Recently my wife asked me: "What is the best media you enjoyed in 2025?"

To be clear, this means any book, music, movie, show, podcast, video, or anything else really that was created by another human that you witnessed.

And it was a tough question. Partially because my memory is terrible, partially because so much media these days is "Okay". Not that there's anything wrong with "Okay" or even "Very Good." Certainly, I enjoy the comfort of another series of The Great British Bake-Off. But that doesn't quite muster the "Best Media" distinction.

Take the new Wicked movie. It was really well done. Excellent adaptation, great costumes, casting, singing, dancing. And when I came out of the theater I said "Well, that was certainly worth seeing once!"

(My typical movie rating system goes from "I will definitely be watching that again" to "Worth seeing once" to "Well that's two hours I'm never getting back again.")

And to be clear, I was blown away by the first Wicked in 2024! I wouldn't have seen the second if the first didn't have such a great setup. But the second didn't have quite the same punch.

Anyway, that's enough ado. The media that I enjoyed the most, that gave me the most to think about and discuss, was almost certainly the Freakonomics Radio podcast, particularly this episode about the US tax system featuring Jessica Reidl.

Runners up include

Got any favorites from 2025? Put them in the comments or reply on Bluesky!