Illustrations by Niklas Wesner.
When I set out to make a piece of sound work that surveyed the “best” sounds and music from the last year in cinema, I found that it wasn’t so easy to get started. As a cinephile questioning what cinephilia means in this day and age, I approached this task through the specific lens of my artistic practice, using sound to create collage work. Unlike in the past, I haven’t been completely inspired by new releases this year, or drawn to engage heavily with them. So I wanted this mix to be a reflection of the landscape, without being too cynical; after all, this is not a work of film criticism, but a sound collage.
I aimed to source moments that would form a cohesive overview of the year in cinema, while sonically connecting into a new whole in its own right. This is certainly not an exhaustive compilation of the year’s major players in music and sound design—although some of these zeitgeistier figures do feature—but a work that is partly a celebration of sounds I dug, and partly an exploration of the year that was, borne from inquisitive clicks; I took the year to tunnel into my own curiosity, take chances, watch and read widely. This mix is a reflection of those discoveries.
I didn’t go out looking for unifying themes, but I found some regardless. For starters, the mix feels wintry, contemplative, introspective, a little melancholy. Which is very much in keeping with the way that many people feel when moving toward the end of another year, with timely evocations of indoor spaces and reflective moods. Stylistically, the mix leads with classical and jazz, both old-school classics and contemporary reworkings, then veers into cute, kitsch indie; environmental recordings; a few great pop songs; and subtle, warped blends from the ambient world: artists and producers who were on the cutting edge in earlier decades and are now fixtures in the industry.
So what highlights are included in this mix that were not only sonic highlights? Music and dialogue from Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude (all films 2025 unless noted) frequently punctuate the mix; I was in awe of the way in which Serra styled his documentary portrait of a matador, drawing from ambient sounds and pointed classical and pop music cues. Another era of Spain features in Dressed in Blue (1983), my retrospective love of this year from the 2025 Berlinale Classics program. This made-for-TV documentary about six trans women in early -’80s Madrid is the proto-Paris is Burning (1990); the ways in which the group renders and stylizes their lives are imaginative and touching, often akin to a soap opera with a sense of high drama.
There are energetic songs elsewhere in the mix: a George Harrison number from Weapons; the climatic crescendo of Eugene Kotlyarenko’s The Code. The tone shifts when it comes to a lullaby from Anna Von Hausswolff taken from Sound of Falling. I enjoyed the feeling of warmth in the title sequence for After The Hunt, which makes clever use of Tony Bennett’s “Child Is Born.” Pangs of indie ambience from Sorry Baby and Good One form another thread in this mix. Hot Milk features an interesting (and unexpected) score from Matthew Herbert, an electronic producer active since the late ’90s; his music often repurposes everyday sounds, like objects rustling around in his bag. I’ve been following his work for a while, and admired classic tunes like “I Hadn’t Known” and EPs like The Audience, for !K7 Records, so I had to seek out this film. But sometimes it’s not possible for strong production chops to save a weak movie. In the context of this mix, Herbert’s meditations are a reprieve from the eruption of hectic excitement that precedes it, dialogue and music taken from Amalia Ulman’s sophomore feature Magic Farm.
The mix maintains a sultry feeling throughout, a serious tone for the most part. Christian Petzold’s Miroirs No. 3 gives us Adriana von Franqué’s gorgeous piano. Harvest provides rustic strings, while Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet draws inMax Richter’s distinct brand of contemporary classical music. All these moments are interwoven with sounds from the outside world, all imparting glimpses of everyday life: that’s Pavement reminiscing about their influences, a familial dispute in the Irish countryside in Christopher Andrews’s Bring Them Down, the bustle of modern Naples in Gianfranco Rosi’s Below the Clouds, the serenity of Normandy in Pierre Creton’s 7 Walks with Mark Brown, or the heat and pressures of Brooklyn in Alice Diop’s Fragments for Venus. We end with “Dancing Girl” by Terry Callier, a song which takes us into Joachim Trier’s family drama Sentimental Value.
By using this approach, this mix became a time capsule of curiosity about sound, freed from context. I was reacquainted with beautiful music from artists I loved, while also coming fresh to sounds of the past and present. In the end, I found myself surprised by the sounds, textures, and voices that emerged on this mix, bound together into something totally new.
TRACKLIST
All films from 2025, unless specified.
- Excerpt, After The Hunt (Luca Guadagnino) 00:00
- Excerpt, Sorry, Baby (Eva Victor) 02:20
- “Grand Prix,” Nala Sinephro, The Smashing Machine (Benny Safdie) 02:55
- Excerpt, The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt, 2025) 06:36
- “In All My Philosophy,” Max Richter, Hamnet (Chloé Zhao) 08:15
- Excerpt, Hard Truths (Mike Leigh, 2024) 10:20
- “For All Eternity,” Howard Shore, The Shrouds (David Cronenberg) 13:30
- Excerpt, Pavements (Alex Ross Perry) 18:15
- “Tell Me About the Guys,” Graham Reynolds, Blue Moon (Richard Linklater) 20:42
- “Stranger,” Anna Von Hausswolff, Sound of Falling (Mascha Schilinski) 25:00
- Excerpt, 7 Walks with Mark Brown (Vincent Barré, Pierre Creton, 2024) 30:00
- Excerpt, Below the Clouds (Gianfranco Rosi) 31:20
- Excerpt, Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra) 32:10
- “Une barque sur l'océan,” Maurice Ravel, performed by Adriana von Franqué, Miroirs No. 3 (Christian Petzold) 34:20
- Excerpt, Fragments for Venus (Alice Diop) 40:15
- Excerpt, Good One (India Donaldson, 2024) 42:40
- “Incline,” Jeremiah Fraites, The Long Walk (Francis Lawrence) 45:30
- Excerpt, It’s Not Me (Leos Carax, 2024) 49:00
- Excerpt, The History of Sound (Oliver Hermanus) 50:52
- “Karoline’s Theme,” Frederikke Hoffmeier (a.k.a. Puce Mary), The Girl With The Needle (Magnus von Horn) 53:10
- Excerpt, Dressed in Blue (Antonio Giménez-Rico, 1983) 55:55
- “One Battle After Another,” Jonny Greenwood, One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson) 60:50
- Excerpt, Bring Them Down (Christopher Andrews) 63:36
- “Stolen Tale,” Hildur Guðnadóttir, Hedda (Nia DaCosta) 65:05
- Excerpt, Magic Farm (Amalia Ulman) 68:16
- Excerpt, Hot Milk (Rebecca Lenkiewicz) 70:40
- “Beware of Darkness,” George Harrison, Weapons (Zach Cregger) 72:27
- Excerpt, Afternoons of Solitude (Albert Serra) 76:10
- Excerpt, The Code (Eugene Kotlyarenko) 77:54
- Excerpt, Harvest (Athina Rachel Tsangari) 81:28
- “Dancing Girl,” Terry Callier, Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier) 87:55
Continue reading Notebook’s 2025 Year in Review.