From Steven Soderbergh's slick and snappy spy thriller BLACK BAG to Jafar Panahi's miracle of filmmaking and distribution IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, we humbly present to you the 25 best films of 2025!

"Why is this Irishman suddenly a specter of all-consuming death? Same reason a lot of SoCal Mexican-Americans naively voted Trump—those who believe they’ll be the next to be ingratiated into whiteness are destined to be swallowed whole by that beast."

Happy Bandcamp Friday! Check out our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the classic power pop trimmings of Beauty's I'D DO ALMOST ANYTHING FOR YOU, out now via Strange View, and the thundering slowcore of Trembler's TOTAL SORRY, out now via Rite Field! merrygoroundmagazine.com/bandcamp-pic...

From Carter Amelia Davis's quirkily modern and unsettlingly HOMEMADE GATORADE to Jamie Kiernan O’Brien's impeccably acted and deeply felt GENDER STUDIES, here are the best shorts from Sundance 2026!

DON'T BE DUMB isn't A$AP Rocky's most essential music, but there is a keen sense of playfulness and exploration meant to pay dividends towards his future. A bridge between his art pop and indie rock interests and his hip-hop bonafides, it's a fun time.

Working at a record store taught me a tragic truth: no matter how much you love your favorite albums, they’ll never be as popular as they deserve to be. In the first Bargain Bin of 2026, I revisit an odd shift at The Pageant concert venue, a fear of mascots, Joe Buck, and seeing red.

@jackprobst.com is dusting off some LPs and exploring how music becomes etched into our stories. Eventually, all of our memories get marked down and tossed in The Bargain Bin. This month: Masklophobia, Joe Buck, venue gigs, and Split Enz's HISTORY NEVER REPEATS.

It's our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the proggy rock 'n roll of Alan Morse's loose studio exploration SO MANY WORDS and the depressive pop punk musings of Local Weatherman's RIGHT ONE. Read about both and then grab a copy tomorrow on @bandcamp.com!

"Come on in," Grace yells in SINNERS. It's an emotional response that has angered audiences since the film was released. But as our current political moment is revealing, the vampires were always here, and they don't plan on leaving. On I.C.E., Minneapolis, and Ryan Coogler's Best Picture nominee.

It’s our first Bandcamp Picks of the Week for 2026, featuring a staff favorite that missed our Best Albums of 2025 list in Hotline TNT’s RASPBERRY MOON, out now via @thirdmanrecords.bsky.social, and an early frontrunner for best post-hardcore album of the year in Feels Like Heaven’s WITHIN DREAMS!

In addition to announcing our upcoming showcase on 2/13, we're also premiering a new single from Mac Luster today! "Waiting Game" is early '80s The Replacements with some gauzy new wave'y influence (think The Cult or Killing Joke). Hear it early today!

We’re back for our first showcase of 2026! Join us for a little bit of pre-V-Day fun on February 13th with @mattstagraham.bsky.social, Mac Luster, and Alberta at Permanent Records Roadhouse!

From @criterion.bsky.social's stunning transfer of EYES WIDE SHUT to @kinolorber.com's essential re-release of Robert Butler's 1980 crime film NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER, Film Editor Kevin Cookman runs us through the best 4K Blu-rays of 2025!

A master of capturing cornered animals on screen, Park Chan-wook spends NO OTHER CHOICE exploring workers who followed the rules, did everything right, and still ended up disposable. Even with cultural differences, it feels painfully universal in 2025.

Starting off the new year with the last of the 2025 year end lists as a contributor, MERRY GO ROUND'S TOP EPS OF 2025!!! I wrote my blurb on Jane Remover's EP, a surprise that renders skyward magic.

To close out our EOTY music coverage, we present the Top EPs of 2025! It features artists like Ethel Cain and Rachel Chinouriri! Give it a read on your way into a great 2026!

It’s time for @mgrmagazine.bsky.social Top 50 of 2025! I wrote blurbs fot Alex G, lotsofhands, Double Wish, Horsegirl, and Golden Apples, (plus a lot albums on my personal best of list are on here written up by other great writer friends!)

Not yet done with these year end lists! Wrote the blurbs for @bathsmusic.bsky.social, Just Mustard, @modelactriz.com, Jim Legxacy, and Oneohtrix Point Never!

so proud to be part of MGR's EOY coverage <3 wrote about César y su Jardín, Neko Case, Los Thuthanaka, Shallowater and Nourished by Time. check our list to find many other overlooked-and-awesome releases of this year

Without further ado, we present our Top 50 Albums of 2025! From The Tubs' COTTON CROWN to Greet Death's DIE IN LOVE, Rico Nasty's LETHAL to Jobber's JOBBER TO THE STARS, we count down the best of the year according to our staff! Check out the list today!

Wrote about both our best artist and best new artist of 2025! Enjoy!

To begin our three days of EOTY music coverage to close out 2025, let us begin with a pair of essays about the best artist and best new artist of the year! While the former was obvious, the latter is an act that many of our writers are buying stock in early. Enjoy!

Allegedly taking place in the year 2025, Spike Jonze's 2013 film HER is a fascinating depiction of not-so-future Los Angeles, capturing the feeling of what it is to live in the city while flouting its mechanical limitations. On AI, LA optimism, male loneliness, and more.

“The Mr. Potters of our world have only gotten richer and bolder as life has gotten harder for the rest of us. It will take deeper solidarity to push them back.” Time for my annual share of the best thing I wrote for @mgrmagazine.bsky.social

For the sixth year we’re pleased to present the Top 50 Covers of the Year! 2025 featured some heaters, including @ducksltd.bsky.social taking on Camera Obscura, @superchunk.bsky.social doing a Magnetic Fields classic, a song from @father-daughter.bsky.social's 15th anniversary compilation, and more!

The culture’s biggest popularity contest showed that skateboarding is more of a fractured, multi-party system than ever—and vert skaters might be the emerging party. @brendanmenapace.bsky.social dives into the thorny voting process of Thrasher's Skater of the Year.

For @mgrmagazine.bsky.social : I wrote about skateboarding’s multiparty system during its annual sham election, and its new opposition party leader. merrygoroundmagazine.com/thrashers-sk...

It's our final Bandcamp Picks of 2025, featuring Syrosis' madcap hip-hop record #ASIAM and Steve Morse Band's visceral instrumental prog rocker TRIANGULATION! Read about both and give them a listen over on @bandcamp.com!

Happy Bandcamp Friday! Check out our Picks of the Week, including the latest @hitthenorthrecs.bsky.social holiday charity compilation, HIT THE NORTH POLE VOL. 2, and Elmo Aoyama's dark, crystalizing synthpop album DEMONS, out now via Dinosaur City! Scope them both out on @bandcamp.com!

It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the devastating, grungy existentialism of Lily Seabird’s TRASH MOUNTAIN, out now via @lameorecords.bsky.social, and the springy Midwest anti-folk of Case Oats’ LAST MISSOURI EXIT, out now via @mergerecords.bsky.social!

Portland, OR recording artist Amulet offers a bit of everything on their latest, TONGUE OUT SELFIE, a hyperpop-laced clubby carnival ride. We chat with them about Portland, the albums many sonic textures, and how that production will translate live!

"It really wasn’t a question of would I die, it was when. I’m really grateful I didn’t, and that now I don’t think I’m gonna die—I hope I make it past 30, I think I will. I don’t think it’ll be my own doing, I know that much."

I Prevail's VIOLENT NATURE comes across as too self-conscious, as though they're too embarrassed to commit to a sound they’ve been barreling toward for years now. It's full of strange, exhausting, and often bad creative decisions that weigh the album down.

I Prevail's VIOLENT NATURE comes across as too self-conscious, as though they're too embarrassed to commit to a sound they’ve been barreling toward for years now. It's full of strange, exhausting, and often bad creative decisions that weigh the album down.

Wrote some stuff about an artist that’s never taken a break from being an artist. Danny Brown consistently shows us what it means to create without fear and embrace humanity, and his newest is no exception. Give it a read if so inclined!

Five years ago, we claimed Danny Brown was the best artist of the 2010s. Half a decade later he might be in the conversation for the greatest of all time. On the difference five years makes, QUARANTA, his podcast, and the brilliantly colorful STARDUST.

Author Maggie O’Farrell's book Hamnet has been adapted for the silver screen and is set to release on November 26th. We chatted with her about the nature of film adaptations, working with Chloé Zhao, the development status of Audrey Diwan's adaptation of The Marriage Portrait, and more!

It's our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring @zayallcaps.bsky.social's modern madcap pop spectacle ART POP * POP ART and bloodsports' thrillingly aggressive ANYTHING CAN BE A HAMMER! Read about both and then check them out over on @bandcamp.com!

Lifeless in execution with a confounding script, Scott Cooper's vision of Bruce Springsteen is disheartening. SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE is one of the biggest whiffs for an artist biopic of this size and scale ever, and a disservice to the Boss.

Big thanks to CJ at Merry-Go-Round for this fantastic write up on the Sweet Nobody album. Click through for a premier of the whole thing!

Sweet Nobody's latest, DRIVING OFF TO NOWHERE, is their fullest sounding yet, a wonderful mix of summer bummer tunes that act as a meeting point between angsty '60s surf rock and cloudy 2010s internet indie pop. It's out tomorrow via @repeatingcloud.com but get an early listen below!

Our relationship with our own art, especially older works, is complicated. None know this better than Nussy Andrews. We chat with her about the complicated emotions that come with writing and recording music, the most recent album VENUS BABY, and more!

It's our Bandcamp Picks of the Week featuring the latest stadium sized self-titled album from Plight, out now via à La Carte Records, and Tuskers' cheeky country colored record START CALLING MORGUES, out now via Just For Now. Read about both and listen today over on @bandcamp.com!

Two weeks ago, my buddy Jon and I attend a 24-hour horror movie marathon at the @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social. I wrote about my love for horror movies, lifelong friendships, and the experience of watching films in a theatre full of like-minded folks for @mgrmagazine.bsky.social.

Repertory theaters across the country come alive during October with horror programming, the crown jewel being the all night marathon. But what is it like to survive one? @jackprobst.com walks us through 24 hours of scares attending @musicboxtheatre.bsky.social's 2025 Music Box of Horrors!

From the frontlines of AFI Fest 2025, writer Michael Fairbanks breaks down the cognitive dissonance required to tackle a modern film fest, where going from a doc like THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB to a drama like BAD APPLES forces you to do mental gymnastics.

Great. Phenomenal. Two words that fit feeo's debut record and her exploration of the enormous cityscape, and Jules Reidy's transformative new album, evoking their voice into otherwordly territory. Certainly AOTY contenders! My write-up on feeo and Jules Reidy's albums is up on MGR Mag!

"I remember there’s a scene in the film where Sosé says, like, 'We fought the world’s most modern weapons with this,' and she’s holding an AK-47 from the 1970s, and I think that kind of tells you everything there is to say about this conflict."

It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring the stirring electronic textures of feeo’s GOODNESS, out now via @ad93rec.bsky.social, and the left-field avant-pop compositions of Jules Reidy’s GHOST/SPIRIT, out now via @thrilljockey.bsky.social! Read about both and listen today!

Perry Eaton's spent the last 10 years writing dazzling rock hooks for his project Beeef. He's now back with Ivy Boy, an airy singer-songwriter project that's sonically somewhere between Bread and the Clean. His effervescent debut is out tomorrow, but you can give it an early listen now!