The best sneakers of 2025 spanned thirty-year-old shoes, rediscovered grails, exploded designs, and raffle-entry madness. The collaboration is as sturdy as ever, Retro footwear is still king, and the current crop of footwear designers employed by the big labels are doing their damn thing.
Simply put, 2025 has been one of the most memorable year in 21st century sneakers, and certainly the best of the 2020s decade. There is simply too much impressive work to fit into a Top 10 list, let alone finalize that list with months to go in the year.
The Sneaker News staff, an obsessed and diligent troupe of footwear explorers, decided to break down the year in kicks into four distinct categories: Nike Retro, Jordan, New Models, and Other. A total of 64 sneakers have been ranked (1 through 16 in each category), and we’re leaving it up to YOU to decide the victor. There are undeniably some that did not make the cut, but that just speaks volumes on how incredible the year was, and why 2026 should be look forward to with promise.
This is how we will decide: the Sneaker News SNEAKER OF THE YEAR full bracket will be revealed on December 22nd at 12PM ET. The FIRST ROUND begins on December at 1pm ET, and voting will be conducted on the @sneakernews Instagram Stories and @sneakernews on X.
SNEAKER NEWS SNEAKER OF THE YEAR VOTING SCHEDULE
FULL BRACKET REVEALED: December 22nd, 12PM ET
FIRST ROUND VOTING: Week of December 22nd, 1PM ET
SECOND ROUND VOTING: TBD
