A little overwhelmed by all those end-of-the-year best-of lists? No worries. The Toronto Review of Books offers this list of lists, "a quick-and-dirty shortcut, a best-of the 'best-ofs' if you will, a recap of the recaps of the world-historically tumultuous and unpredictable year 2011 was."
posted by anothermug on Dec 22, 2011 - 5 comments

It's a simple concept: Given a choice between two random movies, which one do you like best? That's the driving force behind Flickchart, an addictive review site for movie lovers. Faced with two posters, click the one for the title you prefer (weeding out the ones you haven't seen). Good! Now do it again. And again. And again. With each new face-off, Flickchart perfects a growing list of your favorite films -- and there can be no ties. This leads to some difficult dilemmas: Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark? Citizen Kane or The Godfather? WALL-E or Spirited Away? But you needn't struggle alone -- Flickchart is also social. By drawing on the data of tens of thousands of fellow users, you can create remarkably specific lists: Martin Scorsese's Best Period Films. The Best Road Movies of the 1980s. The Worst Movies of All Time. If you rank enough films, you can generate interesting personalized charts, like "Your Favorite Musicals" or "The Best Movies You Haven't Seen." These filters carry over to the ranking system, letting you judge nothing but Horror movies or 1960s movies or unranked movies or movies from your top 100. You can also comment on popular match-ups, lending your voice to contentious debates like Ghostbusters vs. Back to the Future or Jaws vs. Predator. Not a movie fan? Don't worry. Flickchart will be expanding into books, games, and music soon. Until then, you can give your own data sets the Flickchart treatment using this tool from CNN. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Sep 3, 2010 - 202 comments

Notice some best of the year or best of the decade lists? I guess you could do that, if you are into the retro thing. Forward thinking websites bring you the best of the year to come. From The Millions we have books and from io9 science fiction books. (Io9 is also worried about a few things in the coming year.) From The Onion AV culb we have media, broadly defined. Rotten Tomatoes lists the most anticipated Sundance films. You want games? We got games from BoingBoing, MTVu and Kotaku. [more inside]
posted by shothotbot on Jan 6, 2010 - 15 comments

The Noughtie List. A meta-list of "best of" lists for the 2000s decade. A similar meta-list for best of 2009.
posted by stbalbach on Dec 9, 2009 - 59 comments

The A.V. Club's Best of the Decade: Films. Performances. Scenes. Bad Movies. Books. Short Story Collections. Comics. Video Games Music. Metal. Electronic Music. Comedy Albums. Television Series. Television Episodes. Reality Series/Competitions. Made-For-TV Movies/Miniseries. Late-Night Comedy/Talk Shows. One-Season Wonders. And the orphans.
posted by Navelgazer on Dec 3, 2009 - 68 comments

1000 novels worth reading [about], from the Guardian. Part of its ongoing 1000 series: 1000 albums, 1000 films, 1000 artworks. More than a list, it includes sub-articles and paragraph long write-ups of each.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 22, 2009 - 45 comments

In a time of top 10 lists, there are those who aim higher: They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? maintains an annually updated list of the 1,000 greatest films ever made, as well as the 250 greatest of the 21st century. Kevin B. Lee wants to see them all. How many have you seen? (via)
posted by Horace Rumpole on Dec 29, 2008 - 55 comments

With the advent of December comes the annual ranking of the book industry's over-saturated market. Along with the garden variety Best Books of 2008 lists, niche critics weigh in on the best cookbooks (baking and regular), most trustworthy business publications, best children's book illustrations, safest bets for literary holiday gifts, and, of course, the prettiest book covers.
posted by zoomorphic on Dec 1, 2008 - 17 comments

The Best Sandwiches in America Esquire magazine lists the very best examples of many very delicious sandwiches nationwide.
posted by jonson on Feb 12, 2008 - 86 comments

Jon Swift asked everyone on his blogroll to pick what they considered their best post of 07-- ...There are posts on politics by liberals, conservatives and moderates, posts on movies, music, television, books, economics, health care, science, sports, religion and history, personal stories and slices of life, poetry, prose, pictures and video. Some are very funny, some are quite serious, some will make you angry and some will make you say "Huh?" ...
posted by amberglow on Dec 28, 2007 - 12 comments

Indiewire put out their second annual film critic's poll recently. There Will Be Blood tops the list, with Zodiac, No Country for Old Men, Syndromes and a Century, and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days following behind. [more inside]
posted by Weebot on Dec 28, 2007 - 40 comments

The best music of 2007 according to Stereogum, Pitchfork, All Music, NME, PopMatters, The A.V. Club, Rolling Stone, TIME, MTV, the Guardian, eMusic, Amazon, Spin Magazine, Q, Largehearted Boy, and more. Among the most frequently listed are Radiohead, Spoon, Arcade Fire, Of Montreal, Feist, and The National.
posted by Soup on Dec 18, 2007 - 68 comments

These were the times of your life. The genesis of 16 magazine. Legs McNeil starts PUNK magazine. Henry Mancini pens the Pink Panther Theme? The Flaming Lips play Beverly Hills 90210? Pink Floyds performance at Live 8. Gene Autry? Pavarotti? King Sunny Ade? The Archies! Fugazi! WXPN's 885 Most Memorable Musical Moments, in progress now. You can listen to the stream here
posted by SPUTNIK on Oct 2, 2007 - 25 comments

Long before 2006 you could probably make a convincing argument that the music video has outlived its purpose; however, musicblogger docopenhagen's list of the top 50 music videos of 2006 has some excellent inclusions, and hopefully something for even the most jaded viewer. My threefavorites.
posted by jonson on Dec 7, 2006 - 19 comments

Hall of Fame 2004 The best of classical music [via Nomen Luni].
posted by Gyan on Apr 15, 2004 - 7 comments

100 Movies That Deserve More Love "we've rolled up our sleeves to retrieve some unloved and under-appreciated gems from the dustbin of history...You'll find great movies that you were sure only you knew about, and you'll find movies that you've never heard of."
posted by kirkaracha on Mar 28, 2004 - 74 comments

Meta 'best of' list for 2003; add your own! [via LMG :]
posted by kliuless on Dec 16, 2003 - 6 comments

Best Ideas Of 2002: From 'The Ambulance-Homicide Theory' to 'Women Are Just as Jealous as Men', the NYTM 2nd Annual Year in Ideas details 97 recent Gibsonian additions to life in these modern times.
posted by yonderboy on Dec 23, 2002 - 9 comments

One Defining Jazz Track Per Year, From 1945 To 2001? An Impossible Task! Well, not for Gary Giddins, arguably our greatest contemporary jazz critic. He's just spent five months going through his record collection to come up with a terrific and deliciously debatable list for The Village Voice. Yeah, how could he leave out...*insert your particular obsession here*...?[Here's a 74-page 1996 interview with him(in pdf format) that's practically a mini-history of jazz.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jun 11, 2002 - 14 comments

Who's the Best-Read MeFite? The 100 best works of fiction (as chosen by Norwegian Book Clubs) (via Archipelapogo via rebeccablood). Sure, it's arbitrary, but there's a lot of great writing here. Bragging rights awarded (unless someone cares to sweeten the pot). How many have you read?
posted by Sean Meade on May 22, 2002 - 137 comments

Who cares if it's October .. I want to know what the best album you've heard this year is, I'd rate The Strokes, Radiohead's 'Amnesiac' and Squarepusher's 'Go Plastic'.
posted by mrben on Oct 14, 2001 - 96 comments

Never mind the Oscars, here's the Pazz And Jop Poll: which for some reason seems to have more cred than other music end-of-year lists. A double whammy for Outkast, and critical vindication for Eminem? What did they get right, what did they leave out, and what do these big crit-fests prove anyway?
posted by freakytrigger on Feb 13, 2001 - 34 comments

Feeling left out by the democratic process? Despair not. Now you can vote for your favorite artists for American Music Awards, favorite TV shows for the TV Guide Awards, or, if you are feeling extra patriotic, for America's National Tree at the Arbor Day website, and have the vote count.
posted by tamim on Jan 7, 2001 - 2 comments