The relationships people have with scenes from Rob Reiner movies are not easy to create. You can market the heck out of a movie, you can pull all the levers you have, and you can capitalize on every advantage you can come up with. But you can't make anybody absorb "baby fishmouth" or "as you wish"; you can't make anybody say "these go to 11" every time they see the number 11 anywhere. You can't buy that for any amount of money. It's magical how much you can't; it's kind of beautiful how much you can't. Box office and streaming numbers might be phony or manipulated or fleeting, but when the thing hits, people attach to it or they don't.
It's that time of year: NPR's critics have compiled our favorite films and TV shows of 2025. The list includes festival favorites, box office hits and titles you may have missed entirely.
Here's a selection of movies and TV shows we loved.
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Movies
Sinners
With this swing-for-the-rafters achievement, Ryan Coogler reset the bar for himself even higher than he did with Black Panther. An original blockbuster set in the Jim Crow South, with Michael B. Jordan pulling double duty as twin hustlers and — oh, of course — culture-vulture vampires?! It’s a musical! It’s an action-horror film! It’s sexy! It’s rich with historical specificity! It’s gorgeous (in any ratio or format)! But most importantly: It all just works. — Aisha Harris
Peter Hujar's Day
Peter Hujar’s Day is a vibe — a film made for gray Sunday afternoons. It’s December 1974 in Manhattan. Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall), a writer, records her photographer friend, Hujar (Ben Whishaw), as he recounts the events (and nonevents) of the previous day. He smokes and drinks while talking about the prosaic things artists talk about all the time (like chasing down freelance payments). It’s a quiet film that offers a glimpse into our analog past, a place where the wallpaper is textured and the hi-fis are chunky. — Glen Weldon
Sorry, Baby
Director, writer and star Eva Victor delivers one of the best feature debuts of the year in this quiet drama about a college professor dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic on-campus experience. Victor is focused on much more than that experience, though: The film exhibits a frank, sometimes funny, and deep appreciation for the importance of close friendships and the restorative nature of receiving kindness when you need it most. — Aisha Harris
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
When a Zambian man dies, his large family gathers to take part in a customary dayslong act of mourning. But in life, the man did horrible things, and the elders’ ritual is too much to bear for three cousins bonded by their pain. Filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s surrealistic drama takes sharp aim at the culture of silence around sexual abuse and is anchored by stunning performances from Susan Chardy, Elizabeth Chisela and Esther Singini. — Aisha Harris
Television
The Pitt
A harrowing season of television about a harrowing shift at a Pittsburgh emergency department, The Pitt was sad, maddening, sometimes funny and deeply compassionate toward both staff and patients. It had a lot to say about America’s broken health care system and the way it torments everyone in different ways. The show and multiple actors, including hospital-show veteran Noah Wyle, won well-deserved Emmys. Expect the second season to be one of 2026’s most talked-about shows. — Linda Holmes
The Lowdown
Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo brought another Oklahoma story to life with this tale of a self-proclaimed “truthstorian” named Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) who does muckraking journalism from the back of a Tulsa bookstore. Hawke seems to understand this funny but tragic man perfectly, and the show is full of great supporting performances from Kyle MacLachlan, Jeanne Tripplehorn and especially Peter Dinklage, who shows up for one episode as Lee’s old friend and brings the story new depths. — Linda Holmes
The Residence
A whodunit set in the White House is a great idea, very well realized in this comic mystery about the murder of the building’s chief usher during a state dinner honoring Australia. Uzo Aduba plays the thoughtful, steel-trap-minded detective Cordelia Cupp, who is brilliant at solving mysteries, even though she’d rather be bird-watching. Funny and tense, it’s exactly what a story like this should be, and Aduba is perfectly suited (well, tweed-jacketed) to play a brilliant detective. — Linda Holmes
Long Story Short
Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s previous show BoJack Horseman was both hilarious and gut-punchingly sad, sometimes within a matter of seconds. His new animated comedy, which checks in on one Jewish family at various moments in time, is also hilarious — matriarch Naomi (Lisa Edelstein), for example, is a force of comedic nature. It’s sad too, though its approach is gentler and more wistful than BoJack’s — and as a result, it’s even more rewarding. — Glen Weldon
Murderbot
The best comedy of the year follows SecUnit (Alexander Skarsgård), a security android that secretly attains autonomy just before it’s assigned to protect a group of touchy-feely scientists on a dangerous planet. Every time the scientists try to involve SecUnit in their messy human lives, Skarsgård registers panic in a series of tiny but hilarious microexpressions. Masterful eyebrow-acting. The thing is: All SecUnit wants is to be left alone so it can watch TV. Relatable. — Glen Weldon
This year, PCHH producer Liz Metzger loved the deck building game Drop Duchy. Linda Holmes was into the mystery game The Roottrees Are Dead. Check out gaming recommendations from NPR staff and contributors here, from multiplayer sensations to narrative-driven experiences and tabletop play.
NPR's book recommendations
Every year, NPR asks staff to tell us their favorite books of the year. This year's Books We Love includes 380+ titles, from poetry to book club ideas and children's books to cookbooks.
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What's Making Us Happy
Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are:
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