Happy Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or whatever holiday you're celebrating with loved ones this week!
While your time will likely be sparse with presents to wrap, food to prepare and relatives to placate, there's also a strange limbo that follows, allowing you to disappear into a vortex of mulled wine and endless TV watching.
Thankfully there's every excuse to get out still, with exciting exhibitions on legendary painters Gerhard Richter and Michaelina Malerin Wautier, along with the release of Oscar favourite Marty Supreme in cinemas.
So, press play on some unconventional holiday tunes, banish any overwhelm, try to avoid Avatar: Fire And Ash, and enjoy an early gift from us...
Spoiler: it's this week's cultural highlights. Where: Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris, France)
German artist Gerhard Richter is widely considered the world's 'greatest living artist'. Known for his bold merging of photorealism with abstraction, the Fondation Louis Vuitton pays tribute through a retrospective of 275 works spanning 1962 to 2024, seen here together for the very first time. From oil paintings to steel sculptures and ink drawings, visitors will be astonished by the breadth of Richter's range, experimentation and evolution over time.
Where: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien (Vienna, Austria)
Famed for her large-scale paintings of diverse subjects, Michaelina Wautier remains not only one of the greatest 17th-century artists, but also the most defiant. Breaking all gender norms, she forged a boundary-pushing career of large-scale portraits and landscapes - genres restricted to male painters of the time. Despite this, Wautier was forgotten for centuries. contemporary exhibitions have been working hard to rectify this, with the Kunst Historisches Museum the latest to dedicate a detailed retrospective that shows her extraordinary works alongside masters like Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck.
Bonus highlight: Around 300 of this year’s World Press Cartoon awards entrants are now on display at the Palácio Anjos in Algés, Portugal until 8 February 2026.
The Safdie brothers have proven their talents as a directing duo through butt-clenching thrillers Uncut Gems and Good Time, but 2025 was the year they went head-to-head with solo projects - both (perhaps fittingly) about highly competitive people. While Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine generated a lot of praise at the Venice Film Festival, Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme looks to be a top contender for Best Picture at the Oscars after sweeping up in Golden Globe nominations. Set in the 1950s, Timothée Chalamet stars as Marty Mauser, a charismatic young table-tennis player in pursuit of greatness. Full of screwball energy and high-octane thrills, make like a ping-pong ball and bounce to the cinema.
Bonus highlight: ‘Tis the season for cheesy, Hallmark-style movies, and one of this year’s most popular has been A Very Jonas Christmas Movie, streaming on Netflix. Grab some leftovers, pour out a Baileys, and let your mind melt into a state of saccharine serenity.
It's the TV event of the year: The Stranger Things finale. The first volume of season five premiered in November, led us on exhilarating crawls, brought the return of Max (Sadie Sink), saw Will Byers' (Noah Schnapp) powers grow, and let loose a whole load of demogorgon chaos. Volume 2 is due to drop on the 26 December, with the final episode streaming on the 31 December. Will the gang defeat Vecna and close the rifts once and for all? What fate lies in store for Eleven? And will the Hawkins children ever get over this trauma?! All we know is, we'll be ringing in the New Year with some tissues to hand.
Bonus highlight: A six-part reimagining of Mozart's career starring Will Sharpe, Amadeus is now available to stream on Sky and NOW.
From Jane Remover's frenetic genre-hops to Rosalía's symphonic salvations, it's been another great, and hugely diverse year for music releases. For those of you reading this now that don't religiously listen to each album mentioned in our music section (ahem), our End of Year round-up of the very best is essential reading. Trust us - the Euronews Culture team has great taste. Also: Think how smug you'll look during the music round of any Christmas quizzes.
Enjoy the holidays and stay tuned to Euronews Culture for more of our Best Of 2025 series, with our favourite movies of the year unveiled later today.