Dan’s favorite things of 2025

Once again the year draws to a close and so we are forced by contractual obligation to tell you, dear readers, about our favorite things from the last arbitrary period of time. I’ve assembled (arbitrarily) my top three picks across several different categories, just to pull out some things I really enjoyed which, who knows, you might like too.1

New Apple Features

Wi-Fi password filling — I only noticed this somewhat recently, but if you log in to a captive Wi-Fi network in macOS Tahoe (and, I assume, other Apple 26 platform updates), it will offer to fill in the Wi-Fi password for you. I’m not sure why this was never a feature before, but I absolutely love it.

Preview app on iOS/iPadOS – The Quick Look option previously offered by Files was fine for doing exactly what it said on the tin, but for anything more in-depth, the shortcomings of smushing PDFs into the Files app became quickly apparent. Fortunately, after only eighteen years, Apple finally shipped its own PDF viewer on both the iPhone and iPad, and it’s really improved the experience of dealing with PDFs on those devices.

Sleep Score – Continuing this year’s theme, which is apparently “arbitrariness”, yes, the idea of scoring one’s sleep on a 100 point scale seems ridiculous, but I’ve found that since starting to track my sleep with Apple’s Sleep Score feature, I get antsy when I don’t do it. Yes, there are other apps that take more direct health metrics into account, but Apple’s scores being potentially more inflated do weirdly make me feel better about my sleep? So I guess that’s something.

Apps

Nike Run Club – I got back into running for several months this year, though the cold weather has recently put paid to that. However, I still really appreciate the Nike Run Club app for its Guided Run feature, which provides an audio accompaniment to your workouts, often in the form of the very cheerful “real life Ted Lasso” Coach Bennett; it puts Apple’s soulless Workout Buddy feature to shame. Having a Watch app that lets me download the audio guides to listen to locally, and therefore not require me to bring my phone along, is an added bonus.

Dark Noise – Speaking of sleep, I’ve gotten more into using white noise this year when I wake up in the middle of the night, and Charlie Chapman’s Dark Noise app has become my weapon of choice. Great assortment of sounds, easy to use, and it lets you make custom mixes of your sounds. (My personal favorite is a mix of Airplane Interior with Green Noise. Puts me right out.)

Wipr 2 – I retired 1Blocker this year in favor of this little indie app by Kaylee Calderolla. It’s a universal app across all of Apple’s platforms, easy to set up, and does its job without ever getting in your way. Best of all it’s a paid app that doesn’t require a subscription! Buy once and you’re done.

Film

Wake Up Dead Man (Netflix) – The third Benoit Blanc movie is fantastic. I was lucky enough to catch it in a cinema and it was my favorite moviegoing experience of the year. Good mystery, great performances, and Johnson (who I’ve been a fan of since his debut, Brick) always has a great eye for filmmaking. I hope they keep making these as long as he and Daniel Craig are up for it; they’re endlessly entertaining.

Thunderbolts* (Disney+, or rent/buy) – Of all the superhero movies this year, this was my favorite. I’m a longtime MCU fan, but even I’ve been left cold by some of the most recent entries (sorry, Fantastic Four). Thunderbolts* proved to me that there’s still life in the franchise, and a lot of that is down to great work by Florence Pugh, who continues to steal pretty much every scene she’s in. Most of all, though, this is a movie that has heart and is about something, and that’s what too many genre films often forget: the genre conventions are there to enhance your storytelling, like a great sauce, not to necessarily be the main course itself.

F1: The Movie (Apple TV) – Throwing this in here just because I watched it very recently and Joseph Kosinski shows that he continues to thrive in his role as spiritual successor to the late Tony Scott in delivering high-stakes blockbusters that look great, sound great, and hit all the right levers for building tension. Plus the car footage is really, really good if you’re into that sort of thing.

Books

Empire of the Wolf by Richard Swan – A dark fantasy trilogy set in a world where the laws are enforced by roving justices who serve as judge, jury, and executor. But the empire is beginning to crumble, as empires do, and this chronicles its fall through the eyes of Helena, an assistant to one such justice, Konrad Vonvalt. Swan, himself a former lawyer, is not only great at building out this world in exacting detail, but peopling it with interesting and compelling characters.

The Will of the Many/The Strength of the Few by James Islington – The first two volumes of a truly sprawling fantasy epic, this is the story of Vis, a young man who has vowed revenge on those who destroyed his life, the Catenan Republic. The Republic a powerful nation that has mastered the power of Will, which is ceded by citizens in a pyramid structure that gives the people higher up mathematically increasing power based on how many people are ceding to them. But there are levels within levels of intrigue here as Vis is recruited to unwind another mystery, the death of a young man at the Republic’s prestigious Academy. The second book takes matters in a truly wild direction that I can’t divulge without spoiling too much, but I’m eagerly anticipating the third.

If Wishes Were Retail by Auston Habershaw – Disclaimer upfront: this book is a by a friend who’s also represented by my agent. That aside, this is an extremely fun and funny fantastic story about a genie who sets up a kiosk in the local mall and starts selling wishes. He recruits help in the form of the novel’s protagonist, a teenage girl named Alex, and hijinks ensue. Despite its comedic bent, it’s also a book about the family we can’t live with or without and has a lot of heart.

Honorable mentions: We Solve Murders by Richard Osman, The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison, Royal Gambit by Daniel O’Malley.

Television

The Lowdown (Hulu) – I’d be hard-pressed to find a show that is more up my alley. In this Tulsa-set crime story from Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo, low-rent truthstorian/journalist/private investigator Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke) is looking into the death of the wealthy and eccentric Dale Washberg (Tim Blake Nelson), whose brother, Donald (Kyle MacLachlan), is running for governor. In the best noir fashion, this plot unfolds into much, much more, set against the backdrop of the state’s complicated relationship with its Native American population. Hawke is at his best here, whether it’s getting beat up for poking his nose into matters or trying desperately to stay connected to his teenage daughter (Skeleton Crew‘s Ryan Kiera Armstrong). Funny, twisty, and incisive.

Andor (Disney+) – If I have to explain what this show is to you, I honestly do not know what space rock you have been under. But the second season of this Star Wars series delivers in spades, as Cassian Andor comes into his own amidst the burgeoning rebellion. Standout performances not only from lead Diego Luna but Mon Mothma portrayer Genevieve O’Reilly, Stellan Skarsgard as the devious Luthen, and relative newcomer Elizabeth Dulau as Luthen’s partner in crime Kleya. If this doesn’t take your breath away at least a couple times this season, you should check your Apple Watch and make sure you have a pulse.

Peacemaker (HBO Max) – Nobody is perhaps more surprised than I am to find this show on my best of the year list, but I’m still thinking about it months later. On its tin, I could swear that this show—about a somewhat meat-headed and violent “hero”—isn’t the kind of show I’m into and while it does occasionally veer into sophomoric humor that isn’t quite my bag, it’s still very funny and, as I mentioned above, is actually about something: in this case, coming to terms with your past and your regrets. John Cena has ably made the jump from wrestling to acting, and there’s a great supporting cast of wacky characters, from which my MVP is the dweeby, sociopathic Adrian Chase (Freddie Stroma). It does, alas, end on a bit of a cliffhanger as part of the revamped DC Universe, but assuming James Gunn remains in creative control over there, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of these characters. Plus, have I mentioned they actually topped season one’s theme song?

Honorable mentions: Severance season 2 (Apple TV), Foundation season 3 (Apple TV), Ludwig (BritBox).

Music

I’m not usually a huge music person, as I tend mostly to listen to movie and video game scores (for which this year I’d recommend Brandon Roberts’s season two Andor accompaniment and Wilbert Roget, II’s Star Wars: Outlaws soundtrack—what can I say, I’m consistent?), but I figured I’d call out three songs that were on heavy repeat in my year-end recaps.

“Don’t Let Me Down” by ELO – An oldie but a goodie. I’m not sure how I missed this for, oh, all of my life, but it came up on my Apple Music station at the beginning of this year and it’s still a “never skip” when it comes up.

“Oh Lord” by Foxy Shazam – The aforementioned theme song to Peacemaker season two. An absolute banger.

“Save it For Later” by Eddie Vedder – Yeah, it was in The Bear this year (as have been several versions of the song over the seasons, apparently). Just a really great song.

Games

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (PS5, Xbox) – A triple A Indiana Jones adventure? Sign me up. It’s simply great, nailing the feeling of being Indy, from whip tricks to puzzles to punching Nazis. Troy Baker taking over for Harrison Ford is simply astonishing: not good enough perhaps to convince you he is Ford, but good enough to pass for Indy. I appreciate that it’s not too laden down with mechanics—in that sense it’s more Uncharted than Tomb Raider. Probably better than a few of the movies. I’d certainly play more!

The Case of the Golden Idol (Most platforms) – I love a good puzzle game and this fit the bill. You have to reconstruct several tableaus from over the course of a couple centuries, all revolving around a mysterious idol. The game requires you deduce what happened, not dissimilar from one of my past favorites, Return of the Obra-Dinn, while a storyline arcs from the past onward. I played it obsessively during a trip earlier this year, though I haven’t quite managed to get through the sequel (The Curse of the Golden Idol) yet.

Pips (iOS, web) – The New York Times Games department has built an extensive game repertoire now, with some better than others. While I still religiously do the crossword, Wordle, and Connections, I was surprised to find myself so compelled by the latest addition, Pips. It’s a logic game where you have to place dominos on a board to meet certain conditions (such as all values within a certain region being equal, or summing to a certain number). This isn’t usually my style, but there is something so well-done about Pips that I often find it the game I’m most excited to play on any given day. I also appreciate that the times offers three difficulty levels everyday: while I can usually solve the easy puzzle in a matter of seconds, I have found hard puzzles occasionally vexing me for 15 minutes or more.

Miscellaneous things

This is the year I put solar panels on my house, and though I no longer check my app quite as feverishly as I did in early months (chalk some of that up to the lower production rates of the winter), I’m extremely glad that we had them installed. Just seeing my electric bills zero out through the hot summer months was delightful in itself.

I really loved Whole Foods’s new Limited Edition Blood Orange seltzer. Make it year-round, you cowards!

This year I got more into fixing stuff. I put a new battery in our baby monitor, repaired the light table from my kid’s daycare classroom, and replaced some light switches and outlets in a room we were redoing. Nothing quite as satisfying as getting something working right. I’m not sure whether that will continue in 2026, but I definitely found it rewarding.

As a note, some of these categories may feature affiliate links to these things for which I get a small amount of recompense. ↩