My 20 Favorite Television Shows of 2023

For the uninitiated, it's a yearly tradition for me to start this list by breaking down my relationship to television, counting how many TV shows I watched in full during the calendar year.  In 2023, I had a healthy amount of 87, so the days of watching over 100 shows in a year are long in the rearview now.  One difference here is I got so behind on TV that there were some shows I really wanted to get in under the wire that I didn't have time for.  There are always things that I miss out on, but they're usually more of a "I'm mildly intrigued to check this out" case.  This time, there are some heavy hitters that I just didn't get around to.  Hell, there was a new season of Black Mirror in 2023 and I still haven't watched it.

So now more than ever, this top 20 you're about to see is not necessarily definitive, just my favorites of what I managed to cross off my watch list.

The rules: Shows are considered for this list based on their episodes that aired between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023.  This used to be a big thing when people watched more network shows where the seasons bled into the new year, but it doesn't factor in as much.  Although this year some shows like The Curse, For All Mankind, and Fargo are doing this annoying thing where almost all of the season aired this year but then the last two episodes are going to bleed into 2024.  That's stupid!  I hate it!

My 20 Favorite Films of 2023

It took some people a while to come around to something I've felt since the middle of the year: 2023 was a fantastic year for film, certainly the best since 2019.  Maybe I've just become more lenient of a watcher, but it seemed like I was giving five-star ratings out to films left and right this year.  (The actual numbers: six versus last year's four.)  Speaking of numbers being up, I also watched more new releases than I did last year, having seen 76 this year compared to my 65 in 2022.  Can I one day get to 100?  Stay tuned for 2024.

Let's take a look at some of my favorites from this bountiful year.

The rules: Any film that got their first non-festival release in 2023 -- whether that's theatrically, on VOD, or exclusively on a streaming service -- qualifies for this list.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2023

 
2023, huh?  What a year.  I don't know that there were any releases this year that had an instant classic cultural status, nor were there any ones that personally blew me away completely, but that was made up for by the fact that there were so many albums that were very strong even if they weren't era-defining.  According to my Last.fm, I've racked up 12,627 song plays this year at the time of writing this, so I was listening to quite a bit of music in 2023.  Here's a rundown of some of my favorites that took up much of that listening time.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released from January 1, 2023 to now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.

100 Songs I Liked In 2023

 

As always, my official end of the year lists will start on December 29th with my 20 favorite albums of 2023.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post could never cover all of the things I enjoyed over the past 12 months.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 in a few days.  I'm including songs from my five honorable mention albums, so if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me.  And this year I'm running so late that I actually haven't finalized my top 20, so there could be a song from an album that sneaks into that list at the last minute.  I've been going with 100 songs for this list for that past few years, but this time I really had to stretch and find some tracks to stretch to those last few slots.  Hopefully you enjoy these picks and find some new music to get into!