> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://type-click-type.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Best Stuff I Watched In 2025 - URL: https://type-click-type.ghost.io/the-best-stuff-i-watched-in-2025/ - Published: 2025-12-09T21:55:50.000Z - Updated: 2025-12-09T21:55:50.000Z - Description: The best shows (and a few movies) I watched this year. - Author: brian grubb A few notes before we dive in: - This is a list of the best stuff I watched in 2025, ranked from ten to one, with mostly TV shows included but also a couple of movies - I don’t have **Andor** on the list because I’m not a Star Wars guy; I don’t have **The Pitt** on the list because I don’t do well with stuff set in hospitals; **The Studio** was probably the toughest cut I made; I love **Slow Horses** so much and this season was great but making these lists is always hard; **Peacemaker** was good, too; the **Naked Gun** reboot was so much better than it had any right to be; **Always Sunny** is somehow still awesome all these years later and the Abbott Elementary crossover was a blast; I’m glad **South Park** is having another moment but I really did not wanna deal with all that this year, subject-matter-wise; I almost held this list until after I watched **the new Knives Out** **movie** but, apologies to Rian Johnson, content waits for no one; I very seriously debated putting the **Super Bow**l on the list, in part because I already threw out the rules related to movies/TV and in part because watching your favorite football team dismantle a dynasty for three hours is really a lot of fun, but if I decided to include it I realized I would kind of have to put it at number one, and while I am willing to display a pretty outrageous amount of insufferable Philadelphia fandom on the internet, even I looked at that and thought “perhaps a bit much,” so just know that I did that for you - Do not yell at me Okay, here we go. ## TEN: The Chair Company ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/chair-whats-happening.png) HBO I was a little skeptical of all of this before it started. I didn’t know if the stuff that made I Think You Should Leave work — abrasive characters, absurd premises, kind of a lot of shouting — would play over a season-long narrative. I was pleased to be wrong. Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin cooked here. It all got extremely weird and dark in spots, especially near the end, but had enough of a silly through-line that it held together. Honestly, the main reason this show beat out The Studio for the tenth spot was the line [about having “the worst pillow in town.”](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/why-is-this-line-from-the-chair-company-stuck-in-my-head/) I stand by my decision. ## NINE: A Man on the Inside ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/AMOTI_201_Unit_01451RC-H-2025.webp) NETFLIX Possible recency bias at play here, but I really do love this show. The second season was sweet and silly and cutting and heartfelt and featured Jackee Harry a little bit and made for just a lovely Thanksgiving weekend watch. Apparently, Mike Schur and Ted Danson are pretty good at making television comedies. We will continue to investigate this going forward. ## EIGHT: Severance ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/severance-must-grow-up.png) APPLE Notes: - What a weird and devious television program - I had a lot of fun doing weekly blogs about season two for Vulture - I still need Dylan to [push his glasses up on his nose](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/the-five-spot-i-need-dylan-from-severance/) Moving on. ## SEVEN: Pluribus ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/pluribus-brainwash.png) APPLE Uggggggggghhhhhhhh I hate trying to rank shows that are still airing when I’m making these lists. Like… On one hand: I suspect if I were making this list a few weeks later, the show would end up much higher, if only because [it’s been great so far](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/reasons-to-watch-pluribus-ranked/), and I trust the people involved to bring it home. On the other hand: It’s not really fair to give one show credit for a kickass first half of a season while punishing other shows for letting up on the gas down the home stretch. I dunno, man. Seven seems like a reasonable compromise. ## SIX: Murderbot ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/MURDERBOT-PERIMETER1.png) APPLE I am generally not a big science fiction guy, so I was surprised at how much I loved this little show. I got so into it that I actually started reading the books it was based on. I really did not expect “a TV show set in space where Alexander Skarsgard plays a security robot that hacks its own operating system and just watch to be left alone to binge his beloved soap operas” to be something that makes my year-end list, and I especially did not expect it to be the kind of thing that [makes me cry a little at the end](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/dammit-murderbot-made-me-cry/). And yet! ## FIVE: The Righteous Gemstones ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/gemstones-scumbag.png) HBO Notes: - I don’t think any show in recent memory had more fun with the English language than this one, and the final season included a few more turns of phrase that will stick with me a long time, like referring to the movie Castaway as “the Tom-Hanks-by-hisself one” and when characters described Internet research as “doing some look-em-ups” - Judy Gemstone is a Hall of Fame television character and I hope one day we let Edi Patterson become a huge star - I am going to miss the heck out of this show Come back soon, Danny McBride. ## FOUR: Black Bag ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/black-bag.jpg) FOCUS A 90-minute spy movie directed by Steven Soderbergh where Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett play a married couple that smolders across the screen in leather jackets and turtlenecks in an attempt to thwart a plan set in motion by any number of people that may or may not include their boss, as played by Pierce Brosnan. Yeah, dude. That is [some extremely For Brian stuff right there](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/reasons-to-go-see-black-bag-ranked/). ## THREE: Taskmaster ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/zouks-taskmaster-dummy.png) YOUTUBE I was extremely late to Taskmaster, the British game/panel show that has been airing for about 800 seasons. I became intrigued when I heard Jason Mantzoukas would be the first American contestant. He’s always so sharp and chaotic that the idea of him on a task-based reality show seemed to be a perfect fit. [And it was](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/jason-mantzoukas-is-unsurprisingly/). I don’t think any show I watched in 2025 brought me more joy on a week-to-week basis. Just an absolute mess. What a treasure. Yes, I am almost fully Taskmaster-pilled now. I’m working my way through the archives slowly, usually around bedtime. The season with James Acaster was probably even better than this one. I would like to see him and Mantzoukas go on a cross-country road trip together. ## TWO: One Battle After Another ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/leo-one-battle-after-another.webp) WARNER BROS Notes: - As I’ve said a bunch of times, my favorite premise for a movie or TV show is “a bozo develops a purpose,” and [DiCaprio is just incredible here](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/reasons-to-go-see-one-battle-after-another-ranked/) as a bumbling burned-out revolutionary who is raising a daughter and up to his scruffy neckbeard in danger related to a group of festive racists - Benicio del Toro is so freaking cool - I was so locked in watching this movie in the theater that I let my posture in my wheelchair go to shit to such a degree that I hurt my neck so bad that I had to start physical therapy again to try to un-crank all the muscles in there Hard to think of a higher compliment than that, really. ## ONE: The Lowdown ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3e/4a/3e4a2f1c-dbf0-4c8e-93a8-aaf656877d0a/content/images/2025/12/LOWDOWN-METH.png) FX Another bozo with a purpose, this time played by Ethan Hawke, who sunk his teeth into the role of a dirtbag journalist — I’m sorry, “truthstorian” — who was… well, also up to his neckbeard into a mess involving some racists. Really just a great year for bozos thwarting racists. Big fan of that, in general, and [also of this show](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/you-guys-gotta-watch-the-lowdown/), which was yet another banger from Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo. I've been [banging the drum for this show](https://type-click-type.ghost.io/the-lowdown-was-so-good/) for months now, so it feels fitting to slot it in at number one. If you’re looking for a fun season of television to binge over the holidays, I really do recommend giving it a shot.