Much like last year, streaming made people wonder why they are going to cinemas anymore at all. Many streaming services, howver, flogged franchises like dead horses and it was a distrubing reminder a lot of their creativeity might have just

This felt like another year where streaming put Hollywood to shame, even with the added entertainment apocalypse of the Writer’s Strike being felt by both. Almost every movie out of Hollywood felt like a waste of two hours, but some interesting series made watching larger screens not a total waste.

Arts and culture-wise, moving out of Hong Kong and its better, if politically beleaguered, art scene quickly reduced interesting art and theatre to a nil with Singapore relocation in the bottom third of the year.

Movies

If I had to summarize I’d say the only good things I saw in 2025 were indie with the exception of Weapons.

Bring Her Back

Creepy and disturbing AF, this was a great movie that virtually no one I knew had heard of until I mentioned it. They did not forget it after watching. Highly recommended though some of the scenes will make your palms sweat watching it. Phenomenal indie production that should have gotten much more play and acclaim than it did. Pair with my 2024 reco Talk to Me and Weapons below if you want a scary, full night, triple bill.

Weapons

The only studio entry on this list, Weapons was uncanny and eerie in all the best ways. The idea was original, the horror a slow build with great payoffs and one of the more original scripts I’ve seen to come out of a major studio in a while. Really well cast as well with the excellent female lead from the series Ozark in it.

Wallace and Gromitt: Vengeance Most Fowl

Feathers McGraw is my new favourite supervillain. I defy you not to think the same after watching this.

Conclave

While I found the ending a slight let down, this… well, thriller about the selection of the next Pope was excellent and beautifully filmed. If you had told me a film about the Papacy would be on any movie list I’d ever made I would have called you crazy. Defintely worth the watch.

Flow

Hauntingly wistful animation without any speaking of a cat seeking higher ground in the face of a magical world that is flooding from rising waters. Surprisingly watchable and touching. Kinda really enjoyed it.

The Order

While it is hard to fathom how white supremacy manages to hold on in our 21st century, this film closely based on the true story of the supremacist organization building on “The Turner Diaries” (and where the term “The Day of the Rope” comes from) recruiting, fundraising, and performing terror acts in the 80s including the assassination of radio DJ Alan Berg. It has disturbing parallels with what we’ve seen rising in the US since the election of Trump. A cationary tale for our time that democracy is fragile without people defending its core tenets.

The Bad

So much stuff not to watch. I thought Sinners was over-rated and a terrible mess and do not understand why so many critics lauding it. Other terrible films were Novocaine, Until Dawn, The Gorge, Mickey17 (which butchered the book), in The Lost Lands, Den of Thieves, `and the nonsensical Captain America: Brave New World. Also, I personally feel that someone at Disney should be publically flogged for Moana 2.

Series

Continued to be rather good though feel the writing is on the wall for many streamers as they run out of books to adapt, and genuine originals seem to be slowing as the streamers start to focus on profits over capturing new viewers. Let’s see.

Andor S01-S02

Continuation from last year’s reco, While I felt the second season was not as good as the first, I was still impressed by the rawness and honesty of Andor and the hard choices made in terms of revbellion. Sharp, amazing writing in places and moral ambiguity everywhere, this was one of the only things on Disney+ worth watching as they continued to flog dead horse franchises and trot out yet another superhero show or other franchise spin off.

Creature Commandos

A strangely adult animation that was quirky and, at times, distrubing, but I’d recommend for its originality and storyline which flips between the forward story and the backstories (all sympathetic) of the anti-heros. Kinda good though sometimes peurile and immature at times which I felt detracted from the overall effect. Made me want another epic in the vein of Watchmen (both the original movie and the series that was cut short.).

Murderbot

Was quite a bit betetr than I thought it would be and easy watching with its episodes, all my friends loved this show of the robot that has gained free will in a dystopian coroporate future where it has overriden its behavioural regulator. Also, filmed where I grew up which made it weirdly resonant for me. =]

Dexter S01

OK, very late to the party on this one (and needed to apologize to a slightly serial killer-obsessed friend who recommended this to me earlier in the year) this was actaully surprisingly excellent about a serial killer that kills serial killers, hiding in plain sight as a forensic expert. Worth the watch even if, like me, you thought this would not be your thing.

Arcane

An nimation based on the Leaugue of Lengeds online gaming franchise, this was actualyl a great fisrt season and had amazing art in the second season though I felt the overarching story and ending were a rather large disappintment. Still, amazing artwork and a good story more using the game universe as a fanfic base rather than an advertisment for the game. Very watchable.

Other shows worth our time though they did not blow me away, were the long-awaited S02 of Severeance (whose ending kinda lacked the punch of S01), The Pitt (which EMT friends tell me is realistic but which seemed to be too much for 24 hours in an ER to me), The Lowdown which Ethan Hawke does kinda crush it at even though the story is a bit slow burning and meandering.

Other Series

The Last of Us also ended its S02 which had a second episode so traumatic it left me numb and my firend crying, but the rest of the season felt a little all over the map. Percy Jackson and the Olympians series was actaully not too bad (unlike the movies). The only thing I would recommend avoiding (and I have no idea why people like it so much) was I binged through all 3 seasons of The White Lotus with a friend (who did like it) and disliked every one of them. As with all things, YMMV. Also, and rather sadly, S03 of Invincible, whose S01 was amazing, seems to have lost the plot a bit so will most liekly not be watching it in the future.

Games

I don’t know why I keep failing at setting aside an evening to play games once a week. You’d think it’d be easy to goof off and let my mind go slack for a few hours every Monday, but for some reason I’ve utterly failed to keep this 2025 goal. Reset for 2026 (as I need insporation as I’d lilke to build and release an indie title as a stretch goal this year). So, sadly… only one game I can reocmmend as having played it through.

Darkest Dungeon

Moody, atomspeheric and, as the title suggests, dark, this title is a rogue-lite reverse. While you do gain things as you move through the dungeons and buff your characters, there’s a twist: your characters suffer from stress and disease which, if not treated or allowing them rest between adventures, will drive them insane or, even worse attack your own players. The issue is the more you buff up your characters, the more susceptible they are. And it’s horrifying to lose someone you’ve heavily invested in, utterly destroying the composition or anchor on future sorties.

So, while I found the gameplay a somewhat repetitive at times and the progresson of the overarching story a bit slow, the mechanic is great and makes the game challenging. Good game.

Theatre, Arts, Music, and Exhibits

Singapore sadly still sucks for all things arts, music, and museums compared to every other major city I’ve lived in (I suspect this is its focus on only proven, safe, and financially successful projects), so other than a quite decent violin recital I went to, all museums I visited were out of country and part of vacations and nothing really blew me away. I did see a James and Jamesy produciton called Oh Christmas Tea when I was back in Canada in December which was goofy, heavily British influenced, scripted improv fun and quite a bit more entertaining than I thought it would be going in (and the audience in the place I saw it, went nuts for it), but other than that live performance mention, 2025 was a bit dead on the live performances and museums front.

Fin

And that’s what was what in 2025.

I hope you found something interesting and useful in the above to add to your own lists (lemme know if you do).

If this post was useful to you, please lemme know via mail or elephant below. Feel free to @mention or ping me on @awws on mastodon or email me at hola@wakatara.com .