Year-End Lists

Angie Han: The 10 Best TV Shows of 2021, as published by The Hollywood Reporter

[see also 2023 • 2022]

1. Reservation Dogs
2. We Are Lady Parts
3. Succession
4. The Underground Railroad
5. For All Mankind
6. You
7. Swagger
8. The Other Two
9. Sort Of
10. Midnight Mass

Honorable mentions

• Blindspotting
• Hacks
• I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson
• It's a Sin
• Maid
• Mythic Quest
• Only Murders in the Building
• Squid Game
• What We Do in the Shadows
• The White Lotus

Daniel Fienberg: The 10 Best TV Shows of 2021, as published by The Hollywood Reporter

[see also 2023 • 2022]

1. The Underground Railroad
2. Succession
3. Reservation Dogs
4. The White Lotus
5. Exterminate All the Brutes
6. For All Mankind
7. Evil
8. The Great
9. Anna
10. We Are Lady Parts

Honorable mentions

• Big Mouth
• Dave
• Desus & Mero
• Hacks
• How To with John Wilson
• It's a Sin
• Last Chance U: Basketball
• Philly D.A.
• PEN15
• The Wonder Years

Entertainment Weekly: The 10 Best Books of 2021

[see also 2022 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

1. Infinite Country
   Patricia Engel
2. Great Circle
   Maggie Shipstead
3. Crying in H Mart
   Michelle Zauner
4. The Prophets
   Robert Jones Jr.
5. Cloud Cuckoo Land
   Anthony Doerr
6. Milk Fed
   Melissa Broder
7. Intimacies
   Katie Kitamura
8. Detransition, Baby
   Torrey Peters
9. No One Is Talking About This
   Patricia Lockwood
10. Empire of Pain

    The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
    Patrick Radden Keefe

Flood Magazine: The Best Albums of 2021

[see also 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014]

1. Glow On
   Turnstile
2. Jubilee
   Japanese Breakfast
3. Heaux Tales
   Jazmine Sullivan
4. Call Me If You Get Lost
   Tyler, The Creator
5. Any Shape You Take
   Indigo De Souza
6. Hey What
   Low
7. Valentine
   Snail Mail
8. Ignorance
   The Weather Station
9. Home Video
   Lucy Dacus
10. Star-Crossed
    Kacey Musgraves
11. Let Me Do One More
    illuminati hotties
12. if I could make it go quiet
    girl in red
13. Carnage
    Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
14. Fatigue
    L'Rain
15. Sour
    Olivia Rodrigo
16. The Million Masks Of God
    Manchester Orchestra
17. I Know I'm Funny haha
    Faye Webster
18. Promises
    Floating Points / Pharoah Sanders / London Symphony Orchestra
19. Death of a Cheerleader
    Pom Pom Squad
20. Happier Than Ever
    Billie Eilish
21. The House Is Burning
    Isaiah Rashad
22. Modern Fiction
    Ducks Ltd.
23. Stand For Myself
    Yola
24. Illusory Walls
    The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die
25. Thirstier
    Torres

Esquire: The 50 Best Books of 2021

[see also The 20 Best Books of 2023 • The Best Books of 2022 • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2022 • The Best Books of the 2010s • The Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

• Virtue
  Hermione Hoby
• The 1619 Project

  A New Origin Story
  Nikole Hannah-Jones (creator)
• I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
  Claire Vaye Watkins
• Harrow
  Joy Williams
• Reprieve
  James Han Mattson
• My Body
  Emily Ratajkowski
• Everything and Less

  The Novel in the Age of Amazon
  Mark McGurl
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• Palmares
  Gayl Jones
• A Calling for Charlie Barnes
  Joshua Ferris
• Billy Summers
  Stephen King
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• Nightbitch
  Rachel Yoder
• Falling
  T.J. Newman
• Somebody's Daughter
  Ashley C. Ford
• The Other Black Girl
  Zakiya Dalila Harris
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• Appleseed
  Matt Bell
• An Ordinary Age

  Finding Your Way in a World That Expects Exceptional
  Rainesford Stauffer
• The Atmospherians
  Alex McElroy
• Third Eye Rising
  Murzban F. Shroff
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
  Dawnie Walton
• The Man Who Lived Underground
  Richard Wright
• Last Call

  A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York
  Elon Green
• Early Morning Riser
  Katherine Heiny
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Aftershocks
  Nadia Owusu
• Dog Flowers
  Danielle Geller
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Concrete Rose
  Angie Thomas
• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

  In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
  George Saunders
• Under a White Sky

  The Nature of the Future
  Elizabeth Kolbert
• Craft in the Real World

  Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping
  Matthew Salesses
• Let Me Tell You What I Mean
  Joan Didion
• Love Is an Ex-Country
  Randa Jarrar
• Surviving the White Gaze
  Rebecca Carroll
• Land of Big Numbers
  Te-Ping Chen
• Milk Fed
  Melissa Broder
• Fake Accounts
  Lauren Oyler
• We Had a Little Real Estate Problem

  The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy
  Kliph Nesteroff
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• Infinite Country
  Patricia Engel
• What's Mine and Yours
  Naima Coster
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Committed
  Viet Thanh Nguyen
• Mona
  Pola Oloixarac
• How Beautiful We Were
  Imbolo Mbue
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib

BBC Culture: 10 Best Albums of 2021, compiled by Arwa Haider and Nick Levine

• Pink Noise
  Laura Mvula
• Montero
  Lil Nas X
• Planet Her
  Doja Cat
• Skin
  Joy Crookes
• 30
  Adele
• If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
  Halsey
• Promises
  Floating Points / Pharoah Sanders / London Symphony Orchestra
• Prioritise Pleasure
  Self Esteem
• Glow On
  Turnstile
• Collapsed in Sunbeams
  Arlo Parks

Dana Stevens: The 10 Best Movies of 2021, as published by Slate, in alphabetical order

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

• Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
  Josh Greenbaum
• The Disciple
  Chaitanya Tamhane
• The Green Knight
  David Lowery
• A Hero
  Asghar Farhadi
• Licorice Pizza
  Paul Thomas Anderson
• Parallel Mothers
  Pedro Almodóvar
• The Power of the Dog
  Jane Campion
• Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  Questlove
• The Velvet Underground
  Todd Haynes
• West Side Story
  Steven Spielberg

Entertainment Weekly: The 10 Best Podcasts of 2021

[see also 2018]

• Twenty Thousand Hertz
• Once Upon a Time… at Bennington College
• The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial
• Absolutely Not
• Love is a Crime
• Hell of Presidents
• The Plot Thickens: Lucy
• Marvel's Wastelanders: Old Man Star-Lord
• Cerebro
• Black Girl Songbook

Nicholas Quah: The Best Podcasts of 2021, as published by New York Magazine’s Vulture

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018]

1. Aack Cast
2. The Ezra Klein Show
3. Anything for Selena
4. Through The Cracks
5. Maintenance Phase
6. Storytime with Seth Rogen
7. S***hole Country
8. Time to Say Goodbye
9. Hot White Heist
10. Suspect

Honorable Mentions

• Spectacle
• Welcome to Your Fantasy
• The Line
• The Improvement Association
• Unread
• Decoder Ring
• 9/12
• The Lazarus Heist
• Bandsplain
• Death at the Wing
• How Long Gone
• The Just Enough Family

Glenn Kenny: Notable Film Releases of 2021, unranked but listed "in roughly the order I watched them, or in some cases the order in which I came to like them"

[see also 2022 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2013 • 2012]

• The Salt of Tears
  Philippe Garrel
• Supernova
  Harry Macqueen
• Atlantis
  Valentyn Vasyanovych
• The Human Voice
  Pedro Almodóvar
• This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection
  Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
• State Funeral
  Sergei Loznitsa
• Undine
  Christian Petzold
• No Sudden Move
  Steven Soderbergh
• Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
  Questlove
• Annette
  Leos Carax
• Days
  Tsai Ming-liang
• The Card Counter
  Paul Schrader
• Parallel Mothers
  Pedro Almodóvar
• Last Night in Soho
  Edgar Wright
• Wife of a Spy
  Kiyoshi Kurosawa
• Fire Music
  Tom Surgal
• The Village Detective: a song cycle
  Bill Morrison
• The Velvet Underground
  Todd Haynes
• The Tragedy of Macbeth
  Joel Coen
• France
  Bruno Dumont
• In My Own Time: A Portrait of Karen Dalton
  Richard Peete & Robert Yapkowitz
• Memoria
  Apichatpong Weerasethakul
• Cry Macho
  Clint Eastwood
• The French Dispatch
  Wes Anderson
• Bergman Island
  Mia Hansen-Løve
• All Is Forgiven
  Mia Hansen-Løve
• The Souvenir Part II
  Joanna Hogg
• Drive My Car
  Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
• Licorice Pizza
  Paul Thomas Anderson
• West Side Story
  Steven Spielberg
• Nightmare Alley
  Guillermo del Toro

Honorable Films

• Land
  Robert Wright
• About Endlessness
  Roy Andersson
• Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over
  Beth B
• The French
  William Klein
• Wrath of Man
  Guy Ritchie
• This Is My Desire
  Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri
• Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters
  Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz
• The Sparks Brothers
  Edgar Wright
• Pig
  Michael Sarnoski
• Dune
  Denis Villeneuve
• The Power of the Dog
  Jane Campion
• The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
  Kristina Lindström & Kristian Petri
• Titane
  Julia Ducournau
• Golden Voices
  Evgeny Ruman
• What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
  Aleksandre Koberidze
• Benedetta
  Paul Verhoeven