Way back in the day, I used to catalog my favorite albums of the year. Well, I’m getting back at it, but this time, I’m spicing things up by including movies and TV shows too. Check out my favorite picks from 2023!

💿 Albums

  1. V - Unknown Mortal Orchestra
  2. Nothing Strange - Tropics
  3. Cartwheel - Hotline TNT
  4. Higher - Chris Stapleton
  5. Bunny - Beach Fossils

Honorable Mention
Blondshell - Blondshell, Desire, I Want to Turn Into You - Caroline Polachek, GUTS - Olivia Rodrigo, Hold - Wild Nothing, Lahai - Sampha, Quaranta - Danny Brown, That! Feels Good! - Jessie Ware

2023 was a decent and eclectic year in music for me. I re-listened to ~25 albums to get this list in order. Seems like that #5 spot was largely up for grabs. Caroline Polachek and Jessie Ware were super close, even Olivia Rodrigo could slot in there. Unknown Mortal Orchestra ended up with the 2023 belt for me, but Tropics came on with a super strong album that hits every time I put it on. Beach Fossils surprised me for sure, I always liked their stuff, but I didn’t think they had an album of this caliber in them.

🍿Movies

  1. Talk to Me
  2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
  3. Oppenheimer
  4. Creed III
  5. Barbie

Honorable Mention
BlackBerry, Air, Leave the World Behind, Ferrari, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning

Talk to Me takes the top for me; it was so fun to watch. Otherwise, Spider-Verse was awesome (though not as good as the first IMO) and Oppenheimer was super interesting and a technical marvel (the Wikipedia movie king in a year full of them). I did miss out on seeing Godzilla Minus One and Iron Claw, so I reserve judgment there. And a lot of the Oscars nominations are not speaking to me this year, so not a ton of overlap (although The Holdovers and Poor Thing are on my list). Any of those four could snag the 4 or 5 spot; I’m not as attached to those.

📺 Television

  1. The Bear S2
  2. Succession S3
  3. Barry S4
  4. Beef S1
  5. How to with John Wilson S3

Honorable Mention
Hijack S1, Platonic S1, Shrinking S1, Silo S1, Star Wars Visions S2, The Last of Us S1

These feel pretty chalk with the exception of How To (just too good to leave off). The Bear is simply the best thing on TV, Succession was captivating all season long, and Barry S4 landed the plane beautifully. I’m excited that almost all honorable mentions are opening seasons and hoping we get some good stuff from them in the future.