Year-End Lists

New York Public Library: Best Poetry of 2021

[see also 2020 • 2019]

• Doppelgangbanger
  Cortney Lamar Charleston
• Extremely Lightweight Guns
  Nikki Moustaki
• frank

  sonnets
  Diane Seuss
• If God Is a Virus
  Seema Yasmin
• Mama Phife Represents
  Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
• Oh You Robot Saints!
  Rebecca Morgan Frank
• The Perseverance
  Raymond Antrobus
• Popular Longing
  Natalie Shapero
• Transversal
  Urayoán Noel
• What Noise Against the Cane
  Desiree C. Bailey

NME: The 50 Best Albums of 2021

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

1. Seventeen Going Under
   Sam Fender
2. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
   Little Simz
3. Blue Weekend
   Wolf Alice
4. Prioritise Pleasure
   Self Esteem
5. Call Me If You Get Lost
   Tyler, The Creator
6. Carnage
   Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
7. Collapsed in Sunbeams
   Arlo Parks
8. If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
   Halsey
9. Glow On
   Turnstile
10. Sour
    Olivia Rodrigo
11. For Those I Love
    For Those I Love
12. I Don’t Live Here Anymore
    The War on Drugs
13. Conflict of Interest
    Ghetts
14. Sling
    Clairo
15. Happier Than Ever
    Billie Eilish
16. Spare Ribs
    Sleaford Mods
17. Blue Banisters
    Lana Del Rey
18. We're All Alone in This Together
    Dave
19. Solar Power
    Lorde
20. Montero
    Lil Nas X
21. Californian Soil
    London Grammar
22. An Evening with Silk Sonic
    Silk Sonic
23. Isles
    Bicep
24. Valentine
    Snail Mail
25. Typhoons
    Royal Blood
26. Screen Violence
    Chvrches
27. Still Over It
    Summer Walker
28. Crawler
    Idles
29. Smiling with No Teeth
    Genesis Owusu
30. Pressure Machine
    The Killers
31. Tyron
    slowthai
32. Pink Noise
    Laura Mvula
33. Flu Game
    AJ Tracey
34. Juno
    Remi Wolf
35. How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?
    Big Red Machine
36. if I could make it go quiet
    girl in red
37. Access Denied
    Ray BLK
38. The Chaos Chapter: Freeze
    Tomorrow X Together
39. Life's a Beach
    Easy Life
40. For the First Time
    Black Country, New Road
41. Skin
    Joy Crookes
42. Vince Staples
    Vince Staples
43. New Long Leg
    Dry Cleaning
44. Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night
    Bleachers
45. Punk
    Young Thug
46. And Then Life Was Beautiful
    NAO
47. Nine
    Sault
48. Star-Crossed
    Kacey Musgraves
49. It Won’t Always Be Like This
    Inhaler
50. Planet Her
    Doja Cat

Polygon: The Best TV Shows of 2021

[see also 2022]

• Arcane
• Hacks
• Heels
• I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson
• Invincible
• The Great British Bake Off
• Never Have I Ever
• Only Murders in the Building
• The Other Two
• Reservation Dogs
• Shadow and Bone
• The Snoopy Show
• Squid Game
• Succession
• Tuca & Bertie
• The Underground Railroad
• WandaVision
• What We Do in the Shadows
• The White Lotus

Michael Silverblatt: Top 10 Books of 2021, as posted by KCRW, a list of favorites from the host of Bookworm

[see also 2019]

1. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
   Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
2. Klara and the Sun
   Kazuo Ishiguro
3. Street Cop
   Robert Coover and Art Spiegelman
4. The Sentence
   Louise Erdrich
5. Bewilderment
   Richard Powers
6. Trafik
   Rikki Ducornet
7. Heard-Hoard
   Atsuro Riley
8. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

   In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
   George Saunders
9. The Prophets
   Robert Jones Jr.
10. City of a Thousand Gates
    Rebecca Sacks

Chris Willman: The Best Albums of 2021, as published by Variety

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2010s • 2019 • 2018]

1. Outside Child
   Allison Russell
2. In These Silent Days
   Brandi Carlile
3. Happier Than Ever
   Billie Eilish
4. Soberish
   Liz Phair
5. 30
   Adele
6. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
   Little Simz
7. Sour
   Olivia Rodrigo
8. Daddy's Home
   St. Vincent
9. If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
   Halsey
10. if I could make it go quiet
    girl in red

Some honorable mentions

• Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma
  Topaz Jones
• Queens of the Summer Hotel
  Aimee Mann
• Red (Taylor's Version)
  Taylor Swift
• Heaux Tales
  Jazmine Sullivan
• 29: Written In Stone
  Carly Pearce
• Dawn
  Yebba
• Montero
  Lil Nas X
• Remember Her Name
  Mickey Guyton
• New Long Leg
  Dry Cleaning
• A Southern Gothic
  Adia Victoria
• Star-Crossed
  Kacey Musgraves
• Stand For Myself
  Yola
• Sound Ancestors
  Madlib

Jem Aswad: The Best Albums of 2021, as published by Variety

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020 • 2019]

1. Call Me If You Get Lost
   Tyler, The Creator
2. to hell with it
   PinkPantheress
3. A Southern Gothic
   Adia Victoria
4. Afrique Victime
   Mdou Moctar
5. Collapsed in Sunbeams
   Arlo Parks
6. Dawn
   Yebba
7. Superwolves
   Matt Sweeney & Bonnie "Prince" Billy
8. Vulture Prince
   Arooj Aftab
9. Still Over It
   Summer Walker
10. Nine
    Sault

Honorable mentions that could well have made the top 10 on a different day

• nice
  Amindi
• Deja
  Bomba Estéreo
• Crawler
  Idles
• An Evening with Silk Sonic
  Silk Sonic
• If Orange Was a Place
  Tems

The Boston Globe: The Best Poetry of 2021

[see also 2020]

• Against Silence
  Frank Bidart
• All This Time
  Cedar Sigo
• Ceive
  B.K. Fischer
• Doppelgangbanger
  Cortney Lamar Charleston
• Even Shorn
  Isabel Duarte-Gray
• frank

  sonnets
  Diane Seuss
• Gentefication
  Antonio de Jesús López
• The Glass Constellation

  New and Collected Poems
  Arthur Sze
• Heard-Hoard
  Atsuro Riley
• The Last Thing

  New & Selected Poems
  Patrick Rosal
• Late Human
  Jean Day
• Little Pharma
  Laura Kolbe
• Mutiny
  Phillip B. Williams
• Parallel Movement of the Hands

  Five Unfinished Longer Works
  John Ashbery
• The Past
  Wendy Xu
• Playlist for the Apocalypse
  Rita Dove
• Popular Longing
  Natalie Shapero
• Sho
  Douglas Kearney
• Spilled and Gone
  Jessica Greenbaum
• The Sunflower Cast a Spell To Save Us From The Void
  Jackie Wang

The Boston Globe: The Best Books of 2021

[see also 2023 • 2020]

Fiction

• Afterparties
  Anthony Veasna So
• Bewilderment
  Richard Powers
• Caul Baby
  Morgan Jerkins
• The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell
  Brian Evenson
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• Harlem Shuffle
  Colson Whitehead
• In the Company of Men
  Véronique Tadjo
• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• The Man Who Lived Underground
  Richard Wright
• Monkey Boy
  Francisco Goldman
• Monster in the Middle
  Tiphanie Yanique
• My Heart Is a Chainsaw
  Stephen Graham Jones
• Of Women and Salt
  Gabriela Garcia
• The Other Black Girl
  Zakiya Dalila Harris
• The Prophets
  Robert Jones Jr.
• Skye Falling
  Mia McKenzie
• The Sweetness of Water
  Nathan Harris
• The Turnout
  Megan Abbott
• Velvet Was the Night
  Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• What Storm, What Thunder
  Myriam J A Chancy

Nonfiction

• America on Fire

  The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s
  Elizabeth Hinton
• All That She Carried

  The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
  Tiya Miles
• Burning Boy

  The Life and Work of Stephen Crane
  Paul Auster
• Covered with Night

  A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America
  Nicole Eustace
• Disorientation

  Being Black in The World
  Ian Williams
• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• Festival Days
  Jo Ann Beard
• How the Word Is Passed

  A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
  Clint Smith
• Keats's Odes

  A Lover's Discourse
  Anahid Nersessian
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• On Freedom

  Four Songs of Care and Constraint
  Maggie Nelson
• On Juneteenth
  Annette Gordon-Reed
• On Violence and On Violence Against Women
  Jacqueline Rose
• Read Until You Understand

  The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature
  Farah Jasmine Griffin
• Red Comet

  The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
  Heather Clark
• The Right to Sex

  Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
  Amia Srinivasan
• Seek You

  A Journey Through American Loneliness
  Kristen Radtke
• Smile

  The Story of a Face
  Sarah Ruhl
• Travelling While Black

  Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move
  Nanjala Nyabola
• What Just Happened

  Notes on a Long Year
  Charles Finch

The Atlantic: The 16 Best TV Shows of 2021

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2020]

• Men in Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham
• Mare of Easttown
• Lupin
• Dickinson
• The Chair
• Ted Lasso
• Hacks
• Insecure
• Girls5eva
• The White Lotus
• The Underground Railroad
• Reservation Dogs
• WandaVision
• Only Murders in the Building
• Squid Game
• The Other Two

Michael Phillips: Top 10 Best Movies of 2021, as published by The Chicago Tribune

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

1. A Night of Knowing Nothing
   Payal Kapadia
2. The Underground Railroad
   Barry Jenkins
3. Drive My Car
   Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
4. Passing
   Rebecca Hall
5. West Side Story
   Steven Spielberg
6. The Lost Daughter
   Maggie Gyllenhaal
7. Licorice Pizza
   Paul Thomas Anderson
8. Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
   Questlove
9. It's a Sin
10. The Green Knight
    David Lowery
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth
    Joel Coen

Runners-up, best of 2021

• Judas and the Black Messiah
  Shaka King
• tick, tick... BOOM!
  Lin-Manuel Miranda
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
  Destin Daniel Cretton
• Lamb
  Valdimar Jóhannsson
• The Power of the Dog
  Jane Campion