Author Archives: beckchris

The Show Must Go On: Introducing the Best Musicals Meta-Lists

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A regular reader of the Make Lists, Not War website recently suggested that I create a meta-list of the Best Musicals of All Time. I thought it was a great idea, but I realized immediately that one list would not be sufficient. Stage musicals and movie musicals are very different genres (although many musicals have both stage and film versions), so I created a pair of meta-lists for both stage (also sometimes referred to as Broadway) musicals and movie musicals. For each format, I’ve created a ranked list (with the musicals on the most lists at the top) and a chronological list.  The ranked lists have more pictures.  For the stage musicals, I tried to find original posters to use as the images. For the movie musicals, I used still images from the films. Each entry includes relevant information.

Here are the links:

Best Stage Musicals of All Time – Ranked
Best Stage Musicals of All Time – Chronological
Best Movie Musicals of All Time – Ranked
Best Movie Musicals of All Time – Chronological

Finding lists of best stage musicals raised an interesting question. For stage productions from the 1950s and earlier, the number of people still living who saw the original production is probably small, so many excellent musicals may not make the list only because few of those who saw them are still among us. Some of those older musicals may be revived, however, giving new, younger audiences a chance to enjoy them (and put them on “best musicals” lists).

The sources of the stage musicals are diverse. Some are based on novels, short stories, non-musical plays, and even nonfiction books (like Hamilton, which is based on a biography of Alexander Hamilton). Some musicals are based on movie musicals (like The Lion King, Singin’ in the Rain and Moulin Rouge!); some are based on non-musical movies (like Hairspray, Sunset Boulevard, and Little Shop of Horrors). Some are pure originals.

Most of the movie musicals fall into one of three categories:
(1) Original movie musicals in the old style (examples: Gold Diggers of 1933, Singin’ in the Rain; Top Hat, The Band Wagon)
(2) Film versions of stage musicals (examples: Oklahoma, West Side Story, Hairspray, Sweeney Todd)
(3) Original movie musicals in a newer style (Dancer in the Dark, Once, Sing Street)

Here are some facts about the lists:

— Number of Musicals on the meta-lists:  83 stage musicals & 76 movie musicals
— Top Rated Stage Musical: West Side Story (1957) (on 15 lists)
— Top Rated Movie Musicals: Singin’ in the Rain (1952) (on 10 lists) & West Side Story (1961) (on 10 lists)
— Oldest Stage Musical: Show Boat (1927) (on 5 lists)
— Oldest Movie Musical: Love Me Tonight (1932) (on 3 lists)
— Most Recent Stage Musical: Moulin Rouge! The Musical (2018) (on 3 lists)
— Most Recent Movie Musicals: West Side Story (2021) (on 4 lists) & tick, tick… Boom! (2021) (on 3 lists)

Fan of Fiction: Updating the Best Novels Meta-Lists

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I’ve added four recent “best novels” lists to the Best Novels meta-lists. As you will see, the definition of “novel” is flexible. Some listers have included books that don’t fit within the most strict definitions of the form, such as, for example, A Thousand and One Nights, a collection of stories with a framing story. Here are the links:

Best Novels of All Time – Ranked
Best Novels of All Time – Chronological

Here are the top 10 novels:

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Colombia, 1967). By Gabriel García Márquez (on 25 lists)
The Great Gatsby (US, 1925). By F. Scott Fitzgerald (on 24 lists)
Lolita (USSR/US, 1955). By Vladimir Nabokov (on 22 lists)
Anna Karenina (Russia, 1877). By Leo Tolstoy (on 21 lists)
Madame Bovary (France, 1856). By Gustave Flaubert (on 20 lists)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (US, 1884). By Mark Twain (on 20 lists)
Don Quixote (Spain, Pt. 1: 1605; Pt. 2: 1615). By Miguel de Cervantes (on 19 lists)
Wuthering Heights (UK, 1847). By Emily Bronte (on 19 lists)
Moby-Dick (US, 1851). By Herman Melville (on 19 lists)
Crime and Punishment (Russia, 1866). By Fyodor Dostoyevsky (on 19 lists)

The Best Novels lists contain 297 books (or, in some cases, series of books). The great majority of the novels on the list were originally written in English. If you’re looking for more diversity, check out the Best Literature lists.  For your convenience, I’ve included a list of the 239 novels (or, in some cases, works of prose fiction that may not meet the definition of a novel) on the Best Literature list that are not on the Best Novels list (in chronological order):

  1. The Panchatantra (linked stories) (India, c. 300 BCE) – Vishnu Sharma (attrib.)
  2. Satyricon (Roman Empire, c.27-66 CE) – Petronius
  3. The Golden Ass (Roman Empire, c. 158-180 CE) – Apuleius
  4. Water Margin (Outlaws of the Marsh) (China, c. 1296-1372) – Shi Nai’an (attrib.)
  5. The Decameron (linked stories) Italy, 1350-1353) – Giovanni Boccaccio
  6. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (China, c. 1380-1400) – Luo Guanzhong
  7. The Book of the City of Ladies (Italy/France, 1405) – Christine de Pizan
  8. Le Morte d’Arthur (linked stories) (England, 1485) – Thomas Malory
  9. Utopia (England, 1516) – Thomas More
  10. Journey to the West (Monkey) (China, c. 1540-1560) – Wu Cheng’en
  11. The Heptameron (linked stories) (France, 1558) – Marguerite de Navarre
  12. The Plum in the Golden Vase (China, 1600) – Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng
  13. New Atlantis (England, 1623-1626, pub. 1627) – Francis Bacon
  14. Simplicius Simplicissimus (Germany, 1668) – Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelhausen
  15. The Princess of Cleves (France, 1678) – Madame de La Fayette
  16. Oroonoko (England, 1688) – Aphra Behn
  17. Manon Lescaut (France, 1731) – Abbé Prévost
  18. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (Great Britain, 1740) – Samuel Richardson
  19. The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews (Great Britain, 1742) – Henry Fielding
  20. The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (novella) (Great Britain, 1759) – Samuel Johnson
  21. The Castle of Otranto (Great Britain, 1765) – Horace Walpole
  22. Jacques the Fatalist (France, 1765-1780) – Denis Diderot
  23. The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker (Great Britain, 1771) – Tobias Smollett
  24. Evelina (Great Britain, 1778) – Fanny Burney
  25. Dangerous Liaisons (France,1782) – Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
  26. Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (Germany, 1796) – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  27. Castle Rackrent (UK, 1800) – Maria Edgeworth
  28. Sense and Sensibility (UK,1811) – Jane Austen
  29. Mansfield Park (UK, 1814) – Jane Austen
  30. Waverley (UK, 1814) – Walter Scott
  31. Ivanhoe (UK, 1820) – Walter Scott
  32. Melmoth the Wanderer (Ireland, 1820) – Charles Maturin
  33. The Betrothed (Italy, 1827) – Alessandro Manzoni
  34. The Wild Ass’s Skin (France, 1831) – Honoré de Balzac
  35. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (France, 1831) – Victor Hugo
  36. Louis Lambert (France, 1832) – Honoré de Balzac
  37. The Girl with the Golden Eyes (France, 1833) – Honoré de Balzac
  38. Eugénie Grandet (France, 1833) – Honoré de Balzac
  39. The Pickwick Papers (UK, 1837) – Charles Dickens
  40. A Hero of Our Time (Russia, pub. 1840, revised 1841) – Mikhail Lermontov
  41. The Deerslayer (US, 1841) – James Fenimore Cooper
  42. Ursule Mirouet (France, 1841) – Honoré de Balzac
  43. A Christmas Carol (UK, 1843) – Charles Dickens
  44. A Harlot High and Low (France, 1847) – Honoré de Balzac
  45. Mary Barton (UK, 1848) – Elizabeth Gaskell
  46. Hard Times (UK, 1854) – Charles Dickens
  47. North and South (UK, 1854-1855) – Elizabeth Gaskell
  48. The Warden (UK, 1855) – Anthony Trollope
  49. Barchester Towers (UK, 1857) – Anthony Trollope
  50. Little Dorrit (UK, 1857) – Charles Dickens
  51. Adam Bede (UK, 1859) – George Eliot
  52. First Love (Russia, 1860) – Ivan Turgenev
  53. The Woman in White (UK, 1860) – Wilkie Collins
  54. The Mill on the Floss (UK, 1860) – George Eliot
  55. Our Mutual Friend (UK, 1864) – Charles Dickens
  56. The Last Chronicle of Barset (UK, 1867) – Anthony Trollope
  57. Thérèse Raquin (France, 1867) – Émile Zola
  58. Phineas Finn (UK, 1869) – Anthony Trollope
  59. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (France, 1870) – Jules Verne
  60. Through the Looking Glass (and What Alice Found There) (UK, 1871) – Lewis Carroll
  61. Erewhon (UK, 1872) – Samuel Butler
  62. Around the World in Eighty Days (France, 1873) – Jules Verne
  63. Far from the Madding Crowd (UK, 1874) – Thomas Hardy
  64. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (US, 1876) – Mark Twain
  65. L’Assommoir (France, 1877) – Émile Zola
  66. Ben-Hur (US, 1880) – Lew Wallace
  67. Nana (France, 1880) – Émile Zola
  68. The Red Room (Sweden, 1880) – August Strindberg
  69. Little Novels of Sicily (Italy, 1883) – Giovanni Verga
  70. Treasure Island (UK, 1883) – Robert Louis Stevenson
  71. The Bostonians (US/UK, 1886) – Henry James
  72. Kidnapped (UK, 1886) – Robert Louis Stevenson
  73. The Mayor of Casterbridge (UK, 1886) – Thomas Hardy
  74. Fortunata and Jacinta (Spain, 1887) – Benito Pérez Galdós
  75. The People of Hemsö (Sweden, 1887) – August Strindberg
  76. The Maias (Portugal, 1888) – José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
  77. The Master of Ballantrae (UK, 1889) – Robert Louis Stevenson
  78. News from Nowhere (UK, 1890) – William Morris
  79. The House by the Medlar Tree (Italy, 1890) – Giovanni Verga
  80. Hunger (Norway, 1890) – Knut Hamsun
  81. Billy Budd (novella) (US, c. 1891, pub. 1924) – Herman Melville
  82. Diary of a Nobody (UK, 1892) – George & Weedon Grossmith
  83. The Time Machine (UK, 1895) – H.G. Wells
  84. Effi Briest (Germany, 1896) – Theodor Fontane
  85. Misericordia (Spain, 1897) – Benito Pérez Galdós
  86. The Invisible Man (UK, 1897) – H.G. Wells
  87. The Way of All Flesh (UK, c. 1899) – Samuel Butler
  88. The Kreutzer Sonata (novella) (Russia, 1899) – Leo Tolstoy
  89. The Confusions of Young Törless (Germany, 1906) – Robert Musil
  90. The Secret Agent (Poland/UK, 1907) – Joseph Conrad
  91. Anne of Green Gables (Canada, 1908) – Lucy Maud Montgomery
  92. The Old Wive’s Tale (UK, 1908) – Arnold Bennett
  93. Under Western Eyes (Poland/UK, 1911) – Joseph Conrad
  94. Zuleika Dobson (UK, 1911) – Max Beerbohm
  95. Death in Venice (novella) (Germany, 1912) – Thomas Mann
  96. Le Grand Meaulnes (France, 1913) – Henry Alain-Fournier
  97. Kokoro (Japan, 1914) – Natsume Soseki
  98. The Metamorphosis (novella) (Austria-Hungary/Czechoslovakia, 1912, pub. 1915) – Franz Kafka
  99. The Magnificent Ambersons (US, 1918) – Booth Tarkington
  100. The Forsyte Saga (three novels and two stories) (UK, 1906-1921) – John Galsworthy
  101. The True Story of Ah Q (novella) (China, 1921-1922) – Lu Xun (Lu Hsun)
  102. Siddhartha (Germany/Switzerland, 1922) – Hermann Hesse
  103. A Lost Lady (US, 1923) – Willa Cather
  104. The Counterfeiters (France, 1925) – André Gide
  105. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (UK, 1926) – Agatha Christie
  106. Amerika (Czechoslovakia, 1911-1914, pub. 1927) – Franz Kafka
  107. Steppenwolf (Germany/Switzerland, 1927) – Hermann Hesse
  108. Lady Chatterley’s Lover (UK, 1928) – D.H. Lawrence
  109. Nadja (France, 1928) – André Breton
  110. Les Enfants Terribles (Frances, 1929) – Jean Cocteau
  111. Point Counter Point (UK, 1928) – Aldous Huxley
  112. The Good Earth (US, 1931) – Pearl Buck
  113. The Radetzky March (Austria, 1932) – Joseph Roth
  114. Tobacco Road (US, 1932) – Erskine Caldwell
  115. Young Lonigan (US, 1932) – James T. Farrell
  116. Miss Lonelyhearts (US, 1933) – Nathanael West
  117. Man’s Fate (France, 1933) – André Malraux
  118. The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (US, 1934) – James T. Farrell
  119. The Postman Always Rings Twice (US, 1934) – James M. Cain
  120. Judgment Day (US, 1935) – James T. Farrell
  121. The Book of Disquiet (Portugal, 1935) – Fernando Pessoa
  122. Rickshaw Boy (China, 1937) – Lao She
  123. Murphy (Ireland, 1938) – Samuel Beckett
  124. Brighton Rock (UK, 1938) – Graham Greene
  125. And Then There Were None (UK, 1939) – Agatha Christie
  126. And Quiet Flows the Don (USSR, 1928-1940) – Mikhail Sholokhov
  127. The Third Policeman (Ireland, 1939-1940) – Flann O’Brien
  128. The Tartar Steppe (Italy, 1940) – Dino Buzzati
  129. Our Lady of the Flowers (France, 1942-1943) – Jean Genet
  130. The Bridge on the Drina (Yugoslavia, 1945) – Ivo Andrić
  131. The Berlin Stories (two novellas) (UK, 1945) – Christopher Isherwood
  132. Pippi Longstocking (Sweden, 1945) – Astrid Lindgren
  133. Titus Groan (UK, 1946) – Mervyn Peake
  134. The Palm-Wine Drinkard (Nigeria, 1946) – Amos Tutola
  135. Doctor Faustus (Germany, 1947) – Thomas Mann
  136. The Makioka Sisters (Japan, 1948) – Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
  137. Snow Country (Japan, 1948) – Yasunari Kawabata
  138. Cry, the Beloved Country (South Africa, 1948) – Alan Paton
  139. The Kingdom of This World (Cuba, 1949) – Alejo Carpentier
  140. The Man with the Golden Arm (US, 1949) – Nelson Algren
  141. A Town Like Alice (UK, 1950) – Nevil Shute
  142. The Family Moskat (Poland/US, 1950) – Isaac Bashevis Singer
  143. Gormenghast (UK, 1950) – Mervyn Peake
  144. The Opposing Shore (France, 1951) – Julien Gracq
  145. Foundation (USSR/US, 1951) – Isaac Asimov
  146. From Here to Eternity (US, 1951) – James Jones
  147. Day of the Triffids (UK, 1951) – John Wyndham
  148. Lucky Jim (UK, 1953) – Kingsley Amis
  149. The Long Goodbye (US, 1953) – Raymond Chandler
  150. The Lost Steps (Cuba, 1953) – Alejo Carpentier
  151. Bonjour Tristesse (France, 1954) – Françoise Sagan
  152. I’m Not Stiller (Switzerland, 1954) – Max Frisch
  153. The Quiet American (UK, 1955) – Graham Greene
  154. The Talented Mr. Ripley (UK, 1955) – Patricia Highsmith
  155. The Fall (France, 1956) – Albert Camus
  156. Seize the Day (US, 1956) – Saul Bellow
  157. The Devil to Pay in the Backlands (Brazil, 1956) – João Guimarães Rosa
  158. The Wapshot Chronicle (US, 1957) – John Cheever
  159. A Death in the Family (US, 1957) – James Agee
  160. Voss (Australia, 1957) – Patrick White
  161. The Baron in the Trees (Italy, 1957) – Italo Calvino
  162. Jealousy (France, 1957) – Alain Robbe-Grillet
  163. The Once and Future King (UK, 1958) – T.H. White
  164. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (US, 1958) – Truman Capote
  165. Titus Alone (UK, 1959) – Mervyn Peake
  166. Henderson the Rain King (US, 1959) – Saul Bellow
  167. Solaris (Poland, 1961) – Stanislaw Lem
  168. The Woman in the Dunes (Japan, 1962) – Kobo Abe
  169. Cat’s Cradle (US, 1963) – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  170. V. (US, 1963) – Thomas Pynchon
  171. Arrow of God (Nigeria, 1964) – Chinua Achebe
  172. Dune (US, 1965) – Frank Herbert
  173. The Magus (UK, 1966) – John Fowles
  174. The Crying of Lot 49 (US, 1966) – Thomas Pynchon
  175. The Fixer (US, 1966) – Bernard Malamud
  176. The First Circle (USSR, 1968) – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
  177. Myra Breckenridge (US, 1968) – Gore Vidal
  178. The Godfather (US, 1969) – Mario Puzo
  179. Them (US, 1969) – Joyce Carol Oates
  180. The Left Hand of Darkness (US, 1969) – Ursula K. Le Guin
  181. The Sea of Fertility (four novels) (Japan, 1964-1970, pub. 1969-1971) – Yukio Mishima
  182. Deliverance (US, 1970) – James Dickey
  183. The Ogre (France, 1970) – Michel Tournier
  184. Angle of Repose (US, 1971) – Wallace Stegner
  185. Watership Down (US, 1972) – Richard Adams
  186. The Siege of Krishnapur (UK, 1973) – J.G. Farrell
  187. The Conservationist (South Africa, 1974) – Nadine Gordimer
  188. Dog Soldiers (US, 1974) – Robert Stone
  189. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (UK, 1974) – John Le Carré
  190. Humboldt’s Gift (US, 1975) – Saul Bellow
  191. The Periodic Table (Italy, 1975) – Primo Levi
  192. The Shining (US, 1977) – Stephen King
  193. The Sea, the Sea (UK, 1978) – Iris Murdoch
  194. The Ghost Writer (US, 1979) – Philip Roth
  195. The Executioner’s Song (US, 1980) – Norman Mailer
  196. So Long, See You Tomorrow (US, 1980) – William Maxwell
  197. Obasan (Canada, 1981) – Joy Kogawa
  198. So Long A Letter (Senegal, 1981) – Mariama Bâ
  199. The Women of Brewster Place (US, 1982) – Gloria Naylor
  200. The Life and Times of Michael K. (South Africa, 1983) – J.M. Coetzee
  201. Ironweed (US, 1983) – William Kennedy
  202. The Accidental Tourist (US, 1985) – Anne Tyler
  203. Nervous Conditions (Zimbabwe, 1988) – Tsitsi Dangaremba
  204. Oscar and Lucinda (Australia, 1988) – Peter Carey
  205. The Alchemist (Brazil, 1988) – Paulo Coelho
  206. A Prayer for Owen Meany (US, 1989) – John Irving
  207. The Power of One (South Africa/Australia, 1989) – Bryce Courtenay
  208. Like Water for Chocolate (Mexico, 1989) – Laura Esquivel
  209. Billy Bathgate (US, 1989) – E.L. Doctorow
  210. Get Shorty (US, 1990) – Elmore Leonard
  211. Possession (UK, 1990) – A.S. Byatt
  212. A Thousand Acres (US, 1991) – Jane Smiley
  213. Mao II (US, 1991) – Don DeLillo
  214. The English Patient (Canada, 1992) – Michael Ondaatje
  215. The Secret History (US, 1992) – Donna Tartt
  216. Operation Shylock (US, 1993) – Philip Roth
  217. The Stone Diaries (US/Canada, 1993) – Carol Shields
  218. The Shipping News (US, 1993) – E. Annie Proulx
  219. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (UK, 1994) – Louis De Bernières
  220. The Rings of Saturn (Germany, 1995) – W.G. Sebald
  221. A Fine Balance (India/Canada, 1995) – Rohinton Mistry
  222. Mason & Dixon (US, 1997) – Thomas Pynchon
  223. The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials II) (UK, 1997) – Philip Pullman
  224. The God of Small Things (India, 1997) – Arundhati Roy
  225. The Hours (US, 1998) – Michael Cunningham
  226. Waiting (China/US, 1999) – Ha Jin
  227. The Human Stain (US, 2000) – Philip Roth
  228. The Blind Assassin (Canada, 2000) – Margaret Atwood
  229. Blonde (US, 2000) – Joyce Carol Oates
  230. The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials III) (UK, 2000) – Philip Pullman
  231. Life of Pi (Canada, 2001) – Yann Martel
  232. The Namesake (India/US, 2003) – Jhumpa Lahiri
  233. The Kite Runner (Afghanistan/US, 2003) – Khaled Hosseini
  234. The Known World (US, 2003) – Edward P. Jones
  235. Gilead (US, 2004) – Marilynne Robinson
  236. The Book Thief (Australia, 2005) – Markus Zusak
  237. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Dominican Republic/US, 2007) – Junot Diaz
  238. Station Eleven (Canada, 2014) – Emily St. John Mandel
  239. The Underground Railroad (US, 2016) – Colson Whitehead

 

The Guardian’s List of Best Novels – And Mine.

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The Guardian newspaper recently published its latest list of 100 Best Novels of All Time. I’ll be adding the list to my own meta-list of best novels. The Guardian‘s list was created by soliciting ranked lists of 10 best novels from authors, critics, and academics from around the world. I’ve read 72 of the 100 books on the list.

The list is ranked (Middlemarch is No. 1), although to me the exercise of deciding whether, for example, Ulysses is better than In Search of Lost Time, or whether Emma is better than Persuasion is a colossal waste of time. Here’s an analogy: the cream always rises to the top of the milk bottle; the cream layer constitutes only a tiny percentage of the bottle’s contents. Therefore, relative to the entire bottle, every bit of cream in that thin layer is equal, for all practical purposes. Why engage in the trouble of deciding that one bit of cream is a little better than another? Similarly, if we choose 100 books out of the hundreds of thousands of books ever published, the miniscule differences in quality among the top 100 are far outweighed by the difference between the top 100 and the remaining thousands. But listers seem to love to rank their lists, so I’m clearly in the minority here.

I tried to make my own list of 100 favorite novels, but could only get it down to 125. Regular readers of Make Lists, Not War may know that, while I love reading “top [insert number here] lists,” I hate making them. I find it too painful to whittle down the list to reach an arbitrary number. As I’ve said before, I think it makes more sense to rate every book I read (or movie I see, album I listen to, etc.) on a 1-5 or 1-10 scale. My “top” books (movies, music, …) list then consists of every item that received a top score. There is no arbitrary cutoff number. Then we have no worries about ranking (they’re all 10/10!) and no painful winnowing of the favorites to 10, 25, or 100. If you want to see the full list of my five-star books, go HERE. The reduced list of my 125 favorite novels, which is a subset of the Five-Star Books list, follows (unranked, in chronological order). I apologize in advance for the lack of contemporary fiction. I have been engaged in a massive reading project (based on my own lists, of course) since 2011 and have been moving chronologically (so far I’ve made it to the 1920s), so I have read almost no fiction published in the past 15 years or so. (When I take breaks from my reading list, I tend to opt for recent nonfiction instead of fiction.) I hope to remedy this shameful gap soon. Also, I cheated a little by including trilogies and quartets as single entries, to keep the total down. NOTE: If the book is also on the Guardian‘s list, I’ve added an asterisk:

  1. The Tale of Genji. Murasaki Shikibu (Japan, 1021)
  2. Gargantua and Pantagruel. François Rabelais (France, 1532)
  3. Don Quixote. Miguel de Cervantes (Spain, 1605, 1615)*
  4. Gulliver’s Travels. Jonathan Swift (Ireland, 1726)
  5. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Henry Fielding (Great Britain, 1749)
  6. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Laurence Sterne (Ireland, 1759)*
  7. Dream of the Red Chamber (The Story of the Stone) – Cao Xueqin and Guo E (China, 1763-1764)
  8. Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen (UK, 1813)*
  9. Emma. Jane Austen (UK, 1815)*
  10. Ivanhoe. Walter Scott (UK, 1819)
  11. The Red and the Black. Stendhal (France, 1830)
  12. Le Père Goriot. Honoré de Balzac (France, 1835)
  13. Cousin Bette. Honoré de Balzac (France, 1846)
  14. Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë (UK, 1847)*
  15. Jane Eyre. Charlotte Brontë (UK, 1847)*
  16. Moby-Dick. Herman Melville (US, 1851)*
  17. Notes from Underground. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia, 1861)
  18. Great Expectations. Charles Dickens (UK, 1861)*
  19. Fathers and Sons. Ivan Turgenev (Russia, 1862)
  20. Crime and Punishment. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia, 1866)*
  21. The Last Chronicle of Barset. Anthony Trollope (UK, 1867)
  22. The Idiot. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia, 1869)
  23. War and Peace. Leo Tolstoy (Russia, 1869)*
  24. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. George Eliot (UK, 1871)*
  25. The Brothers Karamazov. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia, 1878)*
  26. Anna Karenina. Leo Tolstoy (Russia, 1878)*
  27. The Return of the Native. Thomas Hardy (UK, 1878)*
  28. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain (US, 1884)
  29. The Maias. Eça de Queirós (Portugal, 1888)
  30. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Thomas Hardy (UK, 1891)
  31. Jude the Obscure. Thomas Hardy (UK, 1895)*
  32. Dracula. Bram Stoker (Ireland, 1897)*
  33. Lord Jim. Joseph Conrad (UK, 1900)
  34. Sister Carrie. Theodore Dreiser (US, 1900)
  35. Kim. Rudyard Kipling (UK, 1901)
  36. The Wings of the Dove. Henry James (US/UK, 1901)
  37. The Ambassadors. Henry James (US/UK, 1903)
  38. The Golden Bowl. Henry James (US/UK, 1904)*
  39. Nostromo. Joseph Conrad (UK, 1904)
  40. The House of Mirth. Edith Wharton (US, 1905)
  41. Sons and Lovers. D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1915)
  42. The Good Soldier. Ford Madox Ford (UK, 1915)*
  43. The Rainbow. D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1915)*
  44. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. James Joyce (Ireland, 1916)
  45. The Magnificent Ambersons. Booth Tarkington (US, 1918)
  46. Women in Love. D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1920)
  47. Siddhartha. Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1922)
  48. Ulysses. James Joyce (Ireland, 1922)*
  49. The Magic Mountain. Thomas Mann (Germany, 1924)*
  50. The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald (US, 1925)*
  51. Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf (UK, 1925)*
  52. The Trial. Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia, 1925)*
  53. The Castle. Franz Kafka (Czechoslovakia, 1926)
  54. In Search of Lost Time. Marcel Proust (France, 1913-1927)*
  55. Steppenwolf. Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1927)
  56. To the Lighthouse. Virginia Woolf (UK, 1927)*
  57. Death Comes for the Archbishop. Willa Cather (US, 1927)
  58. Orlando: A Biography. Virginia Woolf (UK, 1928)*
  59. Look Homeward, Angel. Thomas Wolfe (US, 1929)
  60. The Sound and the Fury. William Faulkner (US, 1929)*
  61. As I Lay Dying. William Faulkner (US, 1930)
  62. Light in August. William Faulkner (US, 1932)
  63. Independent People. Halldór Laxness (Iceland, 1934)
  64. The Book of Disquiet. Fernando Pessoa (Portugal, 1935)
  65. Absalom, Absalom! William Faulkner (US, 1936)
  66. U.S.A. John Dos Passos (US, 1930-1936)
  67. Nausea. Jean-Paul Sartre (France, 1938)
  68. At Swim-Two-Birds. Flann O’Brien (Ireland, 1939)
  69. The Glass Bead Game. Hermann Hesse (Germany, 1943)
  70. All the King’s Men. Robert Penn Warren (US, 1946)
  71. Under the Volcano. Malcolm Lowry (UK, 1947)
  72. Cry, the Beloved Country. Alan Paton (South Africa, 1948)
  73. Intruder in the Dust. William Faulkner (US, 1948)
  74. The Catcher in the Rye. J.D. Salinger (US, 1951)
  75. Memoirs of Hadrian. Marguerite Yourcenar (France, 1951)
  76. Invisible Man. Ralph Ellison (UK, 1952)*
  77. Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable: A Trilogy. Samuel Beckett (Ireland/France, 1951-1953)
  78. Lucky Jim. Kingsley Amis (UK, 1954)
  79. Lord of the Flies. William Golding (UK, 1954)
  80. The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien (UK, 1954-1955)
  81. Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov (USSR/US, 1955)*
  82. The Inheritors. William Golding (UK, 1955)
  83. A Death in the Family. James Agee (US, 1957)
  84. The Tin Drum. Günter Grass (Germany, 1959)
  85. The Alexandria Quartet. Lawrence Durrell (UK, 1957-1960)
  86. Catch-22. Joseph Heller (US, 1961)*
  87. A Clockwork Orange. Anthony Burgess (UK, 1962)
  88. The Golden Notebook. Doris Lessing (UK, 1962)*
  89. Cat’s Cradle. Kurt Vonnegut (US, 1963)
  90. V. Thomas Pynchon (US, 1963)
  91. Giles Goat-Boy. John Barth (US, 1966)
  92. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Gabriel García Marquez (Colombia, 1967)*
  93. Invisible Cities. Italo Calvino (Italy, 1972)*
  94. Breakfast of Champions. Kurt Vonnegut (US, 1973)
  95. Gravity’s Rainbow. Thomas Pynchon (US, 1973)
  96. Ragtime. E.L. Doctorow (US, 1975)
  97. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Tom Robbins (US, 1976)
  98. Song of Solomon. Toni Morrison (US, 1977)*
  99. So Long, See You Tomorrow. William Maxwell (US, 1979)
  100. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Italo Calvino (Italy, 1979)
  101. Still Life with Woodpecker. Tom Robbins (US, 1980)
  102. Midnight’s Children. Salman Rushdie (UK/India, 1981)*
  103. The White Hotel. D.M. Thomas (UK, 1981)
  104. Money: A Suicide Note. Martin Amis (UK, 1984)
  105. White Noise. Don DeLillo (US, 1985)
  106. World’s End. T.C. Boyle (US, 1987)
  107. Beloved. Toni Morrison (US, 1987)*
  108. The New York Trilogy. Paul Auster (US, 1987)
  109. Oscar and Lucinda. Peter Carey (Australia, 1988)
  110. Mating. Norman Rush (US, 1991)
  111. Infinite Jest. David Foster Wallace (US, 1996)
  112. The God of Small Things. Arundhati Roy (India, 1997)*
  113. American Pastoral. Philip Roth (US, 1997)
  114. White Teeth. Zadie Smith (UK, 1999)*
  115. Atonement. Ian McEwan (UK, 2001)
  116. Austerlitz. W.G. Sebald (Germany, 2001)*
  117. Middlesex. Jeffrey Eugenides (US, 2002)
  118. The Known World. Edward P. Jones (US, 2003)*
  119. Never Let Me Go. Kazuo Ishiguro (UK, 2005)*
  120. Europe Central. William T. Vollmann (US, 2005)
  121. What Is the What. Dave Eggers (US, 2006)
  122. The Inheritance of Loss. Kiran Desai (India/US, 2006)
  123. The Road. Cormac McCarthy (US, 2006)*
  124. There But For The. Ali Smith (UK, 2011)
  125. The Neapolitan Novels: My Brilliant Friend*, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child. Elena Ferrante (Italy, 2011-2014)

The Real Deal: Updating the Documentary Films Meta-List

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I’ve updated the meta-list of documentary films by adding seven “best documentaries” lists that were published on the Internet in the last few years. I have included every film that was on at least three of the over 25 original source lists, for a total of 169 films and one television series. The oldest documentary on the list dates from 1896, at the beginning of the history of film; the most recent film was released in 2024.

Twenty-three filmmakers have two or more films on the meta-list. The documentarians with the most films on the list are:
(1) Michael Apted (8 films) (The Up series)
(2) Werner Herzog (5 films)
(3) D.A. Pennebaker (4 films)
(4) Michael Moore (4 films)
(5) Errol Morris (3 films)
(6) Frederick Wiseman (3 films)
(7) Albert & David Maysles (3 films)
(8) Agnès Varda (3 films)
(9) Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky (3 films)

Here are the links to the meta-lists.
Best Documentaries of All Time – Ranked
Best Documentaries of All Time – Chronological

I am an avid documentary film fan and many of my favorite documentaries are on the meta-list. I was disappointed, however, to see that some of my favorite docs (including four each by Werner Herzog and Errol Morris) received fewer than three votes and could not be included on the meta-list.  I have provided a partial list of some of my favorites that didn’t make the cut below, organized by my 1-10 rating (and chronologically within each rating).  I find it difficult to separate documentary films from documentary TV series, so I have included both. I have included the number of original source lists (if any) that the film or series is on.

Rated 10/10
The Civil War (US, 1990) (TV series) Dir: Ken Burns (on 1 list)
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (US, 1997) Errol Morris

Rated 9/10
Fata Morgana (West Germany, 1971) Dir: Werner Herzog
Land of Silence and Darkness (West Germany, 1971) Dir: Werner Herzog
Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers (US, 1980) Dir: Les Blank
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie (US, 1988) Dir: Marcel Ophüls (on 2 lists)
Visions of Light (US/Japan, 1992) Dir: Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy & Stuart Samuels
Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey (UK/US, 1993) Dir: Steven M. Martin
The Cruise (US, 1998) Dir: Bennett Miller
One Day in September (UK, 1999) Dir: Kevin Macdonald (on 2 lists)
Jazz (US, 2001) (TV series) Dir: Ken Burns
Darwin’s Nightmare (Austria/France/Belgium, 2004) Dir: Hubert Sauper
No End in Sight (US, 2007) Dir: Charles Ferguson
Crazy Love (US, 2007) Dir: Dan Klores & Fisher Stevens
Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life (US/UK/Germany, 2011) Dir: Werner Herzog (on 1 list)
Fantastic Fungi (US, 2019) Dir: Louie Schwartzberg
American Factory (US, 2019) Dir: Julia Reichert & Steven Bognar (on 1 list)
The Velvet Underground (US, 2021) Dir: Todd Haynes (on 1 list)

Rated 8/10
Meat (US, 1976) Dir: Frederick Wiseman
Marlene (West Germany, 1984) Dir: Maximilien Schell
American Dream (US, 1990) Dir: Barbara Kopple
A Brief History of Time (US/UK/Japan, 1991) Dir: Errol Morris
The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (aka The Power of Images: Leni Riefenstahl) (Germany, 1993) Dir: Ray Müller
Trekkies (US, 1997) Dir: Roger Nygard
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (US, 1999) Dir: Errol Morris (on 1 list)
My Best Fiend (Germany, 1999) Dir: Werner Herzog
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (US, 2000) Dir: Michael Showalter
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (US, 2005) Dir: Martin Scorsese
Iraq in Fragments (US, 2006) Dir: James Longley
Surfwise (US, 2008) Dir: Doug Pray (on 1 list)
Standard Operating Procedure (US, 2008) Dir: Errol Morris
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (France, 2009) Dir: Frederick Wiseman
We Were Here (US, 2011) Dir: David Weissman & Bill Weber (on 1 list)
Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present (US, 2012) Dir: Matthew Akers
Tower (US, 2016) Dir: Keith Maitland (on 1 list)

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.