My Favorite Things of 2025 (And a Look to 2026)

Greetings from snowy Massachusetts!

I’m up visiting my family for the holidays, cup of coffee in hand, and I’m reflecting on another interesting year that certainly didn’t go the way I had expected nor planned.

(This has now happened 41 years in a row, weird.)

2024 was the most challenging year of my life, so 2025 felt like a few tentative steps in a positive direction.

As a recovering people-pleaser with a desperate need to be liked, I asked myself deeply-uncomfortable questions like:

“What makes ME fulfilled and how do I want to spend my days?”
“What if it’s okay to ask my friends when I need help with stuff?”
“What if it’s okay that I can’t make everybody happy?”
“What if fear didn’t get to vote today?”

It turns out sitting with the lessons life is trying to teach me can be pretty helpful.

Let’s take a look back at this year, and a quick glance towards the future.

2025 Recap

Big News #1: SteveKamb.com: after 15+ years of writing about workouts and nutrition, I finally admitted to myself I wanted to expand my writing curiosities: life, philosophy, technology, society, my own journey, and so on. I love creating and want to create things for people who just like my style of writing and want to follow along with me.

At the same time, Coach Matt now writes the Nerd Fitness newsletter, combining my 15 years of writing and research, our amazing team’s experience coaching 15,000+ real people over the past decade, and his direct lessons learned from the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.

My only regret is that I wish I had done this sooner! Thanks for joining me (and replying when a newsletter speaks to you!)

Big News #2: I launched a YouTube Channel! I’m a writer first and foremost, but I know lots of people get their content in other ways. Right now, I’m conducting an experiment to figure out if I can find a way to have fun making videos first, and then deciding where to go from here.

This video about how I tried to make something beautiful out of something broken perfectly sums up my life over the past few years.

Big News #3: I finally finished a 3-year secret project that will be out in mid-2026!

I poured everything I have into this project, and I’m really proud of it. I can tell you all the details in January 2026, and I’ll be asking for your support and help with it (which is something I’m getting better at.)

My Favorite Essays from 2025

I published 40+ essays in 2025 on SteveKamb.com. These are the ones that garnered the most email replies and/or are the essays I’m most proud of writing.

So, I set up this site to write about the things that make me happy, that let me chase a curiosity or run an experiment, and so on.

Not only that, but wanting to share more of myself has resulted in a freedom that’s been life-giving in a time when I desperately needed it.

My Favorite Things from 2025

Nothing makes me happier than sharing a movie, podcast, game, or book that moves me, and I know there’s no shortage of things vying for our attention.

My goal with sharing this stuff is to have you say: “Hey, I like that Steve guy, his tastes seem to match my tastes. I might like these things too!”

So, here’s all of my favorite things from the past year:

My favorite books in 2025

Less (fiction): a hilarious, Pulitzer Prize-winning reimagining of Homer’s Odyssey (speaking of, can’t wait for Nolan’s adaptation!), except this is about an eccentric writer traveling around the world.
Demon Copperhead (fiction): Heartbreaking, hopeful, beautifully written. Friday Night Lights in rural, poverty-stricken Appalachia.
The Courage to Be Disliked (nonfiction): A book that I needed to read as I started to put more of myself out in the world. A good reminder that we cannot control other’s emotions or responses, nor is it our responsibility to do so.
The Art of Spending Money (nonfiction): A book about life and society and behavioral psychology, disguised as a personal finance guide. I love Housel’s writing and this third book of his is no exception.

My favorite movies in 2025

Sinners (HBOMax): I love director Ryan Coogler (as much as he loves aspect ratios) and will see any project he puts out. This movie is CINEMA. Sure, it’s a “horror” movie. But it’s actually more like…a musical that takes place in 1930s Mississippi that happens to include vampires. I’ll be thinking about those two musical scenes for a long time.
One Battle after Another (HBOMax): Paul Thomas Anderson directs an all-star cast with standout performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio DelToro, Chase Infinity, and Sean Penn (amongst others). A slow burn that turns into a pressure cooker. Benicio deserves the Oscar for best supporting actor! Yes sensei!
The Count of Monte Cristo (French 2024 adaptation): A true epic that feels like a throwback to the early 2000s. Instead of greenscreen fights against digital monsters, this is practically choreographed scenes on real sets in beautiful locations, and an entertaining adaptation of Dumas’s novel.
F1 (AppleTV): if you liked Top Gun: Maverick, you’ll love this. Just a fun racing movie with a thumping soundtrack, good banter, and riveting cinematography. They invented new cameras so that they could film Brad Pitt actually driving his F1 car around a track.
Train Dreams (Netflix): A meditative look at one man’s entire life beginning the early 1900s Pacific Northwest. Each frame of this movie could be turned into a painting. A standout performance from Joel Edgerton (who stars opposite Tom Hardy in Warrior, a criminally-underrated sport film).
Weapons (HBO): I really really enjoyed Zach Cregger’s previous movie Barbarian, and after 15 seconds of this trailer I avoided everything else and saw this movie opening night in a packed theater. The ending had me howling.

I also watched Train Dream’s director’s previous film Sing Sing (HBOMax) from 2023, a true story about inmates putting on plays and comedies with the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program. It’s mostly acted by the former incarcerated men who inspired the true story of this adaptation!

My favorite games I played in 2025

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (PS5/Xbox/PC) – My game of the year. It’s a turn-based RPG but with an incredible soundtrack, inventive world-design, and complex characters with a “I need to know what happens!” story.
Blue Prince (PS5/Xbox/PC): A first person puzzle game lovingly made by 1 guy! You solve a mystery in a magic mansion by placing rooms down and exploring for clues. The game can be “completed” in a dozen hours, and yet could take 100+ hours to solve all of the mansion’s mysteries.
Hollow Knight: Silksong (All platforms): A worthy follow-up to the ground-breaking original. If you didn’t love Hollow Knight, you won’t love this. But if you did love Hollow Knight, this will definitely scratch that itch.

It didn’t come out this year, but I’m finally getting around to playing Baldur’s Gate 3. I didn’t let myself play until I had finished my big-ass project! I was initially overwhelmed, but now it’s got its hooks in me.

My favorite Shows of 2025

Shoresy (Hulu): a show about middle-aged amateur hockey players that has more heart than any other show on TV. It’s Ted Lasso on ice, with even wittier writing and more crassness. Each season is only six 30-minute episodes.
Andor (Disney+) Duh. Not only the best Star Wars content, but one of the best shows of the year. More precient than ever. This show is a monumental achievement, and makes Rogue-One that much better.
Death by Lightning (Netflix): A hilarious 4-part miniseries about a period of American history I knew very little about: the assassination of President James Garfield.
The Pitt (HBOMax): Think “ER” meets “24”: 15 real-time hours in a Pittsburgh emergency room, the patients who need help, and the tireless doctors and nurses who try to help them.
The Rehearsal Season 2 (HBOMax): Nathan Fielder is a mad genius. I cannot accurately explain the weird, uncomfortable brilliance of this show. Part-reality, part performance art, part social commentary, it’s unlike anything you’ll see on TV. I would start with season 1.

Special shout out to the billions of dollars AppleTV is setting on fire so that creators can make incredible shows that very few people are watching!

It’s where all the best Sci-fi and comedy is!

The Studio is a love letter to film making. 2025 brought new seasons of Silo, Severance, Shrinking, and Platonic. Plus, a new show from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, Pluribus. It’s worth signing up for a month or two just to watch those shows!

A few other favorite things from 2025

Vanderbilt Football! After 135 years of being terrible at football, my alma mater Vandy had its best season ever. My college friends and I have had season tickets for 15+ years (it was a great excuse to see each other at least once a year), so it was an absolute delight to have a great team to cheer for in a full stadium (of mostly our own fans)!

This random YouTube channel: “So, we found this ruin.” I have never been to Italy, I have no desire to fix up an old house, and this all seems like a gigantic pain in the ass. And yet, I absolutely adore this couple doing what they’re doing: it’s fantastic storytelling, editing, and a delightful watch. Start with episode 1!

This documentary: Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (HBOMax): A beautifully told cautionary tale about fame, depression, success, striving. I wasn’t deeply familiar with Bourdain, but he was a hero to many other writers/chefs/traveler writers/creators. This documentary includes a story that still haunts me. Bourdain emails his friend, a fellow successful famous chef:

“David, this is a crazy thing, but I ‘m curious, and my life is sort of shit now. You are successful and I am successful. And I’m wondering, are you happy?”

What I’m looking forward to in 2026

As of today, I cannot predict the future.

I have a hunch 2026 will go in an unexpected direction and surprise the hell out of me, like every previous year of my life. I’m doing my best to live without expectation as life continues to surprise and change (and make me more concerned) by the day.

I’m more than okay not setting big-ass goals or crafting a more perfect plan.

Instead, I’m experimenting, I’m practicing reasonable hope (without expectation), and I’m anticipating an interesting 2026.

Here’s a short list of what I’m looking to create, build, and share in 2026:

Publishing another 40+ free newsletters at SteveKamb.com. For the 17th year in a row, I’m going to continue publishing weird stuff that makes me happy and hopefully shares a life lesson or realization every Monday. It would be nice if this was 52 newsletters, but I know life will happen and I’ll miss a Monday here or there! I’m okay with “mostly consistent, most of the time.”

Finally announcing and sharing my big secret project: do you know how hard it is to work on something in secret for 3 years and NOT be able to talk about it!? I have a terrible poker face and I struggle saying no to things, but I’ve been able to narrow my life’s focus to finally get this project across the finish line. More details soon!

Continuing my YouTube experiment: I told myself the only expectation is to have fun making 20 YouTube videos and then reevaluate. I’ve made 5 so far, and will keep experimenting and having fun and seeing what comes out of it. I’m a writer first, so it’s been interesting tackling a new visual medium and relearning storytelling, editing, etc.

Personally, I’ve refocused my free time around friends and family, exploring volunteer opportunities, and connecting more deeply with my community. As AI and algorithms take over the internet, real human-to-human interaction will only become more important (and more endangered!)

As far as showing up elsewhere on the internet: I’ve been tracking my movies watched over on Letterboxd, I track my games over on IGN, I do have fun on Threads, and maybe someday I’ll figure out how to enjoy Instagram too.

Thanks! Let’s get weird in 2026

I’m appreciative that anybody takes the time to read what I write, so I’m glad you’re here.

Thanks for being you, and thanks for joining me as I try to explore some curiosities and figure out the deeper mysteries of being a weird human on earth.

It means the world to me. I hope I get to do this for another 17+ years.

Let’s see what 2026 brings.

-Steve

Steve Kamb