The “Mt. Rushmore” exercise inspired me to create my “Best of 2025” lists of films and books.
I had a problem with the films. Because when I looked through my journal, I realized that I hadn’t watched even a dozen from beginning to end all year long. The excuse I gave myself was that, between the four businesses for which I’m actively working and the half-dozen books I was trying to finish in 2025, I didn’t have the time. But another factor – perhaps the real factor – was that my attention span for video entertainment has been attenuating steadily since I began watching YouTube shorts almost every night. To make matters worse, the best movies that I watched in 2025 were classics I had seen two or three times before (The Godfather I & II, The Conversation, Blow Up, and Five Easy Pieces).
So since it would do you no good for me to recommend those universally acclaimed films to you, I am, instead, giving you a list of 10 movies I intend to watch in 2026 because the reviews I had read of them convinced me they would be worth the effort.
My Top 10 Films (I Didn’t Watch)
1. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein
2. Nouvelle Vague
3. 28 Years Later
4. One Battle After Another
5. Marty Supreme
6. Orwell: 2+2=5
7. Best Wishes to All
8. No Other Choice
9. Train Dreams
10. My Undesirable Friends
My book selections, however, were easy because I’d already written reviews of all the books I’d read during the year in my journal. (I had met my goal of reading a book a week: 20 books of fiction and 32 of non-fiction.)
My Top 10 Books (Fiction & Poetry)
1. Dubliners by James Joyce
2. The Reivers by William Faulkner
3. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
4. Factotum by Charles Bukowski
5. The Iliad by Homer
6. A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne
7. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
8. The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot
9. West Into the Night by Beryl Markham
10. It Bleeds by Stephen King
My Top 10 Books (Non-fiction)
1. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
2. Introduction to Cognitive Science by Thad A. Polk
3. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker
4. How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
5. Einstein in Time and Space by Samuel Graydon
6. The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins
7. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
8. Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charles Munger
9. Stoic Paradoxes by Cicero, translated by Quintus Curtius
10. Milton Friedman, The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns
Those three lists should have satisfied my “Mt. Rushmore” inspiration. Alas, it only triggered several more, three of which follow…
The 10 Best Karmic Moments in Pop Culture
1. Sean “Diddy” Combs Convicted
2. Tilly Norwood Almost Got an Agent
3. Disney’s Snow White Went Woke and Then Broke
4. Disney CEO Bob Iger Sues AI and Then Embraces It
5. Jimmy Kimmel Suspended for Tasteless Humor
6. Stephen Colbert Cancelled for Angry Banter
7. Robert De Niro’s The Alto Nights Flops at Box Office
8. Prince Andrew Dethroned
9. Jeff Bezos Reaches New High in Garish Weddings
10. NYC Liberals Inherit Zohran Mamdani
The 10 Best Geopolitical Moments for the US
1. US/Mexico Border Finally Closed
2. US Brokers Ceasefire in Gaza
3. Thailand and Cambodia Sign Peace Treaty
4. India and Pakistan Sign Peace Treaty
5. US Brokers Ceasefire in Decades-Long Congo/Rwanda War
6. US and Israel Disable Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities
7. Withdrawal of US from World Health Organization
8. Nasry Asfura Elected in Honduras
9. Javier Milei Elected in Argentina
10. José Antonio Kast Elected in Chile
The 10 Worst Political Moments for Wokesters and Leftists
1. Federal agencies must now list 10 existing regulations for repeal for every new one they propose.
2. The Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning transgender surgeries for minors.
3. The “Rescissions Act of 2025” cut $9 billion in federal spending.
4. Taxpayers are no longer required to fund National Public Radio (NPR).
5. USAID loses federal funding.
6. The Laken Riley Act passed, ensuring criminal illegal aliens are no longer released into US territory.
7. The Take It Down Act passed, forcing criminalizing the non-consensual distribution of intimate images on social media.
8. The HALT Fentanyl Act passed, classifying fentanyl as a Schedule I drug, and giving law enforcement stronger tools against fentanyl trafficking.
9. $7 billion shutdown ended without bankrupting US healthcare.
10. The “No Kings” march proved that Donald Trump is not a king.
