Category: Trending

It might seem a little early to start thinking about the NBA All-Star game, but actually, voting just opened on December 17. While we wait to see which players will be participating in 2026, the NBA is already starting to reveal what All-Star Weekend is going to look like.

Today (December 18), the league announced that Shaboozey, Ludacris, and Cortis will headline the league’s NBA Crossover concert series. The shows are going down at the Los Angeles Convention Center from February 12 to 14.

Cortis said in a statement, “It’s a huge moment for us to be the first K-pop group to perform at NBA Crossover, kicking off All-Star Weekend. We’re grateful for the opportunity and excited to hit the stage, connect with fans up close, and officially tip off this incredible weekend.”

They’re performing on the 12th, then it’ll be Ludacris on the 13th and Shaboozey on the 14th.

Per a press release, the Crossover event “showcases the NBA’s deep connection to art, fashion, music and technology, giving fans a front-row seat to action packed basketball programming at G League Park, exclusive opportunities at NBA Creator Court, and festival-style music experiences at Hardwood Central —including the Michelob ULTRA Courtside Concert with Ludacris on Friday night.” It adds, “During marquee in-arena events at Intuit Dome and Kia Forum, Hardwood Central will evolve into a watch-party destination, complete with live commentary and special giveaways.”

Tickets for NBA Crossover are available now, here.

Best-of lists are inherently relative — we all have our tastes, and we’re sticking to them — but 2025’s TV felt unusually communal. We were all watching The White Lotus and altering our pronounciation of the word “Lorazepam” just a few months ago, piecing together the mind-bending mysteries of Severance, and desperately googling medical terms to keep up with the relentless life-saving measures of The Pitt. Even as the year kept throwing us curveballs, these shows created a kind of shared experience, a fleeting sense that maybe we were all in this bizarre, screen-addled world together. (It’s funny how simply paying attention to the same thing can do that.)

Obviously there are some more singular picks on our Best TV Shows of 2025 list too, MUBI comedies you probably haven’t streamed and sci-fi thrillers that just popped up in your queue. We’ve still got a job to do, and that job is curating great storytelling so you don’t miss out. But whether you’ve seen every entry here, or are just now marking it as a must-watch, the takeaway is the same: this year was a great one for television and, that seems to be the one thing we can all agree on at the moment.

Adolescence (Netflix)

Every TV show wants to be the one audiences simply can’t look away from, but Adolescence guaranteed our rapidly shrinking attention spans wouldn’t wander, not just with its signature style but through its disturbingly plausible central premise. Unfolding across four hour-long episodes – each staged as a single, unbroken shot – this narrative pressure chamber (created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham) charts the arrest of a teenage boy charged with an unthinkable crime, the painstaking investigation that follows, and the eventual fallout that leaves a family and an entire community fractured. It’s filled with stand-out moments – episode three’s clinical deep dive into the torture psyche of a red-pilled outcast is just one – and a handful of gripping performances from Graham, Erin Doherty, and Christine Tremarco. But it’s Owen Cooper (all of 13-years-old at the time of his casting) who demands attention here, more than earning his Emmy hardware playing Jamie with a mix of believable vulnerability and simmering resentment that makes nailing down his character’s guilt or innocence almost impossible. Thrilling and deeply unsettling, Adolescence is the rare Netflix series that feels genuinely urgent rather than merely buzzy. — Jessica Toomer

Alien: Earth (FX)

Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth ended up being more about the petty human squabbles shaping the prequel’s planetary setting than the chest-bursting extraterrestrials made terrifyingly real in Ridley Scott’s original film… but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. By giving Peter Pan a science-fiction twist and introducing audiences to the concept of “Hybrids” (artificial beings with transferred human consciousness), Hawley set up a different kind of “monsters unleashed” tale, one that questioned who the true villains of this franchise really are. There were some fantastic performances: Babou Ceesay as a cyborg survivalist with a fanatic devotion to carrying out his mission; Timothy Olyphant as a snobby synthetic mentoring a batch of robotic lost boys; and Sydney Chandler as Wendy, the first hybrid whose Xenomorphic connections and rebellious streak upends the Prodigy Corporation’s larger plans. There were even better practical special effects and newly-invented space horrors – a scheming eye-ball alien, both nightmarish and, oddly, cute, better feature heavily in season two. There were things that worked and things that didn’t, but the show’s commitment to weird and ambitious storytelling made it a rollercoaster worth riding. — Jessica Toomer

All Her Fault (Peacock)

As far as missing persons mysteries go, All Her Fault is on another level. It grabs you from its first scene – a playdate pickup gone horrifyingly wrong – and quickly spins into a layered thriller about family secrets, marital dysfunction, and the ways women carry the weight everyone else refuses to acknowledge. Sarah Snook is magnetic as Marissa, a mom desperate to get her son back, while Dakota Fanning matches her raw emotion with a quieter kind of unraveling that makes their friendship feel authentic and their frustrations relatable. It’s sharp, fast-paced, and filled with whiplash-inducing reveals that sometimes make sense, and sometimes don’t, but land as deliciously messy as you hope they would. A prestige whodunnit? No, but one of the most compelling binge-watches of the year? You bet. — Jessica Toomer

Andor (Disney+)

It hasn’t been the best time to be a Star Wars fan. News comes out at a monthly clip about what could have been (a Soderbergh-directed Kylo Ren movie) or what actually is (a new Star Wars movie from the director of Free Guy). But throughout this, Disney+ casually released two seasons of what might be the best thing ever made in the Star Wars universe. Andor, simply put, felt like a miracle. Gorgeously made, intricately written and performed, and with enough real-world analogs to remember that at their best, these movies help process life on earth, just through the lens of a galaxy far, far away. It’s understandable that the prospect of Star Wars for grown-ups isn’t a priority for Disney. So, just be glad this exists, because who knows if we’ll ever get something this cool again. — Philip Cosores

The Bear (FX)

It’s hard for me to call The Bear’s fourth season a return to form because I genuinely liked the third season, but I recognize the vibe shift. Everyone’s pandemic boyfriend, Chef Carmy, has become toxic as a result of his work-life imbalance and grating pursuit of success, pushing everyone (including the audience) away. In a way, season 4 was about rebuilding and what comes after the explosive friends and family opening of The Bear restaurant in last season’s finale. Unsurprisingly, the pressure doesn’t lessen as Carmy and company race the clock as set by Unc (Oliver Platt) to remain viable in season 4. While Carmy is less outwardly psychotic this season with flashes of his less exhaustingly brooding self as he switches between trying to be perfect in the kitchen and realizing he might need to be more present in his life, his choices can still be nose bridge grabbingly frustrating. As always, the show’s rich cast shines in moments of focus, specifically Abby Elliott and Ayo Edebiri, who headline some of the season’s most rewarding episodes. Maybe return to form isn’t the right headline, maybe it’s more a return to likability? — Jason Tabrys

The Chair Company (HBO Max)

Tim Robinson brings a very specific vibe to his projects, leading with an exciting volatility that promises outbursts and wild narrative swings. With The Chair Company, he merges that formula with a story about a frustrated middle-aged middle manager who falls down a wormhole after a mundane yet embarrassing moment. The result is Robinson at his best, pivoting from the memeworthy comedy sketches of I Think You Should Leave to a riveting story of increasing obsession that taps into the conspiratorial fog that can so easily grip the bored and unfulfilled. — Jason Tabrys

Death By Lightning (Netflix)

A seemingly dusty tale about the late 19th century assasination of a largely forgotten President and the party infighting that surrounded it shouldn’t have as much energy as Death By Lightning does. But it’s history told right, allowing a fantastic cast to cook and deliver performances that somehow channel their most iconic work. Specifically, Matthew Macfadyen as a political parasite slipping into delusion and grievance powered revenge – a man who could absolutely have a DNA link to Tom Wambsgans (Succession). Nick Offerman’s political henchman (and future President) who slowly grows a conscience as he gains more power also seems Ron Swanson-esque (Parks And Rec) early on when displaying a voracious appetite for liquor and sausages. The list goes on and on. Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham as opposed kingmakers, Michael Shannon as the morally upright President James Garfield, and Betty Gilpin as his wife, Lucretia, delivering a stoic supporting performance before dropping the coldest burn of the year in a tense stand-off opposite Macfadyen in the finale. Learning obscure presidential history has never been this fun and, at times, stirring. –Jason Tabrys

Department Q (Netflix)

Department Q is comfort food for crime drama junkies. Matthew Goode stars as a sour, sidelined detective exiled to the unsolved cases unit after a house call gone wrong, where he promptly stumbles into a disappearance that refuses to stay buried. The mystery snaps into place episode by episode, hopping timelines and character POVs to give audiences clues the actual investigators aren’t privy to yet, but what really sells the show is its dreary, Scottish atmosphere and its Scandinavian sensibilities. (The show is based on a series of Danish detective novels.) The characters are cranky, quirky, but loveable; the central mystery is filled with so many twists you’ll probably get nauseous bingeing in one sitting; and the payoff, while a bit too neat, is satisfying. What more could you ask for? — Jessica Toomer

Hacks (HBO Max)

At this point, Hacks could just be Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder sitting in a room arguing and I’d still watch. And honestly, that describes a good chunk of the show’s latest season. Somehow keeping the streak alive, the series picks up after that killer season-three finale, dropping Deborah and Ava into the chaos of running a late-night show together with a hilariously ill equipped HR mediator (Michaela Watkins) running interference – a setup that’s basically designed to test every nerve they have. The jokes are as sharp as ever (the branzino meltdown alone earns this a spot on any best-of list), but what really makes Hacks untouchable is how effortlessly it pivots from absurd comedy to emotional warfare. Smart remains a force of nature and Einbinder finally getting her Emmy feels long overdue. Few shows are this consistently funny and this emotionally tuned-in. It’s not an easy combination to pull off, but Hacks convinces you that it is. — Jessica Toomer

Hal & Harper (MUBI)

Cooper Raiff is no stranger to a Sundance hit – his 2022 film Cha Cha Real Smooth won the Audience Awards there. So it wasn’t a surprise when his first series, Hal & Harper, debuted there this year to positive buzz and was picked up by Mubi for release in the fall. But what is a surprise is how this took the earnest dramedy of his previous feature film and turned the dial to become something even more resonant and affecting. Mark Ruffalo (maybe TV’s MVP this year) and Lili Reinhart are both excellent in the sprawling family three-hander that explores the long-tail effects of traumatic events through an extremely human lens, all set to a beautifully curated soundtrack. There’s tears and laughter and all the things that make up life, and through Raiff’s eyes, it becomes a big-hearted vibe that the viewer wants to stay in as long as possible. — Philip Cosores

I Love LA (HBO Max)

Rachel Sennott’s I Love LA can be described in a few ways. It’s a slice of zillenial life, capturing the float of a group of creators and creative-adjacents hustling their way through Hollywood while navigating toxic institutional hierarchies and bosses. It’s also a batch of complex relationship stories rife with jealousies and shifting power dynamics (best exemplified by the “Game Night” episode), and a comedy that embraces chaos and absurdism (“Upstairses”). By no means fully baked, the show has great potential to grow into HBO’s latest generational statement series in its confirmed second season, but it’s worth climbing aboard now for the above highlights and a terrific ensemble led by Sennott, Josh Hutcherson, Odessa A’zion, True Whitaker, and Jordan Firstman. –Jason Tabrys

The Lowdown (FX)

Ethan Hawke playing a truth obsessed journalist and splinter in the toe of Tulsa elites and shady characters is one of 2025’s best out-of-nowhere surprises. Laced with a cast of interesting side players and cameos, the other side of the tracks world Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo makes feels like a broken glass shard filled sandbox for Hawke’s Lee Raybon to navigate. And yet, while he’s chasing serious people, serious conspiracies, and vulnerable to serious consequences, it’s genuinely funny watching the character make bad choices and try to talk his way out of them. That’s the benefit of leaning hard into Hawke’s wily charms. It’s impossible to imagine anyone else playing this singular trainwreck of a man who is flailing as a father, bookseller, and investigator. –Jason Tabrys

Mr. Scorsese (Apple TV+)

Rebecca Miller’s 5-part portrait of Martin Scorsese deals with the totality of a man still humming along, creating culturally substantial films more than a half-century after his first real success with Mean Streets. Bounding from era to era, personal and professional ups and downs, Miller molds several wide-ranging, intimate conversations with Scorsese (and a parade of his friends, former lovers, and frequent collaborators), constructing clear statements on things like the director’s Italian-American heritage, New York upbringing, creative desires, faith, and family – elements that are all at the heart of so many of his works. Walking away, film fans get our clearest look yet at a titan of cinema who has probably worked too much for his own good and seems destined to keep challenging time and expectations to the very end. — Jason Tabrys

Platonic (Apple TV+)

This Apple TV+ buddy comedy is not the Seth Rogen small-screen vehicle that everyone was talking about in 2025. (That would be The Studio, also featured on this list.) But just because a show doesn’t have Dave Franco reinventing the way we say “shrooms” while Zoe Kravitz has a drug-fueled meltdown in the background doesn’t mean it’s not one of the funniest TV entries of the year. Platonic is quieter, less manic with its comedy, but it’s bolstered by a brilliant performance from Rose Byrne, some terrific guest bits from Aidy Bryant, Bobby Cannavale, and Beck Bennett, and a costume department that spent its entire budget on men’s cardigans. (The highest of compliments to Rogen’s stylist here.) Few shows tackle friendship better than this series – the toxic codependency, the frustrating stagnation, the freedom and inhibition that comes from a relationship with no romantic responsibilities. It’s just too damn charming not to warrant another season. — Jessica Toomer

Pluribus (Apple TV+)

Vince Gilligan’s return to sci-fi (the Breaking Bad creator worked on the X-Files early in his career) feels like an elongated Twilight Zone classic. Starring Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn as Carol, one of only a handful of “survivors” who somehow managed to maintain their individuality after a global event turns the rest of the world into a hive mind, the show is split between its central mystery and the exploration of Carol’s grief and anger. A series that isn’t interested in pre-chewing its message, Pluribus wants its audience to spend some time thinking about what it’s trying to say about having people to care for and about us, technology, agency, and other heady topics. A delightful throwback and showcase for the shockingly Emmy-less Seehorn. –Jason Tabrys

The Pitt (HBO Max)

Yes, medical dramas have been mined to dust on television. Yes, we’ve seen Noah Wyle play a “so-competent-it’s-borderline-erotic” doctor in a stretched-too-thin emergency department before. And no, we will not apologize for naming The Pitt the best TV show of 2025. Sometimes, the best storytelling isn’t about doing something that’s never been done, it’s just about doing the same thing really, really well. And John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill? They do medical pressure cookers really, really well. With Wyle as the weary senior attending battling a PTSD flare up on a particularly grueling day in his trauma one center, The Pitt stretches its 15-hour shift across 15 episodes – a practically unheard of season length by today’s TV standards – squeezing every bit of excitement and anguish it can from the resulting chaos. Katherine LaNasa, Patrick Ball, Taylor Dearden, Gerran Howell, Isa Briones, they all give incredible supporting turns at the charge nurses, residents, and student interns managing the day’s mess of mass shootings and measles outbreaks, but make no mistake, this is Wyle’s show, and he carries it effortlessly. — Jessica Toomer

The Rehearsal (HBO Max)

Perhaps more than any other show on this list, I don’t want to get too into the weeds on the story of this season, because it’s best discovered on your own (assuming you’ve been able to dodge all the stories about Nathan Felder’s awkward aeronautic adventures). I’ll just say that season 2 of The Rehearsal is a perfectly executed demonstration of Felder’s genius through specificity. Going back to Nathan For You, Felder has been a singular comedic engine, bridging the divide between the unscripted, the thoroughly planned, and social satire with his curiosity and comedic guts. While you can’t know if you can ever trust what he’s putting on screen, you know you can trust that, at the end of the ride, you’re going to be wowed by the density of what he’s built and his commitment to whatever the bit was. Felder is our top comedic tightrope walker. — Jason Tabrys

Severance (Apple TV+)

Severance season two returned with the confidence of a show that knows exactly how strange it is, and wants to test whether those limits can be pushed any further. After a punishingly long wait (three years, seriously?), the doors to Lumon finally reopened this year, expanding its cerebral nightmare beyond those familiar fluorescent-soaked cubicles. The show dove even deeper into the surreal machinery of capitalism, with Mark confronting the shocking truth about his wife and those eerie Cold Harbor experiments, and tensions between innies and outies playing an even bigger role as the corporate power struggle ventured to some pretty wild, morally dark places. Adam Scott and Britt Lower shouldered most of that heavy-lifting, turning in some electrifying performances, but the real joy of Severance is the sum of its parts, and its sheer ambition when it comes to storytelling. Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson’s sci-fi experiment is still operating on a wavelength few shows even attempt, trusting viewers to sit with confusion, dread, and the occasional goat-related curveball while it leads us down the rabbit hole. — Jessica Toomer

Sirens (Netflix)

From the first half of the year, Sirens is a deliciously messy look at the cultish, insulated world of the upper crust and what happens when an outsider starts pulling threads and hitting nerves while visiting their kingdom. Headlined by Meghann Fahy, who plays a struggling and emotionally fried older sister suspicious of the hold Julianne Moore’s society diva character has on her little sister (Milly Alcock), the show fills up the screen with beautiful Hamptons-style locales and twisty upstairs/downstairs drama. Family secrets, entitlements, and dysfunction spill allover the place, challenging the stability of relationships and, perhaps more importantly, status. The show is A LOT, but in the best way. A perfect weekend binge. –Jason Tabrys

The Studio (Apple TV+)

The business side of Hollywood has rarely been more in our faces than it is right now with merger and hostile takeover talk featuring Netflix, Warner Discovery, and Paramount everywhere. In a way, it’s like Seth Rogen’s The Studio prepared us for all of it, pulling off the magic trick of creating an inside baseball Hollywood story that isn’t so far up its ass that it forgets to give us people to root for. As an idealist in a vice, Rogen’s fresh studio head Matt Remick is quickly getting crushed under the pressure of his job, need to please his boss (played by Bryan Cranston), and existential need to both feed his ego and desire to make real pictures. The energy is chaotic, throughout, culminating in a season finale blessed with some supernatural physical comedy and cameos from Cranston, Zoe Kravitz, and David Franco. –Jason Tabrys

You got the gifts for the home, you got the style gifts, but you’ve waited until eight days before Christmas to figure out your “big swing” gifts, which means you’re either a procrastinator, an optimist, or both.

Luckily, the splurge tier is forgiving: these are presents that don’t just show up under the tree, they become a highlight of someone’s whole year — with new toys, new creative tools, or full-on “I might change my life” experiences.

Think of this list as the opposite of a panic buy. These are the gifts you’ll still be talking about next December.

Segway — Xyber Electric Bike

Price: $2,899.99

Most e-bikes still look like bicycles that happened to touch a live wire. The Segway Xyber looks like it rolled out of a sci-fi storyboard — low-slung moto frame, fat 20×5-inch tires, glowing headlight… real Mad Max shit. Underneath that future-chopper vibe is ridiculous performance: a rear hub system that can zing you from 0–20 mph in about 2.7 seconds, with peak power up to 6,000 watts and torque up to 175Nm if you run dual batteries.

With two 1,440Wh packs on board, Segway claims up to 112 miles of range, paired with proper front and rear suspension and four-piston hydraulic brakes — this isn’t a toy, it’s a small electric vehicle with a 1300-lumen headlight, color display, Apple Find My, GPS tracking, and app-based locking baked in.

Here’s the important bit: It’s wildly fun to ride. You feel like you’re in the future. And not a dystopian one.

Buy this for the friend who likes speed and fantasizes about hitting desert trails. The Xyber is rated for riders 18+ and designed for off-road use, not bike lanes, so it’s best for someone with access to trails, private land, or open space — basically anyone who wants motorcycle-level thrills without committing to a full-on gas bike.

It’s an outrageous flex of a gift, but also a sneaky investment in adventure: you’re not just buying them a ride, you’re buying them an excuse to disappear into the hills every weekend.

BUY THE XYBER BIKE HERE

Nikon — Z5 II Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera (With 24–50mm Lens)

Price: $1,999.95 (24–50mm kit; pricing varies by retailer and sales)

If someone in your life has been “the group photographer” for years — shooting everything on their phone, obsessing over golden hour, complaining about noise in low light — this is the camera that lets them finally go pro-level without diving into five-figure madness. The Nikon Z5 II takes a 24.5MP full-frame BSI CMOS sensor, pairs it with Nikon’s EXPEED 7 processor, and gives you fast bursts up to 30 fps, excellent dynamic range, and seriously good low-light performance.

That last bit is perhaps the most vital — I’ve always found that light settings are the last thing an ametuer photographer learns before going pro and this camera is very forgiving in low light.

You also get 5-axis in-body stabilization rated up to about 7.5 stops, 4K/60p video, Full HD at 120p for slow-motion, dual UHS-II SD card slots, and subject-detection autofocus that tracks people, animals, and vehicles… Okay, that’s a lot of buzzwords. But it is all pretty vital for anyone making content. It’s the whole modern “hybrid creator” toolset in a body that has weather sealing and actually feels good in your hands.

Buy this for the friend who keeps threatening to “really get into photography next year” or the partner who’s been dabbling in YouTube, TikTok, or doc-style travel reels on a hand-me-down body. With the compact 24–50mm kit lens, they can cover travel, street, and family-life moments right away and build out into more specialty glass later.

This is a splurge that becomes a creative anchor — a tool they’ll take from weekend trips to big life milestones. Best of all, it’s beyond “Oh, I could get that pic on my phone” level — the difference between “nice phone pics” and “oh wow, you shot this?” is going to be visible immediately.

BUY THE NIKON Z5 II HERE

Bowers & Wilkins — Px8 S2 McLaren Edition Wireless Headphones

Price: $899

There are nice headphones, and then there’s “I just put a McLaren interior on my head.” The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 McLaren Edition is the latter: a collaboration that wraps B&W’s flagship noise-canceling headphones in McLaren-inspired finishes — sophisticated grey, papaya accents, and detailing that feels more supercar cockpit than commuter train.

Under the hood you get all-new 40mm Carbon Cone drivers angled for a more natural soundstage, tuned by the same people who obsess over the company’s high-end hi-fi speakers (me, for one!), plus upgraded 24-bit DSP for ultra-clean wireless playback. As someone with ADHD, I want to highlight my personal favorite part of these: the active noise cancellation is genuinely elite, with six microphones working together to crush cabin hum and coffee-shop chaos while keeping your voice clear on calls. It’s huge for anyone wanting to filter out background noise.

That’s all backed by up to 30 hours of playback and quick-charge through USB-C when you forget to plug in.

Buy these for the traveler in your life who has strong opinions about bitrates, or the producer / DJ / audiophile who’s been pretending their mid-tier headphones are “fine” while secretly doom-scrolling reviews. The Px8 S2 McLaren is a flex, but it’s not just about logos — it’s about giving someone a daily upgrade in how they hear literally everything: film scores, mixes-in-progress, the new album they’ve been waiting for. It’s the kind of splurge that makes a six-hour flight feel like a private listening session and turns sitting in a hotel bed editing video into something that actually feels luxurious.

BUY THE PX8 S2 MCLAREN HEADPHONES HERE

Vibee — Illenium ‘Odyssey’ Sphere Concert & Hotel Experience

Price: Starting at $899 per person (Signature packages; VIP and SVIP tiers climb from there)

There are concert tickets, and then there are “I planned your entire fan pilgrimage” presents. Vibee’s Illenium: Odyssey packages take the DJ’s Las Vegas Sphere residency and wrap it in a weekend that’s basically built to live rent-free in someone’s memory. At the Signature, VIP, and SVIP levels, you’re pairing a ticket inside the most talked-about venue on Earth with a two-night stay at either The Venetian Resort Las Vegas (the only hotel directly connected to Sphere) or Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.

We’re talking priority entry, curated merch (including signed vinyl and Sphere-exclusive jerseys at the top tier), early access to the Illenium Fan Experience for crowd-free shopping, airport transfers via luxury coach, expedited access to select Vegas clubs, and a Vibee concierge to make the whole thing feel seamless. In the SVIP tier, there’s even a meet & greet with Illenium himself and your choice of pit or premium reserved seats.

Buy this — or any Vibee experience — for the person whose calendar is organized around tour dates and festival lineups, not fiscal quarters. The friend who trades you playlists like love letters, or the partner who never really got over their first Illenium show (the whole Vibee lineup is great but this is our fave upcoming!). You can gift it as a full send (flights + package) or as the centerpiece of a Vegas weekend they can build around. Either way, you’re not just giving them a night out — you’re dropping them into a 360-degree light-and-sound avalanche at Sphere, then sending them back to a plush suite instead of a rideshare queue and a cheap motel.

BUY THE VIBEE x ILLENIUM EXPERIENCE HERE

Envision Festival 2026 — 7-Day Jungle Music & Wellness Experience (Costa Rica)

Price: Starts at $799.00, varies by pass and accommodation

If your love language is “book a plane ticket to somewhere that might change our lives,” Envision 2026 is the most maximalist gift on this list.

Set on Costa Rica’s South Pacific coast in Uvita, Envision is a seven-day immersion where jungle meets Pacific Ocean: bamboo-built stages, beach sunsets, and a steady blur of global electronic sets, live bands, yoga, dance, martial arts, and workshops that range from breathwork to sustainability and plant medicine.

Here’s me talking about how much I loved it after the first time I went:

After an abrupt cancellation last year, the 2026 edition (February 23–March 2) leans even harder into the intentional-community DNA — organizers are reducing capacity and dialing up eco-focused infrastructure under a “back to our roots” theme, with a big emphasis on comfort, local connection, and environmental impact.

Buy this for the friend who has outgrown “just another festival” and keeps talking about wanting a reset: the yoga teacher who secretly wants to DJ, the burner who’s ready to trade the playa for the beach, the wellness-centric cousin who already owns three different travel hammocks. A week at Envision means jungle camping or eco-lodging, sunrise classes, beach ceremonies, jungle art installations, and late-night sets under the canopy — it’s less “trip” and more “mini life chapter.” I can’t sing its praises enough.

You’re not wrapping this and sliding it under the tree; you’re handing over a confirmation email, a packing list, and a very clear message: next year, your gift to them is time, transformation, and a passport stamp that will probably glow in every story they tell across 2026.

BUY ENVISION PASSES HERE

It’s been a long journey for “Girls Like Girls.” First there was the Hayley Kiyoko song in 2015, then a viral music video. Then, Kiyoko wrote a 2023 novel with the same title. Now, that book has been adapted into a movie.

Focus Features picked up the worldwide rights to the film and now it’s on its way. Kiyoko co-wrote the movie alongside Stefanie Scott, which is a full-circle moment as Scott starred in the original music video.

Ahead of the movie’s release, keep reading for everything you need to know before it hits theaters.

Plot

An official logline reads, “Based on writer/director Hayley Kiyoko’s hit single and best-selling novel of the same name and featuring all-new music from Kiyoko, Girls Like Girls is a heartfelt coming-of-age story set over the course of one sun-drenched summer, where new-girl-in-town Coley falls in love for the first time while learning to accept herself along the way.”

Kiyoko told People in 2024:

“I think about a year or so after the music video had come out, I had dreamed of making it into a feature and started the very, very long journey of, ‘How do you make a movie happen? How does this even happen in Hollywood?’ I’ve very much learned why it takes so long to get representation out there.”

She added:

“[I felt] like it’s my destiny to direct this song and to get this story out there. I was like, ‘If I give up, then who else is going to do this?’ And so that was what kept me going. This feels like a huge win for our community.”

Cast

The movie stars Maya da Costa and Myra Molloy.

In a recent interview with Schön, Molloy said of the film:

I’m so excited. Hayley Kiyoko — talk about someone I’ve looked up to since I was younger, ever since I was a kid. To see her journey with the music video, to adapting it to a book, to adapting it to a screenplay, to making the actual film… I have tremendous respect and love for her. I’m just so excited for the world to see the film and Haley’s mind, heart, and soul. This sounds corny as hell, but all my dreams are genuinely coming true right now. I wanted to be on Broadway, I wanted to be in an indie film — a romantic one, preferably, because that’s just who I am. I just love romance. Before Sunrise is my favorite film. I’ve wanted to do these things, and now I get to do them, and I’m just so excited and so happy. I’m so, so, so stoked for everyone to see it.

Release Date

The film is set to hit theaters on June 19, 2026.

Trailer

The film does not yet have a trailer.

Young Thug and Mariah The Scientist have been together for a while, and now some congratulations are in order, as the couple just got engaged.

Thug decided to go very, very public with his proposal. It went down last night (December 16), on stage during Thug’s Hometown Hero benefit concert at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena. As fan-shot footage like this and this shows, the big screen on stage read “will you marry me?” as Thug was down on one knee. The two hugged and Thug gave Mariah a ring, then she told the cheering audience, “Guess I’m getting married!”

Thug and Mariah will have to cram their wedding planning between Mariah’s tour dates, as she has a bunch lined up between January and April 2026. Check out her upcoming shows below.

Mariah The Scientist’s 2026 Tour Dates: Hearts Sold Separately

01/12/2026 — Paris, FR @ Salle Pleyel
01/14/2026 — Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy
01/15/2026 — Birmingham, UK @ O2 Academy Birmingham
01/17/2026 — London, UK @ O2 Academy Brixton
01/20/2026 — Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg – Ronda
02/13/2026 — Miami Beach, FL @ The Fillmore Miami Beach at Jackie Gleason Theater
02/16/2026 — Lake Buena Vista, FL @ House of Blues Orlando
02/18/2026 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
02/20/2026 — Virginia Beach, VA @ The Dome
02/21/2026 — Washington, DC @ The Anthem
02/24/2026 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia Presented by Highmark
02/25/2026 — New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall
02/27/2026 — New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
02/28/2026 — Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway
03/03/2026 — Montreal, QC @ MTELUS
03/05/2026 — Toronto, ON @ HISTORY
03/08/2026 — Cincinnati, OH @ The Andrew J Brady Music Center
03/10/2026 — Detroit, MI @ Fox Theatre
03/11/2026 — Chicago, IL @ Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
03/14/2026 — Minneapolis, MN @ Fillmore Minneapolis presented by Affinity Plus
03/15/2026 — Chesterfield, MO @ The Factory
03/18/2026 — Denver, CO @ Fillmore Auditorium
03/19/2026 — Salt Lake City, UT @ The Union Event Center
03/21/2026 — Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
03/22/2026 — Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom
03/24/2026 — San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
03/26/2026 — Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues Anaheim
03/28/2026 — Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium
03/31/2026 — Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl
04/01/2026 — Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre
04/03/2026 — Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater
04/04/2026 — Houston, TX @ Bayou Music Center
04/05/2026 — Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom
04/07/2026 — New Orleans, LA @ The Fillmore
04/08/2026 — Birmingham, AL @ Avondale Brewing Company
04/10/2026 — Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy

There’s just about two weeks left of 2025. So, it’s the time of year to start considering any resolutions you might want to implement in the new year. If you’re looking for advice there, Lorde has your back, but her advice should definitely be taken alongside some caution.

During a concert at Brooklyn last night (December 16), Lorde took a few minutes to give a heartfelt speech, reflecting on how her year has been, how she’s been feeling, and things she’s been grateful for (here’s a video). Towards the end, she offered a series of rapid-fire recommendations:

“Don’t be afraid to fall the f*ck apart. Let yourself feel everything. I really think that’s the only way through this moment, is to feel it all… bring in strong feelings, you know. Swim naked, have crazy sex, do drugs, dance, do it all. Stay alive.”

Some more cautious advice she failed to mention is be careful about what you eat. She might have ignored that advice recently, or perhaps just had some bad luck: In November, she had to cancel a concert due to some “ruthless food poisoning,” explaining, “I’ve been resting all day hoping I’d be well enough but I can hardly stand up and you deserve more.”

For over three decades now, rock fans in Europe have had the Rock For People festival, which has routinely brought top-tier guitar slingers to the Czech Republic. The 2026 edition, the 31st, is set to go down from June 10 to 14 and organizers have started to gradually roll out the lineup.

This week, they revealed Halsey is the final headliner, joining Gorillaz, Limp Bizkit, Bring Me The Horizon, and Iron Maiden atop the bill.

In a statement, Rock For People’s founder Michal Thomes says of adding Halsey:

“It’s great that we’re closing the announcement of the biggest festival names with a world-class modern headliner who has dominated the lineups of giant international festivals such as Reading & Leeds. We are very happy that Halsey’s first Czech performance will take place at Rock For People.”

Other acts were added, too, and now the overall list includes A Day To Remember, Babymetal, Electric Callboy, Megadeth, Nothing But Thieves, Papa Roach, Three Days Grace, Within Temptation,
 Alessi Rose, Alice & Dan Bárta, Alter Bridge, Badflower, Basement, Bilmuri, Blood Incantation, Breaking Benjamin, Don Broco, Gatecreeper, Joey Valence & Brae, letlive., Kublai Khan TX, Lottery Winners, Magnolia Park, Malevolence, Mammoth, Melrose Avenue, President, Queensrÿche, Social Distortion, Sofian Medjmedj, Static-X, The Plot In You, The Pretty Reckless, The Royston Club, Thornhill, Thrown, Trivium, Unpeople, Voilà, Vianova, Wohnout, Wolf Alice, Yard Act, Yonaka, and Zero 9:36. More artists are still set to be announced, including a batch on Christmas Day.

Tickets are on sale now and more information can be found on the festival website.

Sabrina Carpenter was on Late Night last week and during the appearance, she and Seth Meyers revealed they were preparing to film a “day drinking” segment for the show. Well, they did and last night (December 16), it aired.

Right off the bat, they subverted expectations: Instead of starting with an espresso martini, they went right to chugging a beer. Next, they had to either answer some personal questions or drink. Sabrina immediately opted to not reveal who she wrote “Manchild” about, while Seth wouldn’t say which sketch on Carpenter’s first time hosting SNL was the worst. Carpenter was also tasked with quickly giving Meyers a nickname and she went with “Th,” and was also tasked with rating him from 1 to 10, going with 7, which sparked some conversation.

Later, they competed to see who could do the best at predicting what different animals would sound like. Highlights included “raccoons” fighting, which they both nailed, prompting Meyers to proclaim the pair would be cast in the next Zootopia movie. Leaving the bar, they then competed at opening holiday gifts while wearing oven mitts, and whatever they managed to open, the other person had to drink.

Despite Meyers and Carpenter admitting they don’t know each other that well, they were an immediately electric pair, so check out the segment above.

Jack Antonoff’s name pops up annually around this time of year, as it’s when he hosts the Ally Coalition Talent Show. The coalition was co-founded by Antonoff and his fashion designer sister Rachel and it raises money for LGBTQ+ people who are unhoused or at risk. One of the event’s shtick’s is that Antonoff never reveals the lineup of performers ahead of time, but give his connections in the industry, he always delivers when it comes to special guests.

This year’s show went down at the Skirball Center For the Performing Arts in New York last night (December 15), and the roster of guests included Paramore’s Hayley Williams, Florence + The Machine’s Florence Welch, and Phish’s Trey Anastasio.

Among the highlights was Bleachers, Williams, Welch, and Anastasio covering Judee Sill’s 1971 folk favorite “Lopin’ Along Through The Cosmos.” Elsewhere in the show, Williams performed her own “Good Ol’ Days” and “Love Me Different,” and also joined Bleachers to close the show with “Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call,” Bleachers’ fan-favorite holiday tune that they officially released in 2024 after performing it live for the past few years.

Showing up elsewhere throughout the evening (as Stereogum notes) were Rachel Zegler, Claud, Samia, and others.

Check out some of the highlights below.

The first season of Prime Video’s Fallout gleefully detonated our expectations of what an open-world video game adaptation could be. Set centuries after nuclear annihilation, the show dropped viewers into a garish, atompunk wasteland where retro-futurist Americana rubbed up against desert-dusted violence, warped humor, and deeply human stakes. Produced by Westworld’s Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, the show overflowed with unhinged characters – sheltered do-gooders, undead ghouls, power armor outfitted opportunists – and even more bizarre worlds – vaults, wastelands, and techno-religious cults, just to name a few. The result? A post-apocalypse that was weird, funny, brutal, and, crucially, unburdened by the genre’s usual self-seriousness.

It should come as welcome news then, that Fallout’s buzzed-about second season doubles down on all of the deranged, deliciously strange choices made in its first outing, oozing some well-earned confidence as it swings bolder and bigger. Star Kyle MacLachlan thinks so too. “Season two is even better because we’re leaning in more,” he tells UPROXX while teasing his character, Hank MacLean’s, heel turn. “We’re more comfortable, I think, with the characters and what we’re doing. The scope of it is opened up even more. You really get a sense of the size and the scale of these worlds, and it’s pretty exciting.”

MacLachlan’s no stranger to what makes for good TV, but even he was surprised by his character’s personality pivot in the season one finale. As MacLean, the actor spent most of his screen-time playing a doting, vault-dwelling dad taken hostage by a group of raiders with ulterior motives. It was his kidnapping that sent Ella Purnell’s Lucy, the show’s de-facto heroine, topside for the first time, emerging from the underground bunker she called home to trek across the California desert in search of her father and answers surrounding his questionable past. By the end of season one, Lucy (and the audience) learned the damning truth: Hank MacLean was simply another Vault-Tec fanatic, fully drunk on the Kool-Aid of a perfectly-controlled world, who was willing to commit genocidal atrocities to see his company’s vision come to life.

In season two, Hank drops the nice guy act completely, though he’s still torn between fealty to his human popsicle overlords and his daughter. “He still maintains such a strong love for his daughter, and yet at the same time, he has this allegiance, of course, to what he’s supposed to do. He is a man who does not shirk that responsibility,” MacLachlan says. “So the exciting thing for me was being able to stretch the distance between those, to play back and forth inside that.”

Diving into the twisted psyche of his character wasn’t an acting privilege reserved solely for MacLachlan though. Every cast member was pushed to their limits in some form this time around. For Walton Goggins, who raced from Thailand to the Mojave desert, swapping his White Lotus digs for a literal camper van, season two demanded he fully inhabit two very different men: the gun-slinging, shit-talking mutant known as The Ghoul, and Cooper Howard, the pre-war Hollywood cowboy who spent the last half of season one reckoning with the reveal that his own wife was planning a nuclear strike in the name of capitalism.

“In season one, you get to spend some time with Cooper. You understand who he is, you get to see the world as it was through his experience before the bombs dropped,” Goggins says. “But it was really more about The Ghoul, wasn’t it? And his journey through the wasteland. This season is no different. The Ghoul is on a journey, and most people won’t see where it’s going, but it’s Cooper Howard that I just didn’t guess.”

“I’m excited for people to see who he is and how it is a reflection of what’s going on in the world today. For me, Cooper Howard’s journey was about a person who didn’t understand what he didn’t know, and he’s seeing the world change in real time, starting with what happened at the end of season one, learning his wife is a principal architect of the ending of the world. How do you really process that?”

While The Ghoul and Lucy continue their buddy comedy road movie schtick as they slaughter their way to New Vegas in the show’s present day, in the past, Cooper is really going through it. “He is way out on a limb. He’s very, very, very vulnerable,” Goggins says. “Where it winds up for him and what it reveals about this world was surprising, even to me.”

Nuclear warfare, familial betrayal, zombified Elvis impersonators, and bloodthirsty bros who most definitely think about the Roman Empire more than once a day – it all fills this new world Fallout is building in season two, and it can be a lot to process. That’s especially true when you’re weighted down by prosthetics and expectations. But Goggins had a unique way to unwind during filming. He embraced that van life.

“I got this van during COVID,” Goggins says of his 22-foot Mercedes Sprinter he named Vacilando. “It was always a dream of mine to have the freedom to go anywhere that I wanted to go and stay for as long as I wanted to with my son and really kind of get out into nature.” Now, it’s something he can deploy on set, allowing him a chance to immerse more with Fallout‘s unique setting.

“We were filming out in the desert, close to the Nevada border, and instead of staying in a hotel and all of these locations where we filmed, I just drove my van there,” he continues. “Everybody else would go home for the night and they would have just me and a security guard watching over the rest of the equipment. And I would just make myself food and listen to music and camp out in the wasteland. The desert is some of my favorite topography in the world, and it was getting the opportunity to live in these places in a way that I had never lived in, while staying on set. I got up at four in the morning, would have my coffee, watch the stars, see the sun rise, and then it took me four steps to get to the makeup trailer.”

Goggins has a way of making the end of the world sound kinda beautiful.

Season two of Prime Video’s Fallout is streaming now.