The art that meant the most to us this year
This year, we read books about trauma and time loops, listened to music about the ends of marriages and spiritual awakenings, watched television about medical emergencies and diplomatic ones, and found new films to love in the form of modern fables and stories of father-daughter bonds. These are the works of art that moved us, consoled us, and surprised us, curated by the passerby team and our community.
Please enjoy the best of what we’ve read, watched, and listened to this year and stay tuned for our highlights from the year at passerby, which we'll be sharing with our newsletter subscribers on Friday.
best films of 2025
1. one battle after another dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
recommended by Molly Surno, Naomi Titti, Jill Singer, Lane Florsheim, Rachel Tashjian, Kristi Garced, Paola Sakr, Charlotte Forsyth, Casey Eastwell, and @becks_d
A loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest follows an erstwhile revolutionary searching for his missing daughter. It’s by turns thrilling, funny, and thoughtful. Rachel Tashjian said, “It made me feel so hopeful about the future, which is the craziest thing you could ask of a film in 2025. And I love to see Teyana Taylor getting the big audience she deserves.”
2. sentimental value dir. Joachim Trier
recommended by Lane Florsheim, Rebecca Boorstin, Fiorella Valdesolo, Fariha Róisín, Ting Shuen, and @becks_d
Trier’s follow-up to The Worst Person in the World (one of our best films of 2022) is a sensitive, haunted look at the challenges of making art out of one’s life — and the challenges of a life making art. It’s anchored by emotionally-nuanced performances by Stellan Skarsgard and Renate Reinsve as a father and daughter navigating a fraught relationship.
Not currently available to stream. NYC showtimes here.
3. It was just an accident dir. Jafar Panahi
recommended by Porochista Khakpour, Mina Juhn, Gisue Hariri, and Bella Barkett
Panahi’s first movie since his 2023 release from prison, shot covertly to avoid government censorship, It Was Just an Accident is a powerful and surprisingly funny moral fable about contemporary Iran, a story about the meaning of justice, the morality of revenge, and the memories of trauma. Porochista Khakpour said, “it was perfection. I am a huge Panahi fan and it's one of my favorites.”
4. sinners dir. ryan coogler
recommended by Latasha Wright, Lane Florsheim, Rebecca Boorstin, and Kristi Garced
Coogler’s Southern Gothic genre mash-up set in the Jim Crow era is a lush, action-packed epic anchored by Michael B. Jordan’s performances as a pair of suave twins. Rich in symbolism and story, it’s entertaining from the beginning to the end of its 2-hour+ runtime.
5. bugonia by yorgos lanthimos
recommended by Rebecca Boorstin, Emma Ramos, Kristi Garced, and Ting Shuen
A conspiracy theorist kidnaps a girllboss CEO, believing her her to be an alien bent on destroying the world in Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest film. Lanthimos uses this setup as a compelling way to explore political, environmental, and social anxieties, but the movie is ultimately about the performances: Lanthimos regular Emma Stone’s uncanny unflappability, Jessie Plemons’ practiced paranoia, and newcomer Aidan Delbis’s tender vulnerability.
Not currently available to stream. NYC showtimes here.
More of our favorite films include:
Sorry, Baby dir. Eva Victor (recommended by Iris Diane Palma, Clémence Polès Farhang, and Lizzie Racklin)
Below the Clouds dir. Gianfranco Rosi (recommended by Clémence Polès Farhang and @festivegrave)
Urchin dir. Harris Dickinson (recommended by Marlowe Granados and Iris Diane Palma)
Black Bag dir. Steven Soderbergh (recommended by Lane Florsheim and Rebekah Peppler)
Eddington dir. Ari Aster (recommended by Kathleen Sorbara and Mina Juhn)
For even more, our founder Clémence Polès Farhang, has published her favorite films of 2025 on her tumblr.
best books of 2025
1. an archive of love vol. ii by middle east archive
recommended by Dalia Al-Dujaili and Sunny Shokrae
In light of heartbreaking recent events across the Middle East and North Africa, this photo book is a record of love through the lens of loss, a work of collective mourning and an avowal that remembrance is a life-affirming act of resistance.
Read An Archive of Love vol. II
2. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
recommended by Amil Niazi and Rebekah Peppler
Spanning continents and years, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a love story, but much more than that — a story about India and America, family traditions and modern mores. It is a lush and lyrical novel to get lost in, full of memorable characters.
Read The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
3. Audition by katie kitamura
recommended by Rebekah Peppler and Stephanie Mannatt danler
Over lunch, an actress and a man who could be her son upend our understandings of the roles people play. The novel revolves around the tense, thrilling dynamic between these two, and what it reveals about power, performance, and the gap between who we are and the face we show to others.
Read Audition
4. on the calculation of volume (book iii) by solvej balle, trans. Sophia hersi smith & jennifer russell
recommended by Emilia Petrarca and meghan racklin
This year saw the publication of the third volume in this seven-volume series of novels about a woman trapped in a single day, a Groundhod Day-like premise that belies the series’ meditative style, philosophical depth, and, as the books progress, its increasing political urgency. Emilia Petrarca called the series “hypnotic and perfect for vacation.”
Read On the Calculation of Volume (Book III)
5. trauma plot by jamie hood
recommended by marlowe granados and meghan racklin
Written by passerby Jamie Hood, this memoir is an inventive, experimental work of personal and literary criticism about sexual violence. It is also a remarkable testament to Hood’s transmutation of trauma into art. Hood is a poet as well as a memoirist and critic, and it comes through in the language of this remarkable book. As Marlowe Granados put it, “the only thing I can describe it as is the word astonishing.”
Read Trauma Plot
More of our favorite books include:
This Is Your Mother by Erika J. Simpson (recommended by Roya Shariat and Fiorella Valdesolo)
LIQUID: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani (recommended by Porochista Khakpour)
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (recommended by Rachel Seville Tashjian)
Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu (recommended by Nicolaia Rips)
Perfection by Vincenzo Latricono, trans. Sophie Hughes (recommended by Mina Juhn)
best albums of 2025
1. lux by rosalía
recommended by Porochista Khakpour, Clémence Polès Farhang, Emilia Petrarca, @charlotteboates, Rebecca Boorstin, Emma Ramos, Fiorella Valdesolo, Charlotte Forsyth, Rebekah Peppler, Stephanie Mannatt danler, Dorothée Meilichzon, Michaela Kotob, and Imán Benét Lewis
With maybe the most recommendations an entry on one of our year-end lists has ever gotten, Rosalía’s soaring, ambitious avant-garde pop riffs on classical composition and classic themes to create something unlike anything else out right now. As Imán Benét Lewis told us, “Listening to it feels like taking in oxygen after years of holding your breath. In an era where so much music feels engineered to satisfy algorithms and fleeting trends, Rosalía transcends those metrics entirely. She offers us something devotional, something timeless.”
Listen to LUX
2. Essex Honey by blood orange
recommended by Clémence Polès Farhang, Dalia Al-Dujaili, @charlotteboates, Naomi Titti, Jo Rosenthal, and Mina Juhn
Dev Hynes’ first full-length album as Blood Honey since 2019, Essex Honey sees the musician journey home, reflecting on the past and his mother’s death. It’s a lovely, moving album, Hynes’ beautiful voice joined by interludes of field recordings, harmonica, and frequent guest vocalists (ranging from Lorde to Zadie Smith).
Listen to Essex Honey
3. west end girl by lily allen
recommended by Rebecca Boorstin, Nicolaia Rips, Fariha Róisín, and Casey Eastwell
On West End Girl, Allen records the breakdown of her marriage with an almost documentary precision. Allen’s trademark ironic wit is sharpened to a cutting edge here, but as much as this is a revenge album, it’s also an emotionally raw testament to what it feels like to be hurt. This is an album that earns a place among the best of the recent divorce memoirs.
Listen to West End Girl
5. Debí Tirar Más Fotos by Bad Bunny
recommended by Rebecca Boorstin, Rebekah Peppler, Bella Barkett, and Dorothée Meilichzon
In his fifth album in six years, Bad Bunny creates an intergenerational sound, layering influences from decades of Puerto Rican music, from salsa to Latin pop. The songs are, as ever, contagiously catchy, but this is also an album deeply rooted in Puerto Rican history and sensitive to its modern-day conditions, from the glut of tourists to the potholes on the roads.
Listen to Debí Tirar Más Fotos
5. addison by addison rae
recommended by Porochista Khakpour, Danya Issawi, Rebecca Boorstin, and Marlowe Granados
Addison Rae’s debut album is also her emergence as a fully-fleged pop star, which a tracklist full of glamour-girl hits in the same lineage as Britney, Lana, and Madonna. Marlowe Granados told us, “I love how studied she is. To me, she gives a reincarnated Ziegfeld Follies girl.”
Listen to Addison
More of our favorite albums include:
Everybody Scream by Florence + The Machine (recommended by Iris Diane Palma, Lindsey Tramuta, and @ally)
Getting Killed by Geese (recommended by Kathleen Sorbara, @ally, and Iris Diane Palma)
Belly Up by Moin (recommended by Clémence Polès Farhang and Sarah Brown)
Man’s Best Friend by Sabrina Carpenter (recommended by Marlowe Granados and Jill Singer)
Deadbeat by Tame Impala (recommended by Michaela Kotob and Ting Shuen)
For even more, our founder, Clémence Polès Farhang, has published her favorite albums of 2025 on her tumblr.
best television of 2025
1. the rehearsal (hbo)
recommended by Clémence Polès Farhang, Sunny Shokrae, Lane Florsheim, and Ting Shuen
It’s hard to replicate surprise, but in this show’s second season, creator and star Nathan Fielder managed to create something stranger and somehow more surprising than the show’s already sui generis first season. In transforming the first season’s conceit — rehearsing social situations ahead of time to master social anxiety — into a gambit to reform the aviation industry, Fielder has pulled off a remarkable feat (and we don’t just mean the part where he flies a 737 himself).
2. The Pitt (hbo)
recommended by Clémence Polès Farhang, Jill Singer, Kathleen Sorbara, and Fiorella Valdesolo
Following the emergency room staff at a Pittsburgh hospital in real time over the course of one shift, The Pitt feels like both a return to beloved television form and a new take on an old standby. The show’s format enables it to make clear exactly how challenging it is to work in an emergency room, the crucible through which so many of the policy failures of the United States make their way every day. As Jill Singer put it, it’s “harrowing but perfect.” It is also an ensemble drama full of stellar performances from Noah Wyle, Sepideh Moafi, Katherine LaNassa, and many more.
3. severance (apple tv)
recommended by Sunny Shokrae, Jill Singer, Lane Florsheim, Rebecca Boorstin, claire rousay, Rebekah Peppler, and Ting Shuen
In its long-awaited second Severance remains a sharp satire of corporate culture, from the obfuscations of corporate-speak to the dubious proposition that your workplace is a family, but expands the surreal world of the show to new, ever-stranger reaches. This season featured standout performances from Tramell Tillman and Dichen Lachman, in addition to the strong main cast. As the show’s puzzle-box mystery continues to unfurl, it has narrowed its central focus to the all-important question of the nature of human consciousness.
Available to stream on Apple TV
4. hacks (hbo)
recommended by Rebecca Boorstin, Fiorella Valdesolo, Charlotte Forsyth, and Rebekah Peppler
Season 4 is what Hacks was always building towards: jean Smart’s Deborah Vance is finally the host of her own late-night talk show, alongside Hannah Einbinder’s head writer, Ava Daniels. What this season asks, though, is: what if all you ever wanted is not what you thought it would be? The complex power dynamic — a couldn’t-quite-call-it-a-mentorship, not-exactly-a-friendship — between Smart and Einbinder remains the hard heart of the show, and the writing is as funny as ever.
5. the diplomat (netflix)
recommended by Clémence Polès Farhang, Jill Singer, and Rebekah Peppler
As the titular American diplomat in London, Keri Russel anchors this political thriller, supported by an excellent supporting cast including Rufus Sewell, Allison Janney, and, this season, Bradley Whitford as Janney’s husband (the show’s creator was a writer on The West Wing). On The Diplomat, the political intrigue and the personal are both high-stakes, surprising, and exceedingly well-written.
Available to stream on Netflix
More of our favorite shows include:
The Studio (recommended by Jill Singer, Rebekah Peppler, and Stephanie Mannatt Danler)
Dying for Sex (recommended by Jill Singer, Charlotte Forsyth, and Sunny Shokrae)
Slow Horses (recommended by Lindsey Tramuta, Charlotte Forsyth, and Rebekah Peppler)
Adolescence (recommended by Sunny Shokrae and Charlotte Forsyth)
Andor (recommended by Emilia Petrarca and Lane Florsheim)