The categories below, and the big winners of each, were all chosen without a single thought about criteria. There was no objectivity involved in my process, nor any consideration for how deserving anyone was of their honours.

These lists are all one-hundred-percent feelings-based. So, without further ado, here’s what I liked this year (some spoilers ahead):

Movies:

5. Transformers One (Not Streaming)

I’ll go out on a limb and say this movie won’t be found on many other top-five lists. Maybe it’s cracking mine just because I think it’s underrated, but honestly: this movie’s great.

It’s animated—which is a great start since the live-action Transformers got pretty unwatchable—but we’re also in an awesome age where animated doesn’t mean cartoon anymore. The Miles Morales Spider-Verse movie was the first of its kind (I think), where the animation style was just…so new and cool. This movie follows that lead with its own smooth art style that was vibrant and fun.

It also felt like what the best of Marvel movies used to offer: fast-paced, well-choreographed action; genuinely funny dialogue; and enough of a storyline (with real-enough stakes) to keep you engaged.

And hey, maybe I’m just an easy mark, but give me a Joe-Shmo-hero who evolves and powers-up throughout the movie and I will give you a, “let’s gooooo” when they look unbeatable in the final fight.

4. Speak no Evil (Not Streaming)

This is a strange inclusion on the list because, while I thought it was really interesting, I don’t know how many people would enjoy it, so it may not be a recommendation for you.

This movie made me physically squirm with discomfort. I wanted to get the hell away from the farmhouse it’s set at, and from every character involved—including the “protagonists” who are themselves unlikeable by design.

I’ve honestly never been more confused about who to root for in a movie.

On one side, you have a couple who’s so tightly wound, passive-aggressive, and snippy with each other—and so afraid of confrontation—that you can feel years’ worth of baggage dragging behind them within the first minutes of the film.

On the other side, you have James McAvoy, who’s nauseatingly free-spirited—but also creepy, quick-to-anger, and somewhat abusive to his young son. Throughout the movie, I kept asking, “okay how awful (maybe evil?) is this guy, and do I still like him more than these other two?”

If you do watch this movie, I encourage you to look up the original Danish version afterwards. It has an alternate ending that is interesting to consider.

3. Civil War (Amazon Prime)

I thought this was going to be an Olympus Has Fallen-esque, rah-rah-America type film; or a heavy-handed democrat vs conservative blow-up in a year that was already too tense in real life. But it wasn’t close to either of those things.

Politics are very deliberately left out of this movie. The director took immense pains to obscure why people were fighting—and even who was fighting whom. You learn early on that California and Texas are on the same side (kinda weird), and throughout the journey there are little details—like a southern-accented dude in full-body camo and rainbow painted nails—to throw off your assumptions.

This movie is really an exploration of what war is like—what it would look like a little closer to home, and what it does to people. In particular: it asks what war does to journalists (who we follow throughout the movie) who lose parts of their humanity standing outside of the unfolding events in pursuit of a story. I don’t know if it’s fair to real-world journalists out there, but it’s gripping and incredibly chilling in the movie—all culminating with an absolutely perfect final twenty minutes.

2. Challengers (Amazon Prime)

This movie was so goddamn fun and tense at the same time, and I don’t think I can watch tennis the same way again.

There are deep layers of rivalries and jealousy woven throughout a story of two former best-friends and tennis partners as they compete in an obscure tournament that somehow has higher stakes than the Wimbledon final. I don’t know if it was the acting or the fast-paced, back-and-forth storytelling (which felt like a ping-ponging tennis ball), but I was enthralled from the first five minutes.

I think this movie will be studied in film schools for decades because of its dedication to its themes. I can’t explain it all, but everything felt like a tennis match—which also meant it all felt strangely erotic. I used the word “tense” earlier; sexual tension was what I really referring to. The cliché is: you could cut it with a knife; you’d need a diamond-toothed saw to cut through this wild love triangle.

And the climax of it all is just…so gratifying. (Pun intended)

1. Dune Part 2 (Crave)

If you make a really good sci-fi movie, it will be in my top 5; that’s just how this works.

Dune 2 went beyond that though, and was my #1 by a mile. Dune 1 was great, but was really just the warm-up for this one—the real Dune movie.

Even if the story and acting in this movie sucked, the sound and visuals alone would make it worthwhile. Everything felt massive, and while set millennia in the future, it all felt real—even the insane black & white planet of Giedi Prime.

But the story didn’t suck. In fact, this is a rare example when the movie is better than the book. (I re-read the book to double-check.) With some tweaks to make Zendaya’s character more independent, an amazing performance by a now-sinister Rebecca Ferguson, and some trippy hellscape visions, the question, “is the hero actually a hero—” which is the whole point of the story—is much clearer. When the credits finally rolled, I can barely describe my mixed feelings of triumph and foreboding; I’ve never had a pit in my stomach quite like it.

I saw this movie twice in theatres, three days apart, and once since it released at home. I’ll probably watch it three more times next year as. It’s awesome.

Television

Let me start this list by saying: I didn’t watch much of TV this year. I missed Shogun, Dark Matter, Slow Horses, Fallout, Dune Prophecy, and many more that might have made my list. I’ll get to them, but in the meantime, here are my tops:

5. 3 Body Problem (Netflix)

Though not a strict adaptation of the book, 3 Body Problem delivers on one of the most unique science fiction stories of the past ten years. It’s been criticized for Westernizing the Chinese story with too many British characters, but (and maybe this is just because I’m Canadian), I thought the characters and dialogue were the weaker points of the books and so was happy to see them come alive a bit more.

This show is worth watching for the insane metaphysical theories and virtual-reality visuals alone. You get to watch what happens when an 11-dimensional proton is unfolded into 3-dimensions (like laying a cube flat on a table). I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it’s so damn cool.

The story about science fundamentally failing while the world’s smartest people are dying is also interesting, by the way.

4. The Penguin (Crave)

After watching the Robert Pattinson Batman, I thought this show was going to be so much darker than it turned out to be. While it’s far from whimsical, it is surprisingly funny while telling a pretty twisted story. Or—maybe the story isn’t that twisted and it’s really just Collin Farrel’s Penguin who’s messed up.

In the first few episodes, it’s clear the Oswald (Penguin) is a bad guy, but he’s also endearing. He takes care of his mom, shelters a street urchin, and is “good to his girls” (sex workers). The way he carries himself also keeps the show light(ish) and adds some buoyancy to the dark crimes.

Buuut it gets darker as it goes, and as in any good villain origin story, the finale really establishes the vile nature of a dude you desperately want Batman to punch in the face.

3. X-Men ‘97 (Disney)

The first of two animated shows on this list: X-Men does justice to a classic. While the first four episodes are standard-fare X-Men doing X-Men things, the fifth is the standalone best episode of TV released this year and sets the stage for a wild second half of the season.

I don’t want to say too much more, but this is a darker, grittier X-Men than I remember as a kid. I instantly connect with my old friends, Gambit, Cyclops, Wolverine, and the rest of the gang—but the show doesn’t take my nostalgia for granted. It brings you closer to the characters while adding a lot more depth to their relationships and motivations than most other incarnations. Magneto, in particular, feels much more nuanced than we’ve seen from Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender.

Final point: the show also packs in a few sequences that elicited a “whaaaat the fuuuuck,” from me (in a good way).

2. For All Mankind (AppleTV+)

After wrapping its fourth season in January, this held my #1 spot for eleven months this year. This show is perfectly-executed “light” sci-fi. It doesn’t have giant space wars or technology that predicts the future; it just asks, “What would have happened if we kept investing in space technology?” The latest season, aired early this year, finally catches up with the present, where small things like a research base on the moon finally compound to big changes for humanity.

The best thing about this show is how possible it all feels. Because it starts so small and doesn’t get too far in front of its skis, you might forget it isn’t a documentary. I’m not kidding in saying I forgot what technology was and wasn’t real after binging too many episodes in a row.

It’s a lot to catch up on now, if you’re still at episode 1, but this is one of my favourite shows of the past five years.

1. Arcane (Netflix)

I started the first season of this show four weeks ago and have already watched the entire series twice. (It’s only eighteen short episodes in total, but considering I’m lagging behind on a ton of other content, that’s still wild.)

I mentioned cool new animation styles in my review of Transformers, but this show takes the cake. It is stunningly gorgeous; the action sequences are so fun; and the little nuances behind every character make some of them all-time favourites for me. (Honestly, Jinx might be my single-favourite character from any TV show or movie—ever. I’m struggling to think of someone I like more.)

Arcane is fast, vivid, emotional, and artistic. It takes a lot of chances with funky visuals—most of which pay off incredibly. At the climax of its two-season run, we get an Avengers Endgame-style team-up that had me punching the air alongside the characters.

I will have this show loaded on my phone anytime I travel so I can jump back into the world, and I cannot express how badly I want the showrunners to explore more stories set in the same world. I would have also loved this story to continue, but they did an amazing job putting a bow on it after two seasons and I respect the decision not to stretch it for the sake of extra content.

Songs

5. Linkin Park — Heavy is the Crown

I don’t know if this is a perfect song—or even a very good song—and probably shouldn’t be on this list. But, Linkin Park was my favourite band for a long time when I was a kid, and they just put out their first album after a ten year hiatus following the death of lead singer Chester Binnington, so I have to acknowledge it if only for sentimental reasons.

Their album itself has some ups and downs, but to me, this song was said, “hey, your old favourite band is back.” Hearing made me think of rap-screaming karaoke renditions of In The End when I was ten years old. Watching a clip of their first performance with new-singer, Emily Armstrong, I am happy to report: I cried.

Bonus points to this song for appearing (albeit only in snippets) on one of my top TV shows of the year.

4. 070 Shake — Elephant

This song is all vibes. What are those vibes? Intense, dark, triumphant, and maybe a little remorseful? I never looked up the story 070 was trying to tell, but for a song with only 87 unique words (and an often-repeated hook), I felt like it was still a journey. Maybe I’m just imposing a narrative of my own, but I hear a woman caught in a relationship that was a bit too chaotic (drugs and fights?), then over the course of the song she seizes some agency and says “that’s it.”

But just…the driving instrumentation is so sick. It’s one of those songs where I really want to match my footsteps to the beat. I can also just picture people on stage dancing to this in a pivotal moment of a play—which is I guess to say “it’s powerful and transformative.”

That’s a lot to say about a song that clocks in at under three minutes, but it’s a cool track.

3. Porter Robinson — Russian Roulette

This is the most-listened track of my most-listened album this year, and Porter describes why at the tail end of the song: the chord progression is so powerful it should be outlawed. It’s another song that made me cry this year—maybe sobriety is making me more sensitive.

It’s a light, electronic-pop song, and when the melody kicks in after the chorus (and comes in full around the five-minute-mark), it’s the catchiest thing ever.

While the vibes feel light, the theme is heavy. It’s about a dude who realizes that life is indeed worth living. In a subdued section of the song, Porter talks about all the things he wants to do “one more time” like kissing his cat or losing his phone—the finale of which, “I want to live, I don’t want to die,” is such a celebration; I still tear up hearing it.

Porter’s been open about his struggles with depression and anxiety, and this song—with him saying “fuck the dark thoughts, there are still things I want to do—” is so awesome to hear.

(I contrast this with the song Rightous by Juice WRLD. Released after he died of an overdose, Juice talks about how he’ll probably die while using codeine to deal with his anxiety. It’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.)

2. Bilmuri — 2016 Cavaliers (Ohio)

I found a new genre to love this year: countrycore. There’s only a handful of artists contributing to it, but Bilmuri is its current king. I can’t tell you why it works, but something about the ballad-y nature of country music punched up with metal-inspired instrumentation gets me going.

In 2016 Cavaliers, you’ll get what I’m talking about in the first ten seconds: twangy acoustic guitar is overtaken by a chugging riff, which then drops off for a soft verse before coming back in a robust chorus. We even get a saxophone solo after the second verse which has absolutely no business being there, but fits perfectly, nonetheless.

Bilmuri is also a dude you have to see to appreciate. Something about his under-produced music videos say, “I know this is ridiculous, but it’s also kind of sick, right?”

Yeah man, it is.

1. Kendrick Lamar – Reincarnated

Taylor Swift might have just wrapped the single-biggest music tour in history, but this was Kendrick Lamar’s year in music. He’ll probably take #1 on most music review lists this year, and the craziest part is: he has at least three songs that belong at the top. Not Like Us, his final Drake diss track had ten-year-olds singing about how the most popular rapper in the world is a pedophile—and it simultaneously bridging gaps between warring gangs in LA. And that wasn’t even the most scathing track Kendrick released about Drake (that was Meet the Grahams), nor will it likely be remembered as his catchiest song of the year (which may go to TV Off or Squabble Up).

But for me, Reincarnated is why I like hip-hop. It’s a groovy, passionate, and poetic piece of storytelling about Kendrick’s past lives as other artists—all strung together in a song that would fit on a Best of Tupac album. (People have theories on why Kendrick tried to imitate the late artist; I just know it’s cool as hell.)

The song culminates with a smooth back & forth between Kendrick and god/himself about his own motivations, the purpose of art, man’s struggle to control and manipulate others—and more that surely went over my head. These themes of god is an artist and we’re all incarnate-versions of that artist are my personal religion, and Kendrick packs them into a medium that is so enjoyable to listen to. I’d have to write a short novel to communicate what Kendrick does in four minutes. I call that genius.

Books

1–5: Malazan Book of the Fallen (Series)

So…I only read five new books this year. I also re-read Dune and Dune Messiah, and listened to a few chapters of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Dopamine Nation, Becoming Nobody, and The Creative Act, but will give all five spots on this list to Steven Erikson’s fantasy epics.

Halfway through the first book, Gardens of the Moon, I considered quitting. It’s a chewy book that doesn’t hold your hand when tossing you in the middle of a too-big world with too many characters. From the first chapter to the twentieth, I felt like I was behind on the story and struggled to catch up. Who’s at war with whom? How does that moon-thing fly around? What’s this about a shadow realm? And what are all these different gods doing?

I got the gist of things eventually, though, and was fully rewarded for it. The first book concludes with some wild wizard-fights (and some confusing stuff about a newly-revived tyrant possessing someone), but then the second and third book really go crazy.

In Deadhouse Gates, we get incredible battle after battle as an orphaned army marches across an entire continent. Then in Memories of Ice we first get the craziest, most gruesome siege of a city I’ve ever read, followed by an electrifying liberation of a different city a few chapters later. In House of Chains we get to follow one of the baddest “men”—a near superhuman giant of a man from a far-off village—as he spits in the face of gods trying to control him. Then in Midnight Tides…I actually don’t know what I’m getting yet; I’m nearly halfway through and still figuring out what the hell’s going on.

That’s the recurring theme of these books: they’re a bit of work. You have to get comfortable being lost and just trust the payoff will be there. I’m invested; and will likely spend most of 2025 finishing the ten-book series.

Honourable Mentions

While I wanted to keep the above lists nice and tight, I thought it was a good year for entertainment, so here are some bonus picks for things I liked:

Movies:

Nosferatu (In Theatres) — A late addition to the list, and almost bumping Speak no Evil, this movie is dark and twisted and scary, yet also grand and beautiful. It makes most other horror movies look small in comparison.
Heretic (Not Streaming) — Hugh Grant goes wild in this movie, playing a religiously-curious recluse who becomes increasingly obsessed and manic about the flaws of religion as we move deeper into is his maze-like house (bonus points for being filmed in Squamish).
Conclave (Not Streaming) — When I read this involved “controversy within the church” when selection a new Pope, I thought it’d be about child-abuse. It’s not. Instead, it mimics a progressive vs. conservative election and reminded me of House of Cards’ political games. It’s much more fun than the subject matter would indicate.

Television:

Rings of Power (Amazon Prime) — You can’t go wrong with Lord of the Rings, and this season did a great job building off the somewhat scattered first season with much clearer storylines. Plus, everything just looks gorgeous.

Music:

Doechii’s Tiny Desk Concert — The rapper capped a breakout year with one of the best Tiny Desk performances I’ve seen. For one, she’s incredibly talented, both in writing and performing; but then there’s also something about her that makes her immensely likeable. She’s super earnest, I think?
Paris Paloma’s album, Cacophony — It was a big year of female folk/indie artists for me, and I played this album front-to-back while sitting/journaling a ton. It’s incredibly rich, with a lot of raw a passionate moments, but I still find it very easy to listen to.
Some of JPEGMafia’s album, I Lay Down My Life for You — The exact opposite to Cacophony, this jarring record aggressively blends rap with rock/punk. There’s a moment on Don’t Rely on Other Men where it’s like Black Sabbath was sampled, then somehow blended with a beautiful string section. It shouldn’t work—but it definitely does.

Wrap-Up

I thought about detailing my favourite pop culture moments of the year—like Taylor Swift’s involvement in football (and the hilarious outrage over her screen time), or the fallout from the Kendrick Lamar vs. Drake beef—but I think this is enough for one post.

I may do more recurring media-focused content next year. Maybe a monthly rundown, or random in-depth reviews if something piques my interest. Would love your thoughts if you’ve read this to the end—I’m always keen to lend recommendations if you’re looking for something new to watch, read, or listen to.