It’s the season of all things “Wrapped,” folks… And I don’t just mean holiday gifts!
As we get closer and closer to bidding 2025 adieu, all our favorite sources for entertainment keep hammering us with the stats of which films, TV shows, music, video games, and more that kept us going throughout the year. It’s a trend that seemed to really take off once Spotify’s Wrapped recap became a must-share among users. Now, every platform, from Steam to YouTube, shares a tiny yet interesting nugget of data with its users each December.
I don’t exactly have a lot of “data” for a variety of reasons. For example, not all of my film and TV consumption was done on Netflix. In fact, our home has access to what feels like a dozen streaming services these days, so none of it would really be all that accurate. Instead, I’m presenting all of you with some of what I considered the very best options from what I consumed this year. A good selection that I can confidently recommend!
Film — Animation Ruled the Year
Netflix alone reports that I watched its content for 219 hours (or around 9 days). It is probably a lot by most standards, but do keep in mind that I’m still technically unemployed. When I’m not in my home office trying to remedy that situation, I’m either asleep or in front of a television. So, brushing my excessive consumption aside, here’s what I discovered this year in the world of film.
While I don’t necessarily have anything against animation, an animated piece of media does typically have to really ‘wow’ me in a way that live-action doesn’t. Which is yet another weird fact about me, I know. Most geeks like me are known to love it, especially anime and manga, but I just never picked up that characteristic, I guess. But three films that I watched multiple times on Netflix this year got me right in the “feels.”
I’ll go ahead and get KPop Demon Hunters out of the way. Yes, I did completely buy into the hype, but only after I had kept reading glowing reviews one right after another, and friends of mine demanded that I watch it with them. As a lifelong, 40-year-old nerd, I do not believe that I fit into this movie’s target demographic in the slightest… But it still managed to capture me. First of all, the soundtrack is full of actual bangers, the mythology and lore is spectacular, and the story of the Demon Hunters themselves is heartwrenching, but understand me when I say: Cat. As a father of cats, it’s hard for me to avoid anything cat-related, so without question, Derpy the big, beautiful, silly, and supernatural blue tiger is the real star of KPop Demon Hunters for me. And I can only hope that any future sequels or tie-ins include Derpy as much as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade did!
The other two animated films that I fell in love with in 2025 were both Academy Award nominees that competed for Best Animated Feature Film. The first is The Wild Robot, a DreamWorks Animation venture that featured the voice work of an all-star cast, including Lupita Nyong’o in the title role. This film was first recommended to me as a candidate for us to watch together in my Discord community, which we did back in July. I have to confess here that the story of Roz, the “wild” robot in question, brought a little bit of a tear to my eye.
The last film, which actually wound up winning the aforementioned Academy Award, was a little Latvian production called Flow. As I had stated earlier, it’s hard to keep me away from anything cat-related, and boy, does this movie deliver! The movie’s entire plot, which is presented without any spoken dialogue, follows a small cat trying to survive in a world that seems to now be largely devoid of humans, and the water level begins to rise dramatically. The way in which this movie is able to convey the emotion and panic through the eyes of mostly just this one cat (and occasionally his other animal pals) is incredible, and speaks volumes to the way the film was handcrafted in free and open-source graphics software Blender over the course of more than five years. By saying that I “highly recommend” this film is an understatement.
As for honorable mentions, y’all know that I’m a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so I would be remiss not to mention both Thunderbolts* and Fantastic Four: First Steps. I think that both movies represent more of a “return to form” for Marvel going into next year, which will see them releasing the next Spider-Man and Avengers offerings. They were also far and away better movies than the fourth Captain America outing that was released in the early part of the year.
Television — This Was More Varied…
I’ve mentioned in past posts and on my Now page that I watch a lot of television. I think part of the reason why I also love the Marvel universe and a few other big franchises is that it’s all serialized. I like taking a big bite out of stories that are likely to continue in future installments. Big fictional worlds created to endure. So, needless to say, I consume more series than I do standalone films. You might want to strap in for this one! It’s gonna be a looooong list.
And for the sake of time and length, I’ve also only included TV shows that I actually started watching this year. So the latest seasons of Stranger Things and Wednesday, spectacular as they are, don’t get featured here!
- The Diplomat. I’ve loved Keri Russell since Felicity in the late ’90s/early ’00s, but I couldn’t really get into her award-winning turn on The Americans later on. But surprisingly, this series has hit all the right buttons for me. I’m already on the third season after having just started a couple of weeks ago!
- Wayward. Toni Collette is absolutely chilling in this limited series!
- The Residence. This series had me absolutely hollering! I’m so disappointed that a second season isn’t going forward. Please give Uzo Aduba all the flowers and awards, please and thank you.
- Sirens. This is another limited series that had me captivated from start to finish. Parts of it felt very soapy, but in a kind of good way? Especially awesome performances by Julianne Moore and Meghann Fahy!
- Yellowjackets. This one is a few seasons in already, but I discovered it for the first time this past February and wound up adding Showtime onto my Paramount+ account just so I could continue watching more recent seasons. This show is completely bonkers, but in the most addictive way! The cast is pretty star-studded, also, and they carry the show remarkably well.
- Severance, Silo, & Foundation. Putting these three together for a reason, which is that they all felt like they blurred together for me. Let me explain: After gaining access to Apple TV+ this year, I knew that Severance was going to be one of their first shows that I was going to binge. I like a lot of the cast, and the sci-fi premise already sounded fascinating from the tons of posts I kept seeing on social media about it. And I clearly know myself, because immediately after the first episode, I couldn’t stop. While I was still in the middle of Severance, my brother insisted that I check out both Silo and Foundation, both of which are incredible stories adapted from sci-fi books. So, once Severance was finished, I moved right on to Silo, and then all three seasons of Foundation after that. Each one is quite the adventure, so if any of them sound appealing to you, I do urge you to check them out! I also wrote more about these shows and Apple TV+ overall in this post from the Ghost Archives.
- Daredevil: Born Again. Technically speaking, this series “began” with the Daredevil series on Netflix years ago, but Disney and Marvel rebooted the series to bring it to their “proper” Marvel universe timeline, and its first season was released earlier this year. It still maintains its much darker and violent premise, and Charlie Cox (Matt Murdock/Daredevil), Vincent D’Onofrio (Wilson Fisk/Kingpin), and Jon Bernthal (Frank Castle/The Punisher) still star. It’s a must-watch for fellow Marvel fans!
And I’ll once again give an honorable mention to Marvel with the Ironheart series. Even though it was hugely delayed, only gave us six episodes, and it didn’t receive nearly as much pomp and circumstance as most of the other Marvel properties, it was still a highly entertaining watch for a few hours!
I’ll likely close out this year by finishing up Stranger Things and the second season of Fallout.
Music — Oops, All Throwbacks!
If it wasn’t actually released in the 1980s, then it probably sounds like it did!
According to my Spotify Wrapped recap, my most-played song was “Friday I’m in Love” by The Cure. And while that track was released on their 1992 album Wish, a lot of the band’s popularity and most of their gothic rock and new wave sound were straight out of the ’80s. Several songs in my recap were also from The Midnight—a modern-day band with a retro synthwave sound. You can visualize their inclusion on the soundtracks to every popular ’80s film you can think of.
Jumping back out of the decade I was born in, the rest of my favorite tracks are also tracks that I’ve been jamming to forever. Some selections I’d like to share include:
- “Ain’t It Fun” by Paramore
- “Elevate” by St. Lucia
- “TRUSTFALL” by P!nk
- “Karma” by Taylor Swift
- “Fix You” by Coldplay
- “In the Meantime” by Spacehog
- “Special” by Lizzo
- “What It Sounds Like” by HUNTR/X (EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI)
I know, I know… My favorite song from KPop Demon Hunters wasn’t the massively popular “Golden.” I love that song too, but it’s the closing number for me. Why? Because there’s something beautiful in the moment when you finally meet the real you.
I also resurrected No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom album this year. I don’t know why, but that album is just the sound of the ’90s to me. Probably because of “Don’t Speak” topping charts for an incredible 16 weeks back in 1996. That song was ubiquitous, and I can’t say that I don’t understand—easily one of the absolute greatest rock breakup songs.
Oh, and since it’s the holiday season, check my Spotify playlist for my favorite holiday tunes!
Gaming — Return to the Grind
Around this time last year, I stepped back into Palia because I needed something simple, cozy, and had that holiday flair. It served me well. According to my Steam Replay 2025 recap, I spent 52% of my gaming time in Palia this year. I recognize that it is a good amount, especially for a game that is still extremely underdeveloped, but there’s a lot of reasons why I kept going back to that one. I think it’s because the devs did a lot of work to make it feel very ”homey.” Plus, they’ve added a whole bunch of updates throughout 2025 that expanded the game considerably. You can also read a little more about Palia in this post that also appeared in my Ghost Archives.
The other games that I dabbled with this year have something in common with Palia: There’s a lot of grind. My current favorite game at the moment, Enshrouded, as well as Guild Wars 2, the MMO that I’ve decided to return to, all feature what gamers call a “grind.” They all include doing menial tasks as part of the built-in progression system. Mining, foraging, farming, ranching, crafting, etc., are all such tasks. Oftentimes, these games have daily or weekly quests that are very grindy, and once you do them, you earn rewards! If it sounds like work, that’s because sometimes it feels like it! But only in the most fun way possible.
I think it speaks to where I’m at in life right now, honestly. Having trouble finding meaningful employment throughout the last year has me so troubled that I’m looking for work in my entertainment, right? That’s one theory anyway. Sometimes I also just find it a little bit comforting or therapeutic to just sign on and go mindlessly till my garden, bust open some rocks, or can a bunch of pumpkin puree to go sell to the cartoon villagers, okay? Yes, I am an adult, stop judging me!
In any event, those are the three games I’ve been spending the majority of my time on, though I’m always open and willing to dabble in other types of games. If you’d like to come hang out with me sometime while I’m gaming, be sure to check out my livestreams on Twitch! I also try to post entertaining clips from those streams to TikTok and YouTube Shorts, so feel free to enjoy those also!
In Conclusion — Life is Lifin’
Not a lot changed for me overall in 2025. Even my coding and programming courses sorta did a reset. freeCodeCamp retired the Responsive Web Design certification that I earned at the beginning of the year, so I essentially started over with their full-stack course instead, only for them to break it up into modular pieces once more. Sigh. It’s fine… Running through all the HTML and CSS lessons has been a good review, and they’ve added quite a little more to their labs, workshops, and instructional pieces than they had before, so I’m still learning. I’m just very eager to start getting into courses for things that I don’t know anything about so far.
This year, I also started planning out my days. Which sounds weird, because it isn’t like I do a whole lot without a job or a big social life, but I try to stay busy most days. I did finally settle on Obsidian when it comes to a digital notebook, but I’m also keeping the old-school pen and paper agenda. I love when things are in the virtual space where I spend most of my time anyway, but there’s something about physically writing things down and taking notes that helps things stick to my brain a little bit better. I’m not too disciplined yet and sometimes have low-energy days where I do not manage to get everything accomplished that I set for myself, but I think the point is that I’m making an effort and trying every single day. Life is what you make it, you know?
Anyway, if you’ve read this far, I appreciate you big time and hope you have the loveliest of holiday seasons with a few of my recommendations found here. And I beg you to tell me: What were your favorites this year??