What Was the Best Soap of 2025? Find Out Which Show Fans Picked, GH, Y&R, BTG, DAYS or B&B
Thousands of soap fans answered the call when Soap Opera Digest asked viewers to vote on which was the top soap of 2025. For the first time since One Life to Live went off the air in 2012, there were five shows to choose from, with Beyond the Gates joining General Hospital, The Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives and The Bold and the Beautiful as options. Read on to find out which soap was the people’s choice!
Beautiful Minds
On screen, it was a dramatic year on B&B, which focused on the wild roller coaster ride of Luna Nozawa (Lisa Yamada), who wreaked all sorts of havoc, from trying to kill Steffy (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) to sexually assaulting Will (Crew Morrow) before her rain of terror was finally ended by a speeding car with Dylan (Sydney Bullock) behind the wheel. Liam (Scott Clifton) also took his turn on the front burner, as he was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor that proved to be a hoax. The long-running triangle between Ridge (Thorsten Kaye), Taylor (Rebecca Budig) and Brooke (Katherine Kelly Lang) took another big turn when Ridge broke things off with Taylor and remarried Brooke, while two other on-again, off-again duos — Liam and Hope (Annika Noelle), and Bill (Don Diamont) and Katie (Heather Tom) — also decided to plunge back into matrimonial waters. But according to the respondents who voted in our poll, this was not B&B’s year. The lone half-hour soap in the daytime lineup received just shy of 4% of the vote.
Young at Heart
Y&R was the next top vote-getter, and there was certainly a lot going on in Genoa City (and Nice, and Los Angeles…) as the year unfolded. Traci’s (Beth Maitland) dreams of a happy future with Alan (Christopher Cousins) were dashed when it was revealed that his evil twin had taken over his life and kidnapped Sharon (Sharon Case) and Phyllis (Michelle Stafford). After months of chatter about the mysterious Aristotle Dumas, the billionaire was revealed to be none other than Cane Ashby (Billy Flynn), which threw Lily (Christel Khalil), among others, for a loop. While Danny (Michael Damian) and Christine (Lauralee Bell) were joyfully remarried, Mariah (Camryn Grimes) and Tessa’s (Cait Fairbanks) union crumbled over the secret Mariah is harboring, opening the door to Tessa and Daniel (Michael Graziadei) catching feelings, and Noah’s (Lucas Adams) affair with the married Sienna (Tamara Braun) brought massive danger when her husband, “Mitch,” turned out to be a back-from-the-dead Matt Clark (Roger Howarth)! The show earned just over 10% of viewers’ votes in our poll.
Days Gone By
DAYS notched a respectable third place in our poll. 2025 was a landmark year for the show, which marked the 60th anniversary of its debut in November but also said good-bye to one of its most beloved players, John Black, played by the late Drake Hogestyn. Marlena (Deidre Hall) didn’t grieve alone, as she was surrounded by family, including the visiting Carrie (Christie Clark), Will (Chandler Massey) and Paul (Christopher Sean). Rafe (Galen Gering) reclaimed his life after impostor Arnold wreaked havoc, Bo (Peter Reckell) and Hope (Kristian Alfonso) finally got their happy ending when he emerged from his coma and the duo reunited, while the mystery of who shot EJ (Dan Feuerriegel), the dramatic implosion of Sarah (Linsey Godfrey) and Xander’s (Paul Telfer) marriage occupied the front burner. Then, to celebrate its milestone anniversary, veteran faves and returning stars alike paid homage to the show’s original patriarch, Tom Horton. This is why over 14% of our voters picked DAYS as the year’s top show.
Beyond Measure
Taking second place in our poll its first year on the air, BTG brought welcome new blood to the soap world. Kicking off with the wedding of Bill (Timon Kyle Durrett) to his younger mistress, Hayley (Marquita Goings), replete with his ex-wife, Dani (Karla Mosley), firing her handgun, the show kept the drama going with the reveal that Hayley was actually plotting to kill Bill for his money. Other jaw-droppers included Ted (Maurice Johnson) and Nicole’s (Daphnee Duplaix) perfect marriage falling apart when Leslie (Trisha Mann-Grant) dropped the bomb that Bill is the father of her daughter, Eva (Ambyr Michelle), Joey Armstrong (Jon Lindstrom) murdering his lover’s husband, and the end-of-year breast cancer diagnosis of the Duprees’ matriarch, Anita (Tamara Tunie). For this and more, just shy of 15% of fans felt that it didn’t get any better in 2025 than what was afoot in Fairmont Crest.
General Terms
2025 was a year of secrets on GH, from ones that actually exploded — like the big reveal that Gio (Giovanni Mazza) is Dante (Dominic Zamprogna) and Brook Lynn’s (Amanda Setton) son, Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) finding out that she and her mom, Nina (Cynthia Watros), had been sleeping with the same man, and Carly (Laura Wright) learning that her lover, Jack (Chris McKenna), had enlisted her daughter, Josslyn (Eden McCoy), to become a WSB agent — to ones that are still poised to detonate, such as the identity of the individual that plugged two bullets in the back of Congressman Drew Cain (Cameron Mathison), not to mention precisely what is afoot with the mysterious returns from the dead of Faison’s offspring, Britt (Kelly Thiebaud) and Nathan (Ryan Paevey) and whether Laura (Genie Francis) can get out from under Sidwell’s (Carlo Rota) thumb after he dumped a corpse in her car trunk! The show also showcased the sorrow of Monica’s (Leslie Charleson), a potential new romance for Sonny (Maurice Benard), and much more — and the result was a landslide victory in our poll for GH, which also took home the Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Drama this year. A whopping 56% of fans who voted thought that the show represented the best that daytime had to offer.
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