From Andor to Depraved, 2025’s finest films and TV uncovered a darkish political reality

“The space between what is alleged and what’s identified to be true has change into an abyss. Of all of the issues in danger, the lack of an goal actuality is maybe probably the most harmful.” —Mon Mothma in Andor season 2

Probably the most horrifying issues about propaganda is how large a internet it casts. Whether or not you’re shopping for a brand new product or fostering a brand new perception, somebody is consciously making an attempt to affect your selections for his or her profit — and it’s usually unattainable to trace the methods these influences creep into our decision-making. Numerous 2025 films and reveals tried to convey this concept from new views, in exaggerated fictional variations of the world we stay in.

That’s ironic, in a manner, as a result of artwork is likely one of the strongest propaganda instruments, able to taking many types and getting used for a lot of functions.

Dan Erickson’s Severance follows a bunch of Lumon Industries workplace staff who’ve undergone a process that splits folks’s recollections between their private and work lives. The present takes artwork propaganda to a formidable stage: Lumon’s places of work are characterised by their characterlessness, with their stark white hall partitions and modern black doorways. However between these corridors are hand-drawn and painted portraits and landscapes, usually depicting Lumon founder Kier Eagan as a god-like entity.

In these work, Kier is an inspirational determine, used to maintain Lumon’s staff dedicated to their work and constant to Lumon as an entire. However in 2025, season 2 established that Lumon’s artwork may also be a bludgeoning weapon to breed mistrust between departments, as seen with the contrasting work The Grim Barbarity of Optics and Design and The Macrodata Refinement Calamity. Each work depict wanton slaughter, however who kills whom adjustments relying on the division. The work create pressure between the Optics and Design and Macrodata Refinement departments, although their groups have extra in frequent than not. Protecting the 2 departments targeted on one another distracts them from the actions of the actual enemy: Lumon itself.

Artwork is equally used as a propaganda weapon to unfold paranoia in 2025’s Depraved: For Good. After Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) takes up her broom to combat again towards the oppression of animals in Oz, her enemies, Madame Morrible and the Wizard of Oz, feed the Ozians’ worry of her with fliers depicting her as a wide-eyed, growling monster, setting fires throughout Oz. Posters and banners throughout Ouncesfeature slogans like “BEWARE THE GREEN MENACE” and “SHE IS WATCHING YOU,” with photos that twist Elphaba’s options, making her look horrifying and demonic. Even the label “Depraved Witch of the West” comes from propaganda setting her up as an evil energy, and boosting the repute of Glinda the Good (Ariana Grande).

For Good conveys how simple it’s for a ruling get together that controls the media narrative to warp folks’s perceptions, and construct bandwagonism among the many populace, making a scapegoat for all a society’s issues and distracting from the oppressors truly creating these issues. The tragedy of For Good is that the propaganda in the end works. Elphaba is vilified, and each good deed she tries to do backfires, as a result of forces working towards her and twisting her phrases. Even when she tries to unfold her personal truths by skywriting “Our Wizard Lies” within the clouds, Madame Morrible magically alters the message right into a risk. The phrase of mouth towards Elphaba cunningly performs on folks’s prejudices towards her pores and skin colour, and it’s so efficient that she finds it unattainable to combat again.

Not even The Man of Metal may escape propaganda manipulations in 2025. Director James Gunn has by no means hidden that his tackle Superman is rooted in politics, and comes down on immigrants’ facet. Talking to The Sunday Occasions in July, Gunn mentioned, “Superman is the story of America: an immigrant that got here from different locations and populated the nation. However for me, it’s principally a narrative that claims fundamental human kindness is a price, and is one thing now we have misplaced.”

It was a well timed message, contemplating Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant government orders, assaults on scholar activists, and violent crackdowns on peaceable protesters all through 2025, and the rising wave of resistance towards it. When Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) smears Superman (David Corenswet) and undermines assist for him by focusing on his origins and portray him as an invader, issues rapidly go south for the superhero. Whereas Superman craves a standard life with love, friendship, and an extraordinary job, Luthor creates a false narrative about his alien wishes in an effort to villainize him.

Luthor’s manipulation of social media specifically holds up a mirror to audiences to point out how one thing so simple as a web based development (who can neglect “#Supershit”?) can assist unfold unreasoning, self-righteous hatred like wildfire throughout the web. The way in which Luthor zeroes in on Superman’s background is especially insidious: By othering Superman and making him seem harmful, Luthor makes any violence towards him really feel like justice.

Violence and genocidal intent spurred by crafty, malicious misinformation in the end triggers the Ghorman Bloodbath in season 2 of the Star Wars collection Andor. After portray the Ghorman folks as unreliable and grasping by means of a propaganda marketing campaign, Empire leaders gun down peaceable protesters, inciting a riot. The Empire then makes use of media management to depict the protesters as violent and uncontrolled, additional spreading judgment towards them throughout the galaxy.

The Empire controls the press, shaping what reaches its residents and what doesn’t — censorship that appears notably ironic coming from a Disney product. The Empire’s arm of censorship extends even to attacking political figures, similar to Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), whose thrilling speech to the Galactic Senate spotlights the fabrications being unfold concerning the occasions of Ghorman. Makes an attempt to cease her are waylaid by resistance throughout newsrooms. The anonymous characters pushing again towards the Empire’s management convey that anybody, anyplace can resist propaganda — it isn’t restricted to a couple heroes. Even so, common residents like Eedy Karn (Kathryn Hunter) — whose scenes unpack what she heard by means of the media or from her associates — fall sufferer to the false narrative all the identical.

The winners write historical past, and in Edgar Wright’s The Working Man, the rich elite have been profitable for years. When Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is thrust right into a televised, bloodthirsty recreation present for the amusement of The Community’s execs and its rabid followers, he rapidly learns that taking part in truthful is for chumps. The Community frames him and the opposite ravenous, impoverished folks compelled into the video games as lazy, entitled criminals who should be murdered for sport. When he finds out that The Community is placing innocents in hurt’s manner, his speech calling out the tyrannical system is edited to make it appear like he’s gleefully bragging about killing officers who have been despatched to take him down. By way of deepfakes and AI, The Community demonizes Ben and casts him as a villain, by means of a gross misuse of know-how that feels particularly related to the world we’re dwelling in.

Style fiction’s concentrate on propaganda will proceed into the brand new 12 months: The Starvation Video games: Dawn on the Reaping, the movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ 2025 prequel novel, is about to launch in 2026. Collins’ dystopian YA collection follows younger contestants who’re pitted towards each other in dying matches, to entertain the elites and ensure the facility of their rulers within the Capitol.

Due to the propaganda across the Starvation Video games, nearly all of Capitol residents by no means query the morality of the video games, and people who do are virtually all the time silenced. Provided that Dawn on the Reaping is a prequel, we already know the protagonists don’t get a contented ending — it’ll take Katniss Everdeen, a technology later, to conjure up the spark of rise up that brings down the Capitol. It’s extra seemingly we’ll see the film parallel the ebook’s a lot bleaker ending, which additional highlights how, even within the face of innumerable horrors, the labor concerned in vital pondering, the will for peace of thoughts, and the convenience of going together with the group shall be sufficient to annihilate reality.