FILM
#5. OPPENHEIMER
““I believe we did.””
#4. COCAINE BEAR
““Apex predator ... high on cocaine ... and you’re going towards it?””
#3. THE HOLDOVERS
““I find the world a bitter and complicated place. And it seems to feel the same way about me.” ”
#2. GODZILLA MINUS ONE
““Is your war finally over?” ”
#1. BARBIE
““Humans have only one ending. Ideas live forever.” ”
Who could have foreseen the massive cultural phenomenon of Barbie (paired lovingly, confusingly, with Oppenheimer, in a way only the internet could organically dictate)? Look, I didn't much care for Barbies as a child, pretending to mash them together in sapphic displays of passion and then discarding them for books too old for me to be reading. But Greta Gerwig's love letter to femininity and womanhood (and social commentary re: these ideas) moved me in a way I didn't anticipate. I laughed! I cried! I cried some more! As both a mother to a daughter and the daughter of a mother, I felt things I usually don't love to feel, but that's ok. And is there a more beautiful woman alive than Margot Robbie? I haven't seen her; I don't think we can handle it, if so!
- Kolleen Carney-Hoepfner, Editor-in-chief
Runner Ups: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Killers of the Flower Moon, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret
TELEVISION
#5. THE BEAR
““I like seeing you guys every year, you fucking deliver.” ”
#4. RESERVATION DOGS
““People are only concerned with things they can see and hear. But there are other layers of life that can’t be seen or spoken of. These need just as much attention and just as much care.” ”
#3. I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE
““My life is nothing I thought it should be, and everything I was worried it would become because for 50 seconds I thought there was monsters on the world” ”
#2. ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING
““which of the pipwick triplets did it? who of the crew could commit this crime?” ”
#1. SUCCESSION
““i’m the eldest boy!””
Succession, at the level of concept, is absolutely Grand Slam pancake-stacked with shit that I hate. In no particular order you've got lengthy discussions of corporate mergers and stock maneuvers, low-effort ripped-from-the-headlines social commentary, seemingly endless scenes of characters talking into cell phones in a way no human being ever would, and a classic media fixation with humanising the struggles of the worst and most coddled people we as a species produce, all drizzled with that classic syrup of the "I was fucked up by my dad" story trope. If you wrote a three-paragraph plot summary of the show it would read like you asked Chat GPT to come up with a prestige dramedy designed to piss me off personally.
And yet what show have you watched in the last decade in which a couple that was introduced in the first episode of the show is still revealing something new about their characters and relationship in every single scene in which they interact? In the era of the obsessively-catologuing MCU fan, where is the show so bold as to simply cut loose characters that no longer serve their purpose mid-season without fanfare (and how well does it make the story sing louder when tragedy finally does strike)? How many times have you watched the scene that's supposed to humanize the villain and, instead of recognizing its purpose in the cogs of the show, you really felt like you were looking at and seeing a character with feelings and agency and history in the story they find themselves in?
There's nothing I can say about the exceptional writing, the dedicated and singular cast, and the timely exit of the series that hasn't been covered literally too much already online. So what I'll say instead is this: in Season 4 Episode 1 of Succession, when Kendall Roy first appears on screen snacking on something out of a tiny colored Erewhon-branded pouch and wearing his no-logo ultra-expensive Rich Dickhead Hat, a sight that would kill me instantly dead in real life, I cheered out loud. That's how fucking good this show was.
-Chris Pruitt, Managing Editor
Runner Ups: Abbott Elementary, Everything Now
MUSIC
#5. SCREAMING FEMALES
#4. NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS
#3. BOYGENIUS
#2. LAUFEY
#1. MITSKI
To quote the Dr. Manhattan meme: It is 2018. Mitski tops the Drunk Monkeys best of the year list in music. It is 2023. Mitski tops the Drunk Monkeys best of the year list in music. It is 2025, etc etc etc.
What is it, exactly, about Mitski that creates such devoted fans, among them my own ten-year-old daughter who refers to her as “Mother?” In a pop realm where so many people are trying to be something they’re not, or something that someone else already was, Mitski remains defiantly and undeniably herself.
Well, “herself” felt like putting out a country record this year, and what better genre for her sweeping romantic psychodramas? As always with Mitski, why have one feeling when you can have all of them all at once all of the time?
- Matt Guerrero, Founding editor
Runner-Ups: The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Andre 3000
