We’re doing something a little different over the next two weeks. We’ll still give you the latest news. But at the top, we’ll be sharing some of our favorite reads of the year or giving you some cool end-of-2025 stuff. We hope you enjoy the chance to slow down a bit.
At the end of December, I love to curl up with the books, movies, music and other pieces of pop culture that I didn’t have time for earlier in the year. My colleague Melissa Kirsch, a deputy editor for culture and lifestyle coverage and a featured writer for The Morning newsletter, is your guide to catching up on 2025’s best art and entertainment.
The season to binge on culture
By Melissa Kirsch
As we skate toward the end of the year, one could be forgiven for getting caught up in the whirl of the season: the rituals and celebrations, the loose ends in need of tying up. But it seems essential to pause and bask in 2025’s bounty of movies, books, shows, music and other culture. There’s so much to be done, yes, but there’s also so much to take in, whether it’s on a movie night with a gathering of good people or just you, happily absorbed in a perfect novel on a perfect afternoon.
The Times has you well covered with amazing best-of lists, but consuming all that culture could keep you busy until next December. I sometimes think I would love a personal concierge who knows my tastes and history, and who could design a play-watch-read-listen list that’s just right for me. Then I realize that’s the promise of algorithms and artificial intelligence. Efficient? Perhaps.
But I think the best discoveries come from grazing on culture omnivorously and serendipitously — an unexpected, improbable recommendation that somehow proves to be right up your street. My culture critic colleagues have narrowed things down for us. They have assembled the menus. Now, we feast.
Let’s begin with movies. The logical way to approach the lists from our film critics Manohla Dargis and Alissa Wilkinson is to cross-reference them and start with the movies that appear on both. (Or at least that’s what I do.) Those are “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow,” “It Was Just an Accident” and “Marty Supreme.” I’ve seen them all except “It Was Just an Accident,” which follows a group of former Iranian political prisoners. If you were to take in all or some of these this week, streaming or in the theater, I can’t think of a more thrilling way to pass some leisure time.
Speaking of time, as the final page of the calendar flutters away, you may have a lot or just a little of it to spend reading books. Glacially slow readers like me need to be especially choosy. If going straight to the 100 Notables or 10 Best seems daunting, try this pared-down list of books that made a big on impact on our critics. I’m very deep into the 638-page novel “The Sisters” by the Swedish writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri. After I finish, if I ever finish, I’ll move on to “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” by Kiran Desai, which Alexandra Jacobs deemed “not so much a novel as a marvel.”
Jen Szalai says she’s “telling everyone to read” “A Flower Traveled in My Blood” by Haley Cohen Gilliland. It’s about the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, who have seen searching for decades for their grandchildren, born in captivity during Argentina’s military dictatorship. I like that kind of recommendation — “this thing is so good it’ll appeal to everybody” — so I’ll do a Desai/Gilliland fiction/nonfiction pairing. (Check out the rest of the Book Review staff’s hidden gems of 2025 for another fun curated list. I tend to like the books Liz Egan and Sadie Stein recommend, so I’m moving “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans and Helen Garner’s “The Season” up my to-read list.)
For music, go straight to The Amplifier’s collections on Spotify or Apple Music and hit play. Lindsay Zoladz has assembled a five-hour, 90-track playlist of highlights chosen by her and her fellow critic Jon Caramanica. (Their top albums are here.) Of their picks, I’m partial to Bad Bunny and Geese. I’ve also been listening to the soundtrack from the heartbreaking documentary “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley.”
I’ve stuck to the conventional genres here, but I love nothing more than an unconventional, idiosyncratic list. Here’s one, from the readers of The Morning newsletter, of their highly specific, idiosyncratic favorites of the year. (Among my picks: the Last Word cocktail; cutting back my leggy, overgrown plants; and seeing Christian Marclay’s “The Clock” at MoMA.)
Up for more? Don’t miss Jason Zinoman on the best comedy of the year. Also transporting: the best places to visit, best poetry, most memorable wines and a glorious, genre-nonspecific list of 41 things our culture staff couldn’t stop thinking about. And 2026 is but a few days away, with an abundance of cultural phenomena waiting to be unleashed. Get busy! We have no time left to waste.
MORE TOP NEWS
Zelensky meets with Trump in Florida
President Trump offered an uncertain forecast as his talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine began at Mar-a-Lago, saying that the war with Russia would either “end” or “go on for a long time.” Ahead of the meeting, Trump spoke by phone with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and said he would call him afterward as well.
A day earlier, Russia pounded Kyiv for nearly 10 hours with hundreds of drones and missiles, killing two people and wounding at least 32 others, according to local authorities.
OTHER NEWS
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In the middle of a ruinous civil war, Myanmar’s ruling military junta is holding parliamentary elections that are widely seen as a sham, with opposition figures barred or jailed.
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Thailand and Cambodia on Saturday agreed to a 72-hour cease-fire, potentially paving the way for an end to a deadly 20-day border war.
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Trump said the targets of U.S. airstrikes in Nigeria were Islamic State terrorists who were killing Christians, but analysts say the situation is more complicated.
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Israel became the first nation to formally recognize Somaliland — an autonomous region that broke away from Somalia — drawing rebukes from some neighboring countries.
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Overlapping agendas on oil, drugs and immigration drove the U.S. toward a militarized confrontation with Venezuela, according to current and former U.S. officials.
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Brigitte Bardot, the French actress who became a world-famous sex symbol in the 1950s, died at 91. Later in life, she gained notoriety for her political views, which many saw as racist.
MORNING READ
The Ariana Cinema in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, bore witness to the country’s modern history, from the cosmopolitan vibrancy of the 1960s to the repression that followed two Taliban takeovers. Though it had remained closed since 2021 — save for the occasional propaganda movie — it stood as a landmark in the city’s center, a reminder of art, culture and pleasure for many Afghans.
This month, the theater was razed to make way for a $3.5 million shopping mall. The destruction is an indication of the ideological and economic priorities of the Taliban, which are desperate for new sources of funding because of Western sanctions. Read more about the cinema’s history.
AROUND THE WORLD
What the rich are eating … in Madagascar
Endangered lemurs, the charismatic primates known for their large eyes and fluffy tails, face a growing threat in their native Madagascar: rich city dwellers who love to eat them.
Madagascar outlawed lemur hunting more than 60 years ago, but the practice has endured. The animals are showing up on dinner plates, served with rice and a side, as far as 120 miles from their home forests. Some say that the meat from fruit-eating lemur species tastes sweet, and that consuming the primates promotes strength and good health.
A recent assessment said more than 10,000 lemurs had been killed and consumed over the last four years. Read more.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Guess: Take this quiz to see if you can recognize some of the defining personalities of 2025.
Learn: Couples who’ve been married for decades share what helped them weather life’s challenges.
Listen: In a world filled with digital distractions, these podcasts will help you rekindle a love for reading.
Browse: Here are the most inspiring homes that T Magazine visited in 2025.
RECIPE
Chow chow is a piquant pickled relish that is widely believed to be a descendant of English piccalilli. In Trinidad and Tobago, it’s a staple during the holiday season, typically made by soaking fruits and vegetables like Chinese long beans and green papaya overnight in a salty-sweet brine. This quicker stovetop adaptation adds canned pineapple to bring sweetness and heft to an assertive mustard base.
WHERE IS THIS?
Where are these sheep?
TIME TO PLAY
Here are today’s Spelling Bee, Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.
You’re done for today. See you tomorrow! — Katrin
We welcome your feedback. Send us your suggestions at [email protected].
Katrin Bennhold is the host of The World, the flagship global newsletter of The New York Times.
The post The Best of Culture appeared first on New York Times.
