{"id":213423,"date":"2025-12-31T16:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T16:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/213423\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T16:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T16:46:08","slug":"20-maddening-and-5-alright-news-stories-from-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/213423\/","title":{"rendered":"20 maddening (and 5 alright) news stories from 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>2025 will probably not be remembered as one of as one of our best years ever. We began with devastating fires in Los Angeles County and watched a right-ward shift in the government bleed into most areas of pop culture and media. It was a long year, an exhausting year, the kind of year where at the end it\u2019s hard to believe Anora winning Best Picture or the premiere of A Minecraft Movie happened within the past 12 months. 2016 and 2020 were years that became memes because they felt so awful at the time; that hasn\u2019t happened with 2025. Instead, 2025 has felt more maddening and unbelievable, at least from where we\u2019re sitting. To try to make sense of it, we\u2019ve put together some of the biggest events of the year to remember together. <\/p>\n<p>First, and most importantly: The Eaton and Palisades wildfires that both started in Los Angeles County in January of 2025 were two of the deadliest such fires in California history, killing 30 people during a one-month run through the southern portion of the state. They were also massively destructive, doing something like $20 billion in damages, with those impacted ranging from huge numbers of California\u2019s homeless population all the way up to a number of big-name celebrities, many of whom had their homes burnt to the ground by the raging fires. The destruction, taking place as it did close to the heart of the entertainment industry, had numerous knock-on effects even beyond the horrifying costs to human life, some of them directly impacting the pop-culture world. That included everything from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/fireaid-lineup-billie-eilish-lady-gaga-green-day-dave-matthews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">numerous benefit concerts, running under the FireAid name<\/a>, to the total disruption of 2025\u2019s carefully set awards show schedule, as meticulously planned dreams of Hollywood hobnobbing ran directly into the hard realities of how much of the area was left in ruins by the fires. [William Hughes]<\/p>\n<p>You wouldn\u2019t know it now, after Anora practically ran the table, but there was a moment when Emilia P\u00e9rez and its lead actress Karla Sof\u00eda Gasc\u00f3n seemed to be the frontrunners at the 2025 Oscars. Then came social media and its habit of preserving every tasteless, ill-considered, and downright racist comment from those who tweet them. And unfortunately for her, Gasc\u00f3n tweeted a lot of them. After accusing fans of her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/karla-sofia-gascon-fernanda-torres-oscar-campaign\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fellow nominee Fernanda Torres<\/a> of concocting some elaborate hate campaign against her, journalist Sarah Hagi did just the slightest bit of digging and found a trove of hateful tweets from Gasc\u00f3n. After the tweets, which included nasty comments about the then-recently-murdered George Floyd, were discovered, Gasc\u00f3n continued to make it worse, suggesting there was a conspiracy to tank her campaign. Though finding public social media posts hardly takes a conspiracy, Gasc\u00f3n\u2019s Oscar campaign was, in fact, tanked. [Drew Gillis]\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mike White tried his darnedest to give The White Lotus\u2019 third season some juicy water-cooler moments, ranging from Carrie Coon monologue to Parker Posey\u2019s accent to incest. Still, he couldn\u2019t keep the ensemble from giving everybody things to talk about outside the show\u2019s storylines. Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood faced their fair share of this, as did Jason Isaacs, who couldn\u2019t help but ignite headlines with his statements. Sick of being asked whether he wore a prosthetic penis in one of the episodes, he called it a \u201cdouble standard.\u201d He specifically named young female actors like Anora\u2018s Mikey Madison and The Substance\u2019s Margaret Qualley, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2025\/tv\/news\/jason-isaacs-penis-white-lotus-nude-scene-1236337961\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">saying<\/a>, \u201cno one would dream about asking them about their genitalia.\u201d Um, is he new to the business? Has he not seen how many times women are continually, unabashedly, excessively asked about their bodies, or has that been the topic of discussion? Anyway, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/jason-isaacs-white-lotus-double-standard-nudity-comment\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">made an apology<\/a>, so we can all stop thinking about his penis now and forever. [Saloni Gajjar]\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not like the international megacorporations were on the side of the people before 2025, but the second Trump inauguration brought out the worst in so many of them. Nowhere was this more obvious than at Paramount, which spent most of its year trying to complete mergers by bowing to the current presidential administration. Trump returned to office with a bone to pick with 60 Minutes; the result was an effective overhaul of CBS News, with right-wing opinion columnist Bari Weiss put in charge of one of the United States\u2019 most venerable journalistic institutions. The company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/paramount-trump-settlement\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sent Trump $16 million<\/a> to make the lawsuit go away and eliminated its one-time Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives in the process of getting FCC approval. The company placed Bari Weiss, formerly an opinion columnist for The New York Times and the founder of The Free Press, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/60-minutes-cecot-bari-weiss\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in charge of CBS News<\/a>, and the ramifications of that probably won\u2019t be fully clear for some time. Then, it turned its lasers toward Warner Bros. Discovery, attempting to make an even bigger media conglomerate and control yet another major mainstream news source. Despite WB deciding to go with Netflix\u2019s offer instead, Paramount is not ready to say die, potentially setting the table for another whole year of these shenanigans. [DG]<\/p>\n<p>There was a time when you couldn\u2019t open social media or be on the internet without being bombarded by unsolicited updates on the Blake Lively versus Justin Baldoni debacle. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/it-ends-with-us-review\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">It Ends With Us<\/a> co-stars have been under media and public scrutiny ever since rumors surface of behind-the-scenes issues while shooting the movie. After the Gossip Girl star officially filed a sexual harassment complaint <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/blake-lively-lawsuit-justin-baldoni\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">against her co-star\/director<\/a> in late 2024, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/justin-baldoni-sues-ryan-reynolds-blake-lively\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Baldoni sued<\/a> Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for $400 million in early January. This kickstarted a long year of very public legal battling between both parties\u2014and a trial awaits in 2026. If you\u2019re wondering why TikTokers are suddenly law experts (just kidding), now you know. And we can\u2019t talk about the year in lawsuits without Trump, who launched a number of them against the media as an obvious intimidation tactic, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/trump-sues-bbc-10-billion\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the BBC<\/a>, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/paramount-trump-settlement\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Paramount<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/youtube-settles-trump-lawsuit\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> setting, because bending over backwards for him probably felt like the most convenient option. [SG]\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Before we get to everything bad that happened, it\u2019s worth noting that Warner Bros. Pictures had a very good year at the movies. Considering the studio\u2019s 2024, which saw underperforming blockbusters and Oscar hopefuls Furiosa and Joker: Folie \u00c0 Deux pushing the studio toward collapse, WB rebounded with a murderer\u2019s row of hits, including the year\u2019s biggest domestic grosser, A Minecraft Movie. Since installing Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy as the co-CEOs of Warner Bros. Pictures, their filmmaker-and-originality-first edict has led to an unprecedented run of success, topping the box office eight times and making an ungodly amount of money along the way. But more than money, it made real movies worth seeing in the theater, like Sinners and One Battle After Another. The studio successfully launched a new cinematic universe and gave audiences a Superman worth cheering for. It balanced franchise installments like Final Destination: Bloodlines with bold, original nightmares like Weapons, movies that people continued to discuss long after the grosses came out, which gave a bump to the recently, perpetually rebranded HBO Max. No wonder everyone wants to buy it all of a sudden. [Matt Schimkowitz]<\/p>\n<p>Marvel\u2019s post-Endgame run of movies could be considered shaky at best and disastrous at worst. 2025 didn\u2019t help things. In a year designed to be a soft reset, Marvel missed the mark where it mattered most: Making new star characters. The massive investment in getting fans on board with Sam Wilson, who had a whole TV show devoted to him taking the shield, had been for naught as Captain America: Brave New World opened to some of the worst reviews in MCU history. Others fared better, but not much. The pretty good Thunderbolts overperformed for a movie about a bunch of side characters. But the most significant failure was Fantastic Four: First Steps, Marvel\u2019s biggest hit of the year, which had none of the staying power or fan enthusiasm of last year\u2019s Deadpool &amp; Wolverine. All of it seemed like a non-starter after Marvel announced the massive cast of Avengers: Doomsday via a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/avengers-doomsday-cast-announcement\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">comically lengthy chair-back reveal<\/a>, signaling to viewers that their old favorites were returning to the fold. Heading into 2026, it\u2019s all on the Avengers to right a ship that has long since passed. [MS]<\/p>\n<p>If there has been one specter hanging, like six extra thumbs jammed haphazardly into a hand that doesn\u2019t quite connect at the wrist, over the world of entertainment in 2025, it has been that of artificial intelligence. It\u2019s not just that the fights over generative AI over the last 12 months seemed to open up new fronts every single day\u2014from the bizarre spectacle of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/ai-actress-agent-tilly-norwood\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">supposed \u201cAI actress\u201d Tilly Norwood<\/a>, to controversies rocking even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/clair-obscur-genai-iga-awards-rescinded\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the most critically lauded corners of the video game world<\/a>, to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/disney-openai-partnership-google\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Disney\u2019s last-minute decision to plant a big, multi-mouthed kiss on OpenAI\u2019s cheek<\/a>\u2014but that absolutely none of them seem to be in any danger of being resolved. Although authors have eked out a few wins in court cases over the tech types who allegedly stole their works en masse to feed into their digital woodchippers, and groups like SAG-AFTRA have pledged to fight AI encroachment wherever they can, the Trump White House has not only declined to regulate the multi-billion dollar industry, but actively worked to stop states from doing so themselves. The whole thing has left 2025 as a year of transition for artificial intelligence\u2014but whether that transition winds up being into the glorious technological future that the billionaire class keeps promising, or the total financial collapse that every single other tech bubble like this has inevitably produced when those same billionaires\u2019 bullshit runs out, remains, at least ostensibly, to be seen. [WH]<\/p>\n<p>9. The Octagon comes to the White House<\/p>\n<p>The re-election of Donald Trump was obviously going to unleash the horrors of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and state-sanctioned violence at home and abroad. That\u2019s what he ran on. But by flooding the zone with shit, the MAGA movement found new cultural lows to represent the country at large. Among them is the gender-affirming care of the country\u2019s loneliest men through his partnerships with the UFC. Now we live in a reality where the Rose Garden has been paved to make room for the Octagon as the Trump White House welcomes UFC as part of the country\u2019s 250th birthday Donald Trump\u2019s 80th birthday celebration. Taxpayers struggling to get by in Trump\u2019s economy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.themmadraw.com\/p\/whos-paying-for-the-ufc-white-house\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">will now be footing the bill<\/a> to bring UFC to the White House lawn, where supposedly 5,000 people will be able to see a couple of guys beat the shit out of each other. This is what 49.8% of the U.S. electorate voted for. [MS]<\/p>\n<p>10. Tech and media companies abandon DEI<\/p>\n<p>There are a lot of letter groupings that Donald Trump seems to have a serious problem with\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/pbs-dei-closure-trump-executive-order\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PBS<\/a>, mRNA, and N-O all come immediately to mind\u2014but none seem to set the man off more aggressively than D, E, and I. That is, diversity, equity, and inclusion, with initiatives promoting these pretty basic principles quickly becoming one of the first targets that the second Trump administration began venting its spleen all over, even before formally moving back into the White House in January. Besides feeding the brain worms of people who believe they\u2019re only a few enthusiastic whining sessions away from transforming American into a perfect meritocracy, Trump\u2019s anti-DEI moves gave tech and other companies an early and clear opportunity for boot-licking, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/amazon-studios-dei-initiative-rollback\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Amazon<\/a>, AT&amp;T, Boeing, Google, IBM, Meta, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/fcc-launches-disney-dei-investigation\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Disney<\/a>, and many others got in early to strip DEI language from their corporate presentations, wipe away mandates to diversify their hiring pools, and generally roll over and show their tummies when it came to the White House\u2019s latest pet gripe. [WH]<\/p>\n<p>11. The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences doesn\u2019t stick up for Hamdan Ballal<\/p>\n<p>The Palestinian documentary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/no-other-land-years-most-vital-political-documentary-palestine-distribution\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">No Other Land<\/a> won an Oscar on March 2. In the same month, co-director Hamdan Ballal was attacked and detained by Israeli settlers. And yet, the Academy\u2019s statement\u2014released only after Ballal\u2019s colleague, Yuval Abraham, called them out for their silence\u2014read in part, \u201cThe Academy condemns harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints.\u201d They didn\u2019t even name Ballal in this vague, HR memo-type release that refused to directly support one of their own. It was upsetting, but not exactly shocking behavior considering how many institutions are averse to condemning Israel\u2019s genocidal actions. It wasn\u2019t until there was an outcry from other members, including Mark Ruffalo and Penelope Cruz, that the Academy\u2019s Bill Kramer and Janet Yang gave another statement that more openly talked about Ballal\u2019s situation. It\u2019s good that bullying works when it\u2019s for the right reasons, but should it really take that much? [SG]\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>12. The Riyadh Comedy Festival breaks a lot of comedian brains<\/p>\n<p>If 2025 was the year it became impossible to ignore how many so-called comedians were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/2025-comedians-trashed-manosphere-defended-comedy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">carrying water for authoritarian governments<\/a>, the Riyadh Comedy Festival revealed how many of them couldn\u2019t stand being called out for it. Though the festival and its lineup\u2014which included names like Aziz Ansari, Hannibal Buress, Bill Burr, and Pete Davidson\u2014received plenty of side-eyes from the moment it was announced, it was comedian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/riyadh-comedy-festival-atsuko-okatsuka-zach-woods\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atsuko Okatsuka sharing the festival\u2019s contract<\/a> that really dialed up the backlash. Suddenly, comedians who purportedly cared about free speech were willing to self-censor their acts for a check. Though it was perhaps less surprising to see the more manosphere-adjacent comedians sell out, some of the performers certainly disappointed a good chunk of their fanbases by doing so. At least comedians like Burr and Whitney Cummings heard that criticism and\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/bill-burr-responds-riyadh-comedy-festival-backlash\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pissed and moaned<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/whitney-cummings-riyadh-comedy-festival-critics-racist\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">called their critics racist<\/a>. [DG]\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>13. The Saturday Night Live\u00a0overhaul that wasn\u2019t<\/p>\n<p>When Saturday Night Live makes its cuts and collects its new cast members, it usually does so definitively, the news arriving in flurries of hiring and firing notices that demonstrate Lorne Michaels\u2019 still-tight control over his TV baby. The show\u2019s supposed 51st-season overhaul\u2014long expected, after Michaels notably held off on major changes ahead of 2025\u2019s big 50th anniversary blowout\u2014didn\u2019t go quite like that. Sure, the new crop of comedians (stand-ups Tommy Brennan and Kam Patterson, online comedy presences Jeremy Culhane and Veronika Slowikowska, and internal hire Ben Marshall) all make a certain kind of sense. But the slow trickle of departures has come off as simply messy, as an initial slate of obvious layoffs (Devon Walker, Emil Wakim, Michael Longfellow) was followed by news that vets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/heidi-gardner-leaving-snl-8-seasons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Heidi Gardner<\/a>, and then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/saturday-night-live-ego-nwodim-exit-season-51\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ego Nwodim<\/a>, were both leaving the show. (Also, no more Please Don\u2019t Destroy.) The final blow didn\u2019t even land until just a few weeks ago, when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/bowen-yang-saturday-night-live-exit\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it was revealed that Bowen Yang<\/a>\u2014the one undeniable star SNL has generated for itself in the last several years\u2014was making a rare mid-season departure. Aren\u2019t overhauls supposed to leave something standing in their wake? [WH]<\/p>\n<p>14. CBS cancels Colbert<\/p>\n<p>2025 was a tumultuous year for the normally stolid, Jimmy-heavy world of late-night talk television, with the real drama <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/stephen-colbert-canceled-2026-cbs-financial-deicision\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">kicking off in July<\/a>, when Stephen Colbert told his audience that CBS was canceling his Late Show at the end of its current season. News that Colbert would be going off the air in the spring of 2026 quickly offered up a Rorschach test for fans and enemies alike: Was this the death knell for late-night talk generally, with CBS swearing the order was \u201cpurely a financial decision\u201d in response to rising costs and fading revenues? Or a harbinger of things to come, arriving as it did just a week after Colbert heavily criticized Paramount ownership for settling its lawsuit with the Trump administration in order to pave the way for Skydance Media\u2019s purchase of the company? The move\u2014which would ultimately get overshadowed by an even more dramatic late-night shutdown two months later\u2014provoked widespread commentary from both Colbert and his peers, with predecessor David Letterman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/dave-letterman-attacks-gutless-cbs-colbert-cancellation\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dubbing the act<\/a> one of \u201cpure cowardice\u201d by his former bosses at CBS. [WH]<\/p>\n<p>15. Everyone wants to buy Warner Bros.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the fall of 2025, hot off of firing Stephen Colbert and cozying up to the White House by hiring Bari Weiss to destroy CBS, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison triggered a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD CEO David Zaslav was already in the midst of preparing the studio for sale, planning to split the company into two parts: one for movie studio (WB Studios) and streaming operations (HBO and HBO Max), and another for its cable television holdings (TNT, TBS, Discovery, etc). But Ellison\u2019s overture supercharged efforts, forcing the studio to market well ahead of schedule. By the end of the year, Netflix had seemingly won the bakeoff when WB accepted the $86 billion offer that many believe seals the fate of theatrical distribution for Hollywood\u2019s oldest studio. Meanwhile, Paramount, with the help of CEO David Ellison\u2019s father, Larry, the President\u2019s son-in-law, and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, began attempting hostile takeovers, offering ludicrous deals that reached $108 billion. Ultimately, it\u2019s an Alien Vs. Predator situation: Whoever wins, we lose. [MS]<\/p>\n<p>16. Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s Charlie Kirk monologue gets him suspended<\/p>\n<p>The murder of political activist Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025 sent shockwaves spreading through all walks of American life\u2014and entertainment wasn\u2019t spared the tides of backlash and retaliation that swiftly followed the Turning Point USA founder\u2019s death. After a week or so of unrest, much of that disorder seemed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/jimmy-kimmel-abc-pulled-indefinitely-charlie-kirk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">find a lightning rod in ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel<\/a>, who peppered one of his usual weeknight monologues with a typically on-brand mixture of jokes mocking Republicans for trying to capitalize on the killing, and a few ill-judged comments suggesting they might be trying to deflect from the shooter\u2019s real motivations. Kimmel\u2019s monologue was less notable for its content than for the reaction it provoked: Condemnation from both Donald Trump and FCC head Brendan Carr, who made pointed comments suggesting that wise ABC affiliates (i.e., ones who didn\u2019t want to face his organization\u2019s ire) should voice their unhappiness with Kimmel\u2019s speech, too. When the two biggest affiliate owners in the country, Sinclair and Nexstar, dutifully complied in the form of paired boycotts, ABC owner Disney blinked, suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live! from its airwaves. The suspension only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/jimmy-kimmel-live-returns-suspension-disney-abc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lasted about a week<\/a> as Hollywood quickly balked at such an overt display of authoritarian wishful thinking. But the precedent it set has loomed large over the industry\u2019s fractured relationship with the current administration ever since. [WH]<\/p>\n<p>17. Donald Trump remakes the Kennedy Center in his image<\/p>\n<p>Before 2025, most of us probably thought about the Kennedy Center a few times a year at most, and maybe tuned in for the Kennedy Center Honors held in December. Even Donald Trump hardly seemed to think about it during his first term, declining to attend any of the Honors events. But with Trump 2.0, the national cultural center has become a fixation and a near-constant fixture in the news. Early in the year, Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/trump-fires-kennedy-center-board-names-himself-chairman\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fired much of the organization\u2019s board<\/a> and replaced them with his own picks who then voted him in as chairman; other artists involved with the center, like Ben Folds and Shonda Rhimes, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/ben-folds-shonda-rhimes-resign-kennedy-center-trump-takeover\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">resigned in protest not long after<\/a>. There was also the obsession with putting the Trump name on various elements of the Kennedy Center as it was a bankrupt hotel or golf course. The summer saw an attempt to have a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/republicans-melania-trump-kennedy-center-opera-house\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Melania Trump Opera House<\/a> while in December Trump did <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/donald-trump-kennedy-center-rename\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">add his name<\/a> to one of the buildings in the complex. The saga also ended 2025 in typical Trumpian fashion: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/trump-kennedy-center-suing-artists\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">with a lawsuit<\/a>. [DG]<\/p>\n<p>18. Comedy\u2019s cinematic comeback remained (mostly) stalled<\/p>\n<p>For one reason or another (box office troubles, media consolidation, an overreliance on blockbuster tentpoles), 2025 seemed like a make-or-break year for studio comedies. As such, critics and moviegoers placed undue pressure on otherwise affable and lightweight comedies that couldn\u2019t really measure up to expectations. It\u2019s already hard enough to make people laugh; now comedies have to do so in a way that justifies their very existence. Yet, time and again, audiences said, \u201cYes, we would like to laugh at the funny people.\u201d The Naked Gun and Friendship both produced substantial box-office returns relative to their budgets. Despite the negative reviews, many seem to think Netflix left millions on the table by keeping its Happy Gilmore 2 on its streaming service, where it became the studio\u2019s biggest hit of the year. But even way back in January, Keke Palmer and SZA powered the throwback rent-is-due comedy One Of Them Days to the top of the box office. Sadly, as long as studios expect every movie to gross half a billion dollars, the comedy will forever be in short supply. [MS]<\/p>\n<p>19. Tariffs mess with the Switch 2 (and everything else) <\/p>\n<p>When Nintendo <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/nintendo-switch-2-preview-game-theory\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rolled out<\/a> its big, shiny new Switch 2 video game console in April of 2025, it had to do so with the embarrassment of a big political asterisk hovering over things: tariffs. And not just the regular brand of relatively stable duties, but the Trump White House\u2019s chaotic, ever-shifting mixture of punitive and hypothetically lucrative added costs, which caused serious headaches for any business trying to set price points in the middle part of 2025. After some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/trump-tariffs-halt-u-s-switch-2-preorders\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">serious worries about pre-orders<\/a>, Nintendo and its fellow tech giants eventually settled on stable, if hefty, prices, with the Switch 2 retailing for $450 at launch. But the uncertainty imposed by Trump\u2019s yo-yoing tariff rates added an uneasiness to a digital entertainment industry already reeling from rising development costs, increasing focus on serious labor issues, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/grand-theft-auto-vi-delayed-to-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the sudden delay<\/a> of big tentpole games like the now-2026-set Grand Theft Auto VI. [WH]<\/p>\n<p>20. Difficult-to-process celebrity deaths<\/p>\n<p>As bad as any year is, it can always get worse. Such was the case in 2025. This year, we lost <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/val-kilmer-tombstone-doc-holliday-supporting-star\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Val Kilmer<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/david-lynch-death-earnestness-blinding-light-love\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Lynch<\/a>, Diane Keaton, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/gene-hackman-heart-darkness-unforgiven-no-way-out-superman-ii\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gene Hackman<\/a>, Rob Reiner, and many, more more. Even the \u201cexpected\u201d deaths of elderly artists or those who succumbed to illness were nevertheless difficult to believe. Lynch\u2019s January death would turn out to be caused by the one-two punch of COVID and the Los Angeles wildfires, which inflamed his severe emphysema. It was also a harbinger of bad news for the rest of the year. The following month, 94-year-old Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead in their New Mexico home. She died of a respiratory illness, and Hackman, suffering from Alzheimer\u2019s disease, died several days later from severe heart disease. In October, Diane Keaton died suddenly, followed closely by the devastating murder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/rob-reiner-dies-rip\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rob Reiner<\/a> and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, who were allegedly killed by their son Nick. The deaths of public figures always affect the public, but this year\u2019s string of horrific and seemingly preventable tragedies was especially challenging. [MS]<\/p>\n<p>1. Vince Gilligan returns to TV<\/p>\n<p>Vince Gilligan has been a TV staple for a long time now, going all the way back to X-Files and, of course, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (which he co-created with Peter Gould). So it\u2019s a good thing we didn\u2019t have to wait too long for another TV brainchild of his.\u00a0 Three years after BCS\u2018 end, Gilligan teamed up with star Rhea Seehorn for a mind and genre-bending sci-fi thriller, Pluribus. As Carol Sturka navigated the apocalypse alone, with a hive mind ready to serve her until they turn her, it was a pleasure to get lost in the beautiful world that Gilligan dreamed up. What can we say? Simply put, it\u2019s just nice to have a smart, visually pleasant, thought-provoking, well-acted, and innovative series that captures everyone\u2019s attention. A great way to cap off an already pretty <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/best-tv-shows-2025-pluribus-the-pitt-task\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">good year for TV<\/a>, if you ask us. [SG]\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>2. Beyonc\u00e9 finally wins Album Of The Year\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For a while, it seemed like Beyonc\u00e9 was destined to be the Charlie Brown to the Grammy Awards\u2019 Lucy. Okay, that\u2019s certainly an overstatement\u2014she is literally the most-awarded artist in Grammy history\u2014but when it comes to the night\u2019s biggest award, Album Of The Year, Beyonc\u00e9 has long been the bridesmaid, not the bride. With her fifth nomination, Beyonc\u00e9 finally cinched the trophy she\u2019d long been chasing, doing it with her country music pivot Cowboy Carter. (The night also saw her become the first Black woman to win the Grammy for Best Country Album.) Sure, award shows don\u2019t really matter, and true, you\u2019d be hard-pressed to find many Beyonc\u00e9 fans who really consider Cowboy Carter to be the standout album in a discography that also includes Beyonc\u00e9, Lemonade, and Renaissance. But in 2025, we\u2019ll take a win where we can get it, even vicariously through a very wealthy pop star. [DG]<\/p>\n<p>3. Kendrick immolates Drake at the Super Bowl\u00a0<br \/>\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1859206419\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1859206419\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/MixCollage-30-Dec-2025-10-34-AM-407.jpg\" alt=\"Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show (Photo: Gregory Shamus\/Getty Images)\" width=\"744\" height=\"400\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1859206419\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kendrick Lamar at the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show (Photo: Gregory Shamus\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>While 2026\u2019s Super Bowl halftime show promises to be an entry into a very stupid, never-ending culture war, 2025\u2019s was just the site of some fun interpersonal conflict. Just one week after winning five Grammys for his Drake diss, Kendrick Lamar brought \u201cNot Like Us\u201d to perhaps the biggest stage in the United States. Though Lamar did avoid saying the word \u201cpedophile,\u201d perhaps to avoid a lawsuit, the second-most vicious lyric in the song still made it into the telecast, along with Lamar staring down the barrel of the camera to grin and say \u201cHey, Drake.\u201d Yes, there was more to the performance than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/drake-kendrick-lamar-trolling-hiphop-battle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the beef with Drake<\/a>\u2014Samuel L. Jackson made an especially memorable appearance, playing Uncle Sam as a pseudo-MC\u2014but it was certainly designed to be the part we\u2019d pay a lot of attention to. Drake made sure of that, too. In a year where the star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/drake-not-like-us-kendrick-lamar-umg-lawsuit\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">committed to being a sore loser<\/a>, Lamar was more than willing to model winning. [Drew Gillis]\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>4. Ryan Coogler\u2019s Sinners deal\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>At the start of the year, things weren\u2019t looking so good for Warner Bros. Oscar-winner Bong Joon-ho\u2019s ambitious sci-fi satire Mickey 17 failed to ignite the box office, and according to some analysts, that spelled doom for the studio\u2019s other original genre play, director Ryan Coogler\u2019s vampire epic, Sinners, which, like Mickey, WB paid a fortune for. Analysts tugged their collars at the idea of director Ryan Coogler\u2019s $100 million budget, first-dollar gross, final cut, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/ryan-cooglers-sinners-deal-hollywood-freaking-out\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ownership of the movie in 25 years<\/a>. How could an artist, who had produced some of the biggest, most artful and memorable studio films of the last decade, demand such compensation? That\u2019s to say nothing of the multi-format release strategy that required an explainer video from Coogler himself. All that worry was for naught; the movie became one of the year\u2019s most successful, a genuine event that prompted near-immediate re-releases and sustained Oscar buzz. Audiences and critics loved Sinners, and the film kickstarted the studio\u2019s surprising and successful 2025. [MS]<\/p>\n<p>5. Some movies got so popular that they had to be shown in theaters<\/p>\n<p>For all the doom-and-gloom about the box office in 2025, one truth has shone through: When people are genuinely excited to see a movie, they want to see it in a movie theater. Even a company like Netflix\u2014whose co-CEO Ted Sarandos <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/ted-sarandos-netflix-movie-theaters-outdated\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">obnoxiously claimed this year that movie theaters were \u201coutdated\u201d<\/a>\u2014couldn\u2019t deny the power of the communal movie-going experience, consenting to let critical winners and crowd pleasers like Frankenstein, Wake Up Dead Man, and, most notably, mega-hit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/box-office-august-24-2025-kpop-demon-hunters-netflix-weapons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">KPop Demon Hunters<\/a> play on the big screen for a few scant weeks of collective joy. At the same time, audiences were able to manifest wider releases for the films they genuinely cared about, whether that came in the form of more theaters for Ben Leonberg\u2019s canine horror flick Good Boy after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/good-boy-viral-trailer-wider-release-ifc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">its trailer tore its way across social media<\/a>, or the successful campaign to get Ryan Coogler\u2019s Sinners shown in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the small, theater-less town where it\u2019s set. Beyond the deals and franchise plans and what will, inevitably, be another million or so consolidations and mergers over the next few years, audiences clung to one idea in 2025: Movies are better when we watch them together. [WH]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2025 will probably not be remembered as one of as one of our best years ever. We began&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-213423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}