The Top Entertainment Experiences We Enjoyed Throughout the Year – That Came From New This Year.
With the arrival of December, it's customarily the season for lists. Many sources are already begun sharing their authoritative top lists for 2025. Meanwhile, social media feeds are flooded with individual listening habit summaries, featuring novel tools like a "musical age" that can expose some surprising insights about your song choices.
But, it's worth noting absolutely nothing wrong with stepping back away from the endless deluge of fresh content to discover several overlooked or renowned pieces from bygone decades. Thus, this article is dedicated to the best non-2025 culture our contributors saw, heard, devoured and experienced during the past year.
Movies
Fueled by an increasing passion for vintage movies through communities such as Letterboxd and well-loved audio shows, revival houses are experiencing a real resurgence. An exceptional viewing involved watching Jean-Pierre Melville's iconic film Le Samouraï, starring the effortlessly cool Alain Delon moving about the city on the big screen. Just as powerful was watching for the first time of the acclaimed director's The Lost Weekend, a picture which has gained a viewing bump following modern Academy Awards wins.
During a period that was notable for director Richard Linklater, a delightful revisit to his seminal movie Slacker was in order. This movie presents a trippy journey around 1990s Texas, featuring a cast of wonderfully strange yet jobless individuals. A film absolutely adored in one's younger days, the fear that its appeal might have faded proved groundless. It is still utterly captivating, crafting an environment one wants to step into. GM
Television
Amid a season dominated by a certain teen drama, a find was made with an older show from the UK: Jake's Progress, Alan Bleasdale's 1995 drama depicting a struggling Liverpool household grappling with a pyromaniac child. Even if decidedly from its period – with grand acting and an equally dramatic soundtrack – it is highly gripping and as with the rest of Bleasdale's work, it sidesteps predictable tropes choosing instead something perceptive and real.
Also, although earlier deep dives have covered the vast library of older non-fiction films to stream, a final late-2024 film warrants a spotlight: the documentary Ffa Coffi Pawb! Admittedly aired only eight days prior to the beginning of the new year, it provides a comprehensive and entertaining account of a independent, defiantly anti-commercial Welsh language music movement that bubbled up during the eighties. It also features the early days of artist Gruff Rhys. Vintage videos proves brilliant, featuring intimate concerts in small venues plus endearing childhood TV interviews. GM
Music
At times, the most unlikely sources uncover musical discoveries. Reading a piece from a record executive discussing the state of the scene introduced a great release from their formative years: Drunk's A Derby Spiritual (from the nineties), a lo-fi acoustic album that sits somewhere between the sounds of Bonnie Prince Billy and an iconic indie band. A stark fact about the economics of niche music emerged: this work apparently earned a mere amount from streaming since its release.
Elsewhere, the arrival from legendary African rockers Witch inspired a deep dive of their 70s output. Their eponymous record from that period is packed with excellent, bright, psych-tinged tunes. Additionally, the standout "needle drop" in cinema recently featured in a recent release, as Steely Dan's Dirty Work soundtracked an extremely intoxicated parent during an awkward appointment. Considering such a selection, my hypothetical "listening age" must certainly be stuck in a bygone decade. GM
Books
Lately finally provided the chance to delve into Self-Help, the seminal book of stories by American writer Lorrie Moore which established her critical acclaim. Sardonic, cutting and aggressively clever, {Moore's collection|the book|
