Top Five Top Fives of Twenty Twenty Five

Might as well write something here this year! These are personal lists, and may contain any of the following:

Things that came out in 2025
Things that I first experienced in 2025
Things that were general recurring favorites in 2025

Games

I tried Outer Wilds this year, and never felt hooked, but still want to finish it.

UFO 50
Hades
Moonlighter
Resident Evil Remaster
Mini Metro

Honorable mention: West of Loathing

Books

2025 was a good reading year for me; 2024 ended with some short story collections that helped me get back some momentum.

Malagash
The Past is Red
Tenth of December
The Stranger
A Sand County Almanac

Honorable mention: The Haar

Movies/TV

I don’t have a good way of keeping track of watched TV or movies, so I’m probably missing a few favorites here.

The Rehearsal
The Wire
Eraserhead
The Seventh Seal
The Pitt

Honorable mentions: Space Ghost Coast to Coast; Howl’s Flying Castle

Music

This is a rough category this year. I’m about halfway through Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums, and I listened to a lot of other music, but didn’t follow a lot of new releases. Hence, these are mostly pieces that hooked me for a longer than a couple of days throughout the year.

PPPPPP, the VVVVVV soundtrack
Going Down Slowly - Pointer Sisters
Little Boxes
All My Shades of Blue - Ruen Brothers
Lemon Boy - Cavetown

Honorable mention: That System of a Down concert

Wait, that happened in 2025?

These are things that happened this year that might be hard to place later, or that now feel like they’ve always been a thing. I am specifically only including things from home life; otherwise it’d just be trip-related fun stuff.

Willow’s backpack walks
The hood & stove
Woodcarving gnomes
Water aerobics
Started working on a Challah recipe

Honorable mention: Butterflies

Out-of-town (or new local?) restaurants
Recipes
Crafts
Concerts
Things watched (youtube channels, specific videos etc.)

Honorable mention: photos