Internet Video
Best of 2025
Welcome to my Best of 2025.
I was born in 1985.
I was 10 years old in 1995.
I was 20 in 2005.
I was 30 in 2015.
I was 40 in 2025.
It’s interesting to think of each year. Well, I can’t think much about 1985. I don’t remember much of it. Or any of it.
At 10 years old? That was when I was playing Final Fantasy III non stop and then got Chrono Trigger for Christmas. Pretty important year for me.
2005 was also an important year. First year I was living on my own and moved away from my hometown. I still remember a lot of 2005. It’s one of those important years where I was doing so much despite being broke. So many friendships, experiences, all of that, shaped in that year.
2015 was a pretty great year as well, holding my Mimosa Club with friends and going to Detroit and getting blasted in the afternoon. I attempted a beard (bad idea) and was really changing who I was as a person politically.
So what was 2025?
I got back into hockey in a big way. Back in 2021 I talked about how I thought the game of NHL hockey was at its best but I just wasn’t feeling it as a Montreal Canadiens fan. The PK Subban trade, letting Andrei Markov go to Russia instead of finishing his career in Montreal, all these decisions made me lose my love of the Habs. 2024-25 and 2025-26 have me right back to where I used to be in being extremely passionate about the team. I watch essentially every game now. Not only that? I’ll watch it over pro wrestling. There’s been some Wednesday hockey games where I’d usually be focused on AEW Dynamite and instead Dynamite is on mute for the Habs game.
I talked more of my personal life here so I won’t get into much. The best of 2025 is more about entertainment. The big thing when it comes to entertainment is I think I focused more on wrestling and hockey and let everything else fall to the side. I didn’t watch too many TV shows. I really fell behind on watching movies. I didn’t have too many videogames I was excited about. This will be a pretty thin list.
I’m hoping in 2026 I can change that. I’m trying to watch 3-5 movies a month and find a TV show to get into. Maybe I’ll get back into reading. I did read two books last year! One of which was that Gravity Falls Book of Bill. Probably shouldn’t count but I’m counting it.
Anyway here we go!
Best of 2025: Song
I talked about it when recapping my December Sweatdown 2K25 but having Nine Inch Nails with my number one song in 2025 just felt wrong. I’ve literally spent my life fighting being that guy who listens to AC/DC well into his 40s when it’s all he listened to in his 30s 20s and teens and I was feeling like making a Nine Inch Nails song, a band I’ve listened to since the 90s, as my number one song in 2025? It was me becoming that guy.
Of course, I’m not that guy. You can see on my honourable mentions and my album of the year. I’m not only listening to the music of my youth. My sweatdown playlists are not just full of the stuff I was listening to in high school. Or even in college.
The reality of it is that Nine Inch Nails came back for a Disney movie and made one of the best songs in years. Honestly it might be their most mainstream and catchy song in 20 years. You can go right back to “The Hand That Feeds” for the last time they made a song that appeals to the fans and appeals to those outside the fanbase.
I’m really curious to see if they can keep that energy on the next album.
Honourable Mention:
Wired by Kanadia
Typical Ways by Culture Wars
Day Drinking by Pink Skies
Best of 2025: Album
I’ve been a fan of Kanadia for a few years now. I think they are one of the best bands out there today. I’ve loved their music since I heard “Holes” and “Where’s Your Friends/Wild” from a few years back. Would see them if they ever came near my area, though right now they seem to only be playing in the UK.
“The Fire That’s Tearing Through Our Home” could be a classic rock album in any decade going back to the 1990s. The musicianship is impeccable, while also recognizing that you can’t make everything perfect. There’s change ups and zags when you thought they’d zig all throughout the album. The song from the album that seems to have caught on with people is “Going Nowhere” which isn’t close to my favourite song on the album. That’s how deep it goes.
If you somehow don’t have the time to listen to a 50 minute album (you’re not actually busy you just have so much compartmentalized in your head you can’t balance your time anymore) I would suggest checking out “Wired” which is my favourite song, “How Do You Sleep”, “The Ways”, “Going Nowhere” and “Slide Off the Earth”
Honourable Mention:
Snipe Hunter by Tyler Childers
My first Tyler Childers experience was hearing “House Fire” at a country bar. It was a better song than anything else that played that night. I then found “Feathered Indians” and fell in love with it the way everyone has. I’ve liked his stuff since but “Snipe Hunter” is definitely my favourite album Childers has released since. I like that “Nose on the Grindstone” is apparently a song he’s been working on for years and has released before but now he’s officially got it here on an album that makes sense for it. “Eatin’ Big Time” is my favourite on the record but I also love “Bitin’ List”
A lot of my friends are becoming country music people and while I’ll never entirely go down that road? I love country when it’s like this.
Let God Sort Em Out by Clipse
No song in 2025 made me cry like “The Birds Don’t Sing” it’s like an instant thing for me. It’s Cats in the Cradle level instant emotion from me. “Chains & Whips” was a great song, “So Be It”, “MTBTTF”, and “Let God Sort Em Out/Chandeliers” were all fantastic tracks. I honestly think Malice was the best rapper bar for bar in 2025. So many of his bars had me rewinding back to break down. Phenomenal production as well.
American Mood Ring by Pink Skies
Pink Skies made one of the best chill records of the year with several songs I would throw on just to relax and work on something or just chill in the sun. I’ll probably break it out again in 2026 with the summer, especially “Day Drinking”, “Twisters” and “Forever” Would love to see Pink Skies live.
Best of 2025: Film
I’m telling you. I had One Battle After Another as my lock for movie of the year to the point when I made the graphic for this in December I for sure put them up there. But on New Years Eve I watched Sinners with my friend Erik and it took the top spot.
The fact it’s just one day? One crazy day? It put its teeth deep into my neck and wouldn’t let go. I also loved seeing Peter Dreimanis of July Talk just popping up in it to be a Klansmen who becomes a vampire.
It’s definitely a movie I’m excited to rewatch. So many incredible scenes. Tight as hell script too, as any time I said to myself, “But what about?” they’d tie the loose end later. Everything I thought about made sense in the end.
Incredible film.
Honourable Mention:
One Battle After Another
This is pretty much neck and neck movies but I give Sinners the slight advantage. One Battle After Another was incredible though, with some of the best comedic performances I’ve seen this decade. It has also led to some of the dumbest fucking arguments about movies on Twitter I’ve seen. Way too many people angry at the movie for not being the black revolutionary film they wanted in their head instead of the film being presented.
Best of 2025: Television
I enjoyed Mare of Easttown with Kate Winslet and that had me curious about this new show TASK with Mark Ruffalo. What I got I was one of the tightest television miniseries I’ve ever watched. I guess they are making a second season, but this could have ended here and be complete.
Here’s what made TASK great, and this might feel like a spoiler, or feel repetitive, but it’s an incredible way to do TV that I really haven’t seen enough shows do. The mid way point of every TASK episode? It felt like the end. It felt like okay, why are they doing this now? How can they even have a show after this? This is the culmination! This is what you show at least at the end of the episode, let alone the end of the series!
But then… something would go wrong. Very wrong. And that very wrong would carry the rest of the episode. It lets you know over and over how fragile plans and investigations are. How often everything is about to crumble or be completed, solved or escaped, only for something to go terribly wrong (or right) and then everything continues.
It had a fantastic cast as well, with performances that would irritate me but in a good way. I would become suspicious of these annoying characters, or these characters that acted a little off, and wonder if I’m being a good detective or just a misjudge of character. Ruffalo carries half the show but the other half is Tom Pelphrey, who I guess had significant roles in Ozark and Banshee but I didn’t get deep into those. It wasn’t until the end of the show I realized he was in Mank. There’s something about him which feels like Hollywood looks at the guy and just sees him as a Jon Bernthal replacement (you know how it goes. Can’t get Matt Damon? Call Mark Wahlberg. Can’t get Bernthal? Call Pelphrey) but I really hope he does more after this. His performance was genuinely powerful.
Honourable Mention:
Peacemaker Season 2
I enjoyed the season a lot, but I should also say that the last episode? Very disappointing. I hope it isn’t the end of the series.
The Righteous Gemstones Season 4
The final season of Righteous Gemstones did a great job telling you the history of the family and the way it has all culminated into a history of betrayal and the lies being their survival. Baby Billy doing a naked jetski was just hilarious. Great turn by Sean William Scott as well, even though seeing him looking old (Stiffler is almost 50!) was a bitter reminder for me that time stands for nobody.
Best of 2025: Internet
If you asked me what my favourite piece of cinema was, my favourite moving picture? It’s Pipe Rock Theory. I’ve watched it so many times. I’ve showed people like it was my pet rock. I was shocked getting to the end of the year that it even came out in 2025. I felt like Pipe Rock Theory was in my life for years.
It’s such a wonderful satire on vertical TikTok conspiracy theory videos, on those shitty pedophile hunters who ruin actual pedophile investigations, and goes right into an absurd Eyes Wide Shut “rich person creeper party” which gets invaded. I love it so much. It’s everything wrong in 2025 wrapped into a hilarious video.
Honourable Mention:
What Makes This Song Stink Ep. 9 – MGK & Jelly Roll “Lonely Road” by Pat Finnerty
Pat Finnerty once again doing a great video breaking down interpolation and gave us a new concept. Pat already in the past gave us scum bag chords and now he has gifted us with “the fuckin’ songs”
It’s so perfect. We all know it but we just needed a name. “The fuckin’ songs”
Back to a Website by Homestar Runner
Gotta have Homestar Runner on the list when we get new Homestar Runner and this one is near and dear to my heart. A plea to go back to websites. Yes please.
Why Movies Just Don’t Feel Real Anymore by Like Stories of Old
LSOO have made some of my favourite video essays on films but this one breaks down something that, similar to Pat Finnerty’s “The fuckin’ songs” is something we’ve just felt but never been able to put our fingers on. It gets beyond just digital versus film in a way I have been waiting for someone to tackle. Definitely give it a watch.
Best of 2025: Videogame
Yeah yeah. I get it. This is lazy as hell. Am I actually putting a videogame I first played in 1995 on my best of for 2025? Am I trying to be Dunkey with Super Mario Bros. 2? Why not just put Final Fantasy VI in my honourable mention since I played that too!
But I’m putting Chrono Trigger here because in replaying it for the 30th anniversary, it was interesting. I always say I put it right next to FFVI/FFIII as the best game I’ve ever played. There isn’t a one/two to it because both are equal in how important great they are for me. Everything else fights for number two. And often I will talk at great length about FFVI to the point where people wonder why I don’t just say that’s my number one and Chrono Trigger is my number two. Sometimes I wonder that myself.
Then I’m replaying it and it’s just… everything I wanted in a JRPG in 2025, just like it was in 1995, and any year in between. It isn’t grind heavy. It isn’t tactics heavy. I’m not having to do a thousand fetch quests. The characters are unique and fleshed out and it’s easy to get favourites. Nothing feels like a drag. Nothing feels forced. I have only died once in my replay and it was at the mother brain because I had a bad character setup. I can’t wait to have the time to switch it up and play again.
Not just everything I want in a JRPG but pretty much everything I want in a videogame? Chrono Trigger isn’t too hard, isn’t too easy, isn’t heavy in any way, but also doesn’t feel like they skimmed. It’s tight, it’s everything you could ask for, and it’s why I’m so sensitive at the idea of anyone trying to remake it or add to it. It’s a perfect videogame. I might have more to say about other things, but nothing lights me up like Chrono Trigger. It is truly timeless.
Honourable Mention:
Final Fantasy III (SNES)
Yeah I fucking did it you can’t stop me
Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles (Switch, Switch 2)
Another Final Fantasy game? This one was at least a newer release, but it’s a new release of a game released in North America back in 1998. I got it when it came out (I got the Switch physical version then upgraded to the Switch 2 version) and I played the hell out of it until I got to the Wiegraf solo battle. Which I definitely beat once upon a time on a playstation emulator back in the 2000s, but back then I was probably in school or unemployed and had the time to do all the little things you gotta do to beat him. I tried it twice in November, got blown out both times, and haven’t touched the game since. Will I get back to it? Maybe. I might write something longer about how games should just… let me skip battles like that.
Mario Kart World (Switch 2)
I don’t know how I exactly feel yet about Mario Kart World. I got my Nintendo Switch 2 early because I was worried the price would go up in the future. It’s already way too expensive. Like I’ve considered buying a Switch 2 controller for it but it’s over $100 here in Canada. The only Switch 2 game I got is Mario Kart World, and I’ve played it a lot, but I don’t know how I feel about it yet.
There’s a lot I like about it, I like the rail riding and I like some of the power ups, and the whole open world to open up stuff is cool. There’s a lot I like about it? But I don’t love it the way I loved Mario Kart 8 or Mario Kart Wii or Mario Kart 64. Maybe I’ll unlock that feeling at some point but I’m just not there yet.
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Best of 2025: Wrestling Event
I am usually critical about AEW’s event looks as I think they sometimes rely too heavily on HD screens and don’t really do anything interesting with the layout. Having Double or Nothing begin during the day and eventually become dusk for the main event is one of the coolest ideas they’ve had for a set and I really hope this ends up the idea for all future Double or Nothing events.
Event look aside, the reason this ends up my best show is simply because it had the best wrestling. The main event was my favourite wrestling match of the year. The Anarchy in the Arena was a lot of fun. Speedball and Okada was great. Mina and Timeless Toni was great. FTR were perfect heels against Daniel Garcia and Nigel McGuinness. Mercedes Moné had a great match with Jamie Hayter. Even the trios match they sandwiched between the Anarchy in the Arena and the main event was strong.
The closest I had to disappointments were the Ricochet/Mark Briscoe match not being as good as their previous matches, and watching Hurt Syndicate against Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevara, which wasn’t a pay per view quality match. Everything else was my money’s worth, and the main event alone was good enough to make this an all time AEW classic show.
Honourable Mention:
All In Texas 2025
AEW and CMLL: Grand Slam Mexico
All Out 2025
Best of 2025: Wrestling Match
I did a rewatch on the match on Bluesky you can read here.
So why do I have this ahead of the Page versus Moxley match at All In Texas? That’s the match that was the best for most people.
For me it’s like this. The Texas Deathmatch? That was a big summer blockbuster. That had big spots, big explosions, big guest appearances, and the story was more about AEW as a whole. The match itself was good, very good, but it was more about the spectacle. It was a big money match at the stadium. And for all of that? It’s great for it.
Page and Ospreay is all about the wrestling in the ring. It’s two men with a contrast. Will Ospreay is obsessed with being the best at everything, but his advantage is his aerial ability. Adam Page is capable of fighting any style, but his advantage is his striking ability. Will Ospreay cannot accept that Page might be better than him at something. He has to prove himself. He has to be the best at everything.
The Redemption versus Ascension storyline is all built on this. Ospreay has to prove he’s better at Adam Page at everything in order to beat him. Adam Page just knows he needs to not beat himself. Everything he lost, all of his hate and fury in the past two years comes from beating himself. Allowing himself to lose his head. It’s very early on that AEW commentary pointed out that Ospreay was focused on the crowd and Page was focused on Will.
All throughout the match they cement this. Ospreay tries to get in striking battles with Page and loses. Ospreay’s aerial attacks often stun or damage Adam Page more than any of the striking Will executes. The two men are very evenly matched, but it’s that hubris that often costs Will Ospreay. It’s eventually Page’s own hubris that leads to Will Ospreay nearly winning when Page tries to pay tribute to Christopher Daniels.
When Will Ospreay loses his cool in the match it’s because he couldn’t beat Adam Page and thought he had him. When he loses his cool, he doesn’t go to his strengths. He tries to assault Page, and bring him to the floor. He’s again obsessed with proving he can be better than Page instead of just beating him. This time it gets him a Deadeye on the outside and leads to the finishing sequence.
The finishing sequence has Will Ospreay trying to channel Kenny Omega against Adam Page, only for Page to hit a Big Pressure and channel Swerve Strickland. The final sequence finishes the story told in the ring:
Buckshot attempt flipped into a Stormbreaker reversed into a blocked lariat, lariat, and Buckshot Lariat. 1 2 3. Yeah. Match of the year 2025. I still feel pretty set on that. The best story told in the ring in 2025.
— Aaron – GrapPro.com (@aaron.wrotkowski.ca) 2026-01-19T01:45:28.494Z
Adam Page didn’t have to be anyone else to beat Will Ospreay. He had to be himself and not beat himself in the process. Will Ospreay couldn’t beat Adam Page, not because Will Ospreay isn’t good enough, but because he thought he had to be better than Adam Page to do it. He couldn’t just be Will Ospreay. He had to be Will Ospreay, the better striker than Adam Page. He had to be Will Ospreay but better. AEW fans don’t want some evolved version of Will Ospreay. They love this version. Just like they loved Adam Page enough to turn him back into the man he is today.
That’s why it’s my favourite match of 2025. It told the story I loved the most.
Honourable Mention:
Adam Page versus Jon Moxley, AEW All In Texas
Saya Kamitami versus Tam Nakano, Stardom All-Star Grand Queendom
Mariah May versus Timeless Toni Storm, AEW Revolution 2025
Konosuke Takeshita versus Zack Sabre Jr., NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling 2025
Mistico versus MJF, CMLL 92 Aniversario
I’m going to try and look back on this at the end of the year. Did I watch enough movies? Did I watch enough matches outside of AEW? Did I play new videogames? Did I read enough books to make a list? Did my music tastes stay active without Spotify? In 2025, I definitely slacked. In 2026, I’m hoping less screen time for dumb shit. Of course, I’ll probably just watch 100 hockey games again and blow it.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Have a good day!