Did no one pay attention to what the creation of Skynet led to?

Posted on May 21, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

Image of The TerminatorArtificial Intelligence, AI, especially in its generative AI large language model form, has taken front and center lately in the discussion of contemporary culture. There are all of the awful AI-generated political memes out there, deepfake nude images, faulty legal briefs with “hallucinated” citations, student essays and online discussion board posts created by ChatGPT and its various relations, and endless social media posts with dubious connections with reality created by bots.

There’s even a name for all this stuff – AI Slop. And it’s showing up everywhere in online culture and in our classrooms.

This is an AI-generated image of President Trump as a Jesus-like figure healing a man. After the president was criticized for sharing the image, he told CBS News, ““I viewed that as a picture of me being a doctor in fixing — you had the Red Cross right there, you had, you know, medical people surrounding me,” he said. “And I was like the doctor, you know, as a little fun playing the doctor and making people better. So that’s what it was viewed as. That’s what most people thought.”

President Donald Trump is fond of sharing AI images of himself looking incredibly buff in rather extreme situations, but he did generate some rare criticism from his supporters when he posted an image depicting him as Jesus healing a sick man. The president’s social media team soon took the image down, and Mr. Trump said he thought the image was just depicting him as a doctor helping people get healthy.

I saw a discussion on one of the microblogging services (X, Threads, Bluesky, etc.) earlier this week asking whether teachers still thought there was any point in having online discussion boards when a goodly percentage of students just feed the prompt into ChatGPT and get something that looks like academic writing. (The discussion actually led to some really good ideas being shared to help steer students away from the world of AI.)

I found it discouraging over the last year to see how many of my students tried to use generative AI to complete their homework. If a student does nothing more than feed the assignment prompt into the AI model and use directly what is generated, it’s pretty easy to recognize that it is not authentic student work. And while I recognize that being able to use AI in a work environment may be an important skill going forward, that was not among the skills I was teaching in my communication law, comm and society, and media literacy classes.

There’s been a huge amount of AI in the news as of late – here’s a sampling of recent stories worth paying attention to:

And finally…

Do any of you remember watching James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator about a relentless killer robot (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) powered by a self-aware AI network called Skynet? No particular reason for asking…

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Questions Worth Asking (Maybe): Perfect transcript, Perfect Jeopardy player, Imperfect corporate retreat, Perfect novelist

Posted on May 17, 2026 by Ralph Hanson
  • Why should every student should get their first “B” as soon as possible? (Atlantic gift Link)
    As a long-time college professor, one of my biggest frustrations was having students who were desperate to maintain their perfect 4.0 GPA. I had one of my best students ever avoid taking a statistics class because they were afraid they might get a B in it. Years later, once they were a prominent college professor, they admitted that had been a big mistake. The Atlantic just ran a recent article discussing the grade inflation crisis at Harvard University where students feel entitled to a perfect GPA when they are spending so much money on their education.One of the biggest problems I see looking back at higher ed these days is that too many people think education is about building a perfect resume or getting the best paying job rather than being about becoming a well-rounded, educated person. Building resumes and setting up great careers are both important. But so is getting a good education.
  • Why does everyone love Jeopardy champ Jamie Ding? (NY Times gift Link)
    Dear Wife and I are die-hard daily Jeopardy fans, and we love seeing someone go on an extended run on the show. But it is easy to start getting annoyed with a player whose streak has gone on too long.Except when that player is the unfailing nice Jamie Ding.

    Ding described himself as a “faceless bureaucrat and law student” in his nightly introduction, but the realty that he downplayed was that his day job is providing affordable housing to people in New Jersey. He charmingly always dressed with an orange item of clothing, he unfailingly applauded good plays by his opponents, and he never seemed to have an ego problem. At a time where we seem to be celebrating performative cruelty in our country, Jamie Ding was an incredible breath of fresh air.

  • Why don’t you want to model your corporate retreat on a reality show competition? (WSJ gift link)
    When our second son was nearing delivery, I told my Dear Wife that she should plan on giving birth on a specific day so I could miss a day-long departmental retreat. When the day arrived, she woke up at 5 a.m. and told me I would not have to go to the event.Now, the retreat I was trying to avoid was just a day of endless meetings on campus, but sometimes work retreats can go horribly wrong. And sometimes those horrid outcomes could have been easily predicted.

    In 2017, the tech company Plex planned a $500,000 retreat at a beach-front hotel  in Honduras with a Survivor reality show theme. What could possibly go wrong?  Well, hiring an ex-Navy SEAL to run physical challenges for out-of-shape tech employees might have been the first mistake. Hiring a hotel to host that was going through management changes and had no idea how to serve a big group event was likely the second.

    The Wall Street Journal link tells a horror story of alligators, fire ants, and food poisoning.  But at least some of the participants report nearly ten years later that the retreat was a great bonding experience and “one of the most fun trips ever.” Sure… I’m just glad I avoided my retreat and got a great kid instead.

  • And finally – Why do I love Florida writer Carl Hiaasen? (The Atlantic gift link)
    If you have never read Carl Hiaasen, start with Skinny Dip and then move on to Basket Case. Or just pick up whichever title you find at your public library. You can thank me later.
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Welcome to the next phase of Living in a Media World

Posted on May 12, 2026 by Ralph Hanson
Marquee for The World Theatre with Ralph Hanson pictured. Text: HAPPY RETIREMENT RALPH HANSON, CASABLANCA, TUESDAY 700, FREE ADMISSION

On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, I’m celebrating my retirement from UNK by hosting a 7 p.m. showing of the movie Casablanca at The World Theatre here in Kearney. Everyone is invited.

So, it’s been awhile…

Posts here over the last year have been rather erratic as I’ve had a busy time finishing up my 38-year career as a journalism and communication professor. For the last 18 years I’ve been a teacher and administrator here at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Before that, I worked for 15 years at West Virginia University and five-and-a-half years at Northern Arizona University. But as of last Friday, I’m now retired, at least from teaching at the university.

But that doesn’t mean my career is over. I’m now going to finally have time to write again on a scheduled basis, so you can expect to start seeing posts here much more frequently. Here is some of what I have planned going forward:

  • I will, as always, have details about the news in the mass communication industry. These posts will be the first drafts of the updates for the next edition of my textbook Mass Communication: Living in a Media World.
  • Talk about what I’m watching, reading, listening to, and playing. (Yes, more time for video games is definitely on my agenda.)
  • Back during the lockdown phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started a series discussing the more than 200 movies we watched at home while we were all cooped up.  But life interfered with the series, and it never got very far. I want to restart and complete it.
  • Examine some of the trends of how we interact with media.
  • Write about current events that don’t necessarily connect to media (though they almost always do…)
  • Write about my travels by motorcycle.

I already have a list of more than 20 blog posts I want to write about, ranging from examining whether your phone is listening to you to building a lightweight adventure touring motorcycle.

Feel free to comment to join in on the conversation!

Hope you all stick around.

Ralph

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SCOTUS declines to hear AI copyright case

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

The US Supreme Court today announced they were not going to hear a case claiming copyright protection for AI generated works.  The plaintiff wanted to have copyright go to the person running the AI software. The courts had previously ruled in the case that only works that were created by a human being were entitled to protection.

With this decision, it there is no protection for AI works. There are ways this could change in the future, but that’s how things stand for now.

This AI-designed image was created in 2012 using a tool called DABUS, developed by computer scientist Stephen Thaler. The artwork is the subject of a copyright battle that the US Supreme Court declined to hear. — Stephen Thaler/DABUS

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A Video History of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Soul and Country Music

Posted on February 20, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

Thursday was one of my favorite media literacy lectures covering the history of a variety of formats of popular music, starting with hillbilly, folk, and the so-called race records.

We started out with Chuck Berry performing “You Can’t Catch Me” from the film Rock, Rock, Rock.

We then moved on to the British invasion with a 1965 clip (I believe) of The Who playing “The Kids Are Alright” in front of a lake. Like the Chuck Berry clip above, this is obviously a lip synch as there are no microphones or cables in either. But it’s a lot of fun seeing the boys in their early 20s working at being too cool for school.

Coming up next, we moved into the era of the concept albums such asThe Beatles “Sgt. Pepper,” Frank Zappa’s “Freak Out,” and, of course, The Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds.” Rather than using a period clip of them playing “God Only Knows,” I went with this one from the launch of the BBC Music Service from 2014. It’s an amazing compilation featuring a Who’s Who of music from the last 50 years, including among so many others Dave Grohl, Sam Smith, Chris Martin, Elton John, Lorde, Florence Welch, Stevie Wonder, Brian May, Chrissie Hynde, and Pharrell Williams.

And because “God Only Knows is the greatest pop song ever, here’s a bonus video of the Beach Boys playing their classic hit back in 1966. (This clip is actually from a 16mm silent film synched up with the original recording.)

Most accounts on the history of hip hop place it’s birth at block parties and with mix tapes from the Bronx in the 1970s (including my textbook), but PBS’s music education series Sound Field shows that the roots of hip hops rhythms and rhymes can be dated back to the 1940s, and uses this example from the gospel group The Jubalaires performing “Preacher and the Bear” in style that sounds an awful lot like early rap.

I closed out my lecture with the great Rosanne Cash playing her tribute to country music radio “50,000 Watts” from her album “The River & the Thread.”

And finally… pre-class video was Robert Plant and his band from his album “Saving Grace” playing a Tiny Desk concert. He’s come a long ways from arena Led Zeppelin shows.

 

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A Hollowed-Out Washington Post

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

Jeff Bezos as Time’s Man of the Year in 1999. Cover by Gregory Heisler

Approximately 13 years ago, Jeff Bezos was recruited by the Graham family to purchase The Washington Post for $250 million. Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the world’s wealthiest men, bought the paper as an individual, not as a part of Amazon. At the time he purchased the paper, it made up less than 1 percent of his net worth.

When he first bought it, Bezos’s ownership of the Post was seen as a positive thing. He had the deep pockets to invest in improving the newsroom, he had the tech knowledge to move the Post into the 21st century, and he was rich enough to not have to worry about how profitable the paper would be.

So how did that work out?

Opinions have varied over the last decade or so, but lately Bezos has gone from being a largely hands-off owner to a self-serving owner.

In April of 2019, I took a look at how the Bezos/WaPo relationship was doing, five-and-a-half years in. As might be expected, it was somewhat of a mixed bag.

  • Bezos moved The Post from being a paper “For and about Washington” to being one with a national or even global presence. This meant that the paper was no longer going to limit itself to news within its print circulation area. By 2016, the paper had a growing audience, improved reporting, and was gaining a reputation as a national news source.
  • Bezos was hiring both journalists and tech people.
  • The paper capitalized on the growing interest in Washington, D.C. news that came with the rise of Donald Trump as a politician.
  • Surprising very few people, Bezos had conflicts with the unions at The Post. Between 2013 and 2018, Bezos’s net worth had climbed from approximately $26 billion to $158 billion. Meanwhile, the Washington Post Guild negotiated a contract for a $15 a week pay raise for staffers. At the same time, Bezos’ net worth was increasing by something like $10.8 million an hour.
  • During this time, Bezos was also suffering from attacks by President Trump, for both the editorial policies of the Post (which at the time Bezos had reportedly little involvement) and for delivery contracts that Amazon had with the U.S. Postal Service.

I concluded this five year retrospective of Bezos’ time as Post owner by writing:

Bezos has been largely successful with his purchase of the Washington Post. Since acquiring it in 2013, he has improved readership, revenue and reporting at the paper. He has also worked at building it up as a national news source that is delivered primarily digitally. Like he did before with Amazon, Bezos is most concerned with investing in the future of the Washington Post than with short-term profits; more interested in reader engagement than revenue.

Overall, the newsroom is happy to have a forward thinking owner who has deep pockets investing in the long-term success of the paper, but the staff would like it better if Bezos were willing to share more of that revenue with them.

Ownership of the Washington Post has not always been an easy thing for Bezos, opening him up to attacks on himself and his businesses from both President Trump and his allies.

Jump forward another five years to 2024.

Donald Trump finished up his first term, failed to get re-elected in 2020, and was running once again for the presidency. The editorial staff of the Post had prepared an editorial endorsing the Harris/Walz ticket. But less than 24-hours before publishing the endorsement, Bezos killed the editorial. At the time I wrote:

The controversy exploding from this is not so much that the paper has discontinued endorsements at the presidential level as that it was done just 10 days before the intensely controversial 2024 presidential election. Criticism of the move by Bezos and [publisher William] Lewis to cancel the endorsement has been massive by the current and former staff of the Post, who see the move as being done out of fear that Bezos’ companies would be hurt should Trump win the presidency again. It has resulted in a number of resignations from the paper’s staff.  One of the most outspoken has been former editor Marty Baron.

This has also led to a massive number of people publicly cancelling their subscriptions to the Washington Post in hope of sending a message to the paper. I have argued on social media that nothing readers can do will hurt Bezos. But cancelling subscriptions can and will hurt the journalists and opinion writers at the paper, none of whom had anything to do with cancelling the endorsement. 

This was the beginning of Bezos working to seek the approval of the Trump administration, or at least avoid antagonizing it.  It also suggested that his commitment to the newspaper as a treasured journalism outlet was not all it could be.

Dave Karpf, associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, writes that for first ten years of his ownership, “[Bezos] was about as good of a steward as you could hope for. He hired Marty Baron and left the journalists to be in charge of the actual journalism. When the paper lost money, he wrote a check.”

But then in early February Bezos fired 300 of the 800 journalists working at the Post. Yes, he fired more than a third of the staff.

As Karpf points out, it can’t just be about the money. Bezos’ personal net worth is now up to nearly $250 billion. That’s more than 10 times what it was in 2013. He’s not suffering for money.

Karpf suggests that these cuts are because Bezos has decided that he’s now on “Team Billionaire,” where he doesn’t want the Post doing anything that will screw up his other business interests:

Team Billionaire isn’t quite the same as Team Trump, but the two have made peace and found common cause with each other. Jeff Bezos knows that, if the Washington Post publishes the wrong story about the wrong person, it could spell trouble for Blue Origin or Amazon. Being a hands-off media mogul was fine when it didn’t cause any trouble. But under authoritarianism, it can be such a headache.

Joseph Weber, professor emeritus at the College of Journalism  and Mass Communication at the University of  Nebraska-Lincoln, recently wrote about Bezos’s change at his Substack, comparing how the New York Times was behaving compared to the Post. As career-long reader of the Post (I subscribed to their weekly edition back in the pre-internet days and for 15 years lived in the circulation area of their Sunday edition), I always saw it as superior to the Times, but that loyalty has faded. As Weber points out, the Times has more than 2,800 people working on journalism while the Post will now be down below 500. His analysis is well worth a read.

Former Wall Street Journal tech reporter and prominent podcaster Kara Swisher saw a solution to the Post’s problems back in 2024 when she said she was trying to put together a wealthy pool of investors to buy the paper from Bezos and turn it into a non-profit. Swisher said in March of 2025 that investor interest was not a problem, but Bezos did not want to sell the Post, he just wants to keep it on life support to do his bidding.

I promised myself when I started working on this post a couple of weeks ago that I would not close it out with a paraphrase of the famous quote from T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men, “This is the way the [Post] ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

Bu I think perhaps an earlier line from the same poem might be more appropriate:

We are the hollow men 
We are the stuffed men 
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when 
We whisper together 
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass 

 

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Getting a taste of Hannah Goldfield’s food writing

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

Although I haven’t talked about it enough here over the years, I’m enthralled by thoughtful food writing – whether it’s the reviews of street food by Los Angeles’ Jonathan Gold, the profane visits round the world by Anthony Bourdain, the reviews of neighborhood restaurants and stories of food culture in the Washington, DC area by my friend Tim Carman, or the discussion of food life here on the prairie by Sarah Baker Hansen.  We all must eat; what we eat and why is a big part of who we are. And these writers, and so many others, help tell these stories beyond the communities where they originated.

My Dear Wife and I share a subscription to The New Yorker, where she generally reads it in the print magazine and I consume it on my tablet. But earlier this week she gave me several copies of the magazine opened up to food articles, all written by the New Yorker’s food writer Hannah Goldfield. They cover everything from the Minnesota State Fair’s unique food offerings (as a frequent visitor there, I can say they are amazing and sometimes deeply weird), to Indian pizza, to baking flour tortillas, to remembering the late, great Bourdain. Without further ado other than a bon appetite, here is some great food writing for your weekend.

 

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TikTok is finally legal again in the US

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

TikTok logoTikTok has finalized a joint venture to have cloud-computing giant Oracle (along with a range of international partners) run its US operations. This finally brings the company into compliance with a law passed and signed into law in 2024 that banned the social media video sharing company from operating in the US while it was being owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.  But though the law has been in effect for more than a year, the Trump administration had declined to enforce it, despite having been a vocal proponent of  the then-proposed law during President Trump’s first term.

According to the Wall Street Journal, investors are paying the U.S. government a “multibillion-dollar fee for arranging the deal.”  According to NPR back in September, some experts are calling this a “fee,” while others call it a “shakedown.”

The new owners include Oracle, with a 15 percent stake in the American branch of the company. Oracle is run by Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men and a close friend of President Trump. His son David recently purchased the Paramount movie studio.

TikTok has more than 200 million US users. The concern had been that the Chinese government was using the video sharing service to collect data on people in the US and around the world.

The president apparently switched from being a critic of TikTok to being a supporter because he said it helped him win his second term.

In other TikTok news:

  • A personal injury lawsuit against the social media giant opened this week in California with a young woman claiming that social media companies have “built products that fostered addiction in adolescents and caused her a host of mental-health problems.” If the suit determines that TikTok is liable for harms to the young woman, it could have extensive fallout for other social media services, including Meta Platforms, Snap, and YouTube.
  • TikTok has changed its terms of services, but according to Mashable, it’s basically the same crappy kind of TOS agreement that social media services have always had. When the change in ownership discussed above happened, the company made users accept a new TOS. Mashable’s Chase DiBenedetto writes that while there have been updates, they are not massive changes. But as DiBenedetto suggests, this is probably a good time for you to read through the updated contract you’ve just signed off on.
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“Will We Be Extremists for Hate or Love?”

Posted on January 19, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

" One of the greatest honors of my life was being invited to speak at the Martin Luther King, Jr. candlelight vigil several years ago at the UNK student union, along with KevinThe question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr National Museum of African American History & Culture

One of the greatest honors of my life was being invited to speak at the Martin Luther King, Jr. candlelight vigil several years ago at the UNK student union, along with Kevin Chaney, who was then UNK’s women’s basketball coach. 

On today of all days we must reject hate and embrace love.

Here’s what I had to say about Dr. King when I spoke:

Visalli-11-10-13When we think of public relations, we think of a professional in a suit trying to persuade us about something related to a large corporation. But not all PR is practiced by big business.

Civil rights leader The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a brilliant understanding of public relations during the campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama in 1963.

The goal of the campaign was to have non-violent demonstrations and resistance to force segregated businesses to open up to African Americans. What King, and the members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, wanted to do was stage a highly visible demonstration that would not only force change in Birmingham, but also grab the attention of the entire American public.

King and his colleagues picked Birmingham because it was one of he most segregated cities in America and because it had Eugene “Bull” Conner as police commissioner.

Conner was a racist who could be counted on to attack the peaceful marchers. Birmingham was a city where black protestors were thrown in jail, and the racists were bombing homes and churches. There was a black neighborhood that had so many bombings it came to be known as Dynamite Hill.

Dr. King and his colleagues had planned demonstrations and boycotts in Birmingham, but held off with them in order to let the political system and negotiations work. But time passed, and nothing changed. Signs were still up at the lunch counters and water fountains, and protestors were still headed to jail.

King and the rest of the SCLC needed to get attention for the plight of African Americans in cities like Birmingham.

They needed to do more than fight back against the racism of segregation. They needed to get Americans of good will in all the churches and synagogues to hear their voices.

Starting in April of 1963, predominantly African American volunteers would march in the streets, hold sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, and boycott local businesses in Birmingham. As the protests started, so did the arrests.

On Good Friday, King and Abernathy joined in the marching so that they would be arrested. While King was in jail, he was given a copy of the Birmingham News, in which there was an article where white Alabama clergy urged the SCLC to stop the demonstrations and boycotts and allow the courts to solve the problem of segregation.

But King was tired of waiting, and so he wrote what would become one of the great statements of the civil rights cause. One that spoke to people who were fundamentally their friends, not their enemies. This came to be known as the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Writing the letter was not easy. Dr. King wrote it in the margins of the newspaper. He wrote it on scraps of note paper. He wrote it on panels of toilet paper. (Think about what the toilet paper was like if Dr. King was able to write on it!)

The letter spoke to the moderates who were urging restraint. To them, he wrote:

“My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas…. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.”

He went on the acknowledge that perhaps he was an extremist, but that he was an extremist for love, not for hate:

“But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label.

Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

Was not Amos an extremist for justice: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” …

Was not Martin Luther an extremist: “Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God.” …

And Abraham Lincoln: “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.”

And Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . .”

So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?”

King’s jailhouse writings were smuggled out and published as a brochure. His eloquent words were given added force for being written in jail. As he says toward the end of his letter, it is very different to send a message from jail than from a hotel room:

“Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?”

Once King was released from jail eight days later, he and his followers raised the stakes. No longer would adults be marching and being arrested, children would become the vanguard. And as the children marched, photographers and reporters from around the world would document these young people being attacked by dogs, battered by water from fire hoses, and filling up the Birmingham jails.

King faced criticism for allowing the young people to face the dangers of marching in Birmingham. But he responded by criticizing the white press, asking the reporters where they had been “during the centuries when our segregated social system had been misusing and abusing Negro children.”

Although there was rioting in Birmingham, and King’s brother’s house was bombed, the campaign was ultimately successful. Business owners took down the signs that said “WHITE” and “COLORED” from the drinking fountains and bathrooms, and anyone was allowed to eat at the lunch counters. The successful protest in Birmingham set the stage for the March on Washington that would take place in August of 1963, where King would give his famous “I have a dream” speech.

We are now more than sixtyy years from King’s letter from Birmingham Jail. This letter was not one of his “feel good” speeches. It doesn’t raise the spirit the way his “I have a dream” speech did.

But it did give us a message that still matters more than ever today:

 “I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”

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Ralph’s Annual Favorite Movies – 2025 Edition

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Ralph Hanson

UPDATE 1/30/26: Please note that I have not seen a number of the big 2025 movies yet which explains some otherwise inexplicable omissions. These include:

  • Marty Supreme – Which I saw last week and loved. It will be somewhere on my 2026 list.
  • Sinners, which I will be seeing in March as part of the Best Picture nominee round-up at my beloved World Theatre.
  • You’ve Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine, which will be showing at The World in February.

Over the last year, I and/or my Dear Wife have watched slightly more than 120 movies: some that were new releases (i.e Avatar: Fire and Ash), some that were 2024 movies getting viewed a little late (2024’s Conclave), and even one that was a vintage silent (1925’s Lady Windermere’s Fan).

There were also many, many rewatchings of old favorites, including Emilio Estavez’s The Way; Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first big musical, In The Heights; and my favorite Hitchcock comedy (were there any others?), The Trouble With Harry.

Roughly half of our viewings were of new-to-us films and half were reruns of old favorites.

This list is my 10 favorite movies I saw for the first time in 2025. This is in no way a 10-best list, particularly since half of them were originally released before this year.  They are just the 10 movies I enjoyed the most that I hadn’t seen before. They are presented in the order in which I watched them, followed by a list of honorable mentions.

What movies would you put on your list of favorites?

Ralph’s Top Ten Favorite Movies First Seen in 2025

In order viewed.

  • Small Things Like These (2024) – When Cillian Murphy won the Oscar for Best Actor in Oppenheimer in 2023, he used some of his new Hollywood cred to produce and star in a movie adaptation of Claire Keegan’s 2021 novella about the exploitation of unwed mothers in Ireland over several decades in the so-callled Magdalene laundries. Murphy plays a hard-working coal merchant whose clients  include the convent where his daughters get their education. During his rounds, he discovers the mistreatment of a pregnant young woman, and he has to decide what he can do to help her. No, not the feel-good movie of the year, but it’s an example of how small, interesting movies can still get made in this era of corporate cinema. The movie was released by a production company run by Matt Damon (Murphy’s co-star in Oppenheimer) and Ben Affleck. Viewed at The World Theatre, our local non-profit movie theater where I work as a volunteer.Trailer for Small Things Like These

  • Conclave (2024) – This multi-Oscar nominated film won Best Adapted Screenplay and was based on the 2016 novel by Richard Harris. This was by far my favorite movie I saw in 2025, viewing it at both The World Theatre and multiple times at home. It’s a thriller about the election of a new Roman Catholic pope following the death of a Francis-like pontiff. It has a stellar cast, starring Ralph Fiennes & Isabella Rossellini  (both nominated for Oscars), Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati and newcomer Carlos Diehz. Among the many reasons I love this film is because it is in many ways a modern take on the subject matter of 1968’s The Shoes of the Fisherman, starring Anthony Quinn and Sir Lawrence Olivier about the unexpected election of a Russian pope at the height of the Cold War. (And yes, this fall I watched the two back-to-back as a papal election double feature.) While both of these films recognize flaws in the church, they are both respectful of what the church tries to be. But neither should be seen as documentaries on how popes are elected.Trailer for Conclave

  • A Complete Unknown (2024) -In this music biopic Chalamet plays a young Bob Dylan breaking into the folk music scene and then trying to find a place in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. Chalamet did his own singing in the movie, and he does a credible job without lapsing into parody of the gravelly voiced singer/songwriter. Along with Chalamet, the film includes excellent portrayals of real people by Edward Norton as singer Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as a fictionalized version of Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo, Moncia Barbaro as Joan Baez, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash and Scoot McNairy as a very ill Woody Guthrie. It was directed by James Mangold, who also did the Cash biopic Walk The Line, along with several X-Men movies (including the brilliant Logan), the racing movie Ford v. Ferrari, and the big-budget Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. (Viewed at The World Theatre.) Baez and Dylan singing It Ain’t Me Babe from A Complete Unknown.

  • Poster for movie Lady Windermere's Fan, 1925Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925) – Back in 2023, I was fortunate enough to see three Buster Keaton short films with live piano accompaniment by Rodney Sauer at The World Theatre. In February of 2025, I got to see director Ernst Lubitsch’s silent film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan with Sauer heading up a multi-part orchestra to accompany the film at The World. Silent films can be a lot of fun, but they are at their best when they have live music with them. If you get the chance to see a classic silent with live music, grab the opportunity.Rodney Sauer discusses scoring and performing live music with silent films.

  • The Penguin Lessons (2024) – This is a thoughtful and sweet movie that is perhaps a bit too timely right now. Loosely based on a memoir by Tom Michell about his time teaching at a boys’ boarding school in Argentina in the 1970s during roughly the time of the Dirty War dictatorship. Steven Coogan plays Michell, who inadvertently rescues and adopts a penguin who’s been hurt by an oil spill. The penguin then ends up being a troublesome mascot for Michell’s classes. In an ironic twist, Jonathan Pryce plays the school’s headmaster. (Ironic because Pryce’s biggest claim to fame may be his portrayal of Argentinian strong man Juan Peron in the original Broadway production of the Weber/Rice musical Evita.) A solid entry in the “troubled teacher saves students at an elite boarding school” genre. You can watch it streaming on Netflix. (Trailer for The Penguin Lessons)

  • F1 (2025) – F1 tells the fictional story of former race great Sonny Hayes (Pitt) being recruited by old friend and struggling F1 team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) to try to bring the team a much needed victory. Hayes teams up with up-and-comer Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) who has a lot of skill but no idea how to really race. Although it is clearly a testosterone-heavy film, it also has compelling female performances from Pearce’s mother, Bernadette (Sarah Niles, best known for stage and TV roles); and team technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon, who brings her unabashed Irish regional accent that shone in the eminently weird and wonderful movie The Banshees of Inisherin). Back in July, I wrote a long blog post about F1 and several of my other favorite racing movies you should check out if this kind of thing appeals to you. Currently streaming on Apple TV. (Trailer for F1)

  • K-Pop Demon Hunters (2025) If you have young girls in your household, you have watched, and watched, and watched, and… the Netflix hit animated film about the K-Pop band Huntress who sideline as demon hunters… (But the title gives that all away. Produced by Sony Animation, the movie has already won the Golden Globe for both best animated film and best movie song (for Golden; the lyric video follows so you can sing along with it).  It’s great to see someone other than Disney turning out interesting and original animated films. This is from the same studio that brought us Mitchells vs. the Machines and the Spider-Verse movies. It’s had a brief theatrical run to make it eligible for the Oscars, but I’m still hoping it will get more time on the big screen.  Lyric video for song “Golden” from K-Pop Demon Hunters)

  • Frankenstein (2025) Director Guillermo del Toro’s take on Mary Shelley’s classic story of monstrous life and death (death and life?) has flaws, big flaws even, but it is a visually stunning and, at least to me, compelling take on the question of what makes us human, what makes us alive. Starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as The Creature, Mia Goth as both Lady Elizabeth Harlander and Victor’s late mother, and Christoph Waltz and Victor’s source of funds. If you like the arctic portion of the story, I would highly recommend checking out the AMC series based on Dan Simmon’s novel The Terror. (Frankenstein can be streamed on Netflix.) (Trailer for Frankenstein)

  • Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) – What is there to say about the incredible excess that is James Cameron’s Avatar series of films. These all take place in the computer animated world of Pandora with motion-captured performances by actors working in a giant room of abstract props known as The Volume. This third outing features a fantastic indigenous villain played by Oona Chaplin, who completely dominates the movie every moment she is on the screen. (She’s also Charlie Chaplain’s granddaughter.) It may be too late by the time you read this, but if at all possible see it in 3D on the best screen you can find. I was fortunate enough to see it on an Ultra DLX screen, which is the next best thing to an IMAX. One of the fascinating things that motion capture allows is having Sigourney Weaver, who is now 76 years old, play her teenaged daughter (more or less) in a convincing way. Don’t pay too much attention to the plot. All  three of these films they have huge problems. Just enjoy being able to visit the world of Pandora. (Trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash)

Honorable Mentions:

Here are the rest of the movies I first saw in 2025 that made a big impression on me.

  • We Live in Time (2024) – Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield star in this weepy story of a chef and her partner trying to make sense out of how they should spend the limited amount of timer they have as Pugh’s character deals with terminal cancer. But despite its downbeat theme, it’s really all about life.
  • Multiple Wes Anderson Films (2009-2025) – I saw a number of auteur Wes Anderson’s films for the first time last year, and loved all of them. These include three of  his 2023 quartet of short films based on the short stories of Roald Dahl – The Swan, The Rat Man, & Poison; his stop-action animated The Fantastic Mr. Fox from 2009; and his 2025 feature film,  The Phoenician Scheme.
  • Music by John Williams (2024) – A career retrospective of iconic film composer John Williams from his start writing the theme song for Gilligan’s Island to his long run of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg films. On Disney+
  • The Last Showgirl (2024) – What happens when movie and TV sex symbols get older? Hopefully they get to make thoughtful films like The Last Showgirl staring Pamela Anderson and co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis. A reminder of how good small films can be (such as this one, Small Things Like These and We Live in Time).
  • Paddington in Peru (2024) – Over the last several years I’ve celebrated my birthday by getting to pick a family movie at our local non-profit The World Theatre. I also serve cake to everyone attending the evening of my party. For 2025 we showed Paddington in Peru, the third in the popular lost-bear-in-Britain series. While it did not live up to the high standard of Paddington 2, a legendary sequel, it was my favorite family movie of the year.
  • Death of a Unicorn (2025) – So I got to see a strange, violent, bloody, incredibly funny movie that came out last spring called Death of a Unicorn starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Téa Leoni, and Richard E. Grant. The movie is very loosely based on the story told by a collection of seven tapestries known as “The Hunt for the Unicorn” that hang in The Cloisters annex of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. I wrote a whole post on these tapestries and movie  when it came out that you can read here.
  • Materialists (2025) – One of the seemingly dozens of movie starring or co-starring Pedro Pascal that have come out in the last couple of years. It was directed by Celine Song (Past Lives) and also stars Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans. It’s a small film that tells the story of a modern matchmaker, her actor one-time boyfriend, and a charming millionaire. The story is pretty simple, but the characters are fascinating.
  • Barton Fink (1991) – I’m a big fan of the movie podcast Blank Check, and it spent the last half of 2025 taking a long look at the films of the Coen Bros. Because of this, I rewatched a number of Coen movies and watched a few for the first time. One blind spot for me had been their golden-age-of-Hollywood black comedy Barton Fink, starring John  Turturro and John Goodman. Probably not for everyone, but definitely watch if you love old movies (i.e. movies from the 1930s and 40s).
  • The Birds (1963) – A classic Hitchcock offering that I had somehow missed watching before last year. The effects are dated, but it’s still incredibly creepy. And elements of it have found their way into the second season of the Addams Family series Wednesday.
  • One Battle After Another (2025) – Another black comedy, this one from Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor, I won’t try to explain the plot beyond that it deals with an aging revolutionary dealing with modern white supremacist culture. It’s billed as a likely multi-Oscar nominee.
  • And finally, one last movie from the very end of the year: A Carol for Another Christmas (1964) – Dated, heavy handed, and fascinating. That’s Rod Serling’s A Carol for Another Christmas – a call for world peace and cooperation in the atomic age of the early 1960s. I wrote more about it in my annual holiday movie post back in December.
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