2023 was a year of celebration and sorrow. Yet, here are my favourite pieces of art and media from the year. This year I’ve added a few new categories, with the help of friends.

Skip to: Music, Movies, Podcasts, TV, Videos, Books, Miscellanea

Albums of the Year

I listened to 79 albums from this year. This collection of top ten albums may be my least settled that I’ve ever published. For more detailed listening statistics from this year, see my 2023 Listening Stats post.

  1. Javelin by Sufjan Stevens
  2. Resavoir by Resavoir
  3. Swinging Stars by Mapache
  4. Jelly Road by Blake Mills
  5. Goodnight Summerland by Helena Deland
  6. Cut Worms by Cut Worms
  7. Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek
  8. An Ever Changing View by Matthew Halsall
  9. V by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
  10. One Wayne G by Mac Demarco

Honourable Mentions

Any of these could move up with another listen: Wishes to Fulfill by Another Michael, Internal Affairs by Buzzy Lee, Heaven is a Junkyard by Youth Lagoon, Cookup by Sam Gendel, Time Will Wait For No One by Local Natives, Toil And Trouble by Angelo De Augustine, The Greater Wings by Julie Byrne, 12 by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Messy by Olivia Dean, Drop Cherries by Billie Marten.

Bonus Round

  • Favourite Vocal Delivery: “You know I lo-e-o-e-ove you” from Goodbye Evergreen by Sufjan Stevens, additional vocals by Megan Lui & Hannah Cohen
  • Favourite Album Art (asked by Lucas): Heaven Hunters by Emile Mosseri. Artwork by Adam Newport-Berra and Joe Talbot.
  • Favourite Album Title: Grog by Frog
  • Song of the Summer: Danger by Olvia Dean
  • 2022 Album I Missed Last Year: How It Ends by Toledo or Meeting with a Judas Tree by Duval Timothy

Movies of the Year

This was a big year for me for movies. I watched fourteen feature-length films from 2023 in 2023, as well as one feature documentary, and four short films – including eight at the cinema. That’s the most movies I’ve watched in their release year ever, I believe. For me, there’s a strong top five, and then the rest – but they’re all good. I still missed a lot of good ones.

  1. Oppenheimer
  2. Killers of the Flower Moon
  3. Past Lives
  4. Asteroid City
  5. The Boy and The Heron or How Do You Live?
  6. The Holdovers
  7. Showing Up
  8. Blackberry
  9. Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1
  10. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
  11. Napoléon
  12. The Killer
  13. The Creator
  14. Barbie

Bonus Round

  • Honourable Mention: My friend, Stephen Gray, directed the documentary After Death which played in over 2000 cinemas across North America.
  • Favourite Short Film: Poison directed by Wes Anderson
  • Favourite Score: Oppenheimer by Ludwig Göransson and The Boy and the Heron by Joe Hisaishi
  • Favourite Editing: Oppenheimer by Jennifer Lame
  • Favourite Actors: Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon)
  • Favourite Supporting Actors: John Magaro (Past Lives), Jeffrey Wright (Asteroid City), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers)
  • Favourite Actor Only Appearing In One Scene: Margot Robbie (Asteroid City), ****** ******* (Killers of the Flower Moon)
  • Favourite Original Song: Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven) from Asteroid City – Lyrics by Wes Anderson, music by Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley, lead vocals by Preston George Mota
  • Favourite Interview About A Movie: Ethan and Maya Hawke with Bishop Robert Barron for Wildcat

Podcasts of the Year

Based on episodes released in the year 2023.

  1. Blank Check by Griffin Newman and David Sims
    The perfect mix of funny and insightful
  2. Comedy Bang! Bang! by Scott Aukerman
  3. Threedom by Paul F Tompkins, Scott Aukerman, and Lauren Lapkus
  4. Something Rotten by Jacob Geller and Blake Hester
    The Silent Hill 2 & 3 series made me consider Silent Hill 2 to be one of my favourites, even though I don’t know that I ever want to play it.
  5. Rehash by Maia (Broey Deschanel) and Hannah Raine

TV of the Year

I didn’t watch a lot of television this year, only getting through five seasons of shows from this year. I started Scavengers Reign too late in the year to finish it, but it would probably be near the top of this list.

  1. Jury Duty
  2. Paul T. Goldman
  3. The Other Two (Season 3)

Videos of the Year

This category celebrates my favourite video essays, and other videos released this year.

Bonus Round

Hank Green’s vlogging of his cancer was very good for someone, like me, who was walking beside a loved one with cancer.

Books Read this Year

I read 30 books this year, including audiobooks. Here are a few of my favourites that I read this year, in no particular order.

Video Games Played this Year

A year in which I didn’t do as much total gaming, but I added a Playdate and was gifted an Anbernic RG353V.

These games were started and/or completed in 2023:

Bonus Round

  • Favourite Soundtrack of 2023: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom by Manaka Kataoka, Tsukasa Usui, Maasa Miyoshi, and Masato Ohashi
  • “Favourite compliment you’ve received from a video game” (asked by Tim): I couldn’t figure out an answer for this one. Sorry Tim.
  • “Favourite stream on Twitch that you also know IRL” (asked by Tim): timmyisonline

Miscellanea

  • Favourite Coffee (asked by Tim): I drank a lot of Other Brother’s natural Ethiopian coffee from Uraga, Guji – hot, iced, espresso, V60, Chemex. I’m drinking it as I write this.
  • “Favourite group of friends to play video games with on some Thursdays” (asked by Tim): Johnnie, Tim, and Ty
  • “Top emoji of the year” (asked by Josiah):
    • By use (estimated): 😬 🤷 👍
    • By favourites: 🤦 🕴️ 🌮
  • “Something you and/or culture Rediscovered, or Got Back Into this past year” (asked by Nathan): The answer should be blogging, but I fell off after a strong start this year. Movies? I think that answer works for both me and culture. I watched more new releases than ever, I took an afternoon off to Barb’ and ’enheimer at the local cinema, and I watched two movies away from my hometown. Meanwhile, “culture” disregarded long-time major franchises, while movies for adults like Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon performed better than would have been expected and Miyazaki had his first North American number one movie.
  • Favourite Tabletop Game of 2023: Snakes of Wrath by Weast Coast was the only new tabletop game that I played, but it’s good.