this includes any passive TV watching, 10 minutes while I’m drinking coffee or the hours of sport on in the background c/o my boyfriend.

• Despite thinking that I rarely watched anything on Netflix, I actually used that particular streamer 56 times last year, more than any of the others I subscribe to. This doesn’t really help me decide whether to unsubscribe, which is what I’d hoped for.

• I smashed through 443 podcast episodes.

• I logged 161 films and went to the cinema 59 times (77% of these at my beloved Cinema City).

• We used Plex 38 times, and I obtained things nefariously 29 times (yo-ho-ho). DVDs were only watched 9 times, thus proving that I need to up my physical media usage significantly in 2026.

• I visited 13 exhibitions/galleries, but this doesn’t include those things I saw in Berlin in March, because I forgot to log all of those (unclear why).

• I only finished 5 books (depressing).

• I watched Barry Lyndon twice (not enough imho), and for some reason it took us two days to rewatch Heat (did I fall asleep?).

To clarify: though it’s never about the quantity for me- always the quality- I have enjoyed reflecting on the numbers after a full year of diligently writing things down in my notes app. I think I’ve mentioned my long relationship with LastFM, the only real barometer I trust for what music I’ve actually been listening to, and it’s been sort of fun to take back the number crunching when so often we outsource it to apps. All this note-taking and monitoring is something I’m continuing into this year, you know, for comparative sake (imagine if I make a graph).

Anyway, below are my favourites for 2025. I already did my top ten records of the year (thank you to anyone who read that and engaged in interesting conversation re: listening to music!), so I’ve stuck to everything else (film, tv, podcasts).

Film:

UK release dates. You can see my full list here on Letterboxd.

10. Nickel Boys (dir. RaMell Ross)

An adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel, I found Ross’s take on life at a Florida reform school to be deeply thoughtful. It captured really well that the story is built solely on the narrativization of memory; Turner’s recollections of his time at Nickel Academy, what he knew of Elwood based on what he gleaned during their time together. There’s a scrapbooking of contextual clues about culture from the time in which it’s set and these latter parts felt highly reflective of Ross’s documentary and arts background, especially when paired with the beauty of the cinematography (insane work from Jomo Fray!)

9. Pillion (dir. Harry Lighton)

Interested by how polarising this seems to have been but I felt there was lots to love- Skarsgård and Melling both very, very good, the entire thing far more tender than I’d anticipated- but I think my favourite part was clocking that Ray was reading Knausgård’s ‘My Struggle’. Great visual gag!!

8. Hard Truths (dir. Mike Leigh)

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is absolutely unreal; just a major, major performance that the Academy should be embarrassed to have overlooked!!!

7. Blue Moon (dir. Richard Linklater)

I was sort of dazzled by this; Hawke- phenomenal- even when two of his best attributes (blue eyes, tall) are taken away from him. Going in, I knew very little about Lorenz Hart, lyricist and part of the Broadway writing duo Rodgers and Hart, but that didn’t dampen my enjoyment at all.

6. Train Dreams (dir. Clint Barton)

I haven’t read the Denis Johnson novella but fell for this quite aggressively; I’m fascinated by a lot of the criticism, as though any kind of Malickian homage is a bad thing or that the narration doesn’t actually help verbalise the story of a man whose life has been populated by long bouts of protracted silence. It’s visually gorgeous and having visited several of the great forests in the Pacific Northwest, I do think it captures how simply breath-taking it is to be surrounded by the green vastness of all those trees. All of the ecological elements aren’t anything new, but I found them deeply powerful; man’s impact on the land, the way we’ve spent hundreds of years relying on and pillaging the vastness of the world around us thinking the resources would be there for us forever and suddenly, they’re dwindling. I do think- as Arn puts it so eloquently- that it upsets a man’s soul whether you recognise it or not.

5. Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)

Given my love for Trier’s 2022 film The Worst Person in the World, I went in with extremely high expectations, and while I don’t think this quite reaches the heights of its predecessor, I did find myself very overwhelmed by the familial drama unfolding on screen. This time Trier tackles interpersonal dynamics between two sisters and their Father, Gustav Borg, an aging filmmaker played wonderfully by Stellan Skarsgård. All of the Dad elements here I think made it both a hard sell and an instant hit for me, in particular the complicated relationship between Gustav and his eldest daughter Nora, played by frequent Trier player Renate Reinsve (who I adore). There’s so much in here about generational trauma, what we both inherit and learn from our parents, the ways this can seep into every facet of our lives. I was especially taken by the performance delivered by Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as Agnes; she isn’t an actress I’ve encountered before, but she was wonderful and I’m so pleased she has been rightfully recognised by the Academy with a Best Supporting Actress nom.

4. Sorry, Baby (dir. Eva Victor)

There’s a scene in this that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about: the inciting incident; a camera focused on a house in a small New England town, the passing of time signalled in the way light shifts, day becoming night, a body re-emerging from within, silently walking back toward their car and toward their own home. You don’t know what’s happening inside, but you do; the horror is in the presupposition, in understanding and fearing the inevitable. Eva Victor is such a talent! What a debut.

3. Marty Supreme (dir. Josh Safdie)

Going in, I’d tried to avoid a lot of the Safdie-specific discussion, if only to try and be open minded about who supposedly “has the juice”, but it IS interesting to me that Josh manages to maintain all of those director-specific elements that I’d come to love from their work as a whole. Frenetic pace, propulsive synth-adjacent score (sorry if you hate the anachronistic music- it really works for me as a conversation about 1950s and 80s “American Dream” cultural duality), weaselly characters you want to hate but sort of like, and want to like but sort of hate. Timmy, to that end, is perfect for me here; I unashamedly love the guy, but I think Marty as a character taps into his undeniable little twerp energy.

2. The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet)

I already shared some of my feelings on this last January, so I won’t repeat myself but despite seeing it so early in the calendar year, I have thought of this film so often, a testament to what a phenomenal piece of filmmaking I find it to be.

1. One Battle After Another (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

It’s impossible for me to exhibit any objectivity given that I’ve spent most of my adult life making an interest in PTA’s work a core tenet of my personality, but this did to me feel like awe-inspiring stuff; insane, really, that he was allowed and able to make something SO timely, all the Pynchon-level satire and subtext barely removed from the reality we’re currently experiencing.

This isn’t a film of small performances- everyone really is firing on all cylinders: career-best Leo, Benicio proving for the second time in 2025 that he’s the master at turning up and stealing the show when you least expect it. Teyana Taylor is magnetic from the moment she appears on screen, Chase Infiniti: I hope you go on to do great things! I was deeply, deeply taken by the Bob and Willa relationship, the struggle he has with becoming complacent in his radicalism in favour of normalcy as a means to protect his child; he’s not a step father, he’s the father who stepped up etc etc.

I did end up seeing this at the cinema twice and some podcast chat I’d heard between viewings made it sort of impossible to unsee the Sean Penn performance as anything other than George C. Scott, the entire Christmas Adventurers Club aspect feeling even more Strangelove-y a second time around. There’s a moment too, Bob apologising to Sergio for bringing the onslaught of MKU drama to his door, to which Sensei responds: don’t get selfish. Part of the flaw in Bob’s dwindling contact with the revolution is that he forgets that it isn’t just about him- he’s merely a conduit. Everyone else is en garde all of the time.

I don’t know man! I don’t think it’s without its flaws and- given his tendencies to achieve greatness so frequently- I can see why you could pick this apart and view it as a lesser PTA picture, but I really think it works.

TV:

(Unranked)

• The Pitt, season one (HBO)

Sort of mad this still hasn’t reached the UK yet, especially given the second series is four episodes in stateside. I really loved this; very ER coded (obviously), and executes really well a round-the-clock narrative, with each episode a single hour in their day. I wrote at length about the show here.

• The Studio, season one (Apple TV+)

A sort of riff on Altman’s The Player, I instantly fell for Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s satire of the Hollywood studio system, Rogen as Matt Remick, who finds himself heading up Continental Studios after his former boss is fired. This is chock-full of recognisable faces: Bryan Cranston, the late great Catherine O’Hara, Kathryn Hahn and one of my favourites, Ike Barinholtz, plus many, many cameos. It’s like Entourage, without the crippling misogyny.

• Task, season one (HBO)

Heat, with more heart; Mark Ruffalo plays Tom Brandis, a catholic priest turned FBI agent chosen to head a task force investigating a series of armed robberies in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Creator Brad Inglesby also helmed one of my 2021 favourites, Mare of Easttown, and this very much follows in those footsteps.

• The Chair Company, season one (HBO)

I am famously a huge fan of comedian and writer Tim Robinson, so it was a no-brainer that I’d love his deeply surreal eight-episode series about a man who experiences an embarrassing workplace incident involving a faulty chair which leads him down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories about the company who manufactured the offending item. It’s very weird, and exactly the type of thing you’d expect for someone whose comedy stylings are known to be a little off-kilter.

• The Rehearsal, season two (HBO)

The first series of Nathan Fielder’s show saw the comedian playing a fictionalised version of himself, helping others to overcome their anxieties about difficult situations by rehearsing them in sets and with actors. It obviously snowballed into something else entirely, and this second series takes the premise in an even more bizarre direction. I really recommend going into this blind if you can!

• Adolescence (Netflix)

Nobody needs this explaining to them at this stage, but like everyone else, I was really taken by this series focusing on Jamie, a 13 year old boy who is arrested on suspicion of murdering a female classmate. Depressing, obviously; I’m not sure the emerging discourse re: young people’s access to the internet was wholly useful, but it’s a definite glimpse into what it can be like to grow up in a social media age.

• The Traitors, season three and Celebrity Traitors, season one (BBC)

Lumping these together for ease; just very fun appointment television. I was skeptical that the celebrity version would bring anything new to the table, but it was very interesting watching people with media training negotiate the gameplay, especially being even more conscious of how the edit may portray them. I was thrilled with the outcome, and amazed at how stupid many of them were.

• Adults, season one (Hulu/FX- Disney+ in the UK)

I am so pleased this was given the go ahead for a second series, as I hoovered up all eight episodes of season one in an almost single sitting. Pure millennial bait, this is about a group of friends living together in New York, navigating all the trials and challenges of being in your twenties. Very fun.

• Shifty (BBC)

Weirdly my first Adam Curtis experience, this was a deeply bleak look at the past and the way British history and misplaced nostalgia for bygone days are manipulated in nefarious ways (a must watch!).

Podcasts:

(Available in all the usual locations)

• The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast: huge one for SNL heads like myself. Quaid Army!

• The Devil You Know: an exploration of the rise of Satanic Panic in North America, from the perspective of people whose lives were altered in the process.

• The Curse of America’s Next Top Model: I was obsessed with ANTM, and this look into the series and its variety of controversies was VERY compelling.

• Flesh & Code: a glimpse into the rise and fall of Replica, an app initially created to provide everyone with access to their very own digital companion.

• Hell in Heaven: exploring the mysterious death of John Bender, a Wallstreet banker who moved to Costa Rica with his wife, Anne.

“Normal” newsletter service will return next month. Hope you managed to survive January!