Good morning. We’re rounding up some of 2025’s biggest scene-stealers – more on that below, along with the businesses caught up in Donald Trump’s trade war and Pierre Poilievre’s plans for next year. But first:
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Ernie Clement’s delightful slide.Emilee Chinn/Getty Images
2025 in reviewMeeting the moment
There’s been plenty of spectacle over the past year. Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another featured a long, dizzying car chase through the dips and hills of the California desert. The Toronto Blue Jays’ Ernie Clement delivered a joyful, totally unnecessary slide into home plate during the World Series’ final game. New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani charmed the absolute pants off U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, while 87-year-old author Joyce Carol Oates eviscerated Elon Musk on his own platform.
Okay, technically this all happened in the past two months, because my holiday brain can’t remember much before that. Fortunately, a few of my Globe colleagues helped out with the performances that stuck with them through 2025.
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Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.Logan White/The Associated Press
Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Rose Byrne is a gravitational force. While the Australian actress is best known for her comedic work, often of the supporting variety – Bridesmaids was Kristen Wiig’s show to steal, while the Neighbors films were Seth Rogen’s babies – she has always felt like a remarkably magnetic presence all the same. But with her new, deeply dark dramedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, the actress finally gets to be the singular focus – literally.
Playing Linda, a therapist and mother who must navigate a series of nerve-shredding crises that metastasize every few minutes, Byrne is filmed by director Mary Bronstein in a series of sustained and extreme close-ups, ensuring that the actress’s face is not only in the centre of the frame but often filling it entirety. It is not only the performance of the year, it is the apex of Byrne’s entire career – one that is, we can only hope, just beginning. – Barry Hertz, film critic
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Bad Bunny at the Met Gala this year.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images
Bad Bunny in Puerto Rico
The new year had barely begun before Bad Bunny claimed it as his own. Five days into 2025, the Puerto Rican artist born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio released Debi Tirar Mas Fotos, a 17-track ode to his homeland. While the album leans heavily on the reggaeton sound that has made Bad Bunny one of the world’s top-selling artists, it also features salsa, bomba and plena influences. Its promotional materials included images of a sapo concho, Puerto Rico’s only native frog; Jacobo Morales, the iconic Puerto Rican filmmaker; and the pava, a straw hat closely linked to Puerto Rico’s working-class history.
I know all this because DTMF, which was my most-streamed album of 2025 by a long shot, compelled me to learn it. Bad Bunny created a piece of art that demanded more of its listeners than mere listening – a remarkable feat considering he sings in Spanish. Pop music seldom has politics so clear, they transcend language.
But if you missed it in the music, you caught it in the tour. This summer, Bad Bunny embarked on a 31-date residency in San Juan – notable not just because several concerts were reserved for Puerto Ricans only, but because the artist refused to perform at all in the United States. It was a one-two punch, rebuking the colonial mainland while championing – and adding a reported US$400-million in tourism dollars to – his island home.
In 2025, as countries around the world began a stark renegotiation of their relationship with the U.S., DMTF served as a masterclass in culture-driven pride and protest. It’s a blueprint worth carrying into the new year. – Rebecca Tucker, deputy editor, Arts & Books
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Viktor E. Rat during the NHL playoffs.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
The Panthers’ mascot in Florida
The great thing about sport is its ability to tack wildly between the sublime and the ridiculous, often within the same moment.
As performances of the year go, the Jays in October and Team Canada in the first skirmishes of our border war are easy ones.
But what jumps to my mind is Viktor E. Rat. The Florida Panthers mascot (they’ve got two of them, and the other one is, less compellingly, a panther) is a steady presence during the NHL playoffs. So viewers have seen a lot of him these last few years.
Viktor has that thing great mascots (and also maybe great rats) have: presence. He inhabits the moment. If the Panthers are up, he’s exultant in the stands. If they’re down, he’s enraged. I got on an elevator with him once. He was panting and you could feel the heat coming off him. He still took time to gnaw on my head in a friendly way. He wants everyone to feel seen.
During each Panthers’ home game, the team honours a veteran of foreign wars. They call it “Heroes Among Us.” It’s a solemn moment in the midst of the stupidity. They do a little intro and flash pics of the soldier when he was young. They play the national anthem, and the veteran salutes the flag up in the rafters.
One night during the Stanley Cup finals, the camera angle was such that you could see Viktor, framed in the background, mirroring that salute. His rat chin and his rat eyes were skyward. One pink claw was stiff just above his brow. You could feel his yearning for a better, simpler time.
I saw a lot of great plays this year. But if aliens showed up and asked me to explain what professional sport in 2025 is all about, I’d point them toward the saluting rat. – Cathal Kelly, sports columnist
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Air Canada flight attendants on the picket line.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Air Canada’s flight attendants in defiance
Most flight attendants in Canada do not get compensated for their work during boarding, safety checks, deplaning or delays – a fact little known to the public until the union representing Air Canada’s flight attendants made it a key sticking point in negotiations with the airline this year. In the lead-up to their summer strike, the Canadian Union of Public Employees embarked on a campaign – Unpaid Work Won’t Fly – highlighting the fact that, on average, flight attendants work 35 unpaid hours per week.
More than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants made history in August by defying a federal back-to-work order and continuing on with an illegal strike that lasted 24 hours. It was a move only made possible by immense public support for the workers. In the end, Air Canada was forced to increase its offer and pay for ground work, setting a major precedent for other unionized flight attendants and the labour movement as a whole. – Vanmala Subramaniam, future of work reporter
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Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry make it official.@katyperry/Supplied
Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry in love
At first, the blurry summer photos of former PM Justin Trudeau and pop star-turned-astronaut Katy Perry dining together in Montreal felt like a mere curiosity. Maybe he was networking on behalf of his son Xavier, the aspiring R&B artist. But by October, it was clear sparks were flying after a telescopic lens caught the two smooching on a yacht. (She was in a bikini; he was in jeans, which feels very Canadian for reasons I can’t quite explain.) This month, the two officially hard-launched their relationship on Instagram.
Although the match may seem random, it actually makes perfect sense. Their individual careers peaked in an age of political optimism and millennial feminism: Perry’s songs were lauded as girl-power anthems, while Trudeau’s “because it’s 2015” gender-parity answer was the ultimate mic drop. Also, the Trudeau dynasty has a history of dating celebrities, and Perry has a thing for brunettes.
We don’t know how long they’ll last. But in a year where every news headline seemed very high stakes, Trudeau and Perry’s coupledom felt like a well-deserved bit of low-stress gossip. – Samantha Edwards, online culture reporter
The Shot‘It’s a business that’s really seeped into people here.’Open this photo in gallery:
An employee at South Shore’s factory.Renaud Philippe/The Globe and Mail
It took a village to build the South Shore Furniture empire in Sainte-Croix, Que. Now the Trump administration’s trade war is knocking it down.
The WrapWhat else we’re following
At home: The federal immigration department shelved a program that matched skilled refugees with vacant jobs and provided them with permanent residency.
Abroad: Donald Trump said the U.S. struck a “big facility” in Venezuela, though the President didn’t specify what it was, or where, or who carried out the attack.
Politics: Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre doesn’t think his style needs to change after what he concedes was a “challenging year.”
Biz: Lululemon founder Chip Wilson is launching a proxy fight to overhaul the board of the company.
Booze: South Koreans are far more likely to drink hard liquor than any other country – so hangover cures are popping up in convenience stores and pharmacies.
Buzz: Soaring coffee prices are forcing roasters, retailers and customers to adapt.
