Well that’s that, then.
Except, I have a whole bunch of genre-specific lists of things I loved sitting in a Google doc, and I can’t resist posting them here, so the honourable mentions get their honourable mention. These are “top x” lists: just however many entries I could think of that I liked, ranked. The ones that made the top 25 are in bold.
Movies
- Mad Max: Fury Road
- Carol
- Inside Out
- The Hateful Eight
- Spotlight
- The Revenant
- It Follows
- What Happened, Miss Simone?
- The Lobster (saw it at VIFF; look out for the upcoming wide release)
- The Martian
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Amy
- A Most Violent Year
Television
- Mad Men
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
- Better Call Saul
- BoJack Horseman
- Doctor Who
- Last Week Tonight
- Hannibal
- The Jinx
- Parks and Recreation
- Louie
Music
- Lin-Manuel Miranda: Hamilton: An American Musical
- Vulfpeck: Thrill of the Arts
- Björk: Vulnicura
- Africa Express: In C Mali
- CHVRCHES: Every Open Eye
- Kendrick Lamar: To Pimp a Butterfly
- Roomful of Teeth: Render
- Afiara Quartet and Skratch Bastid: Spin Cycle
- Max Richter: From Sleep
- Bryce Dessner: Music for Wood and Strings
Podcasts
- The Memory Palace
- Reply All
- Mystery Show
- Love and Radio
- Pop Culture Happy Hour
- Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything
- StartUp
- Radiolab
Books/Comics
- David Cavanagh: Good Night and Good Riddance: How Thirty-Five Years of John Peel Helped Shape Modern Life
- China Miéville: Three Moments of an Explosion
- Kieron Gillen/Jamie McKelvie: The Wicked and the Divine, vol. 2
- Kelly Sue DeConnick/Valentine De Landro: Bitch Planet, vol. 1
- Matt Fraction/Chip Zdarsky: Sex Criminals, vol. 2
Games
- Sunless Sea
- Undertale
(I played a couple of others but did not enjoy them.)
There you go. 48 wonderful things. A good year, by any standard.