2025 in Review: Music Music Music

by Nathaniel R

Charli XCX has four feature film projects arriving in 2026. But still found time to make a great music video in 2025

I promise we'll pull this back to music in movies at the end of the post but for a curveball we'll first share favourite music videos of 2025. Those mini-musicals haven't had a true "home" in decades (after the initial heyday of MTV many moons ago) but they still continue to be a fascinating shortform offshoot of cinema itself. We use to think of them as training ground for future film directors but it feels like that's been a long while since it was a "path" to Hollywood. How long until we get another music video master that moves up to auteur status? It's been 30 years since that happened for David Fincher! Still, we're always hoping it will happen again...

25 FAVOURITE MUSIC VIDEOS OF 2025
Let's not take the order too seriously as it was drafted quickly 

25 Immortal Love - Mika (Nicholas Bartleet, Dec 19)
What's better than Mika's comeback? Multiple Mikas coming back, that's what.

24 Dracula - Tame Impala (Julian Klincewicz, Sept 26)

23 Cruising to Self Soothe -Ecca Vandal (Richie Buxton & Ecca Vandal, Mar 6)

22 She the Last One - ARTBAT & Vintage Culture (Maksym Getman, Jan 17)

21 Gorgeous - Doja Cat (Bardia Zeinali, Sept 26)
Fun send up of commercialized beauty

20 Show Me - RONA (Tyson Perkins, Aug 1)
So hypnotic. Is it crazy that my mind flashed to Maggie Cheung in Irma Vep just because of the slinking around in skintight suits? Industrial wastelands are not Parisian rooftops and yet... 

19 This Movie Sucks - Durry (Chris Rose & Austin Durry, Apr 4)
Target audience: People who grew up renting movies from video stores.

18 1965 - Jessie Murphy (Lindsey Marshall Wilson, July 18)

17 Where Is My Husband - Raye (The Reids, Sept 19)
Between this and 2024's hilariously dramatic "Oscar Winning Tears", I'm a huge fan of Raye's lyrically clever relatable earworms

16 Revolving Door - Tate McRae (Aerin Moreno, Feb 21)
If music videos weren't created to showcase choreography, why were they created?

15 Lipstick - Luvcat (Oliver Bradley-Baker & Luvcat, May 9)
Target audience: People* who love "Truly Scrumptious" in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (the 'People' in question is me... and maybe Kenneth Branagh if Belfast was any indication)

14 Striptease - FKA Twings (Jordan Hemingway, Jan 25)

13 The Fate of Ophelia - Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift, Oct 3) 

12 Mad - Renee Rapp (Luke Orlando, June 27)
While I wasn't a fan of Rapp's "Regina George" in the Mean Girls remake (Rachel McAdams: unimproveable), her eye-rolling mean girl persona works perfectly for pop star kicks! This video, showcasing Rapp's screen presence, lustful energy, and comic timing reminds you that a major genre in music videos, as in Hollywood motion pictures, is the Star Vehicle. Bonus points for casting the always welcome queer actress Alexandra Shipp (Love Simon, Tick Tick Boom, X-Men Apocalypse) as her perpetually irritated girlfriend.

11 Mr Electric Blue - Benson Boone (Matt Easton, June 15)
Star Vehicle, self-deprecating version. It's always endearing when a star can poke fun at themselves with aplomb. 

10 Anxiety - Doechii (James Mackel, Apr 25)
Mackel is the only director with two entries on this list... and they're both in the top ten. I can't find much info about him so I will now fantasize that he becomes a film director soon to see how much style, narrative slipperiness, and tonal range he came bring to a long form narrative; from the evidence of the two videos in this list (see also #2) the answer is "probably a lot." 

09 Sugar On My Tongue - Tyler the Creator (Tyler Okonma, Aug 12)
Quite a year for Tyler chasing this gobsmacking video with a supporting role in Marty Supreme. 

08 Love - OK Go (Aaron Duffy, Miguel Espada, & Damian Kulash, April 11)
Is anything more predictable than OK Go making incredibly complex videos that are jaw-dropping feats of technology / engineering / visual gamesmanship? And yet they're always excellent so we won't complain or wish to be surprised by anything less. 

07 "The Wishbone Trilogy" - Conan Gray (Danica Kleinknecht, May 30, July 11, Aug 15)
I watched these videos more than any other in 2025 (well apart from the top two). I've always been drawn to music videos that sequelize each other. This gorgeous trio "This Song", "Vodka Cranberry" (fav song of the year), and "Caramel", plays like scenes from a gay coming-of-age drama in which our lead (Conan) pines away for a closeted and/or bisexual friend (Corey Fogelmanis from I Wish You All the Best, Ma, and My Life With the Walter Boys) who is continually dipping in and out of the friendship/relationship. Would love to see a feature from Kleinknecht! 

06 Party4U - CharliXCX (Mitch Ryan, May 15)
Extremely welcome new trend alert: Making new videos for old songs. This is such a stylish moody video and wins bonus points for feeling like a hungover bridge between "Brat" summer and her upcoming feature film The Moment, which is presumably some kind of fictionalized memoir about living through Brat summer as the creator of Brat summer? 

05 Hotbox - LilNas X (Elias Talbot, Mar 14)
One thing that will never not be irritating about pop culture is its fickleness. LilNas X was on top of the world four years ago with "Montero". He finally returns with a a great lead single /video that was every bit as good as the ones that placed him on top in '21 -- funny, exciting, horny, shameless, and deliciously well-executed right up to the coughed up pink blood in the boxing ring -- and yet, the world didn't seem to care this time.

04 The Subway - Chappell Roan (Amber Grace Johnson, Aug 1)
NEW ALBUM WHEN? But about the video: was there a better sight gag in videos or film this year than Chappell's hair getting stuck in the cab?

03 Berghain - Rosalia (Nicolas Mendez, Oct 27)
Stunning. Surreal. Symphonic. One surprise after another... just like the unexpected collisions in the song structure. Those aggressive provocations at the end? I am speechless.

02 Denial is a River - Doechii (Carlos Acosta & James Mackel, Jan 2)
Like presumably many other people  

01 Abracadabra -Lady Gaga (Bethany Vargas, Parris Goebel, & Lady Gaga, Feb 2)
When Lady Gaga goes the way of Madonna (i.e. still impossibly famous but not as prolific or fawned over by the media) people will realize they took her for granted in her prime, yes 'for granted' despite the enormity of her succcess. Everything about this "dance or die" spectacle is perfect from the sound drop out, to the white and red costumes to the camp acting. Somehow this masterpiece lost Music Video of the Year to a surprisingly dull overindulgent Ariana Grande short and now it isn't even up for the Best Music Video category at the Grammys! Shameful. 

Now that that's out of the way, the Film Bitch Award nominations for 2025 movie scores, original songs, and sound are announced and available for your perusing and commentary. Some of these have an Oscar track of course (Sinners, One Battle After Another, KPop Demon Hunters) and others are far from the conversation but shouldn't be.

In case you don't click over the main takeaway I would like you to leave with is that I am absolutely incensed that Focus/MUBI is not releasing an Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to The History of Sound. It's a crime against cinema and music to consider that a negotiable. The "Silver Dagger" scene alone when Josh O'Connor first hears Paul Mescal's golden voice would justify the entire production cost of an album, even if it didn't sell a single copy. Protect Art by Preserving It!