The 10 Best Films of 2023

2023 was the year that movies finally and fully returned to normal. Except, of course, they didn’t.

The 10 Best TV Shows of 2023

2023 was a revealing year for what I like to think of as the television class divide.

The 10 Worst Films of 2023

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… and not necessarily in that order. Yes, we’ve reached the end of 2023, which means it’s time to highlight the highs and lows of the past year in pop culture. And because I like to end each year on a positive note, let’s get the bad out of the way first.

The 10 Best Films of 2022

Compiling a list of the best films of the year is even tougher than making a list of the year’s best TV shows. There are all sorts of questions to contend with – what qualifies as a film “released” in 2022? Should it refer to initial or wide release? For foreign films, should we go by American release date? And are theatrical films be judged by the same standards as streaming-exclusive features?

The 10 Best TV Shows of 2022

Every December, I sit down to reflect on the greatest TV shows of the past year. And every year I get the same nagging feeling: Am I missing something? Did I not watch enough television to give a fair assessment of the year overall? Should I have made time in my viewing schedule to check out this sitcom, or that drama, or one of those other limited series that is allegedly Based on a True Story?

The Ten Worst Films of 2022

Before we get into our annual reflection of all the films we’d rather not reflect on, let’s get a couple of rules out of the way.

The 10 Best Films of 2021

“The movies are back!”

We heard that sentiment a lot during the past year. But was it actually true? Plenty of theaters reopened around the country – some faster than others, depending on where you lived. But attendance moved in fits and starts – some films opened to strong numbers, others to near-empty seats. Occasionally, a massive blockbuster would provide a refreshing jolt to anxious theater owners, but even those were in scanter supply than in the Before Times, as several high-profile releases either made the leap to streaming or were postponed (again) to 2022.

The 10 Best TV Shows of 2021

Even before 2021 began, we could tell it would be an unusual year for television. With the pandemic receding, then resurging and receding again, Hollywood moved in fits and starts, and TV production lagged behind the rate of the last few cycles. Few network shows produced a full 22 episodes during the new season, and some anticipated returns were pushed off a year or longer. The first half of the calendar year was dominated by reality shows and docuseries, both easier to produce these days (or any days) than scripted programs.

The 10 Worst Films of 2021

For all my longstanding affinity with cynicism and snark, I did not initially intend to make this “Worst Films” list an annual event. 2020 just happened to be an exceptionally poor year for cinema, with the pandemic limiting wide releases and pushing most of the hotly-anticipated releases to the year that followed. Ranting about bad films felt especially apt in the year of 2020, which seemed to invite new rants with each week.

The Ten Best TV Shows of 2020

If you’re wondering how long the year we’ve just experienced was, use the 77th Annual Golden Globes as a yardstick. The ceremony, hosted by Ricky Gervais, aired back in the first week of January. That’s right – Gervais’ controversial monologue, Bong Joon-Ho lecturing us about subtitles, Ramy Youssef explaining that people don’t know who he is – that all happened this year.

The Ten Best Films of 2020

There are many words that historians will use to describe 2020, most of which are unprintable on this website. But in my continued quest to focus on the positive (last week’s snarky deviation notwithstanding), let’s turn to the pop-culture that kept us going through these rough times.

The Ten Worst Films of 2020

There was much to hate about the past year, which featured too many awful, destructive, and just plain stupid events to cover within the scope of this website. One area that does fall under my jurisdiction, however, is the world of cinema, which was unlike any previous year in the medium’s history. As theaters across the nation shuttered in response to the pandemic, Hollywood was caught flatfooted, as hopes of a blockbuster year at the movies almost instantly evaporated.

The 10 Best Films of 2019

This past April, the Oscars released a new set of rules for film eligibility beginning in 2020. Among those was the stipulation that in order to qualify for nominations, a film must have a theatrical run of at least seven days. A film released straight to Netflix, with no screenings in major theaters, would be ignored.

The 10 Best TV Shows of 2019

It was a great year for television. Or at least certain types of it.

The 10 Best TV Shows of 2018

In the introduction to last year’s installment of my annual “Best TV Shows” series, I lamented the fact that television had grown so voluminous in its content, and so fragmented in its appeal, that great shows no longer stood out the way they once did. Competitive-minded producers, sensing the need to stand out in an increasingly crowded field, have birthed countless shows designed to appeal to smaller and smaller demographics. And while some of these little-watched shows have been quite good, most of them… uh, no longer need to be.

The 10 Best Films of 2018

I don’t consider myself an expert on great film. Great TV, yes. Great animation, sure. Great comics, kinda, so long as they involve powerful people in tights. But the world of cinema is too wide and varied for me to get a firm handle on, at least thus far.

The Top 15 TV Shows of 2017

2017 may have at last been the year in which quantity overtook quality.

With over 500 shows airing this year, across more networks and streaming platforms than ever before, the world of television is bursting at the seams. And the effects were clear: This year saw multiple networks (WGN, A&E, Cinemax) get pushed out of the scripted-TV business by sheer force of competition. There was a narrowly-averted writers’ strike, attributed largely to the evolving nature of the business. And some of the best shows on television slipped between the cracks unnoticed, with viewership numbers that scored in the mere six-digits.

The 10 Best Films of 2017

Hollywood’s not in the best of states lately. It seems like every day brings forth a new accusation, and a new revelation that one of our favorite actors is in fact a sleazy scumbag. (To use the family-friendly terms.) The industry seems rattled like never before, and we’re all left wondering where all the chaos will lead.

But in the meantime, it can be healthy to ignore the chaos in the film industry, and focus instead on… um, the film industry.

The 20 Best TV Shows of 2016

[Blogged by Jeremy Grayson]

[The Year in Review]

How do you define “Peak TV”?

At the forefront, the term refers to the fact that there have never been as many shows on American television as there are right now. (Close to 500 shows aired – either on television or one of the Internet’s numerous streaming sites – at some point in the past year.

Top 25: The Best TV Shows of 2015

[Blogged by Jeremy Grayson]

[Intro]

There are many labels which people use to describe the current era of television. The Golden Age of TV. Too Much TV. Peak TV. Jeremy, Turn Off the Stupid TV. More attention is being paid to the genre than ever before, in part because there’s simply so much to pay attention to.

There certainly are a