The Guardian has unveiled its selection of the 12 most powerful cartoons of 2025, a year that provided political satirists with an abundance of material ranging from Donald Trump's return to office to the war in Gaza and the rise of artificial intelligence.
Award-winning cartoonist Ben Jennings, who contributed seven of the chosen works, described the challenge of caricaturing a world that often feels already absurd. 'We had the return of Donald Trump 2.0h-no to keep cartoonists busy in 2025,' he said. 'Despite being somewhat of a gift to cartoonists, it’s a double-edged sword insofar that his presidency has been so utterly farcical that it can be a challenge to satirise.'
The list includes Martin Rowson's January illustration marking a decade since the Charlie Hebdo attack, Ella Baron's February piece on the third anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Jennings's own March cartoon on Elon Musk's drift to the far right. Other highlights cover Jeff Bezos's lavish Venice wedding and the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
Jennings selected his VE Day cartoon as the one that best encapsulated the political mood of 2025. 'It juxtaposes the remembrance of previous wars with the worrying escalating conflicts happening today,' he explained. 'Surely a big part of remembering is to try to avoid anything like that happening again, but unfortunately it can now feel like history is beginning to repeat itself.'
The Guardian noted that political cartooning remains a vital tradition in British journalism, tracing its roots back to 18th-century caricaturist James Gillray. The full list of 12 cartoons is available in the newspaper's Tuesday briefing.
