“What makes a really great summer anthem is a breeziness,” says the Guardian music critic Ben Beaumont-Thomas, “like it cools you down slightly on a hot summer’s day.”
So what are the summer hits of 2025? And not just in music, but film and books too?
Ben, the Guardian’s film editor, Catherine Shoard, and the deputy head of books, David Shariatmadari, talk to Nosheen Iqbal about what you should be listening to, watching and reading this summer.
If you’ve listened to the episode and missed some of their recommendations, here they are in full:
Music
- Alex G – Afterlife
- Smerz – Feisty
- MK – Dior
- Clipse
- Ordinary by Alex Warren
Films
- Naked Gun
- Freakier Friday
- I Know What You Did Last Summer
- Bad Guys 2
- The Thursday Murder Club
- The Roses
- Bring Her Back
- Eddington
- Materialists
- Sinners
Books
- Dream State by Eric Puchner
- The Names by Florence Knapp
- The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
- Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams
- The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir by Edmund White
- Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser
