Year-End Lists

Melissa Ruggieri: 5 Best Albums of 2021, as published by USA Today

1. In These Silent Days
   Brandi Carlile
2. Montero
   Lil Nas X
3. Sour
   Olivia Rodrigo
4. Home Video
   Lucy Dacus
5. =
   Ed Sheeran

Brian Truitt: The 10 Best Movies of 2021, as published by USA Today

1. Spencer
   Pablo Larraín
2. The Father
   Florian Zeller
3. The Green Knight
   David Lowery
4. tick, tick... BOOM!
   Lin-Manuel Miranda
5. The Power of the Dog
   Jane Campion
6. Drive My Car
   Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
7. CODA
   Sian Heder
8. West Side Story
   Steven Spielberg
9. Spider-Man: No Way Home
   Jon Watts
10. Licorice Pizza
    Paul Thomas Anderson

Brooklyn Vegan: Top 50 Albums of 2021

[see also 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016]

1. Glow On
   Turnstile
2. Heaux Tales
   Jazmine Sullivan
3. Hey What
   Low
4. Call Me If You Get Lost
   Tyler, The Creator
5. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
   Little Simz
6. Ignorance
   The Weather Station
7. An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
   Cassandra Jenkins
8. Radical
   Every Time I Die
9. Happier Than Ever
   Billie Eilish
10. Jubilee
    Japanese Breakfast
11. Promises
    Floating Points / Pharoah Sanders / London Symphony Orchestra
12. The Million Masks Of God
    Manchester Orchestra
13. Weight of the World
    Maxo Kream
14. Black Encyclopedia of the Air
    Moor Mother
15. We Are Always Alone
    portrayal of guilt
15. CHRISTFUCKER
    portrayal of guilt
16. Illusory Walls
    The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die
17. Half God
    Wiki
18. Vulture Prince
    Arooj Aftab
19. This Place You Know
    One Step Closer
20. Fatigue
    L'Rain
21. i became birds
    Home Is Where
22. Vince Staples
    Vince Staples
23. Thirstier
    Torres
24. Sour
    Olivia Rodrigo
25. We're All Alone in This Together
    Dave
26. Ultrapop
    The Armed
27. Chemtrails over the Country Club
    Lana Del Rey
27. Blue Banisters
    Lana Del Rey
28. Nine
    Sault
29. Hall of Fame
    Polo G
30. Black To The Future
    Sons of Kemet
31. Haram
    Armand Hammer & The Alchemist
32. Entertainment, Death
    The Spirit Of The Beehive
33. New Long Leg
    Dry Cleaning
34. Pray For Haiti
    Mach-Hommy
35. Home Video
    Lucy Dacus
36. Crypt Of Ice
    Frozen Soul
37. Sling
    Clairo
38. Shade
    Grouper
39. Ordinary Life
    We Are The Union
40. A Tear In The Fabric Of Life
    Knocked Loose
41. Menneskekollektivet
    Lost Girls
42. Any Shape You Take
    Indigo De Souza
43. In Spite Of
    for your health
44. Between the Richness
    Fiddlehead
45. NOW
    Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble
46. Celestial Blues
    King Woman
47. As Days Get Dark
    Arab Strap
48. Astro Tough
    Audiobooks
49. History Of A Feeling
    Madi Diaz
50. Twin Plagues
    Wednesday

Electric Lit: Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021

[see also Favorite Novels of 2021 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020 • Favorite Novels of 2020 • 15 Best Novels of 2019 • 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

The Top 3 Nonfiction Books of the Year

• Girlhood
  Melissa Febos
• White Magic
  Elissa Washuta
• Crying in H Mart
  Michelle Zauner

Other Nonfiction Favorites

• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• The Most Fun Thing

  Dispatches from a Skateboard Life
  Kyle Beachy
• Punch Me Up to the Gods
  Brian Broome
• Dear Memory

  Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief
  Victoria Chang
• Southbound

  Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change
  Anjali Enjeti
• Somebody's Daughter
  Ashley C. Ford
• Pedro's Theory

  Reimagining the Promised Land
  Marcos Gonsalez
• The 1619 Project

  A New Origin Story
  Nikole Hannah-Jones (creator)
• Tacky

  Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer
  Rax King
• The Hard Crowd

  Essays 2000-2020
  Rachel Kushner
• The Book of Difficult Fruit

  Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly
  Kate Lebo
• Aftershocks
  Nadia Owusu
• Pop Song

  Adventures in Art and Intimacy
  Larissa Pham
• Seek You

  A Journey Through American Loneliness
  Kristen Radtke
• Craft in the Real World

  Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping
  Matthew Salesses
• Concepcion

  An Immigrant Family's Fortunes
  Albert Samaha
• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

  In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
  George Saunders
• Let the Record Show

  A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993
  Sarah Schulman
• The Right to Sex

  Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
  Amia Srinivasan
• Midnight's Borders

  A People's History of Modern India
  Suchitra Vijayan
• Pessoa
  Richard Zenith
• Women and Other Monsters

  Building a New Mythology
  Jess Zimmerman

Michael J. Anderson: Ten Best Films of 2021

[see also 2017]

1. What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?
   Aleksandre Koberidze
2. In Front of Your Face
   Hong Sang-soo
3. Drive My Car
   Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
4. The Power of the Dog
   Jane Campion
5. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
   Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
6. The Girl and the Spider
   Ramon Zürcher and Silvan Zürcher
7. Memoria
   Apichatpong Weerasethakul
8. Ahed's Knee
   Nadav Lapid
9. The Tsugua Diaries
   Maureen Fazendeiro and Miguel Gomes
10. Mr. Bachmann and His Class
    Maria Speth

Electric Lit: Favorite Novels of 2021

[see also Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2021 • Favorite Nonfiction Books of 2020 • Favorite Novels of 2020 • 15 Best Novels of 2019 • 15 Best Nonfiction Books of 2019]

The Top 3 Novels of the Year

• Intimacies
  Katie Kitamura
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Nightbitch
  Rachel Yoder

Other Favorite Novels

• Appleseed
  Matt Bell
• Civilizations
  Laurent Binet
• Milk Fed
  Melissa Broder
• Second Place
  Rachel Cusk
• Infinite Country
  Patricia Engel
• The Twilight Zone
  Nona Fernández
• Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch
  Rivka Galchen
• Libertie
  Kaitlyn Greenidge
• Matrix
  Lauren Groff
• Klara and the Sun
  Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Prophets
  Robert Jones Jr.
• Several People Are Typing
  Calvin Kasulke
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• The Atmospherians
  Alex McElroy
• We Are Watching Eliza Bright
  A.E. Osworth
• Beautiful World, Where Are You
  Sally Rooney
• Gold Diggers
  Sanjena Sathian
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• The Life of the Mind
  Christine Smallwood
• Animal
  Lisa Taddeo
• Harrow
  Joy Williams
• Win Me Something
  Kyle Lucia Wu

Literary Hub: Our 48 Favorite Books of 2021

[see also Our 65 Favorite Books of 2020 • The 20 Best Novels of the 2010s • The 20 Best Works of Nonfiction of the 2010s • Favorite Books of 2018]

• The Copenhagen Trilogy

  Childhood; Youth; Dependency
  Tove Ditlevsen
• Animal
  Lisa Taddeo
• The Dawn of Everything

  A New History of Humanity
  David Graeber and David Wengrow
• The Life of the Mind
  Christine Smallwood
• A Ghost in the Throat
  Doireann Ní Ghríofa
• When We Cease to Understand the World
  Benjamin Labatut
• Detransition, Baby
  Torrey Peters
• Milk Blood Heat
  Dantiel W. Moniz
• Blow Your House Down

  A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason
  Gina Frangello
• The Water Statues
  Fleur Jaeggy
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
  Mariana Enriquez
• Fight Night
  Miriam Toews
• The Vixen
  Francine Prose
• Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

  The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside
  Nick Offerman
• Light Perpetual
  Francis Spufford
• Black Girl, Call Home
  Jasmine Mans
• Empire of Pain

  The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
  Patrick Radden Keefe
• A Little Devil in America

  Notes in Praise of Black Performance
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• Heaven
  Mieko Kawakami
• Great Circle
  Maggie Shipstead
• In Memory of Memory
  Maria Stepanova
• No One Is Talking About This
  Patricia Lockwood
• The Scapegoat
  Sara Davis
• Dear Senthuran

  A Black Spirit Memoir
  Akwaeke Emezi
• The Wrong End of the Telescope
  Rabih Alameddine
• In the Eye of the Wild
  Nastassja Martin
• Burnt Sugar
  Avni Doshi
• Crossroads
  Jonathan Franzen
• The Trees
  Percival Everett
• Slipping
  Mohamed Kheir
• Something New Under the Sun
  Alexandra Kleeman
• The Anomaly
  Hervé Le Tellier
• How to Blow Up a Pipeline
  Andreas Malm
• Last Best Hope

  America in Crisis and Renewal
  George Packer
• Fake Accounts
  Lauren Oyler
• The Great Mistake
  Jonathan Lee
• Wings in Time
  Callie Garnett
• Hao
  Ye Chun
• There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job
  Kikuko Tsumura
• Mona
  Pola Oloixarac
• I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
  Claire Vaye Watkins
• Winter Recipes from the Collective
  Louise Glück
• White Magic
  Elissa Washuta
• The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway
  Virginia Woolf and Merve Emre (notes)
• Festival Days
  Jo Ann Beard
• Galloway

  Life In a Vanishing Landscape
  Patrick Laurie
• Returning the Sword to the Stone
  Mark Leidner
• Mutiny
  Phillip B. Williams

The Atlantic: The 50 Best Podcasts of 2021, selected by Laura Jane Standley and Eric McQuade

[see also 2019 • 2018]

1. 9/12
2. The Midnight Miracle
3. According to Need
4. Believe Her
5. The Line
6. My Fugitive
7. Mississippi Goddam: The Ballad of Billey Joe
8. Bent by Nature
9. Embedded: Capital Gazette
10. Because of Anita
11. The Ezra Klein Show
12. Blindspot: Tulsa Burning
13. Radiotopia Presents
14. Loud
15. The Improvement Association
16. This Land
17. La Brega
18. Meltdown
19. Hot White Heist
20. Odessa
21. White Hot Hate
22. 70 Over 70
23. The Messenger
24. Wild
25. The Just Enough Family
26. Southlake
27. Blind Landing
28. 365 Stories I Want To Tell You Before We Both Die
29. Fiasco: Benghazi
30. Nice Try!: Interior
31. Exit Scam
32. Spectacle
33. Not Past It
34. The Apology Line
35. Making Gay History: Coming of Age During the AIDS Crisis
36. Smoke Screen: The Sellout
37. Forever is a Long Time
38. Suave
39. The Sporkful: Mission Impastable
40. Algorithm
41. Anything for Selena
42. Storytime with Seth Rogen
43. Going for Broke with Ray Suarez
44. Princess of South Beach
45. Gene and Roger
46. The History of Sketch Comedy
47. The Flamethrowers
48. Strangeland
49. Dish City
50. Toxic: The Britney Spears Story

Ross Bonaime: Top 10 Films of 2021, as published by Collider

1. Licorice Pizza
   Paul Thomas Anderson
2. The Worst Person in the World
   Joachim Trier
3. C'mon C'mon
   Mike Mills
4. Judas and the Black Messiah
   Shaka King
5. Pig
   Michael Sarnoski
6. The Green Knight
   David Lowery
7. The French Dispatch
   Wes Anderson
8. Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
   Questlove
9. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar
   Josh Greenbaum
10. The Souvenir Part II
    Joanna Hogg

Runners-Up, in alphabetical order

• CODA
  Sian Heder
• Cyrano
  Joe Wright
• Drive My Car
  Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
• The Last Duel
  Ridley Scott
• The Mitchells vs. the Machines
  Mike Rianda
• The Power of the Dog
  Jane Campion
• Titane
  Julia Ducournau
• West Side Story
  Steven Spielberg

Maggie Smith: Top 10 Poetry Books of 2021, as published by Whittier Daily News

1. The Blues of Heaven
   Barbara Ras
2. Philomath
   Devon Walker-Figueroa
3. frank

   sonnets
   Diane Seuss
4. The Echo Chamber
   Michael Bazzett
5. Such Color

   New and Selected Poems
   Tracy K. Smith
6. Popular Longing
   Natalie Shapero
7. The Life
   Carrie Fountain
8. I Hope This Finds You Well
   Kate Baer
9. Pilgrim Bell
   Kaveh Akbar
10. Dialogues with Rising Tides
    Kelli Russell Agodon