Favorites
Obviously, it's impossible to definitively rank anything once and for all. There are simply too many factors: the context of my experience, the high-dimensional nature of things, the inherent subjectivity of my preferences, the fact that they can change over time, etc. There's also recency bias, confirmation bias, and all sorts of other biases.
With that being said, ranking stuff is fun. It's also fun to learn about someone through their favorites, so here are some of mine. In each category, I've limited myself to 3 golds, 4 silvers, 5 bronzes, and unlimited honorable mentions (HM's). On every step on the podium, items are listed in decreasing order of preference; HM's are listed alphabetically.
Please don't take this page seriously; I'm not a critic or anything. There are a billion things out there that I haven't experienced yet, and new things are always being created. So if there's something that you think I'd like, feel free to let me know!
Board games (less complex)
- Gold: Hedbanz, Coup, Hanabi
- Silver: The Resistance: Avalon, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, Just One, Next Station: London
- Bronze: Can't Stop, Jaipur, Kemps, Codenames, Wits & Wagers Party
- HM: Bärenpark, Diamant / Incan Gold, Downforce, King of Tokyo, Kingdomino, Patchwork, Skull, Telestrations, The Mind, Two Rooms and a Boom, Werewords, Wink
Board games (more complex)
- Gold: Forbidden Desert, Istanbul, Caylus
- Silver: Lords of Vegas, Yokohama, Small World, Village
- Bronze: Ark Nova, Brass: Lancashire, Dominion, Chinatown, Power Grid
- HM: Chocolate Factory, In the Year of the Dragon, Medici, Modern Art, Pandemic, Puerto Rico, Quantum, Res Arcana, Root, Russian Railroads, Space Station Phoenix, The Crew, Troyes, Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
Books (fiction)
- Gold: The Song of Achilles, Of Mice and Men, 1984
- Silver: The Stranger, Everything I Never Told You, Flowers for Algernon, The Art of Fielding
- Bronze: A Separate Peace, City of Thieves, The Green Mile, Station Eleven, Brave New World
- HM: Anxious People, Circe, Fahrenheit 451, Little Fires Everywhere, Nothing to See Here, Revival, Siddhartha, The Color Purple, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Plot, The Rosie Project, The Silent Patient, The Three-Body Problem, The White Tiger
Books (nonfiction)
- Gold: Being Mortal, The Righteous Mind, Lost & Found
- Silver: The Sweet Spot, Team of Rivals (abridged), Just Mercy, The Road to Character,
- Bronze: The Tyranny of Merit, The Common Good, Four Thousand Weeks, Shoe Dog, This Common Secret
- HM: A Body, Undone, Bad Feminist, Bullshit Jobs, Fist Stick Knife Gun, Freakonomics, Fun Home, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Hyperbole and a Half, Man's Search for Meaning, On Writing, Predictably Irrational, Range, Shop Class as Soulcraft, The Case Against Education, The Internet of Us, What the Best College Teachers Do (review), When Breath Becomes Air
Fruits
- Gold: watermelon, peach, mango
- Silver: honeydew, Asian pear, cantaloupe, honeycrisp
- Bronze: strawberry, grape, banana, cucumber, tomato
- HM: apple, avocado, blackberry, blueberry, cherry, coconut, date, fig, grapefruit, kiwi, lemon, lime, longan, lychee, nectarine, papaya, persimmon, pineapple, plum, pluot, pomegranate, rambutan, raspberry
Movies
- Gold: Parasite, Gattaca, Whiplash
- Silver: Memento, Silence of the Lambs, Toy Story, Ratatouille
- Bronze: Se7en, The Departed, No Country for Old Men, Shutter Island, Life Is Beautiful
- HM: 21, 25th Hour, A Serious Man, Arrival, Cars, Children of Men, Django Unchained, El Camino, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Everything, Everywhere All at Once, Ex Machina, Fargo, Get Out, Good Will Hunting, Gone Girl, Goodfellas, Inglorious Basterds, Joker, Little Miss Sunshine, Minority Report, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Rush Hour, Taxi Driver, The Dark Knight, The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption, The Truman Show, Toy Story 2/3/4, Up
Podcasts
- Gold: Ear Biscuits, The Ezra Klein Show, 5-4
- Silver: The Adam Ragusea Podcast, Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, EconTalk, Vox Conversations
- Bronze: Making Sense with Sam Harris, Slow Burn, The Jordan Harbinger Show, Gastropod, FiveThirtyEight Politics,
- HM: Bon Appétit Food People, Conversations with Tyler, Deep Questions with Cal Newport, Freakonomics, Freakonomics, M.D., Hidden Brain, How I Built This with Guy Raz, How To!, Know Your Enemy, Lex Fridman Podcast, Longform, Moral Maze, No Stupid Questions, Now & Then, Offline with Jon Favreau, People I (Mostly) Admire, Sudhir Breaks the Internet (What happened?), The Glenn Show, The Tim Ferriss Show
TV Shows
(I haven't watched many TV shows...)
- Gold: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Breaking Bad
- Silver: Bojack Horseman, Better Call Saul, Death Note
- Bronze: Rick and Morty, The Boys, The Office (US)
- HM: Arrested Development, Barry, Death Parade, King of the Hill, South Park