The Wigs That Defined 2025

In 2025, new developments in animation brought Stitch into the real world, AI made actors suddenly bilingual, and virtual production continued to make it so the Marvel Cinematic Universe never has to leave its Atlanta soundstages. Meanwhile, the lowly, but mighty, wig remains.

Sure, CGI can create every individual piece of fur on animals’ bodies, but in the real world, nothing can beat the transformational power of a memorable onscreen wig. There’s nothing high-tech or grand about it, but being analog remains the wig’s most potent strength. In real life or onscreen, the most glorious wigs in 2025 were the ones that called attention to that falsity rather than trying to blend into normality. When a wig was entirely clockable, it became pure entertainment. As a rule: the more obvious the wig line, the closer to God. Below, find the greatest pop-culture wigs of 2025.

Alana Haim’s incognito-mode wig in One Battle After Another

In Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, Alana Haim’s “Mae West” character doesn’t get a lot to do, but she did get to rock perhaps the single most memorable look in the entire movie. After the revolutionary group the French 75 goes into hiding, Mae West dons a black Edna Mode–style bob to lurk around a grocery store. She notices something suspicious and tries to run away, but the second she steps outside, she gets shot, with the black wig flying through the air and landing on the ground a few feet from her. The best part about this wig is that it looks so deliberately like a “spy” wig. It’s as if a 7-year-old had to draw a wig for someone to wear while in hiding. In a movie that is both very serious and very funny, Haim’s incognito-mode wig is both part of the plotting and the film’s best sight gag.

Hormona Lisa’s confessional bob on RuPaul’s Drag Race

Despite being the TV show that features the most fashionable wigs per episode, the best RuPaul’s Drag Race wig of the year never appeared on the runway. Instead, it was drag queen Hormona Lisa’s confessional wig, which she wore daily in the Werk Room and while talking to the camera. The short, homely blonde bob made her look like a mom in suburban Alabama, successfully turning Hormona into someone who looks conspicuously average. The minivan-driver wig was especially fun because it underlined Hormona’s work to turn from a sweet southern lady into a glamorous drag queen each week. Hormona, who is a trans woman, may not have been undergoing a “gendered” transformation when she arrived on the runway, but she still became a queen who wore lace-fronts.

Cardi B’s courtroom wigs

No wigs made more headlines this year than Cardi B’s courtroom wigs. Cardi was sued this year by former security guard Emani Ellis, who claimed that Cardi cut her face with her fingernail in an altercation while the rapper was visiting her OB/GYN. She ultimately won the trial, but Cardi’s real public win came from the fun she had on the stand. At one point, Ellis’s lawyer got confused when Cardi showed up with noticeably different hair from the day before. “Which one is your real hair, or are they both real?” he asked her. “They’re both wigs,” Cardi said, giggling. It was a funny moment that only served to make the defense seem sillier and make Cardi seem totally in control.

Emma Stone self-wig in Bugonia

After Emma Stone’s character in Bugonia, Michelle Fuller, has her head shaved by conspiracy theorists, she spends most of the movie bald and covered in antihistamine cream. Eventually, Jesse Plemon’s character lets her go so that they can go do conspiracy-theory things together, and she dons a wig made of (what we assume to be) her previous hair. The hap-hazard wig is the best representation of one of the film’s overarching themes: Appearance is not reality. All the component parts of the real women are right there, but they barely cover up the torturous experience she’s been living through for the entire movie.

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Ego Nwodim wavy bob as Miss Eggy on Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live provides a constant stream of wigs each season. This year made Sarah Sherman look like Nosferatu and gave Bowen Yang a blowout, but the best one was a quiet wig that held its own and emphasized Ego Nwodim’s physical comedy. Nwodim’s “Miss Eggy” is an old-school stand-up who wants to play the White House Correspondents’ Dinner by using hack jokes to make fun of the food. It’s an extremely physical character; Nwodim’s bob was the perfect complement. Every time she moved, the wig followed closely behind. When she turned her head, the perky wig would snap to attention. Where she bounced, the wig would follow. The cut was long enough that it had movement but short enough that the hair was still spry. The wig made it so every physical movement Nwodim made was in italics.

Malin Akerman’s hard-front waves on Hunting Wives

Any wig that can make Trixie and Katya respond with utter disbelief deserves a place on this list. The ridiculous camp of Netflix’s hit show Hunting Wives was elevated to operatic status by the idea that Malin Akerman’s character Margo Banks was flouncing around Texas with the worst wig known to man. The beachy waves appeared to levitate above Akerman’s head most of the time, and the wig line was incredibly blunt. Throughout the nighttime soap, Margo lies, cheats, and steals in the name of herself and her Republican politician husband, and her wig eventually felt like a metaphor for her general façade. Both she and the wig were obviously fake, but they were both charming enough that the audience had to forgive them.

Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Group Wig Excellence

There is no better cast on reality TV right now than that of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Need proof? Look no further than the fact that the crew got into two separate fights this year while wearing silly wigs. The first came in January, when the full team donned wigs designed to look like their fellow cast member Lisa Barlow. But that fun idea went south when Barlow became annoyed with her castmate Whitney Rose. “Take that fucking wig off your head,” she said. “Don’t be me because you’ll never be me.” As they continued to argue, Lisa attempted to snatch Whitney’s wig off her head.

The following season, the full group got into a big argument over whether or not Lisa Barlow owned a horse. They also happened to be wearing Colonial-style wigs at Bronwyn Newport’s “Spill the Tea Party.” “I own a horse. It’s not anything grand. It’s just for me. It’s my horse. And I’m looking at getting a second one,” Lisa said to defend herself while wearing a powdered wig. RHOSLC knows one important rule: Every fight is funnier if the participants are wearing acrylic hair.

And one great non-wig

The best wigs of the year were the ones that were obviously wigs, and the best hair of the year was the hair that was mistaken for a wig. In December, a TikToker named Blakely Thornton criticized Sydney Sweeney’s appearance on The Tonight Show for having the “stiffest wig this side of the Mississippi.” Thornton later posted an Instagram Story featuring Sweeney’s hairstylist Glen “Coco” Oropeza’s since-deleted comments on his video. “Wasn’t a wig but you can’t get my girl’s name out of your mouth,” Oropeza wrote. “You’re obsessed.”

In a year when Sweeney’s biggest controversy revolved around her claiming that she has “good genes,” it is a beautiful irony to see a separate controversy over her natural hair looking fake.