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It’s that time of year when we start arbitrarily listing our favourite things of the preceding 11 months.
The pages of the arts section will be filled in the next few weeks with our Best of 2025 lists (best movies on Dec. 24; best rock/pop, jazz and classical albums on Dec. 26; top local theatre moments on Dec. 27; staff picks for best TV shows, Dec. 29; 2025 pop culture roundup on Dec. 30).
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This Saturday’s Books pages are a one-stop shop for any literature lover on your shopping list (read the reviews online now), with our stable of reviewers providing their picks of the year in fiction and non-fiction. My personal choices were actor Jeff Hiller’s memoir Actress of a Certain Age for non-fiction and Caroline Palmer’s Workhorse — set in world of New York fashion magazines — for novel, although there were many others nipping at their heels; Chris Hayes’ The Sirens’ Song, about the attention economy, is the one I probably lectured from the most this year, and I enjoyed Russell Smith’s gen-Z satire Self-Care quite a bit.
And it was tough for me to narrow down my TV choices with so many fine contenders. Spy thriller Slow Horses remains brilliant in its fourth season and Netflix’s The Diplomat stepped up its already-high game in its third. I feel like Apple TV+’s Your Friends and Neighbors didn’t get enough love — honorary Winnipegger Jon Hamm is excellent as a disgraced money manager who turns to burglary to keep up his lifestyle.
And speaking of Hamm, he also turns up in another great 2025 show, Landman. I sometimes tire of the Taylor Sheridan formula of maverick men and spitfire women bucking trends to follow an old-fashioned, “more noble” way of life, but Billy Bob Thornton is so damn good as the weary landman of the title, and the details of life in the Texas oil patch feel grittily real.
My film consumption this year has been pretty dismal, but you can partly chalk that up to local theatres that treat new movies for grown-ups like they’re in the witness protection program.
A film fan would have had to be pretty on the ball to catch If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Sentimental Journey or Oscar winner I’m Still Here, which arrived under cover of darkness and departed a week or so later without fanfare. All this talk about how “nobody goes to movies anymore” is tough to take when, especially in Winnipeg, they’re not given a chance to reach an audience.
That said, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners was a standout for me, and I loved the thinky horror of Weapons (even if the ending went way over the top). I saw Hamnet this week and wept so much that the neck of my sweater filled with tears; if audibly sobbing in a theatre is your thing, I recommend.
What are some of your favourite reads or watches this year?
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