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The Ultimate Influencers: Updating the Meta-Lists of Most Important People in History

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I’ve updated the lists of the Most Important People of All Time. This list contains the names of the people in world history who have had a significant influence on the course of our civilization, or changed the world or their culture in some important way. In addition to adding five new lists to the meta-list, I’ve added a significant amount of new text to the biographical sketches and timelines for each entry.

The meta-list contains the names of several hundred individuals; the oldest (Menes [Narmer?]) was born about 3200 BCE, while the two youngest (Sergei Brin and Larry Page) were born in 1973. On this list you will find kings and queens, generals and dictators, religious figures, elected officials, explorers, philosophers, scientists, artists, writers, musicians, activists, inventors, and entrepreneurs. The list includes dozens of Nobel Prize winners, including 14 winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. There are 18 US presidents on the list, and nine British monarchs. The list even contains the names of four people who probably never existed: Abraham, Moses, Homer, and Laozi (Lao Tzu). Although most of the people on the list have long since died, 17 are still living.

I don’t judge; I don’t categorize based on “good” or “evil.” If a name is on at least three of the original source lists (which I’ve collected from various books, magazines, and websites), then it goes on the meta-list.

The meta-list is presented in two forms. One is organized by rank, that is, with the people on the most lists at the top.  The other is organized chronologically by date of birth. Here are the links:

Most Important People of All Time – Ranked
Most Important People of All Time – Chronological

Here are some lists from the meta-list:

TOP-RANKED MEN
1.          Mohandas K. Gandhi
2.          Albert Einstein
3.          Sir Isaac Newton
4.          Charles Darwin
5.          Leonardo da Vinci
6.          William Shakespeare
7.          Abraham Lincoln
8.          Karl Marx
9.          Alexander the Great
10.        Jesus
11.        Galileo Galilei
12.        George Washington
13.        Napoleon Bonaparte
14.        Adolf Hitler
15.        Nelson Mandela
16.        Martin Luther King, Jr.

TOP-RANKED WOMEN
1.          Marie Curie
2.          Elizabeth I of England
3.          Joan of Arc
4.          Cleopatra
5.          Mother Teresa
6.          Florence Nightingale
7.          Catherine the Great of Russia
8.          Victoria I of England
9.          Rosa Parks
10.        Margaret Thatcher
11.        Isabella of Spain
12.        Jane Austen
13.        Indira Gandhi
14.        Anne Frank
15.        Oprah Winfrey

TOP 10 WHO ARE STILL ALIVE
1.          Bill Gates
2.          14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)
3.          Oprah Winfrey
4.          Tim Berners-Lee
5.          Paul McCartney
6.          George W. Bush
7.          Barack Obama
8.          Lech Wałęsa
9.          Billie Jean King
10.        Aung San Suu Kyi

This meta-list is filled with surprising facts. Did you know, for example, that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Anne Frank were born in the same year?  The same is true for Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin.  Were you aware that, in addition to making the first affordable automobile and developing the assembly line, Henry Ford also published a series of antisemitic articles and books? Did you know that Charles Babbage, who designed (but failed to build) the first true computer, also invented the cowcatcher for the front of locomotives?  Did you know that Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, was one of the first presidents of the National Geographic Society? Did you know that Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great caused his troops to mutiny when he moved to Persia and adopted Persian dress and customs? A surprising number of people on the list spent part of their lives in forced exile, often for their political beliefs, from Dante, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Karl Marx to Napoleon, Haile Selassie, and Benazir Bhutto.

Other tidbits: both Ho Chi Minh and the Ayatollah Khomeini were published poets. Hitler was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Florence Nightingale popularized the pie chart. Joseph Stalin once worked as a meteorologist. John Dalton, best known for developing the first atomic theory, also published a grammar textbook. Rembrandt went bankrupt. Eleanor of Aquitaine was married to both the King of France and the King of England (but not at the same time). Alan Turing, who developed the Turing test and helped break German codes in World War II, was sentenced to “chemical castration” because he was gay. And both Madonna and Stephen Hawking (with his daughter) wrote children’s books.

As with all meta-lists, I don’t control the original sources, and so I can’t be personally blamed for the many omissions that readers will note, although I share the concern that the list is probably too American, too Eurocentric, too male, too white. All I can promise is that as more people make lists that address these inequities, I will add them to the meta-list in the hopes of reflecting the true diversity of those who influenced our world.

My Year in Review 2025: Movies, Books, Music & Live Performances

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MOVIES

It was a slow year for moviegoing.  I watched fewer movies than usual, either in the theaters or streaming.  I’m not sure why, but family health issues and national politics may each have played a part. Early in the year we caught up on some of the acclaimed movies from 2024, and about halfway through the year, we were inspired by the New York Times’ ‘best movies of the 21st century so far’ list to see some of the films on that list. (I also added the NYT list to my own meta-list of 21st Century films.) One of my New Year’s resolutions is to watch more movies in 2026.  Here are the films I watched in 2025, with my 1-10 rating:

10/10
The Zone of Interest (UK/Poland, 2023) Dir: Jonathan Glazer

9/10
Margaret (US, 2011) Dir: Kenneth Lonergan
Toni Erdmann (Germany/Austria, 2016) Dir: Maren Ade
The Worst Person in the World (Norway, 2021) Dir: Joachim Trier
I Saw the TV Glow (US, 2024) Dir: Jane Schoenbrun
Anora (US, 2024) Dir: Sean Baker
One Battle After Another (US, 2025) Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson

8/10
 Jazz on a Summer’s Day (US, 1959) Dir: Bert Stern
I Am Not Your Negro (US, 2016) Dir: Raoul Peck
His Three Daughters (US, 2023) Dir: Azazel Jacobs
The Outrun (Germany/UK, 2024) Dir: Nora Fingscheidt
A Complete Unknown (US, 2024) Dir: James Mangold
The Left-Handed Girl (Taiwan/US, 2025) Dir: Shih-Ching Tsou

7/10
The Snapper (Ireland, 1993) Dir: Stephen Frears
Hamilton (US, 2020) Dir: Thomas Kail
Hit Man (US, 2023) Dir: Richard Linklater
Challengers (US, 2024) Dir: Luca Guadagnino
Heretic (US, 2024) Dir: Scott Beck & Bryan Woods
The Substance (France/UK/US, 2024) Dir: Coralie Fargeat
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (UK, 2024) Dir: Nick Park

6/10
Ocean’s Eleven (US, 2001) Dir: Steven Soderbergh
Idiocracy (US, 2006) Dir: Mike Judge
Sicario (US, 2015) Dir: Denis Villeneuve

5/10
Hundreds of Beavers (US, 2022) Dir: Mike Cheslik
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (US, 2025) Dir: Christopher McQuarrie

BOOKS

In 2025, I continued to work my way through a large chronological ‘best literature’ reading list that is based on my meta-list of the greatest works of literature.  This year, I read a number of works published in the 1910s and 1920s.  I decided to take on Marcel Proust’s seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time, which occupied most of my reading time this year (I hope to finish it in 2026).  I also read Miracles and Wonder, the newest book by Elaine Pagels about the history of Christianity (you can read my review here) as well as two of her earlier books. A trip to England inspired me to read two books on British history.  Here is a list of the books I read in 2025, with my 1-5 star rating.

5/5
In Search of Lost Time I: Swann’s Way (1913). By Marcel Proust. Translated by Lydia Davis.
The Rainbow (1915). By D.H. Lawrence.
The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography (1918). By Henry Adams.
In Search of Lost Time II: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (1919). By Marcel Proust. Translated by James Grieve.
In Search of Lost Time III: The Guermantes Way (1920). By Marcel Proust. Translated by Mark Treharne.

4/5
Kokoro (1914). By Natsume Sōseki. Translated by Meredith McKinney.
The Home and the World (1916). By Rabindranath Tagore. Translated by Surendranath Tagore.
Selected Stories (1918-1926). By Lu Xun. Translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang.
Main Street (1920). By Sinclair Lewis.
The Forsyte Saga (1921). By John Galsworthy.
Zeno’s Conscience (1923). By Italo Svevo. Translated by William Weaver.
Three Plays (1923-1926). By Sean O’Casey.
An American Tragedy (1925). By Theodore Dreiser.
Three Tragedies (1932-1936). By Federico García Lorca. Translated by James Graham-Lujan and Richard L. O’Connell.
Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity (1988). By Elaine Pagels.
The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans and Heretics (1995). By Elaine Pagels.
A History of Britain I: At the Edge of the World? 3500 BC-AD 1603 (2000). By Simon Schama.
These Truths: A History of the United States (2018). By Jill Lepore.
Life Between the Tides (2021). By Adam Nicolson.
Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures (2024). By Katherine Rundell.
Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus (2025). By Elaine Pagels.

3/5
A Short History of England: The Glorious Story of a Rowdy Nation (2011). By Simon Jenkins.
Me, But Better: The Science and Promise of Personality Change (2025). By Olga Khazan.

MUSIC

My music listening in 2025 was dominated by my discovery of the rock band The Warning, a trio of sisters from Mexico who play hard rock with tinges of metal, pop, and punk. Many of their fans refer to them as ‘the future of rock’ and I don’t disagree. I also spent a lot of time listening to new albums from my best of 2024 meta-list. I also binged several favorite artists of years past: The Roches, The Who, and Steely Dan. Classical music listening was down this year. Here are the top 50 albums I listened to in 2025: 

  1. The Warning – Keep Me Fed (2024)
  2. Waxahatchee – Tigers Blood (2024)
  3. The Warning – ERROR (2022)
  4. Vampire Weekend – Only God Was Above Us (2024)
  5. The Roches – Speak (1989)
  6. Clairo – Charm (2024)
  7. Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (2024)
  8. The Roches -The Roches (1979)
  9. The Who – Live at Leeds (1970)
  10. The Roches – A Dove (1992)
  11. Yasmin Williams – Acadia (2024)
  12. Mabe Fratti – Sentir Que No Sabes (2024)
  13. The Who – Quadrophenia (1973)
  14. Steely Dan – A Decade of Steely Dan (1972-1980)
  15. The Last Dinner Party – Prelude to Ecstasy (2024)
  16. Hurray For The Riff Raff – The Past Is Still Alive (2024)
  17. The Roches – Keep On Doing (1982)
  18. Adam Steinberg – Angels + Angles (2022)
  19. The Roches – Another World (1985)
  20. Steely Dan – Can’t Buy A Thrill (1972)
  21. Bob Dylan – The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The ‘Royal Albert Hall’ Concert (rec. 1966)
  22. Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (1974)
  23. The Roches – Can We Go Home Now (1995)
  24. Alvvays – Blue Rev (2022)
  25. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Wild God (2024)
  26. World Party – Arkeology (rec. 1984-2011)
  27. Michael Kiwanuka – Small Changes (2024)
  28. Charlie Parker – The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes (rec. 1944-1948)
  29. Steely Dan – Katy Lied (1975)
  30. Brittany Howard – What Now (2024)
  31. SZA – SOS (2022)
  32. Steely Dan – Countdown To Ecstasy (1973)
  33. Nala Sinephro – Endlessness (2024)
  34. The Who – Tommy (1969)
  35. The Who – Who’s Next (1971)
  36. Waxahatchee – Out in the Storm (2017)
  37. Jessica Pratt – Here In The Pitch (2024)
  38. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud (2020)
  39. Janelle Monáe – The ArchAndroid (2010)
  40. Lucinda Williams – West (2007)
  41. The New Pornographers – Electric Version (2003)
  42. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema (2005)
  43. Andrew Sue Wing – Seventeen (2024)
  44. Björk – Vespertine (2001)
  45. Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks (1975)
  46. Fontaines D.C. – Romance (2024)
  47. Jamey Johnson – The Guitar Song (2010)
  48. Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More (2024)
  49. Lana Del Rey – Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd (2023)
  50. Oscar Peterson – Night Train (1962)

LIVE PERFORMANCES

For the first time in several years, I didn’t attend concerts by any of my favorite indie or alternative pop & rock artists.  Instead, most of the concerts I attended in 2025 were for classical music, with two jazz concerts, and one singer-songwriter concert at a new (to me) venue: the Rec Room in Belmont.  I didn’t see any plays this year, but did enjoy a night of improv comedy for the first time in many years.  Here are the live performances I attended in 2025, in chronological order:

  • The Makanda Project with Charles Tolliver at Boston Public Library, Roxbury, MA 3/5/25
  • Jeremy Denk at Mechanics Hall, Worcester, MA 3/21/25
    Performing Partitas (BWV 825-830) by J.S. Bach
  • Cambridge Jazz Festival at Danehy Park, Cambridge, MA 7/26/25
    Ron Reid’s Precious Metals Project
    Namisa Mdalose & Lumanyano Bizana
  • Improv Asylum at Charles Playhouse, Boston, MA 8/16/25
    The Main Stage Show (Barker, Carty, Gillis, Sosebee, etc.)
  • Andrew Sue Wing at The Rec Room, Belmont, MA 9/9/25
  • A Tribute to Scott Nickrenz at Calderwood Hall, Gardner Museum. Boston, MA 9/10/25
    Performers included: Yo-Yo Ma, Jason Bell, Paavali Jumppanen, Lawrence Dutton, Borromeo Quartet, A Far Cry
  • Convivium Musicum at First Unitarian Church, Worcester, MA 11/23/25
    Performing works of Gregorio Allegri, Noel Bauldeweyn, Adrian Willaert, Jacob Handl, and Josquin des Prez
  • Paula Robison & Paavali Jumppanen at Williams Hall, NEC, Boston, MA 12/14/25
    Performing works of J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, and Mozart

The Best of 2025: Movies, TV, Music & Books

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It’s that time of year again, when various publications and individuals publish their “best of the year” lists. It seems like these lists come out earlier every year.  (I only hope that the listmakers go back to the prior December to find any gems they’ve missed in their eagerness to get their list out in late November or early December.)

I’ve compiled dozens of lists, as I do each year, to see which items reached a critical consensus as the best in their particular art form.  These are not my personal opinions.  I have not seen all these movies or TV shows, read all these books, or listened to all this music.  The links to the lists are below:

Best Films of 2025
Best TV Shows of 2025
Best Music of 2025
Best Books of 2025

To give you a sneak peek, here are the top items on each of the four lists:

BOOKS (3-way tie)
A Guardian and a Thief. By Megha Majumdar.
Audition. By Katie Kitamura.
Mother Mary Comes To Me. By Arundhati Roy.

MUSIC 
Geese – Getting Killed

TV SHOWS
Andor 

FILM
One Battle After Another

Please feel free to leave your comments about favorite movies, books, TV, and music of 2025 in the comments!

Thumbs Down: My Least Favorite Films of the 21st Century (so far)

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There’s nothing quite as infuriating as someone hating something you love. It feels personal in a way that’s different than someone loving something you hate. So it is with some trepidation that I have compiled a list of my least favorite films of the 21st Century so far.  I rate every movie I see from 1-10 and this list consists of every movie since 1/1/2000 (I know, actually a year before the 21st Century began…) that I gave a rating of 5 stars or less.

Please don’t be offended if I didn’t share your love for a favorite film. These aren’t facts; they’re just opinions. And hey, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I need to give that film another chance. I probably won’t, but maybe I should. Maybe I was just having a bad day. Or maybe this is a truly terrible film. We may never know the answer, but I can live with that uncertainty. I hope you can too.

You’ll notice that certain types of films tend to crop up on my “least favorite films” list. For example, I find most modern comedies to be awful. Even if they provide some laughs, they come at the expense of credible characters, coherent scripts, and emotional richness.  I find that so many comedies in the past 30+ years are little more than SNL-type skits that someone padded out to 90 minutes. It might have been funny as five minutes on TV show, but sitting through a feature-length movie is a chore. Other frequent fliers are: overrated animated films that hope we’ll overlook the lack of substance because it’s cute and clever; by-the-numbers rom-coms; by-the-numbers action flicks; and science fiction films that, upon serious examination, make no sense (I can only suspend my disbelief so far – Chris Nolan, Wachowskis, I’m looking at you…).

Anyway, here’s the list (in chronological order, as per usual):

  1. Meet the Parents (US, 2000) Dir: Jay Roach
  2. Scary Movie (US, 2000) Dir: Keenen Ivory Wayans
  3. Bamboozled (US, 2000) Dir: Spike Lee
  4. The Matrix Reloaded (US, 2003) Dir: Lilly Wachowski & Lana Wachowski
  5. The Matrix Revolutions (US, 2003) Dir: Lilly Wachowski & Lana Wachowski
  6. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (US, 2003) Dir: Gore Verbinski
  7. Gothika (US, 2003) Dir: Mathieu Kassovitz
  8. Spanglish (US, 2004) Dir: James L. Brooks
  9. National Treasure (US, 2004) Dir: Jon Turteltaub
  10. The Village (US, 2004) Dir: M. Night Shyamalan
  11. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (US, 2004) Dir: Adam McKay
  12. Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (US, 2004) Dir: Brad Silberling
  13. Collateral (US, 2004) Dir: Michael Mann
  14. Spider-Man 2 (US, 2004) Dir: Sam Raimi
  15. The Stepford Wives (US, 2004) Dir: Frank Oz
  16. King Kong (New Zealand/US, 2005) Dir: Peter Jackson
  17. Wedding Crashers (US, 2005) Dir: David Dobkin
  18. The Upside of Anger (US, 2005) Dir: Mike Binder
  19. Notes on a Scandal (UK, 2006) Dir: Richard Eyre
  20. Happy Feet (US/Australia, 2006) Dir: George Miller
  21. The Break-Up (US, 2006) Dir: Peyton Reed
  22. The Mist (US, 2007) Dir: Frank Darabont
  23. Ratatouille (US, 2007) Dir: Brad Bird
  24. Live Free or Die Hard (US, 2007) Dir: Len Wiseman
  25. Next (US, 2007) Dir: Lee Tamahori
  26. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (UK/US, 2007) Dir: Tim Burton
  27. Evan Almighty (US, 2007) Dir: Tom Shadyac
  28. WALL·E (US, 2008) Dir: Andrew Stanton
  29. The Hangover (US, 2009) Dir: Todd Phillips
  30. Taking Woodstock (US, 2009) Dir: Ang Lee
  31. Up (US, 2009) Dir: Pete Docter
  32. Avatar (US, 2009) Dir: James Cameron
  33. He’s Just Not That Into You (US/Germany, 2009) Dir: Ken Kwapis
  34. Inception (US/UK, 2010) Dir: Christopher Nolan
  35. Source Code (US/France, 2011) Dir: Duncan Jones
  36. Cedar Rapids (US, 2011) Dir: Miguel Arteta
  37. House at the End of the Street (US, 2012) Dir: Mark Tonderai
  38. The Equalizer (US, 2014) Dir: Antoine Fuqua
  39. The Endless (US, 2017) Dir: Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead
  40. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (US/UK, 2020) Dir: Jason Woliner
  41. A Man Called Otto (US, 2022) Dir: Marc Forster
  42. Hundreds of Beavers (US, 2022) Dir: Mike Cheslik
  43. Saltburn (UK/US, 2023) Dir: Emerald Fennell
  44. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (US, 2025) Dir: Christopher McQuarrie

My Top 100 Films of the 21st Century (so far)

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The New York Times recently published a list of the top 100 films of the 21st Century so far (actually, films made from January 1, 2000 to the present).  Here is the list (unfortunately, you may reach a paywall at the NYT site).  I have added the list to my meta-list of best films of the 21st Century (so far), which you can find HERE.  (The meta-list also includes music and books.)

I thought it would be fun to come up with my own list of 100 personal favorites from the first quarter of the new millennium.  I had to make a lot of difficult choices, and many films I rated 9 out of 10 didn’t make the cut.  Here is my list, in chronological order (with an asterisk if the film is on the New York Times list).

  1. Yi Yi (Taiwan, 2000) Dir: Edward Yang*
  2. You Can Count on Me (US, 2000) Dir: Kenneth Lonergan
  3. Memento (US, 2000) Dir: Christopher Nolan*
  4. Best in Show (US, 2000) Dir: Christopher Guest*
  5. In the Mood for Love (China, 2000) Dir: Wong Kar-Wai*
  6. Requiem for a Dream (US, 2000) Dir: Darren Aronofsky
  7. Songs from the Second Floor (Sweden, 2000) Dir: Roy Andersson
  8. Traffic (US, 2000) Dir: Steven Soderbergh
  9. The Piano Teacher (France/Austria, 2001) Dir: Michael Haneke
  10. Ghost World (US/UK/Germany 2001) Dir: Terry Zwigoff
  11. Spirited Away (Japan, 2001) Dir: Hayao Miyazaki*
  12. Waking Life (US, 2001) Dir: Richard Linklater
  13. Fat Girl (France, 2001) Dir: Catherine Breillat
  14. Mulholland Dr. (US, 2001) Dir: David Lynch*
  15. Moulin Rouge! (US, 2001) Dir: Baz Luhrmann
  16. The Royal Tenenbaums (US, 2001) Dir: Wes Anderson*
  17. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (US/NZ 2001) Dir: Peter Jackson*
  18. Talk to Her (Spain, 2002) Dir: Pedro Almodóvar
  19. Dogville (Denmark, 2003) Dir: Lars von Trier
  20. Capturing the Friedmans (US, 2003) Dir: Andrew Jarecki
  21. American Splendor (US, 2003) Dir: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini
  22. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (US/NZ 2003) Dir: Peter Jackson
  23. Oldboy (South Korea, 2003) Dir: Park Chan-wook*
  24. Before Sunset (US, 2004) Dir: Richard Linklater*
  25. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (US, 2004) Dir: Michel Gondry*
  26. Fahrenheit 9/11 (US, 2004) Dir: Michael Moore
  27. Downfall (Germany, 2004) Dir: Oliver Hirschbiegel
  28. Tarnation (US, 2004) Dir: Jonathan Caouette
  29. Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids (US/India, 2004) Dir: Zana Briski & Ross Kauffman
  30. Grizzly Man (US, 2005) Dir: Werner Herzog*
  31. The Squid and the Whale (US, 2005) Dir: Noah Baumbach
  32. Caché [Hidden] (France/Austria, 2005) Dir: Michael Haneke*
  33. A History of Violence (US/Canada, 2005) Dir: David Cronenberg
  34. The Lives of Others (Germany, 2006) Dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmark*
  35. Once (Ireland, 2006) Dir: John Carney
  36. Children of Men (UK/US, 2006) Dir: Alfonso Cuarón*
  37. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Romania, 2007) Dir: Cristian Mungiu
  38. Encounters at the End of the World (US, 2007) Dir: Werner Herzog
  39. Juno (US, 2007) Dir: Jason Reitman
  40. No Country for Old Men (US, 2007) Dir: Joel & Ethan Coen*
  41. There Will Be Blood (2007) Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson*
  42. Slumdog Millionaire (UK, 2008) Dir: Danny Boyle
  43. Food, Inc. (US, 2008) Dir: Robert Kenner
  44. Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) Dir: Mike Leigh
  45. The White Ribbon (Germany/Austria 2009) Dir: Michael Haneke
  46. Mother (South Korea, 2009) Dir: Bong Joon-ho
  47. Dogtooth (Greece, 2009) Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos
  48. The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina/Spain, 2009) Dir: Juan José Campanella
  49. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (US, 2010) Dir: Werner Herzog
  50. The Kids Are All Right (US, 2010) Dir: Lisa Cholodenko
  51. Poetry (South Korea, 2010) Dir: Lee Chang-dong
  52. The Tree of Life (US, 2011) Dir: Terence Malick*
  53. A Separation (Iran, 2011) Dir: Asghar Farhadi*
  54. Melancholia (Denmark/Sweden, 2011) Dir: Lars von Trier*
  55. Moonrise Kingdom (US, 2012) Dir: Wes Anderson
  56. The Act of Killing (Denmark, 2012) Dir: Joshua Oppenheimer*
  57. Amour (France/Austria, 2012) Dir: Michael Haneke*
  58. The Master (US, 2012) Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson*
  59. Inside Llewyn Davis (US, 2013) Dir: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen*
  60. The Great Beauty (Italy/France, 2013) Dir: Paolo Sorrentino
  61. Under the Skin (UK/US, 2013) Dir: Jonathan Glazer*
  62. Ida (Poland/Denmark, 2013) Dir: Paweł Pawlikowski
  63. Her (US, 2013) Dir: Spike Jonze*
  64. Boyhood (US, 2014) Dir: Richard Linklater*
  65. Two Days, One Night (Belgium/France, 2014) Dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne
  66. Goodbye to Language (France/Switzerland, 2014) Dir: Jean-Luc Godard
  67. Anomalisa (US, 2015) Dir: Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson
  68. Son of Saul (Hungary, 2015) Dir: László Nemes Jeles
  69. Mustang (France/Germany/Turkey, 2015) Dir: Deniz Gamze Ergüven
  70. Moonlight (US, 2016) Dir: Barry Jenkins*
  71. Toni Erdmann (Germany/Austria, 2016) Dir: Maren Ade*
  72. American Honey (UK/US, 2016) Dir: Andrea Arnold
  73. Paterson (US, 2016) Dir: Jim Jarmusch
  74. The Florida Project (US, 2017) Dir: Sean Baker*
  75. First Reformed (US, 2017) Dir: Paul Schrader
  76. Lady Bird (US, 2017) Dir: Greta Gerwig*
  77. Phantom Thread (US, 2017) Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson*
  78. The Favourite (Ireland/UK/US, 2018) Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos*
  79. Happy as Lazzaro (Italy/Switzerland, 2018) Dir: Alice Rohrwacher
  80. Burning (South Korea, 2018) Dir: Lee Chang-dong
  81. Roma (Mexico/US, 2018) Dir: Alfonso Cuarón*
  82. The Souvenir (UK, 2019) Dir: Joanna Hogg
  83. The Irishman (US, 2019) Dir: Martin Scorsese
  84. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (France, 2019) Dir: Céline Sciamma*
  85. Parasite (South Korea, 2019) Dir: Bong Joon-ho*
  86. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (US, 2019) Dir: Quentin Tarantino*
  87. Uncut Gems (US, 2019) Dir: Ben Safdie & Joshua Safdie*
  88. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (US, 2020) Dir: Charlie Kaufman
  89. Small Axe: Lovers Rock (UK, 2020) Dir: Steve McQueen
  90. The Worst Person in the World (Norway/France, 2021) Dir: Joachim Trier*
  91. The Power of the Dog (NZ/Australia/UK, 2021) Dir: Jane Campion
  92. The Lost Daughter (Greece/US, 2021) Dir: Maggie Gyllenhaal
  93. Licorice Pizza (US, 2021) Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson
  94. Aftersun (US/UK, 2022) Dir: Charlotte Wells*
  95. Tár (US/Germany, 2022) Dir: Todd Field*
  96. The Zone of Interest (UK/Poland, 2023) Dir: Jonathan Glazer*
  97. Past Lives (South Korea/US, 2023) Dir: Celine Song*
  98. Anatomy of a Fall (France, 2023) Dir: Justine Triet*
  99. Poor Things (Ireland/US/US, 2023) Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos
  100. Anora (US, 2024) Dir: Sean Baker

The Opera Lists Get a Makeover

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I’ve added 12 more lists to the opera meta-lists, bringing the total number of lists to over 30.  The three opera lists (by rank, chronological, and by composer) were in need of an update – I hadn’t done any serious work on the lists since 2017.  The only major change I made was I eliminated the operas that were only on two of the original source lists.  Since the last update, I have tried to adopt a consistent standard throughout the Make Lists, Not War website to include only items that are on at least three original source lists.

Here are links to the updated meta-lists:

Best Operas of All Time – By Rank
Best Operas of All Time – Chronological
Best Operas of All Time – By Composer

The addition of new lists has rearranged the top operas quite a bit.  Here are the new top 10 (including ties):
1. THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (Mozart)
1. CARMEN (Bizet)
2. LA TRAVIATA (Verdi)
2. LA BOHÈME (Puccini)
3. TOSCA (Puccini)
4. THE MAGIC FLUTE (Mozart)
4. THE BARBER OF SEVILLE (Rossini)
5. MADAMA BUTTERFLY (Puccini)
6. DON GIOVANNI (Mozart)
7. RIGOLETTO (Verdi)

The meta-list contains 141 operas by 74 composers with libretti in seven languages:
Italian: 44 operas
German: 27
French: 24
English: 13
Russian: 10
Czech: 6
Hungarian: 1

The oldest opera premiered in 1607 and the two most recent operas on the list are from 1987.

The composers with the most operas on the meta-list are:
Giuseppe Verdi: 13
Richard Wagner: 11
Giacomo Puccini: 8
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: 6
Richard Strauss: 6
Benjamin Britten: 6

The 12 new ‘best operas’  lists come from the following sources:

  • DavesMusicDatabase (another meta-list site)
  • iconik magazine
  • Classic.FM
  • English National Opera
  • Classical-Music.com
  • Radio Art
  • MSN
  • San Francisco Opera
  • udiscovermusic
  • Gramophone
  • Stage Door
  • Phamox Music

All 12 lists were published between 2018 and 2025.

My Year in Music – 2024

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I have so far continued to buck the trend of the music industry and still own my music instead of listening to a streaming platform like Spotify.  I no longer have a CD player, but I upload CDs onto my computer’s hard drive, and download a portion of the music collection onto my iPhone, which allows me to access music wherever I am.  I currently have 166 GB of music (almost 32,000 tracks).  I could explain in detail why I do this, but I’m afraid this would bore most readers.  The short answer is that I find streaming platforms unacceptably restrict the ways I can listen to music and also lack the full range of music I am looking for.  This may be changing, and I may give in to streaming eventually, but not this year.

I keep track of my listening habits through the last.fm website, which keeps track of every song I play on my computer or phone from my collection.  Unfortunately, last.fm doesn’t track the songs I listen to on YouTube, where I often go to listen to artists I’m not familiar with.

The results of my year in music, shown below, were influenced in large part by three factors:

  1. I love love love the Canadian band The New Pornographers, and sometimes they’re all I want to listen to. I truly believe that A.C. “Carl” Newman is one of the most gifted songwriters of the 21st century.
  2. I created an iTunes smart playlist called “Artists I’ve seen live” and listened to it quite a bit. On the list below, I’ve added an asterisk to any artist I’ve ever seen perform live.
  3. When I’m not listening to a specific playlist, I just put my entire music collection on random shuffle and listen to whatever pops up. I love the odd, often serendipitous juxtapositions of genre and mood that this creates, although this also means that artists with more (and shorter) tracks in the collection tend to rank higher in the end-of-the-year stats than artists with fewer and/or longer tracks.

NOTE 1: Even though I have listed “most listened-to album” by each artist below, that doesn’t mean I’m actually listening to the album start to finish (something I do very rarely), only that songs from that album were played more frequently than songs from other albums by the same artist.

NOTE 2: I normally only begin acquiring music from the current year in late December after the “best of the year” critics’ lists are released, so there are no 2024 releases on the list. Check in next year for those results.

Most Listened-to Artists (including the artist’s Most Listened-to Album)

  1. The New Pornographers* – Electric Version (2003)
  2. The Decemberists* – The Hazards of Love (2009)
  3. Aimee Mann* – Queens of the Summer Hotel (2021)
  4. PJ Harvey – Rid of Me (1993)
  5. Angel Olsen* – Burn Your Fire For No Witness (2014)
  6. The National* – Trouble Will Find Me (2013)
  7. Juliana Hatfield – Only Everything (1995)
  8. Alvvays* – Blue Rev (2022)
  9. Wolf Alice* – Blue Weekend (2021)
  10. Steely Dan – A Decade of Steely Dan (1972-1980)
  11. The Roches* – The Roches (1979)
  12. Sharon Van Etten* – Are We There (2014)
  13. Bob Dylan – No Direction Home: Bootleg Series, Vol. 7 (1959-1966)
  14. The Beatles – With the Beatles (1963)
  15. R.E.M.* – Around the Sun (2004)
  16. Frank Sinatra – Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years (1960-1979)
  17. The Hold Steady* – Stay Positive (2008)
  18. Paul Simon – Hearts and Bones (1983)
  19. Tom Waits – Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (1984-2005)
  20. The War on Drugs* – I Don’t Live Here Anymore (2021)
  21. Buddy Holly – Memorial Collection (1954-1959)
  22. Laura Marling – Once I Was An Eagle (2013)
  23. Talking Heads* – Sand in the Vaseline (1976-1992)
  24. Yes* – The Yes Album (1971)
  25. Julien Baker* – Little Oblivions (2021)
  26. OutKast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003)
  27. Duke Ellington – The Blanton-Webster Band (1940-1942)
  28. The Everly Brothers* – Cadence Classics: Their 20 Greatest Hits (1957-1960)
  29. Alison Krauss & Union Station* – Lonely Runs Both Ways (2004)
  30. Beck – Morning Phase (2014)
  31. T-Bone Walker – The Complete Imperial Recordings (1950-1954)
  32. World Party* – Arkeology (1986-2011)
  33. Yo La Tengo – Summer Sun (2003)
  34. The Who – Quadrophenia (1973)
  35. Bill Frisell – Have a Little Faith (1992)
  36. Miles Davis – ‘Round About Midnight (1957)
  37. Radiohead – Hail to the Thief (2003)
  38. Jimi Hendrix – The Ultimate Experience (1966-1970)
  39. Muddy Waters* – The Best of Muddy Waters (1948-1954)
  40. Sufjan Stevens – The Ascension (2020)
  41. The Velvet Underground – Peel Slowly and See (1965-1970)
  42. Genesis* – Selling England by the Pound (1973)
  43. Little Walter – The Essential Little Walter (1952-1963)
  44. Soccer Mommy – Sometimes, Forever (2022)
  45. SZA – SOS (2022)
  46. Elvis Costello – Punch the Clock (1983)
  47. Lester Young – The Complete Aladdin Sessions (1942-1947)
  48. Bud Powell – The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 2 (1954)
  49. Dizzy Gillespie* – The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (1937-1949)
  50. Spoon* – They Want My Soul (2014)

* = have seen this artist perform live

Most Listened-To Albums Released in 2023

  1. Lankum – False Lankum
  2. Lana Del Rey – Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.
  3. Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want to Turn into You
  4. Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
  5. PJ Harvey – I Inside the Old Year Dying

Most Listened-To Classical Albums

  1. Jacques Offenbach – The Tales of Hoffman (Andre Cluytens, Choeur et Orchestre du Theatre National de l’Opera-Comique)
  2. Isaac Albéniz – Piano Music (Esteban Sánchez)
  3. George Frideric Handel – Twelve Concerti Grossi, Op. 6 (Orpheus Chamber Orchestra)
  4. Johann Sebastian Bach – St. Matthew Passion (Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus)
  5. Henry Purcell – Dido and Aeneas (Trevor Pinnock, The English Concert)
  6. Anonymous – Adorate Deum: Gregorian Chant from the Proper of the Mass (Alberto Turco, Nova Schola Gregoriana)
  7. William Bolcom – Songs of Innocence and Experience (Leonard Slatkin, University of Michigan School of Music Symphony Orchestra)
  8. Ludwig van Beethoven – Violin Sonatas 7-10 (Daniel Barenboim & Pinchas Zukerman)
  9. Modest Mussorgsky (arr. by Ravel) – Pictures at an Exhibition (Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra)
  10. Philip Glass – Einstein on the Beach (Michael Riesman/Philip Glass Ensemble)

More Stars Than There Are in Heaven: The Updated Actors List

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I’ve added about 10 more lists to the Best Actors meta-list, which hasn’t been updated in about 10 years. It was due.  In making this meta-list, I have been conscious that the lists probably have biases.  Some are biased toward the past, others toward the present. Some are biased toward male actors.  Many are biased toward Hollywood and/or English-speaking actors.  Still, even with these biases, the meta-list includes old and new, male and female, and Hollywood and non-Hollywood.  Although the majority of the actors on the meta-list are Americans, with a strong showing by actors from other English-speaking countries, the list also includes actors from several countries in Europe (particularly France and Sweden) and Asia (especially India and Japan).

One change from the earlier version of the meta-list is that I added many more television credits to the selected “filmography” for each actor.  (Filmography is therefore not a completely accurate term, since some of the credits are not films, and – truth be told – many movies are not even made on film anymore.)

Another change is that I’ve eliminated the term “actress” and now refer to film and television performers of all genders as “actors.”

Here is the link to the meta-list:

Best Actors of All Time

For those who can’t wait for the results, here are the top male and female actors on the meta-list:

Male
1. Marlon Brando
2. Robert De Niro
3. Jack Nicholson
4. Humphrey Bogart (tie)
4. Al Pacino (tie)
4. Daniel Day-Lewis (tie)
5. James Stewart
6. Cary Grant
7. Charlie Chaplin (tie)
7. Tom Hanks (tie)
8. Henry Fonda (tie)
8. Dustin Hoffman (tie)
8. Denzel Washington (tie)
9. John Wayne (tie)
9. Paul Newman (tie)
9. Johnny Depp (tie)

Female
1. Meryl Streep
2. Katherine Hepburn
3. Bette Davis
4. Ingrid Bergman
5. Judy Garland (tie)
5. Audrey Hepburn (tie)
6. Barbara Stanwyck (tie)
6. Cate Blanchett (tie)
6. Kate Winslet (tie)
7. Greta Garbo (tie)
7. Jodie Foster (tie)
7. Nicole Kidman (tie)
8. Joan Crawford (tie)
8. Vivien Leigh (tie)
8. Marilyn Monroe (tie)
8. Natalie Portman (tie)

 

They Listed Me with Science!

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The Greatest Scientists of All Time is one of the most popular pages on the Make Lists, Not War website.  The meta-list of scientists consistently gets more hits than all but four or five other pages on the site.  The page also has quite a few comments, more than average.  I haven’t updated the meta-list since 2018, so I decided to look for more lists of “best,” “greatest,” “most important,” and “most influential” scientists of all time.  I found 10 lists that were published since 2018 and added them to the meta-list.  The results are in the links below.  There are  two lists – each one includes every scientist on three or more of the original source lists. The first meta-list is ranked, that is, the scientists on the most lists are at the top.  The second meta-list is chronological: the scientists are listed in order of their date of birth.

Greatest Scientists of All Time – Ranked
Greatest Scientists of All Time – Chronological

The meta-list contains 128 names.  There are four new additions: Ada Lovelace, George Washington Carver, Emmy Noether, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Although most of the rankings remain similar after I added 10 new lists to the meta-list, there were some changes. For example, Rosalind Franklin leapfrogged over both James Watson and Francis Crick in the rankings, apparently an acknowledgement that her contribution to the discovery of DNA’s structure was not properly recognized in the past.

The discussions in the comments section have highlighted some perceived problems with the meta-list.  For one thing, because I only look at English-language sources, the list may be biased towards English-speaking scientists.  Also, there may be a Western, Eurocentric or American bias, which is true for many of the meta-lists on the website.  I’m not sure what I can do to counter this tendency, as it originates in the original source lists and then is carried over into the meta-list.

Another issue is the definition of ‘best scientist.’  Most of the lists of “best scientists” I have found also include inventors, engineers, and mathematicians.  It rubs some people the wrong way to see names like Thomas Edison and James Watt on the meta-lists, as it doesn’t fit their definition of scientist.  Once again, I’m not sure how I can fix this problem (if it is a problem).  As a meta-lister, I am largely bound by the way that the original source listers defined their subject.

Another issue that has been raised is that scientists who are more famous or popular in the public eye tend to get on the “best scientist” lists even if they haven’t made many (or any) serious contributions to original research or discovery.  I’m thinking of people like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson.  Even Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman’s inclusions have been criticized, even though there is no doubt that both men have done serious work in theoretical physics.  I suppose the logic of the listers is that scientists who make science accessible to the general public serve an important role and are influential in the society at large, if not as researchers in their fields.

For me, perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the meta-list is the lack of earth scientists, geologists and paleontologists on the meta-list.  It feels like the physicists and astronomers are overrepresented, and the life sciences and especially earth sciences are underrepresented.  I don’t know why this has occurred. The only geologist on the meta-list is Alfred Wegener. Alexander von Humboldt, James Hutton, Charles Lyell, and Stephen Jay Gould just missed the cutoff, with two votes each. Geologists who are on only one original source list include Georges Cuvier, Louis Agassiz, Mary Anning, Andrew Knoll, Marie Tharp, Luis Alvarez (actually a physicist but best known for his role in paleontology) and Eugene Shoemaker.

Despite all these shortcomings, I still think the meta-list is a useful tool in identifying important and influential scientists. But of course I’d say that.

Meta-List Updates

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I’ve updated a number of the website pages on Make Lists, Not War.

(1) Timeline of Human History, Part V: 2000-Present
I’ve been a little behind in doing the year-by-year summaries, but I am now up to date.  I’ve added important world events for the years 2021-2024.  The big additions include the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, various items regarding Donald Trump, and news about climate change.  I’m still delinquent about adding photos to the years since 2016. I’ll get to that eventually.
Here’s the link:
Timeline of Human History Part V: 2000-Present

(2) Best of the 21st Century (so far): Film, Music, and Books
As we approach the end of the 1st quarter of the 21st Century, a number of new lists have been published, and I’ve added these to the meta-list.  The new lists didn’t change the top items in music or film (The White Stripes – Elephant, and There Will Be Blood), but the top of the book list is now a three-way tie: The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, Atonement, by Ian McEwan, and The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.  As I mention elsewhere, one of the odd results of collecting “best of the 21st century” lists over time is that the meta-list tends to be biased toward the first part of the century.  The lists contain almost no items from 2020 or later.  I’m sure that will be remedied as new lists are produced and added to the meta list.
Here’s the link
Best of the 21st Century (so far)

(3) Best Athletes of All Time
It has been several years since I updated the Best Athletes lists. I found six new lists and added them to the meta-lists.  New additions include Simone Biles and Novak Djokovic.  Athletes who were already on the lists but moved up considerably included Serena Williams, Tom Brady, and LeBron James.  To the dismay of all, Lance Armstrong remains on the list, due to a glitch in the meta-list process. Even though none of the lists that were made after 2013 include Armstrong, I found 8 lists made before the revelations about his performance-enhancing drug use that did include him. I have left this artifact of time on the list with an asterisk to explain the oddity.  Not yet on enough lists to make the meta-list are swimmer Katie Ledecky and basketball phenom Caitlin Clark, although my guess is that they will reach the meta-list in the future.
Here are the lists:
Best Athletes of All Time – Ranked (with photos)
Best Athletes of All Time – By Sport (without photos)