My Favorite Things: 2024

One more year of using media as a crutch. Keeping up with tradition, here they are, my favs for the year.

Music

Every year when I sit down to make this list, I struggle to think of anything that came out recently. But that’s what smart playlists are for. I actually listened to a lot of newer stuff this year. Apart from the top 8 LPs listed below, nothing too obsessively.

LPs
These are the records I played most, sorted loosely in order of plays.

  • Hovvdy - Hovvdy [1]
  • Chappell Roan - The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess [2]
  • Rosie Tucker - Utopia Now!
  • Slimdan - Second Dinner
  • Charli Bliss - Forever [3]
  • Kacey Musgraves - Deeper Well
  • Super American - Gangster of Love
  • Empty Heaven - Laughing
  • Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department [4]
  • Kid Cudi - INSANO
  • Maggie Rogers - Don’t Forget Me
  • Four Year Strong - Analysis Paralysis
  • Childish Gambino - Band Stone and the New World
  • Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter
  • Lizzy McAlpine - Older
  • Charli xcx - Brat [5]
  • Wicked - Wicked: OST

Honorable Mentions
I liked all of these records too, but didn’t spend as much time with them.

  • Kendrick Lamar - GNX
  • Joy Oladokun - Observations From A Crowded Room
  • From Indian Lakes - Head Void [6]
  • Bayside - There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive
  • Beabadoobee - This Is How Tomorrow Moves
  • ManDancing - Dori Chantel and Other Songs / Covers
  • Waxahatchee - Tigers Blood
  • Katie Gavin - What A Relief
  • Tiny Moving Parts - Deep in the Blue
  • Tyla - Tyla
  • Clairo - Charm
  • mxmtoon - Liminal Space
  • Sierra Ferrell - Trail of Flowers
  • Fletcher - In Search of the Antidote
  • Spencer Sutherland - The Drama
  • Lost Dog Street Band - Survived
  • Post Malone - F-1 Trillion
  • NxWorries - Why Lawd?
  • Soccer Mommy - Evergreen
  • The Long Winters - So Good At Waiting & reissues [7]

EPs

  • NXCRE & The Villains - Endless
  • Slimdan - Second Dinner (Live from Mom’s Office) [8]
  • Bon Iver - Sable,
  • Hovvdy - Live at Julie’s
  • Runaway Brother - collected singles
  • Last Night Saved My Life - collected singles
  • Bearings - Make Your Way Back To Me
  • Coheed - The Joke / Deranged
  • Holly Humberstone - Work in Progress
  • Isabel Pless - Workhorse Pt. 1
  • James Blake - CMYK 002
  • Jay Wile - JUST, Vol. 1

Podcasts

Overcast started showing listening stats for the year. Very helpful, thank you Marco. I would say I probably listened to more this year than last year, just by virtue of greater in-office attendance requirements. So here’s the queue:

  • This American Life [9]
  • Dear John Letters [10]
  • My Brother, My Brother, and Me / Adventure Zone [11]
  • Roderick on the Line [12]
  • Reconcilable Differences
  • Handsome [13]
  • Tiny Dinos [14]
  • Love + Radio / Secrets Hotline

Movies

I went pretty hard on movies this year. 108 newly released films and 316 older ones. That’s 63 more than the year before. The text thread completed a third year of the draft and I did two more challenges, 31 Days of Halloween and the Criterion Challenge.

Thanks to Kyle Maclachlan and Charli XCX, my Criterion Closet Picks account took off in a big way, gathering over 7k followers in the first year. Several of the lists on this account made it as categories for the 2025 Criterion Challenge list as well.

Full and more recently updated lists of features/docs and shorts as well as my yearly stats on Letterboxd.

Features

  1. Challengers [15]
  2. Sing Sing [16]
  3. Dune Part II
  4. It Just Takes Time [17]
  5. Wicked [18]
  6. Civil War [19]
  7. Between The Temples [20]
  8. The Wild Robot [21]
  9. Conclave
  10. We Live In Time [22]
  11. A Real Pain
  12. Evil Does Not Exist [23]
  13. Good One [24]
  14. Society In the Snow
  15. Hundreds of Beavers [25]
  16. Rap World [26]
  17. I Like Movies [27]
  18. The Outrun
  19. Kneecap [28]
  20. Starve Acre

Documentaries

  1. I’m George Lucas: A Connor Ratliff Story
  2. Grounded II: Making The Last Of Us: Part II
  3. Aliens Expanded
  4. Jim Henson: Ideas Man
  5. Remembering Gene Wilder

Specials

  1. Hank Green: Pissing Out The Cancer
  2. Tom Cashman: Pests
  3. Chris Grace as Scarlett Johansson
  4. Connor O’Malley: Stand Up Solutions
  5. Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen
  6. James Acaster: Heckler’s Welcome
  7. Tig Notaro: Hello Again
  8. Neal Brennan: Crazy Good
  9. Courtney Pauroso: Vanessa 5000
  10. Guy Montgomery: My Brain is Blowing Me Crazy

Shorts

  1. Look Back
  2. Bob’s Funeral
  3. Flail
  4. Say Hi After You Die
  5. The Looming
  6. The Stag
  7. Coreys
  8. The Masterpiece
  9. Bigger with Brennan and Izzy
  10. From Ally to Zacky [29]

Television

I watched a lot of comedy this year. Between Dropout.tv shows and Taskmaster’s various permutations, I logged a lot of chuckle hours. Reality shows followed closely behind as Mae and I caught up on Survivor, Bake off, and Rhythm and Flow. [30]

Last year Apple TV dominated. This year, I canceled my subscription while I waited for all of the good shows to return. They’ll be back on the list in 2025 for sure.

Limited Series

  • The Fall of the House of Usher [31] (Netflix)
  • Pretend It’s a City (Netflix)
  • Simone Biles Rising (Netflix)
  • John Mulaney Presents Everybody’s In LA (Netflix)

Serialized

  • The Rings Of Power [32]
  • Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Prime)
  • Fallout (Prime)
  • The Bear (FX)
  • Survivor (Paramount+)
  • Physical 100 (Netflix) [33]
  • Taskmaster (UK, Jr, NZ, AUS)
  • Make Some Noise (Dropout)
  • Game Changer (Dropout)
  • Very Important People (Dropout)
  • Thousandaires (Dropout)
  • Smartypants (Dropout)
  • Letterkenny / Shoresy (Hulu) [34]
  • One Mississippi
  • Invincible (Prime)
  • Hilda (Netflix) [35]

Bed-time TV / Re-watches

  • House [36]
  • Monk [37] (Netflix)
  • Bob’s Burgers [38] (Hulu)

Games

I keep a running list of video games I've played here. I played exclusively idle games on my phone.

  • Melvor Idle (iOS)
  • Pokémon TCG Pocket (iOS)

  1. I love this band so much. ↩︎

  2. I’m counting it. ↩︎

  3. Still flabbergasted that the singles preceding this album didn’t make the cut. Speaks to how strong it is on its own. ↩︎

  4. Specifically the last 10 or so songs on the extended edition. None of which are on any of the vinyl releases. ↩︎

  5. I didn’t get into all the variant releases, but liked some of the duet versions. ↩︎

  6. So glad this project is back. ↩︎

  7. Mostly stuff that’s been available around for a wile, but it did kick off a few months of TLW-binging. ↩︎

  8. If Scrubs ever came back (it shouldn’t), this could be the soundtrack in its entirety. ↩︎

  9. I signed up for their Life Partners subscription service. No ads, spectacular behind the scenes and retrospective content. Highly recommend. ↩︎

  10. John Roderick’s Patreon-exclusive podcast where he runs weekly Q&A. My top comfort show these days. ↩︎

  11. After getting current with MBMBaM, I switched back to AZ for a while. Now I’m comfortably behind on both. I still fall asleep to one or the other. ↩︎

  12. John doesn’t get to complete most of his stories here anymore, so I don’t look forward to it like I do DJL these days. But it’s still one of the first I’ll clear from my weekly queue. ↩︎

  13. Mae and I have selected this as our “long drives” show. Often gut-busting. ↩︎

  14. Connor Ratliff’s new improv serial. Now in its second season. ↩︎

  15. Oscar snub of the century? ↩︎

  16. I got to see this at The Nightlight theater in Akron with my grandfather who hadn’t seen a movie in theaters in probably 30 years. ↩︎

  17. One of Joel Haver’s 12 movies in 12 months. He’s strongest with quiet, contemplative stuff like this. ↩︎

  18. Just good fun at the movies. Cynthia Erivo is otherworldly. ↩︎

  19. I could take or leave the conflict driving this movie. I'll accept it because shit is dire right now and we've got people knocking down the doors of government buildings. But that's all set dressing here. I don't think this movie has a lot to say, politically. But it does look incredibly good. ↩︎

  20. Caught this during Sundance’s online festival. I love Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane so much. ↩︎

  21. Best kids movie I’ve seen in years. Beautiful animation. ↩︎

  22. No, you’re crying over your two favorite young actors. ↩︎

  23. DIdn’t hit me like Drive My Car, but it had a great pace to it. ↩︎

  24. Another Sundance flick that I watched with Mae. ↩︎

  25. Glad this exists. ↩︎

  26. The second “YouTube movie” on this list. Connor O’Malley is making stuff unlike anyone else right now. ↩︎

  27. I like movies. ↩︎

  28. Late watch, but a roaring good time. ↩︎

  29. Dropout put out 5 of the flicks across these lists. ↩︎

  30. Season 2 is an absolute joke, skip it. ↩︎

  31. We love Mike Flanagan in this house and this one genuinely shocked and unsettled us in ways none of his other Netflix series have come close to. ↩︎

  32. Man, I love this show so much. Every season gets me back into Tolkien in a big way. ↩︎

  33. Massive improvement on the first season. ↩︎

  34. Letterkenny is dead. Long live Shoresy! ↩︎

  35. Farewell, Hilda! ↩︎

  36. We got through the first 3 seasons before Mae lost interest. This isn’t unexpected, the primary cast switch is a tough one to get through. ↩︎

  37. Like House, Mae got tired of this after 1.5 seasons. ↩︎

  38. Tried and true. ↩︎

Published:
This is a 5 min read
Tags: My Favorite Things, 2024, music, film, tv, podcasts, video games