In 2025, a pop culture conversation simply isn’t complete without Baltimore or Maryland.

All year, artists with local ties drove national discourse, from a painter’s fitting homecoming to a hardcore act’s rise as America’s must-see live band. A Largo native made TV history, a Towson-born comedian breathed life into independent film, and a K-pop singer from Montgomery County broke Billboard charts.

Got some holiday downtime? Start with these highlights from TV, music, movies, art and books you might have missed — and leave your own favorites in the comments.

TV

History was made in September, when Prince George’s County native Tramell Tillman became the first Black man to win best supporting actor in a drama at the Emmy Awards. I still get chills when I see the “Severance” star punctuate his acceptance speech by quoting his first acting coach: “And as my mama would say, ‘Oohh! Look at God!’”

The Emmys were kind to Marylanders — Frederick County native Shawn Hatosy also won for guest actor in a drama for “The Pitt” — but it still feels like HBO’s addictive whodunit “The White Lotus,” got snubbed. TV was a lot less fun without hearing the Baltimore-born Parker Posey, an outstanding supporting actress in a drama nominee, mangle words like “Lorazepam” and “Piper” with her exaggerated North Carolina drawl.

For an actor to keep an eye on in 2026, try Rachel Hilson, the Baltimore School for the Arts alum who brought layered complexity to HBO’s “Duster.” The J.J. Abrams-produced series wasn’t renewed after its debut season, but we’ll see more of Hilson soon: She’s in the cast of the upcoming Will Ferrell comedy “Judgment Day.”

Movies

Veteran director Jay Duplass told The Banner in August that Hollywood doesn’t make movies like “The Baltimorons” anymore — low-budget independent films about and for adults. Perhaps it still should.

Duplass and Towson native Michael Strassner proved there’s still an audience for a heartfelt, bittersweet romantic comedy. “The Baltimorons,” based on lead actor Strassner’s life as a newly sober comedian, was an instant indie darling, racking up film festival awards on its way to a wide theatrical release and, shockingly, profitability.

The movie’s loving, unvarnished portrayal of Baltimore at Christmastime is its own gift — a refreshing counter to outsiders’ speculative comparisons to “The Wire.”

And wait, was that Stavvy Baby in Venice with Emma Stone? My favorite image of the year arrived in August, when a tuxedoed Stavros Halkias hit the Venice International Film Festival alongside the two-time Oscar winner as part of the “Bugonia” cast. Don’t miss the Baltimore comedian’s brief yet memorable turn as a creepy cop in Yorgos Lanthimos’ twisted sci-fi tale.

As for local events, a shout-out of appreciation to the New/Next Film Festival, which, in its third year, has established itself as a discerning platform for rising filmmakers (not to mention a lively social scene that connects workers in the industry). Independent cinema is alive and well, especially in Baltimore.

Art

Just months after The Washington Post named the Baltimore Museum of Art a top 20 museum in the country, the BMA made its case for a higher position.

”Turn Again to the Earth”, an ambitious, elemental initiative with multiple exhibits about nature and humans’ delicate relationship to it, felt more vital and urgent than ever.

Then, in September, serendipity stepped in. The BMA landed “American Sublime,” Amy Sherald’s career-spanning exhibition that needed a new home after she pulled it from the National Portrait Gallery over censorship concerns. It had to be Baltimore, as Sherald — a former employee of the BMA’s Gertrude’s restaurant — spent her formative painting years here after attending the Maryland Institute College of Art.

“It was the best decision I ever made,” Sherald told a BMA audience of moving to Baltimore at 28 for graduate school. The exhibit runs through April 5.

Other Baltimore museums also made headlines. The Walters Art Museum’s new Latin American Art/Arte Latinoamericano collection, which boasts more than 200 artworks from South, Central and North America and the Caribbean, is a welcome addition — the type of history lesson that fascinates and surprises.

In Federal Hill, the American Visionary Art Museum named Ellen Owens, formerly of Niagara University’s Castellani Art Museum, its executive director in April after a 10-month search.

We also said goodbye to influential galleries who will be deeply missed, like Station North’s Night Owl Gallery and C. Grimaldis Gallery, which announced it would transition to an online format after 48 years of operation in Mount Vernon.

Despite the closures, Baltimore’s art galleries continue to house great work by artists on the rise. Pay a visit to Current Space, Goya Contemporary, Galerie Myrtis, Gallery CA and Creative Alliance, to name a few.

Books

Whether you need some last-minute gift ideas or fantasize about curling up on the couch with a new read, authors with Baltimore ties released some serious page-turners this year.

Look no further than The Banner Book Club for some of the best of the year: Former Banner reporter Lawrence Burney’s “No Sense in Wishing” set a high bar for blending memoir and music criticism, while Laura Lippman’s latest, “Murder Takes a Vacation,” was called “another gem” from the Baltimore author by Kirkus Reviews.

There was also Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson’s “Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free,” an acclaimed biography of the fashion pioneer from Frederick, and Eric Puchner’s novel “Dream State,” an Oprah’s Book Club pick about a love triangle that will be adapted into an A24-produced TV series.

I’d be remiss not to also mention my colleague Leslie Gray Streeter, whose novel “Family & Other Calamities” came out in April.

If photography is more your thing, add these new books to the coffee table:

• Derrick Adams, “Derrick Adams”: The colorful, pop art-inspired depictions of American Black life have made Adams, a New York-via-Baltimore multidisciplinary artist, world-renowned. This career-spanning monograph captures his masterful technique and trademark whimsy in bright, luxurious detail.
• Jerrell Gibbs, “No Solace in the Shade”: You need to pay attention to this talented Baltimore painter, whose debut major art book was released in September. Not yet 40, Gibbs landed his first solo show at the respected Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, on view now through March 1.
• Devin Allen, “Baltimore”: This book of more than 100 photographs shot by Allen, who also had a Baltimore Uprising exhibition at the BMA this year, documents the city through his eyes between 2015 and 2023.
• J.M. Giordano, “Thunder on the Hilltop”: This veteran photographer and Banner contributor’s latest limited-edition photo book finds the beauty in the Preakness Stakes, while benefitting the nonprofit organization Mid-Atlantic Horse Rescue.

Music

Maryland’s year in music could be the biggest triumph of all.

Just look at the acts who are staples in 2025 best-of lists from Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and other publications: Hardcore-and-more heroes Turnstile; rising R&B star Dijon; critical darling Nourished by Time; and HUNTR/X, the “KPop Demon Hunters” trio, featuring Montgomery County native Rei Ami, behind the No. 1 hit “Golden.”

Baltimore’s hardcore moment didn’t end with Turnstile — bands like End It, Jivebomb, Sinister Feeling, Gasket and others showed this city is a leader in the scene for a reason.

For more standout artists from the area, check out Al Shipley’s top 10 albums of the year, led by rap duo Brian Ennals and Infinity Knives’ audaciously uninhibited “A City Drowned in God’s Black Tears.”

Want more local music? Check out some more tracks released this year that are worth your time:

• YG Teck, “I Like”
• Angel Du$t, “Cold 2 the Touch”
• Ousted, “Reflections”
• Pinkshift, “Don’t Fight”
• YMC Ant, YMC Backz, Ghoncho1800, “Poppin It”
• Mighty Mark, Sharaya J and TSU Terry, “Crazy Leg Going Remix”
• Lafayette Gilchrist, “Cut Through the Chase”
• Micah E. Wood, “Don’t Wanna Go Back”