I didn’t spend much time this year looking for comfort at the movies. I was drawn to stories that felt uneasy, patient, and unresolved — films more interested in consequence than catharsis. The kind that don’t rush to reassure you, and don’t pretend complexity can be wrapped up cleanly before the credits roll.

What I responded to most were movies willing to sit in the darker corners: inheritance, guilt, ambition, silence, and the quiet systems that shape people long before anyone makes a “bad” decision. These weren’t films about shock for shock’s sake. They were about what happens when pressure builds slowly, when accountability gets deferred, and when people convince themselves they’re only bystanders.

This year, movies followed the same path while taking different roads to arrive. Here are my top five movies of the year 2025. 

Sinners

Summary:
Sinners follows a group of people pulled into a confrontation with an ancient, malevolent force rooted in legacy, bloodlines, and buried history. What begins as survival horror slowly reveals itself as something more psychological — a story about what communities inherit, suppress, and refuse to name, even as it consumes them.

Rather than racing toward answers, the film lingers in uncertainty, allowing dread, guilt, and inevitability to shape every decision its characters make.

The Moment:
Not a jump scare. Not the violence.
It’s the stillness before people realize what they’re dealing with — that pause where survival instincts kick in but morality hasn’t caught up yet.

The Feeling:
Dread layered with familiarity.
Like the past showing up uninvited, confident it still knows you.

Why It Stayed:
Sinners isn’t really about monsters — it’s about inheritance.
What gets passed down. What gets buried. What keeps feeding even when nobody wants to name it.

In a year where culture kept pretending history was optional, this movie refused to let anyone move on without reckoning.

Cultural Footnote:
A lot of people talked about what the movie was.
Fewer talked about why it felt inevitable.

Summary:
One Battle After Another follows a man navigating the long aftermath of conflict — not the fight itself, but the years that come after when the war is supposedly over. As personal relationships fray and old wounds resurface, the film interrogates what it actually means to “move on” when the past keeps demanding new versions of the same fight.

It’s a story less concerned with victory than with endurance, tracing how unresolved battles quietly reshape identity, intimacy, and belief.

The Moment:
When it becomes clear the fight isn’t external anymore — it’s internal, and it’s been there the whole time.

The Feeling:
Exhaustion without defeat.
Like realizing you’re tired not because you lost, but because you never stopped bracing yourself.

Why It Stayed:
Because One Battle After Another understands something a lot of films avoid:
Survival isn’t closure. It’s continuation.

In 2025, a year where everyone talked about “healing” like it was a destination, this movie treated it like a process — uneven, circular, and unfinished.

Cultural Footnote:
Some people wanted this to be about the conflict.
It was really about the residue.

Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man

Summary:
Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man drops Benoit Blanc into another carefully arranged mess — a death wrapped in wealth, performance, and misdirection. As always, the mystery isn’t just who did it, but who benefits from the confusion. The film uses its whodunit framework to examine power, ego, and the lies people tell themselves when money insulates them from consequence.

The plot moves briskly, but the real work happens in the margins — in what characters reveal when they think they’re smarter than everyone else.

The Moment:
When the mystery stops being clever and starts being obvious — and you realize the film has been daring you to underestimate it the entire time.

The Feeling:
Amused, then quietly indicted.

Why It Stayed:
Because Wake Up Dead Man understands that satire works best when it lets people laugh before they recognize themselves.

In a year full of performative outrage and selective morality, this movie trusted the audience to connect the dots — and didn’t rush to absolve anyone.

Cultural Footnote:
Some dismissed it as “another Knives Out.”
That was the point. Repetition is the theme.

Opus

Summary:
Opus follows a young writer drawn into the orbit of a legendary, reclusive artist whose influence still looms large despite years of silence. What begins as an opportunity — access, proximity, validation — slowly becomes something more destabilizing as admiration curdles into control. The film examines the power imbalance between creators and gatekeepers, and the cost of proximity to genius when the rules are never stated out loud.

It’s a psychological thriller disguised as a character study, more interested in tension than revelation.

The Moment:
When you realize the silence isn’t emptiness — it’s strategy.

The Feeling:
Claustrophobic respect.
Like knowing you’re in the presence of something important, but not knowing what it’s taking from you in exchange.

Why It Stayed:
Because Opus understands a specific modern fear:
That success might require shrinking yourself to fit inside someone else’s mythology.

In 2025 — a year obsessed with platforms, proximity, and co-signs — this movie asked a dangerous question:
Who benefits from your belief?

Cultural Footnote:
A lot of the conversation centered on the performances.
Not enough lingered on the warning.

Weapons

Summary:
Weapons unfolds around a disturbing mystery involving missing children and a community desperate for explanations. What initially presents itself as a puzzle slowly fractures into something more unsettling — a portrait of collective denial, misplaced blame, and the quiet violence embedded in systems meant to protect. The film refuses to offer a single villain, instead exposing how harm compounds when fear, authority, and silence overlap.

Rather than solving the mystery outright, Weapons forces the audience to sit with what happens when everyone is partially responsible — and no one wants to be accountable.

The Moment:
When the film stops asking what happened and starts asking why nobody stopped it.

The Feeling:
Unease without release.
Like realizing the danger wasn’t the act itself — it was the environment that allowed it.

Why It Stayed:
Because Weapons understands that violence isn’t always loud.
Sometimes it’s procedural. Sometimes it’s inherited. Sometimes it looks like routine.

As a closer, it works because it doesn’t resolve the year — it reveals it. After legacy, endurance, exposure, and ambition, this film lands on the hardest truth of all:
Participation doesn’t require intent. Only silence.

Cultural Footnote:
Some viewers wanted answers.
The movie wanted accountability.

Looking at these five movies together, it’s clear I wasn’t drawn to spectacle or escape this year. I gravitated toward stories that sat in the darker corners — not because they were bleak, but because they were honest.

Each film wrestled with a different version of consequence. Sinners explored inheritance and the things we pretend we’ve outrun. One Battle After Another examined the exhaustion of carrying unfinished fights. Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man used humor to expose how easily power hides in plain sight. Opus questioned the price of proximity and ambition. And Weapons forced a reckoning with collective silence.

What connects them isn’t darkness for its own sake — it’s accountability. These weren’t movies about evil people; they were movies about systems, environments, and choices that compound quietly over time. They asked uncomfortable questions and refused to tidy up the answers.

If this list says anything about my year, it’s that I wasn’t looking to be distracted. I was looking to understand. To sit with complexity. To recognize where responsibility lives — even when it’s inconvenient.

Rap didn’t spend 2025 trying to save itself.

And honestly, that might be the most important thing it did all year.

There was no consensus album. No undisputed champion. No moment where everyone agreed to stop what they were doing and point in the same direction. And if that feels uncomfortable, that’s because we’ve been trained to confuse dominance with health. Sometimes the loudest years are the weakest ones. Sometimes the quiet years are just rap catching its breath.

2025 sounded like artists who already knew who they were.

This wasn’t a year about chasing the algorithm or begging the timeline to care. It was about posture. About people making albums that didn’t explain themselves twice. Veterans didn’t cosplay youth, and younger rappers weren’t in a rush to declare themselves legends before lunch. The music didn’t sprint. It walked. And it trusted that if you were paying attention, you’d keep up.

That’s the thread running through this list.

These aren’t the albums that won Twitter for 48 hours or dominated playlists out of obligation. These are the ones that stayed with you. The projects that sounded better once the initial noise died down. The albums that didn’t need a viral moment because they were built to age, not spike.

Que The Wrap Up Music: Best Rap Albums of 2025 isn’t here to start arguments. It’s here to document what held up. What sounded intentional. What felt like artists comfortable standing still while everything else kept moving.

Because when the dust settles, rap doesn’t get judged by who yelled the loudest.
It gets judged by who still sounds right when nobody’s arguing anymore.

Let God Sort ’Em Out — Clipse

This album doesn’t sound like a comeback. That’s the point.

Let God Sort ’Em Out moves with the confidence of artists who never had to reintroduce themselves. No throat-clearing. No “back like we never left” press-release energy. Just two voices that understand time didn’t dull their edge—it clarified it.

Clipse aren’t chasing the present. They’re standing still and letting the moment walk up to them.

What makes this album land in 2025 isn’t nostalgia—it’s restraint. The beats breathe. The verses don’t rush. There’s no panic about relevance, no nods to trends that would age out by summer. Pusha T and Malice rap like men who already know the ending, so they’re focused on telling the truth cleanly on the way there.

That’s the grown-man flex most rap still hasn’t learned.

Lyrically, the album isn’t louder than today’s rap landscape—it’s sharper. Every bar feels placed, not stacked. The writing trusts the listener to keep up instead of explaining itself twice. And in a year where so many projects felt engineered for engagement, Let God Sort ’Em Out feels deliberately uninterested in applause.

That disinterest is power.

Culturally, this album mattered because it reminded people what authority sounds like. Not volume. Not visibility. Authority. Clipse don’t need to tell you they’re elite—you hear it in the pacing, the economy of words, the refusal to overperform.

In a rap year full of motion, Clipse stood still and let gravity do the work.

That’s not old-head energy.
That’s timeless.

This is the most honest Wale has sounded in years — maybe ever.

Everything Is a Lot isn’t chasing the version of Wale that fans argue about online. It doesn’t want to be backpack-approved or radio-friendly. It sounds like an artist finally accepting that being misunderstood is part of the job — and choosing clarity over correction.

There’s a quiet exhaustion baked into this album. Not burnout, but awareness. Wale raps like someone who’s done trying to win every room and is instead focused on telling the truth in the one he’s standing in. The writing is reflective without being soft, personal without begging for sympathy.

This isn’t therapy rap. It’s inventory.

What makes this album land in 2025 is how grounded it feels. While a lot of rap still leans on spectacle, Everything Is a Lot leans inward. The production gives Wale space instead of spectacle — beats that support the words rather than compete with them. Nothing flashy, nothing forced. Just enough room to let the thoughts land.

And Wale’s pen? It’s still sharp. He’s always been one of rap’s better writers, but here he’s more selective. Less showing off. More precision. He knows when to stop talking — a skill many never learn.

Culturally, this album matters because it reframes Wale’s place in rap. Not as a “what could’ve been” or a misunderstood talent, but as a veteran who stayed present long enough to tell his story correctly. No reinvention. No rebrand. Just perspective earned the hard way.

In a year where rap often sounded overstimulated, Everything Is a Lot felt human.

Not every album needs to dominate the conversation.
Some just need to tell the truth while the noise passes by.

This was one of those albums.

Am I the Drama? — Cardi B

This album understands something most pop-rap conversations still get wrong:
Cardi B was never the distraction — she was the subject.

Am I the Drama? doesn’t waste time defending Cardi’s presence in rap. It interrogates it. Fame, backlash, visibility, motherhood, money, the performance of confidence — all of it gets pulled into the light without apology or polish. Cardi isn’t asking to be taken seriously. She’s daring you to keep up.

And that distinction matters.

What makes this album hit in 2025 is how self-aware it is without becoming self-conscious. Cardi leans into the chaos people project onto her, flips it, and makes it fuel. She understands how she’s perceived — the memes, the think pieces, the dismissal — and instead of dodging it, she uses it as structure.

This isn’t reinvention. It’s confrontation.

Sonically, the album moves with purpose. High-energy records feel intentional, not obligatory. The quieter moments don’t soften her image — they sharpen it. Cardi’s voice carries weight here because she knows exactly when to be loud and when to let silence do the work. That control is growth, even if it doesn’t wear the costume people expect.

Culturally, Am I the Drama? mattered because it reframed the conversation around Cardi B entirely. Not as a personality who happens to rap, but as an artist fully aware of the stage she’s on — and who built the stage to begin with. The album doesn’t ask for approval from rap’s gatekeepers. It documents survival inside a spotlight that rarely shuts off.

In a year where many artists were trying to escape narratives,
Cardi B owned hers and bent it into shape.

If that’s drama, then yes —
she is.

God Does Like Ugly — JID

JID didn’t spend 2025 trying to convince anyone he could rap.
That debate has been over.

God Does Like Ugly feels like the moment where technical excellence stops being the headline and starts being the baseline. The flows are still elastic. The cadence still darts and bends in ways most rappers can’t track. But what stands out this time is intention — every verse sounds like it knows exactly why it’s there.

This isn’t a showcase. It’s a statement.

What separates this album from earlier JID projects is restraint. He leaves space. He doesn’t stack bars just to prove density. The album trusts pacing, tone, and theme in a way that signals maturity rather than hunger. JID raps like someone who understands that longevity isn’t about being the best rapper in the room — it’s about being the most consistent presence in it.

There’s an underlying tension throughout the album: beauty versus damage, faith versus reality, ambition versus cost. JID doesn’t resolve those contradictions — he lets them live. That discomfort gives the album weight. It sounds like a man aware of his gifts and equally aware of the responsibility they carry.

Culturally, God Does Like Ugly mattered because it reaffirmed a lane that often gets ignored: lyrical rap that doesn’t apologize for being challenging. No simplifying. No trend-hopping. Just craft, sharpened and focused, delivered with clarity instead of flash.

In a year full of noise,
JID made precision feel loud.

Not because he raised his voice —
but because he didn’t have to.

Alfredo 2 — Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist

This album didn’t need a sequel.
Which is exactly why it works.

Alfredo 2 doesn’t chase the lightning-in-a-bottle energy of its predecessor. It assumes you already know what time it is. Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist move like collaborators who trust the process enough to strip the performance out of it. No victory laps. No nostalgia bait. Just two veterans refining a language they already speak fluently.

Alchemist’s production is cold, patient, and cinematic. Every beat feels like it’s watching Gibbs instead of chasing him. There’s space for tension to sit. Silence becomes part of the rhythm. The soundscape doesn’t demand attention — it earns it.

And Freddie? This is late-stage confidence. The urgency is gone, replaced by control. He’s not rapping to survive anymore — he’s rapping to document. The bars still cut, but now they feel measured, intentional. Like a man who understands that credibility compounds over time.

What makes Alfredo 2 land in 2025 is how unconcerned it is with speed. In a year where rap often felt rushed, this album moved deliberately. It trusted atmosphere. It trusted tone. It trusted the listener to sit with it.

Culturally, this project mattered because it reaffirmed something important: the underground doesn’t need to reinvent itself every year. It just needs to stay honest. Alfredo 2 isn’t chasing relevance — it’s preserving lineage.

In a rap year obsessed with momentum,
Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist chose patience.

And patience, in 2025, sounded radical.

@thestarjellyfish the moments before forever. It's always been you Jelly, @Autumn #engagement #couplegoals #proposal ♬ II HANDS II HEAVEN X CATER 2 YOU - DJ KINGSZN

In the chronicle of Planet Of The Sanquon, a signal shimmered across the horizon—a glint of “Silver/Black” light cutting through the fog of recycled trends and throwback tropes. It was the ABZORB 2000, reemerging not as a relic, but as prophecy. New Balance had been watching. Listening. Waiting. And now, with calculated precision, they offer this silhouette as both a remembrance and a rebellion.

The “Silver/Black” iteration is more than a colorway—it’s a language. Metallics whisper futurism. Black anchors it in the now. Together, they speak with confidence, calm, and clarity. The full-length fusion of ABZORB and ABZORB SBS pods doesn’t just cushion—it commands. Each step is a broadcast: modernity has roots, and legacy can flex.

The upper tells its own quiet story. Lightweight mesh. Printed overlays. Clean-cut symmetry meets utility. Reflective accents beam like city lights off wet asphalt—purposeful, unmissable. The ‘N’ branding sits subtle, letting the silhouette breathe, letting the sole do the talking. Coming fall 2025. 

This isn’t just footwear. It’s signalwear. Designed not to chase hype, but to outlive it.

Kith is stepping back into the world of Peanuts, and they’re making sure everyone—two-legged and four—gets in on the fun. To celebrate their latest collaboration, the NYC staple has planted a full-scale Snoopy’s Doghouse right in the middle of Brooklyn’s Domino Park, turning nostalgia into a real-world playground.

This isn’t just for show—this is a true hangout spot, open to the public and fully accessible to the city’s canine crew. Snoopy is posted up on the roof in classic fashion, his name above the door, with Kith branding stamped proudly on the side. It’s a pop-up with presence, a proper lead-in to the upcoming Kith x Peanuts collection, which, if the brand’s latest IG tease is any indication, is set to drop soon.

If you’re in Brooklyn, pull up and soak in the vibes—just don’t let Snoopy steal your spot. The Kith x Peanuts pop-up runs through Saturday, March 29, at the address below.

Domino Park Dog Park
15 River Street
Brooklyn, NY

LeBron James continues to honor Deion Sanders' iconic sneaker legacy, following up on his hybrid takes of the LeBron 21 and the Air DT Max '96 from last year. Even though the LeBron 22 is set to drop in 2024, rumors have been swirling about several mash-ups of the LeBron 21 coming in 2025. Among them? A "Prime '93" edition that pays tribute to the classic Air Diamond Turf 93, which we've already seen teased.

Now, we get our first official look at this hybrid, and it’s everything we hoped for. The sneaker brings together the best of both worlds: a bold “Fire Red” upper with a large midfoot strap, and updated paneling that gives a clear nod to Coach Prime’s retro turf model. This fusion is a game-changer for sneakerheads and LeBron fans alike.

Mark your calendars: the “Prime ‘93” LeBron 21 mash-up is expected to drop on May 9 via Nike SNKRS and select retailers, with a starting price of $180 USD. Keep your eyes peeled for more updates as we get closer to release day.