Here are the 10 most popular music videos that we featured in 2025. That's in terms of page reads - hence they are the Most Viewed videos of the year.Our list includes some big names and big videos - one that was a viral hit that took six months to take off before we featured it. And, it's fair to say, one or two surprise entries, spurred by social media spikes.So following the rundown from 25 to 11, here the videos from 10 to 1...10. Travis Scott 'Dumbo' by Gabriel Moses The world of "DUMBO" is rich in symbols: glorified bodies, female silhouettes, sets blending sacred and industrial elements. Gabriel Moses carefully frames each scene, playing with contrasts and silence.Sponsor banner: Trim Editing 9. Lovejoy 'With Rob As My Witness' by Aaron BishopBrighton-based rock band Lovejoy team up with director-DoP duo Noiziac for a heated, grungy ode to Fight Club... it marks a new era for the band, as they move into grittier territory than previously with the visceral ‘Residents Only Boxing’ event in the video. 8. Doechii 'Denial Is A River' by James Mackel & Carlos Acosta James Mackel and Carlos Acosta turn Doechii's confessions on the ups and downs of fame into a replay of an '80s, '90s sitcom, where the singer's on-screen character in the show goes through big changes. 7. Don Toliver 'No Pole' by rubberband.In their distinctive fashion the directors orchestrate a precision-cut experience, weaving a surreal narrative through the use of formally executed shots and unorthodox editing... the viewer is drawn in by the suspenseful pacing and not knowing what will happen next.Sponsor banner: SMUGGLER 6. Lola Young 'Messy' by Sarah Dattani TuckerIt's taken a while but the internet is going wild for Sarah Dattani Tucker's visual for Lola Young's Messy. And you can see why. In an empty, red-carpeted room - with the exception of a giant birthday cake - Lola Young gives a great performance of the wonderfully vitriolic Messy. 5. FKA twigs 'Striptease' by Jordan HemingwayJordan Hemingway directs another entry in FKA Twigs' thrilling Eusexua campaign - a raw, confrontational visual, marked by palpable tension and a deep dive into introspection, filmed in a highway tunnel in Marseilles. 4. Snoop Dogg ft Tom Petty & Jelly Roll 'Last Dance With Mary Jane' by Dave MeyersSnoop reflects upon a life of smoking weed, after he gets some advice from (Doctor) Dr Dre that it would be a good idea if he quit. Dave Meyers takes us from the good Dr's office into Snoop's trip down memory lane... an AI-enhanced animation that takes the integration between a classic craft and new technology to the next level. 3. Viagra Boys 'The Bog Body' by Eoin GlaisterThe track combines surly rock 'n roll power with a idiosyncratic lyric... all the motivation that Eoin Glaister needs to bring a unique love story to the screen, which starts when the reanimated zombie-like Bog Body walks into a London boozer...Sponsor banner: Stink Films 2. Lady Gaga 'Abracadabra' by Lady Gaga, Paris Goebel & Bethany VargasCreative mayhem abounds, with lavish costumes, cult-like chants and a return to Gaga's maximalist roots. Fans will notice callbacks to her iconic videography - namely Alejandro and Judas - but this video takes things to new heights, with a fearless vision and curated aesthetic. 1. Gaia Banfi 'Ragni' by Gabrielle TorreborreGabrielle Torreborre's video for Italian singer Gaia Banfi transforms a woman's dissatisfaction with her relationship into a visually inventive dance piece. NEXT IN BEST OF 2025: New Directors, Hot Directors

As the new year gets under way, time for some unfinished business with the old one. And we start with a look back at the interviews and the Q&As we ran last year. It's a countdown of the features with the most views on Promonews in 2025. It was a very busy year on the platform (and our Instagram feed) for interviews with members of the music video community, leading to longer-read features on the making of various important videos through the year. We talked to variety of professionals about their work via the SNAPSHOT Q&A in the first half of the year, then focussed more on in-depth behind the scenes interviews with directors about specific videos and other projects - including a few that had a huge impact on popular culture in 2025. And we celebrated the life of a legend of the music video business who passed away last year.So to begin our review of the year, here are the 15 top features from 2025 - our most popular and most-read long-read articles, according to website views, including links to the full articles.And there's more to come: the most popular videos featured on Promonews, in terms of views; also our pick of the New Directors and the Hot Directors from the year. And quite possibly more besides... 15. BTS: Olivia de Camps on Danna's Khe Calor | 'The second I heard the song, it felt like pure melodrama.'The SMUGGLER director talks about celebrating and subverting the telenovela in her breathless epic for the Mexican pop star and actress Danna. Sponsor banner: SMUGGLER 14. From casting to visual storytelling - Louise Collins on her directing debut for Sylvie Wiley’s 'Stranger In My Sheets'Louise Collins, who has been involved in numerous music videos as a casting director, has now made the leap into directing a music video for British-American singer songwriter Sylvie Wiley, capturing the extraordinary skills of aerial dancer Izzy Bloomer. Promonews talked to Louise to find out how it happened. 13. Three videos, four days : Alex Gargot on the challenge of his SAINt JHN trilogyFrom the POV of a bullethole, to a jealous robot, to it's reanimated remains... the CANADA director explains how he made three distinctly different videos for the Guyanese-American singer's new album Festival Season, that have a common thread.Sponsor banner: CANADA 12. Will Wightman on This Place Is A Sh*thole: 'This was part-experiment, part-therapy'It's not a music video, but we still love Will Wightman's new short film - four minutes of high-octane comedy horror thrills, introducing one of the most ingenious monster creations of modern times. We discover the Blinkink director wanted to explore the potential of an unusual camera -and exorcise a few demons.Sponsor banner: Blinkink 11. THE SNAPSHOT Q&A: Henry Howardhttps://www.promonews.tv/interviews/snapshot-qa-henry-howard/90422The ELMNTL colourist makes a plea for better communication with creatives, reveals Swift-related fun times - and his teeny obsession with Wicked...Sponsor banner: ELMNTL 10. BTS: Bonnie MacRae on Chloe Slater's Harriet | 'Normal People still feels so relevant.'The Spindle director’s debut music video pays tribute to a modern TV classic. She explains how it happened, and why it needed to be as faithful to the original as possible.Sponsor banner: Mouthpiece 9. Joe Connor on capturing Ireland’s giant waves for Gregory Alan Isakov's Mistakes: 'You had to feel the surfer is on a knife edge.'He has made an awesome black and white surfing film for singer-songwriter Isakov - a passion project, shot in Ireland, that stands comparison with a certain famous ad. It was time to ask the Rogue Films director some questions.Sponsor banner: ROGUE 8. BTS: Jake Erland on Olivia Dean’s Nice To Each OtherDirector/DoP Jake Erland’s recent video for Olivia Dean elevates the singer's charming on-screen presence by referencing Hollywood musicals and classic fashion shoots. We asked Jake some questions about the project.Sponsor banner: Park Pictures 7. THE SNAPSHOT Q&A: Tohé CommaretThe award-winning French director on success at the Berlinale, shooting her KUKII promo in Cairo and approaching music videos as experiments in filmmaking.Sponsor banner: FRIEND 6. Zac Dov Wiesel on Megan Thee Stallion's Whenever video: "It was super-fast and furious."We spoke to the Pulse-signed director about his breakthrough into the big time, making a video for one of American hip-hop's most visually astute superstars.Sponsor banner: Pulse Films 5. THE SNAPSHOT Q&A: Rianne WhiteThe Mouthpiece-repped director on working with her idols, moving from Edinburgh to London (with geese) - and the need for greater mental health support to cope with the demands of the industry.Sponsor banner: Mouthpiece 4. 'No-one knew what would happen before this tour started.' | Daniel Broadley on creating video postcards for Oasis Live '25The KODE director has spent the past few months with Oasis on their spectacularly successful comeback tour - mostly pointing his camera at the fans. It's not only led to a remarkable document of the biggest pop culture moment of the year, it's also elevated what is possible in the live concert space.Sponsor banner: KODE 3. THE SNAPSHOT Q&A: DON ProdThe REBEL-based directing duo on their unusual start in film, how shooting 6-a-side football led to making music videos - and embracing the terror of tight turnarounds.Sponsor banner: ROGUE 2. Stuart McIntyre on making Sam Fender’s People Watching video - 'Andrew gave more than I could've ever asked for.'The commercials director, making his very first promo, says a shared experience with the acclaimed actor drove the project - and his love for a classic Gus Van Sant movie. 1. 'Where would we be without him?' Family and friends pay tribute to Oil Factory co-founder Billy Poveda, who died last monthBilly Poveda, producer and 'pioneer and visionary of music video', passed away a few weeks ago. We spoke to his wife Heidi Herzon about the man who nurtured careers and made great work - and will always be remembered for his can-do attitude and personal warmth.

It's been one of the success stories of the year. The Jake Erland-directed videos for Olivia Dean have helped propel the singer to new heights. Now we can find out how VFX work at post house Anchous assisted the in-camera ingenuity in three videos, and contributed to their impact - courtesy of Before & After comparison reels. London-based Anchous worked with Jake Erland on three of his videos for Olivia Dean this year - Lady Lady, the smash hit Man I Need and So Easy (To Fall In Love) - and the idea in each one was to make the ambitious 'one-shot'-style structure as seamless and natural as possible.So that Olivia appeared to wander effortlessly through choreographed scenes of backstage activity or rehearsals in a theatrical performance, or a Hollywood musical, the VFX work had to be invisible."Overall, the biggest challenge was maintaining the organic, non-artificial feeling of a true one-shot music video - keeping the illusion that everything was captured fully in-camera," says Arsenii Pronkin, Anchous founder, EP and senior editor. He also reveals that the essential method was to work with two different takes of the same tracking shot to craft the 'perfect' combination of both. "Matching motion between the two takes was tricky, and in the moments where that wasn’t possible, we had to stitch together transitions from five or six different shots while still making the final piece feel completely seamless. But thankfully Jake and Rowan [Mackintosh King, the producer] did their best with the shots and pre-planning the transitions. So it was a very smooth process."Matching motion between two takes was tricky... where that wasn’t possible, we had to stitch together transitions from five or six different shots.In fact, you can find out how good the clean-up work has been in the three videos by viewing the Before & After comparison reels here - accompanied by Arsenii Pronkin's words on the specific challenges posed by each video.Lady Lady"The toughest part was definitely the floor transition. We didn’t want to rely on a fade-in/fade-out, so we used multiple takes to capture as much of the different floor positions and reflections to make the transition feel natural."Man I Need"Here it was all about the masked transitions, which were quite complex. They weren’t the typical “hide it behind someone’s back” or “person passes in front of camera” type of tricks - these ones required much more precise planning and execution with the matching position."So Easy (To Fall In Love)"The challenge was the final shot, where we had to replace almost every lightning flare with a larger one. The actual replacement isn’t hard, but doing it across a continuous 40-second shot - tracking every light stomp and making sure all the flares stay consistent in size."Pronkin points out that a different skill set is required for using VFX to clean up live action shots, rather than creating 'visible' VFX."Some of the tools are the same," he says. "But you just need to be a lot more efficient with being able to make two or three options with the very slight touches of changes in the transition."No doubt that the cleanup is easier than full CG. But tracking a 40–50 second shot and then blending it into another 30-40 second shot is still no joke, ha ha."But Pronkin adds that Anchous have also worked with Jake Erland on another project which did require decidely more visible VFX work: the Joy Crookes' video for I Know You'd Kill."We had some very fun blood and gunshot VFX moments - that was super cool to work on."• More about Anchous here

It's not a music video, but who cares? We still love Will Wightman's new short film - four minutes of high-octane comedy horror thrills, introducing one of the most ingenious monster creations of modern times. We discover the Blinkink director wanted to explore the potential of an unusual camera -and exorcise a few demons.Will Wightman is used to delivering extremes, and revelling in the genuinely gross, mainly for humourous purposes: he's the director who put a fly inside a man's brain for his one and only official music video for Irish DJ Tommy Holohan; he created a children's TV show where the puppet animals are skinned alive in Shop To Save Lives, for anti-fur charity PETA. Now for his latest short film, he has put a ingenious spin upon the extremely mundane, with fantastic results. And the starting point could hardly be more relatable. In what house or flatshare does the matter of kitchen cleanliness and, in particular, the state of the kitchen sink, not become an issue and occasionally, a point of conflict? Well, exactly. In This Place Is A Sh*thole, two twentysomethings, Jamie and Will, are squabbling over the stage of the kitchen and realising they had not seen their other flatmate Kelvin in several months, when are disturbed by noises in the black, greasy waters of the blocked sink. And then suddenly all hell breaks loose.Wightman's modus operandi in TPIAS is to ramp up to gripping action with as few preliminaries as possible. The white-knuckle suspense then arrives in the flatmates' fight for survival against the furry black beast, aka Mr Sticky.I've spent my adult life in soul-destroyingly disgusting shared flats.And his filmmaking instincts and craft are so impressive, from the brilliant character design of the cartoonishly terrifying beast to the orchestration of the action sequences, intensifying the visceral terror occuring in the confined space of the flat - by using a camera designed to for completely different purposes.So we spoke to Will Wightman about how he unleashed his monstrous comedy...Kitchen sink drama: Jamie (Paddy Young) and Will (Jack Shep) making a horrible discovery in This Place Is A Sh*thole PROMONEWS: Where did the idea come from? Disgust at the behaviour of flatmates? Guilt at your own lack of cleanliness? Horror at the idea of flatsharing? All or none of the above...?WILL WIGHTMAN: Having spent my entire adult life in mind-boggingly expensive, soul-destroyingly disgusting shared flats, This Place is a Sh*thole was part creative experiment, part therapy. I wanted to make something that captured the frustration of living somewhere that’s simply not designed for the number of people that occupy it, and also tap into the claustrophobic horror that comes from your home feeling so disgusting and out of your control.Grease beast: Mr Sticky (Robin Berry) is drawn from the plughole by the allure of a bag of Pom-Bears For me, the monster represents not just the culmination of all the filth in that flat but the resentment that grows over time when your flatmate keeps leaving the fucking stupid bins by the fucking stupid door. I hope people will watch it and remember that they’re not alone.When did you get the idea? And how long did it take to get the script into shape, that you felt ready to film?WW: The story is so simple that the script was actually the easy bit really. It lives and dies in the quality of the set pieces, which mostly comes down to the camera and blocking. So the previs was really how we figured out when this film was ready to make.Was there any particular influences or inspiration in the way you made it?WW: Bad Will Hunting by Will and Danny Madden was a big inspo for me. It was a lo-fi lockdown film that has this amazing action, humour and energy. That was the vibe I wanted to have for this, combined with some proper creature feature-style scares.How did you create the Grease Monster? Did it go through various incarnations before you arrived at the final version? And how much did you make of him for real?WW: We made a costume! That’s what you see on screen pretty much all the way through, except for the spawning scene and the end moment, where we’ve combined footage of the monster with comp work.I wrote this with the 360 camera in mind, so the story really played into the camera's strengths.Creatively, I wanted a creature that embodied the horrible shit that we find in our plugholes with a design that left enough to the imagination so its origin felt ambiguous. Practically, though, this was a passion project that we made on a shoestring budget, so we needed a creature design that was effective but also simple. That way, we could channel what little resources we had into the right places.I did the designs in Photoshop, then Lani Hernandez, our stupidly talented costume designer, bought a gorilla costume and sculpted a new face and hands for it. Then, we covered all of the fur with disgusting things you might find in your sink. I still have the costume, and let me tell you, it stinks.Above: Will Wightman (top) with fictional Will (Jack Shep) on set As for performance, I wanted this creature to be utterly relentless, like a wild animal. A rapid chimp was the description we kept coming back to on set. For me, both the humour and horror of the creature came from its manic, unrelenting energy. The kind of creature that will bang its head against a wall for three days straight if that’s what it takes to get through.This was a passion project - we needed creature design that was effective but also simple. The excitement and humour of the film comes from the way the story is told - the economy of the shots and the pace of the edit. Is that in your head at the start or a trial and error process?WW: Much of that comes from the way we shot the action on a 360 camera. Typically, the ways 360 cameras are used are quite limited. They’re used a lot in videography for action shots, time-lapses or general vlogging purposes. Most people associate them with those ‘tiny planet’ or ‘black hole’ shots, which can be super cool, but feel quite overdone these days.Above: prosthetics artist Ruth Pease, assistant Sarah Jane Pucci, and friendI used a 360 camera on a commercial shoot a good few years ago and immediately got excited about the untapped possibilities. Blinkink had one lying around in the studio, so me and my DoP Will Marchant started experimenting with it in our spare time to test the camera’s limits.Fairly quickly, it became clear that there were lots of things the camera couldn’t do, but once in a while, we’d get something that looked totally unique and really interesting, which spurred us on to try more things out.Slowly but surely, we refined this aesthetic. Then, I wrote TPISH with the 360 camera in mind, so the story really played into the camera's strengths.I still have the costume, and let me tell you, it stinks.What was the best part and the worst part of making This Place? WW: Truthfully, I think this shoot was maybe the most fun I’ve ever had on set. I had such a clear plan of what each shot was by the time we came to filming, that everything was super smooth. What’s more, the camera is so compact that we could shoot so quickly. It also helped having a small but insanely talented cast and crew, made up of some of my all-time favourite people.That being said, we struggled with the technical capabilities of the camera. At the end of the day, the camera and its software are consumer products, so they struggled a little sometimes with the quantity of footage and speed we wanted to work at. We also had a very angry neighbour in the flat below, so we had to film the whole thing in our socks and stick and towels in the doors so they didn’t slam. Thankfully, I’ve moved out now and she hasn’t figured out where I live… Yet.• Will Wightman is a director with Blinkink; watch more of his work here