Year-End Lists

Amy Taubin: 10 Best Films of 2020, as published by Artforum

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012]

1. The handy, affordable-to-everyone, moving-image camera
2. I May Destroy You
   Michaela Coel & Sam Miller
3. Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
   Lili Horvát
4. Time
   Garrett Bradley
4. America
   Garrett Bradley
5. Gunda
   Viktor Kosakovskiy
6. Never Rarely Sometimes Always
   Eliza Hittman
7. Tesla
   Michael Almereyda
8. David Byrne's American Utopia
   Spike Lee
9. Da 5 Bloods
   Spike Lee
10. The Monopoly of Violence
    David Dufresne
10. MLK/FBI
    Sam Pollard
10. Collective
    Alexander Nanau
10. Coded Bias
    Shalini Kantayya

John Waters: 10 Best Films of 2020, as published by Artforum

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. Butt Boy
   Tyler Cornack
2. Swallow
   Carlo Mirabella-Davis
3. The Hunt
   Craig Zobel
4. Why Don't You Just Die!
   Kirill Sokolow
5. The Audition
   Ina Weisse
6. Deerskin
   Quentin Dupieux
7. The Human Voice
   Pedro Almodóvar
8. True History of the Kelly Gang
   Justin Kurzel
9. American Murder: The Family Next Door
   Jenny Popplewell
10. The Trial of the Chicago 7
    Aaron Sorkin
10. Small Axe: Mangrove
    Steve McQueen

Lindsay Baker: The Best Books of the Year 2020 as published by BBC Culture

• A Promised Land
  Barack Obama
• The Best of Me
  David Sedaris
• Ready Player Two
  Ernest Cline
• Reality and Other Stories
  John Lanchester
• Transcendent Kingdom
  Yaa Gyasi
• Mediocre

  The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America
  Ijeoma Oluo
• White Ivy
  Susie Yang
• Sweet Dreams

  The Story of the New Romantics
  Dylan Jones
• Dearly
  Margaret Atwood
• The New Wilderness
  Diane Cook
• This Mournable Body
  Tsitsi Dangarembga
• Burnt Sugar
  Avni Doshi
• The Shadow King
  Maaza Mengiste
• Shuggie Bain
  Douglas Stuart
• Mayflies
  Andrew O'Hagan
• Piranesi
  Susanna Clarke
• The Vanishing Half
  Brit Bennett
• More Than a Woman
  Caitlin Moran
• The First Woman
  Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
• Earthlings
  Sayaka Murata
• Daddy
  Emma Cline
• Jack
  Marilynne Robinson
• Poor
  Caleb Femi
• That Old Country Music
  Kevin Barry
• I Am Not Your Baby Mother
  Candice Brathwaite
• Must I Go
  Yiyun Li
• Rodham
  Curtis Sittenfeld
• How Much of These Hills Is Gold
  C Pam Zhang
• American Poison

  How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise
  Eduardo Porter
• You People
  Nikita Lalwani
• Rainbow Milk
  Paul Mendez
• Wow, No Thank You.
  Samantha Irby
• A Children's Bible
  Lydia Millet
• If I Had Your Face
  Frances Cha
• The Glass Hotel
  Emily St. John Mandel
• Redhead by the Side of the Road
  Anne Tyler
• The Collected Stories
  Lorrie Moore
• Sharks in the Time of Saviors
  Kawai Strong Washburn
• Weather
  Jenny Offill
• Real Life
  Brandon Taylor
• Such a Fun Age
  Kiley Reid
• Motherwell

  A Girlhood
  Deborah Orr
• Apeirogon
  Colum McCann
• Cleanness
  Garth Greenwell
• Hood Feminism

  Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
  Mikki Kendall
• The Mirror & the Light
  Hilary Mantel
• House of Glass

  The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family
  Hadley Freeman
• Actress
  Anne Enright
• Hamnet
  Maggie O'Farrell
• Where the Wild Ladies Are
  Aoko Matsuda
• The Death of Comrade President
  Alain Mabanckou
• Minor Feelings

  An Asian American Reckoning
  Cathy Park Hong
• A Long Petal of the Sea
  Isabel Allende
• Our House Is on Fire

  Greta Thunberg's Call to Save the Planet
  Jeanette Winter

The New York Times: The 10 Best Books of 2020

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 100 Notable Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 100 Notable Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • 100 Notable Books of 2011 • Ten Best Books of 2011]

• A Children's Bible
  Lydia Millet
• Deacon King Kong
  James McBride
• Hamnet
  Maggie O'Farrell
• Homeland Elegies
  Ayad Akhtar
• The Vanishing Half
  Brit Bennett
• Hidden Valley Road

  Inside the Mind of an American Family
  Robert Kolker
• A Promised Land
  Barack Obama
• Shakespeare in a Divided America

  What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future
  James Shapiro
• Uncanny Valley
  Anna Wiener
• War

  How Conflict Shaped Us
  Margaret MacMillan

Eliana Dockterman: The 10 Best Podcasts of 2020, as published by Time Magazine

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021]

1. Nice White Parents
2. Code Switch
3. Staying In with Emily & Kumail
4. You Must Remember This: Polly Platt
5. Outsiders
6. The Daily
7. Floodlines
8. Dead Eyes
9. Home Cooking
10. Back Issue

Time Magazine: The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020

[see also The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020 • The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the 2010s • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2019 • Best Books of 2018 • Top 20 Books of 2017]

1. Caste

   The Origins of Our Discontents
   Isabel Wilkerson
2. Minor Feelings

   An Asian American Reckoning
   Cathy Park Hong
3. The Dragons, the Giant, the Women
   Wayétu Moore
4. Memorial Drive

   A Daughter's Memoir
   Natasha Trethewey
5. The Dead Are Arising

   The Life of Malcolm X
   Les Payne and Tamara Payne
6. Vesper Flights
   Helen Macdonald
7. The Undocumented Americans
   Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
8. Having and Being Had
   Eula Biss
9. Hitler: Downfall: 1939-1945
   Volker Ullrich
10. Just Us

    An American Conversation
    Claudia Rankine

The New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2020

[see also The 10 Best Books of 2023 • 100 Notable Books of 2023 • The 10 Best Books of 2022 • 100 Notable Books of 2022 • The 10 Best Books of 2021 • 100 Notable Books of 2021 • The 10 Best Books of 2020 • 100 Notable Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Books of 2019 • 10 Best Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2018 • 100 Notable Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2017 • 10 Best Books of 2016 • 10 Best Books of 2015 • The 10 Best Books of 2014 • The 10 Best Books of 2013 • 100 Notable Books of 2012 • 10 Best Books of 2012 • 100 Notable Books of 2011 • Ten Best Books of 2011]

• The Aosawa Murders
  Riku Onda
• The Beauty in Breaking
  Michele Harper
• The Beauty of Your Face
  Sahar Mustafah
• Becoming Wild

  How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace
  Carl Safina
• Beheld
  TaraShea Nesbit
• The Biggest Bluff

  How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win
  Maria Konnikova
• Black Wave

  Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East
  Kim Ghattas
• Blacktop Wasteland
  S.A. Cosby
• The Book of Eels

  Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
  Patrik Svensson
• The Boy in the Field
  Margot Livesey
• Breasts and Eggs
  Mieko Kawakami
• A Burning
  Megha Majumdar
• Burning Down the House

  Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party
  Julian E. Zelizer
• Caste

  The Origins of Our Discontents
  Isabel Wilkerson
• A Children's Bible
  Lydia Millet
• Cleanness
  Garth Greenwell
• Deacon King Kong
  James McBride
• The Dead Are Arising

  The Life of Malcolm X
  Les Payne and Tamara Payne
• The Death of Jesus
  J.M. Coetzee
• The Death of Vivek Oji
  Akwaeke Emezi
• Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
  Anne Case & Angus Deaton
• Desert Notebooks

  A Road Map for the End of Time
  Ben Ehrenreich
• Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
  Deepa Anappara
• A Dominant Character

  The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldane
  Samanth Subramanian
• The Dragons, the Giant, the Women
  Wayétu Moore
• The Duke Who Didn't
  Courtney Milan
• Earthlings
  Sayaka Murata
• Eat the Buddha

  Life and Death in a Tibetan Town
  Barbara Demick
• The End of Everything

  (Astrophysically Speaking)
  Katie Mack
• Everywhere You Don't Belong
  Gabriel Bump
• Exercise of Power

  American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World
  Robert M. Gates
• Fallout

  The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World
  Lesley M.M. Blume
• Feed
  Tommy Pico
• Felon
  Reginald Dwayne Betts
• The Glass Kingdom
  Lawrence Osborne
• Hamnet
  Maggie O'Farrell
• The Hardhat Riot

  Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution
  David Paul Kuhn
• Hidden Valley Road

  Inside the Mind of an American Family
  Robert Kolker
• His Only Wife
  Peace Adzo Medie
• Homeland Elegies
  Ayad Akhtar
• How Much of These Hills Is Gold
  C Pam Zhang
• Hurricane Season
  Fernanda Melchor
• The Inevitability of Tragedy

  Henry Kissinger and His World
  Barry Gewen
• Jack
  Marilynne Robinson
• Just Us

  An American Conversation
  Claudia Rankine
• Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
  Cho Nam-Joo
• The King at the Edge of the World
  Arthur Phillips
• Little Eyes
  Samanta Schweblin
• The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist
  Adrian Tomine
• Luster
  Raven Leilani
• The Man Who Ran Washington

  The Life and Times of James A. Baker III
  Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
• Man of My Time
  Dalia Sofer
• Memorial
  Bryan Washington
• Memorial Drive

  A Daughter's Memoir
  Natasha Trethewey
• The Memory Monster
  Yishai Sarid
• The Mercies
  Kirin Millwood Hargrave
• Minor Detail
  Adania Shibli
• The Mirror & the Light
  Hilary Mantel
• Missionaries
  Phil Klay
• Monogamy
  Sue Miller
• 97,196 Words
  Emmanuel Carrère
• Notes on a Silencing
  Lacy Crawford
• Obit
  Victoria Chang
• Overground Railroad

  The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America
  Candacy Taylor
• Owls of the Eastern Ice

  A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl
  Jonathan C. Slaght
• A Peculiar Indifference

  The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America
  Elliott Currie
• A Pilgrimage to Eternity

  From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith
  Timothy Egan
• A Promised Land
  Barack Obama
• The Quiet Americans

  Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War--a Tragedy in Three Acts
  Scott Anderson
• Reaganland

  America's Right Turn 1976-1980
  Rick Perlstein
• Real Life
  Brandon Taylor
• Red Pill
  Hari Kunzru
• The Saddest Words

  William Faulkner's Civil War
  Michael Edward Gorra
• Saint X
  Alexis Schaitkin
• Sea Wife
  Amity Gaige
• The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison
  John F. Callahan and Marc C. Conner (editors)
• Shakespeare in a Divided America

  What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future
  James Shapiro
• Sharks in the Time of Saviors
  Kawai Strong Washburn
• Shuggie Bain
  Douglas Stuart
• The Sirens of Mars

  Searching for Life on Another World
  Sarah Stewart Johnson
• Sisters
  Daisy Johnson
• Soul Full of Coal Dust

  A Fight for Breath and Justice in Appalachia
  Chris Hamby
• The Splendid and the Vile

  A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
  Erik Larson
• The Third Rainbow Girl

  The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia
  Emma Copley Eisenberg
• This Is All I Got

  A New Mother's Search for Home
  Lauren Sandler
• Tokyo Ueno Station
  Yu Miri
• The Tunnel
  A.B. Yehoshua
• Uncanny Valley
  Anna Wiener
• The Undocumented Americans
  Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
• Until the End of Time

  Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe
  Brian Greene
• The Vanishing Half
  Brit Bennett
• The Vapors

  A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice
  David Hill
• The WEIRDest People in the World

  How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
  Joseph Henrich
• Wagnerism

  Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music
  Alex Ross
• War

  How Conflict Shaped Us
  Margaret MacMillan
• Who Gets In and Why

  A Year Inside College Admissions
  Jeffrey Selingo
• Why I Don't Write
  Susan Minot
• A Woman Like Her

  The Story Behind the Honor Killing of a Social Media Star
  Sanam Maher
• Writers & Lovers
  Lily King
• Yellow Bird

  Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country
  Sierra Crane Murdoch

Nick Levine: Best Albums of 2020 as published by BBC Culture

• Fetch the Bolt Cutters
  Fiona Apple
• Ungodly Hour
  Chloe x Halle
• Rough and Rowdy Ways
  Bob Dylan
• Future Nostalgia
  Dua Lipa
• Róisín Machine
  Róisín Murphy
• RTJ4
  Run the Jewels
• Sawayama
  Rina Sawayama
• Kitchen Sink
  Nadine Shah
• Folklore
  Taylor Swift

The Booker Prize: Best Fiction of 2020

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

Winner

• Shuggie Bain
  Douglas Stuart

shortlist

• The New Wilderness
  Diane Cook
• This Mournable Body
  Tsitsi Dangarembga
• Burnt Sugar
  Avni Doshi
• The Shadow King
  Maaza Mengiste
• Real Life
  Brandon Taylor

Longlist

• Who They Was
  Gabriel Krauze
• The Mirror & the Light
  Hilary Mantel
• Apeirogon
  Colum McCann
• Such a Fun Age
  Kiley Reid
• Redhead by the Side of the Road
  Anne Tyler
• Love and Other Thought Experiments
  Sophie Ward
• How Much of These Hills Is Gold
  C Pam Zhang

Time Magazine: The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020

[see also The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020 • The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the 2010s • The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 • The 10 Best Fiction Books of 2019 • Best Books of 2018 • Top 20 Books of 2017]

1. The Vanishing Half
   Brit Bennett
2. Shuggie Bain
   Douglas Stuart
3. The Mirror & the Light
   Hilary Mantel
4. A Children's Bible
   Lydia Millet
5. Homeland Elegies
   Ayad Akhtar
6. I Hold a Wolf by the Ears
   Laura van den Berg
7. A Burning
   Megha Majumdar
8. Deacon King Kong
   James McBride
9. Where the Wild Ladies Are
   Aoko Matsuda
10. Breasts and Eggs
    Mieko Kawakami