My 7 favorite things of 2025

Hey now, welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber (me). All typos are intentional.

Well, hello there. How are you?

The annual tradition is back.

As with every year, my actual favorite moments from this year were the times I spent with family, friends, and loved ones. This is just a list of new “things” that stood out to me in 2025. I’m allowed to break this rule once.

The criteria: What made me feel glad to be alive in 2025?

In alphabetical order:

Video games had their A24 moment. I don’t love the game as much as my peers, but this was a necessary shot-in-the-arm of creativity. What wonderful music.

The Phoenician Scheme, One Battle After Another, The Naked Gun, Fackham Hall, Friendship, Hamnet, and Train Dreams all made me tear up. I’m not exaggerating, either. I can’t think of the last time I cried in a theater before 2025. In 2025, I did it at least nine times. For different reasons, of course. About half of these films made me laugh so hard that I couldn’t help myself; the others had moments that hit me so hard and unexpectedly. Some did both. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which ones are which. The business of Hollywood had one of its hardest years in 2025, while also making one of its strongest cases for why we care about films–and why we care about human-made and human-led art—in the first place. Roger Ebert famously said that going to the movie theater helps us daydream, and daydreams are vital to living. I agree. (Eddington didn’t make me cry, and I watched it at home on HBO, but I quite liked it. Since this is my movies category, I’m throwing it in here. I also didn’t like Sinners as much as I wanted to, but its stickiness and boldness are undeniable.)

What a year for all my teams. Injuries aside, this is the most fun I’ve had in years watching my Colts, Pacers, Fever, and, of course, Indiana Hoosiers. The Dodgers were fun, too.

A perfect show. Everything I wanted it to be.

I continue my slow descent into podcasts, and I finally got into what is now one of my new favorite shows of any medium. The ideal history program. It’s like a warm blanket. Each episode makes me feel like a more informed citizen of the world. I finally “got” it after listening to their mini-series on the life of Walt Disney.

My favorite song this year was MJ Lenderman covering “Dancing in the Club” by Nate Amos, who goes by the moniker This is Lorelei. The best part of seeing Cameron Winter live this year was his cover of Amos’s “Where’s Your Love Now?” And after listening to “I Can’t Fall” off the new album Amos released this year, I was finally won over. He really is the “it” songwriter right now. I’m excited for the rest of the music industry to catch up. If you wish that Jon Brion would make more solo albums, this is for you.

2025 was a hard year, navigating the LA fires, an intense surgery that had me bedridden for over a month, losing some friends, the (wonderful) stress of starting a new job after the (not wonderful) stress of freelancing full-time, getting my first case of vertigo and hurting my back, writers block, dealing with increasingly polarizing politics, and more. Everyone who reached out in support and everyone I leaned on throughout this year made it all worth it. Because of you, this hard year ended up being a good year. Thank you. I couldn’t do it without you.

And that’s it.

See you next year.

With love and all the other good things,

-b

Original OPE! logo by Claire Kuang. Words and cartoons by yours truly. Follow me on X, Bluesky, or Threads for song recommendations; I find all three silly. Follow me on Instagram for memes. All my views are my own and don’t reflect my clients and associated companies. Want to yell at me or tell me that I’m great? Here’s my website.

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