4 Columns
Our annual year-in-art-reviews.
Does arts criticism go viral? Relatively speaking, it does!
Our editors are here with a countdown of 2025’s most engrossing, attention-grabbing reviews, from music to film to art to literature to theater.
And we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming of new issues each Friday beginning January 9!
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Beatrice Loayza on David Lynch
David Lynch in 2007. Courtesy Getty Images. Photo: Larry Armstrong.
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Jennifer Krasinski on Waiting for Godot
Alex Winter as Vladimir and Keanu Reeves as Estragon in Waiting for Godot. Courtesy DKC/O&M. Photo: Andy Henderson.
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David Cote on A Streetcar Named Desire
Paul Mescal as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Courtesy the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.
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Harmony Holiday on Britney Spears
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Sasha Frere-Jones on Mood Machine
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MANIFESTO!, an event held on March 19, 2025, at KGB Bar in Manhattan, with texts read by Brian Dillon, Johanna Fateman, Ciarán Finlayson, Alex Kitnick, and Emily LaBarge.
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Paul Chan on Arthur Schopenhauer
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Nick Pinkerton on One Battle After Another
Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson in One Battle After Another. Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.
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Sasha Frere-Jones on The World After Gaza
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Jo Livingstone on Spectrum of Desire
Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages, installation view. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Bruce Schwarz.