TalkDeath’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2025 – Winners Announced

TalkDeath’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2025 – WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Long time readers of TalkDeath will recognize that we typically put together a ‘Best Popular Media and Death and Grief’ guide around this time of year. As 2025 came to an end, we wanted to take a moment to look back and appreciate the beauty, wonder, and honesty that so many death care workers and artists bestowed into their practices this year. But this year we did things a little differently! 

We expanded our ‘Best of the Year’ guide to include death care workers, funeral homes, cemeteries, mission driven or mutual aid projects, and more who made generative contributions to the landscape of death care and grief care this year. Tomorrow is never promised, so we want to celebrate folks and give them their roses while they are still here.

After a two-week voting period, and hundreds of votes, we’re thrilled to announce the winners!!

WINNERS!

Best TV Show from 2025 that deals with death, dying, loss, or grief

1. Dying for Sex
2. The Pitt
3. Severance
4. My Dead Mom
5. Somebody Somewhere

Best Movie from 2025 that deals with death, dying, loss, or grief

1. Sinners
2. The Room Next Door
3. Frankenstein
4. Mickey 17
5. Every Little Thing

Honorable Mention: Meet Me Where I am by Grant Garry
Was nominated by readers and received lots of votes but is from 2023

Best Song or Musical Album from 2025 that deals with death, dying, loss, or grief

1. Everybody Scream by Florence & the Machine
2. Last Time (I Seen the Sun) by Alice Smith and Miles Caton
3. Crying the Neck by Patrick Wolf
4. The Birds Don’t Sing by Clipse
5. Cenotaph by Ghost

Best Book (fiction) from 2025 that deals with death, dying, loss, or grief

1. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab
2. Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Sarah Booker and Robin Myers
3. Endling by Maria Reva
4. Hunter by Shuang Xuetao, translated by Jeremy Tiang
5. Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera

Honorable Mention: The Last Love Note by Emma Grey
Was nominated by readers and received lots of votes but was published in 2023

Best Book (non-fiction) from 2025 that deals with death, dying, loss, or grief

1. Too Poor to Die: The Hidden Realities of Dying in the Margins by Amy Shea
2. Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
3. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
4. The Genocide Continues: Population Control and the Sterilization of Indigenous Women by Karen Stote
5. Mornings Without Mii by Mayumi Inaba, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Best Podcast from 2025 that deals with death, dying, loss, or grief

1. Sol Rising: All In on Love, Loss, and Connection by Amanda McKoy Flanagan
2. Grief and Light Podcast with Nina Rodriguez
3. Death Studies Podcast
4. All There Is by Anderson Cooper
5. Grave Conversations

Death care worker, collective, or death doula who made notable contributions to the field in 2025

1. Sundari Malcolm, a Healing Doula Academy
2. Queer Grief Club | Jamie Thrower
3. Jill Schock | Death Doula LA
4. The Global Resilience Project
5. Darnell Lamont Walker
   

Honorable Mention: The Center for Loss & Hope, YoloCares, Davis, CA

Funeral director, funeral professional, or embalmer who made notable contributions to the field in 2025

1. Joél Simone | The Grave Woman
2. Amy Cunningham | Fitting Tribute Funeral Services
3. Monica Torres | Cold Hands
4. Brie Smith | Return Home
5. Genaro Reyes | Compassion Funeral Home-TX

Death/Grief educator who made notable contributions to the field in 2025

1. Kera Sanchez | Get Griefy Magazine
2. Rebecca Feinglos | Grieve Leave
3. Melissa Meadow | The Modern Mortician
4. Alua Arthur | Going with Grace
5. Dr. Elreacy Dock

Favorite Funeral Home in 2025

1. Hollis Funeral Home, Syracuse, NY
2. Sparrow, Brooklyn, NY
3. Compassion Funeral Home, TX
4. Return Home, Auburn, WA
5. Altman-Long Debary, FL

Favorite Cemetery in 2025

1. Life Forest, Hillsborough, NH
2. Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA
3. Green-Wood, Brooklyn, NY
4. Lone Fir Cemetery, Portland, OR
5. Tied:  Countryside Memorial Natural Burial, Texas and Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA

Mission Driven or Mutual aid effort in the death care space in 2025

1. Humane Prison Hospice Project
2. Black Cemetery Network
3. Life Forest Guardianship Burial Program
4. A Sacred Passing’s A Place
5. Trans Doe Task Force

Favorite method of disposition in 2025

1. Green Burial
2. Cremation
3. Donation to Science
4. Aquamation
5. Burial at Sea