Browse Top 5 lists
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Top 5 Video Game Final Bosses That Made the Whole Grind Worth It
Last fights that land the story's emotional punch, not just a giant health bar.
1–3: The Boss — Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater · Sans — Undertale · Gwyn, Lord of Cinder — Dark Souls
Top 5 Books You Pretend You've Finished at Dinner Parties
The doorstops everyone quotes, nobody finishes, and we all quietly agree not to ask follow-up questions about.
1–3: Infinite Jest — David Foster Wallace · Ulysses — James Joyce · A Brief History of Time — Stephen Hawking
Top 5 TV Characters You'd Never Trust With Your House Keys
Lovable on screen, but one weekend of pet-sitting and you'd come home to a crime scene or a hot tub in the living room.
1–3: Cosmo Kramer — Seinfeld · Charlie Kelly — It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia · Joey Tribbiani — Friends
Top 5 Sports Mascots More Unhinged Than the Fans
The costumed chaos agents who make you wonder whether anyone in the front office ever approved the script.
1–3: Gritty — Philadelphia Flyers · Phillie Phanatic — Philadelphia Phillies · Benny the Bull — Chicago Bulls
Top 5 Video Game Safe Rooms You Never Wanted to Leave
The hubs, shrines and save rooms where your shoulders finally dropped and you stalled for ten minutes before heading back out.
1–3: Firelink Shrine — Dark Souls (FromSoftware) · House of Hades — Hades (Supergiant Games) · Majula — Dark Souls II (FromSoftware)
Top 5 Book Narrators You Shouldn't Trust but Can't Stop Listening To
Unreliable narrators so charming, wounded or slippery that you only realize you were played after you've finished the last page.
1–3: Stevens — The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) · Dr. Sheppard — The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Agatha Christie) · Amy Dunne — Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn)
Top 5 Hobbies Everyone Swears They'll Start This Winter
The cozy-season ambitions that begin with a big supply order and end, at least sometimes, with an actual new skill.
1–3: Sourdough Baking · Jigsaw Puzzles · Knitting
Top 5 Movie Dinner Scenes You'd Fake an Illness to Skip
Some movie meals are so tense, gross, or explosive that any excuse to leave early starts to look pretty good.
1–3: The Pankot Palace Banquet — Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom · The Family Dinner — The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) · The 'I Am Your Mother' Dinner — Hereditary
Top 5 Startup Sounds Still Living Rent-Free in Your Head
The few seconds of audio that meant the machine was waking up, and that your brain refuses to forget.
1–3: Mac Startup Chime — Apple · Windows 95 Startup Sound — Brian Eno · PlayStation Boot Screen — Sony
Top 5 Notebooks Too Nice for Your Grocery Lists
Paper so good you'll wait months to write the first page, then fill the whole thing in a week.
1–3: Leuchtturm1917 A5 Dotted · Rhodia Webnotebook · Field Notes Original Kraft — Field Notes
Top 5 Cities Best Explored on Foot With No Plan at All
Put the phone away, pick a direction and walk. These cities reward you for getting a little lost.
1–3: Lisbon, Portugal · Kyoto, Japan · Mexico City, Mexico
Top 5 Wired Headphones Still Worth Untangling
No batteries, no pairing, no firmware updates. These cables are worth the occasional knot.
1–3: MDR-7506 — Sony · Porta Pro — Koss · HD 600 — Sennheiser
Top 5 Long Novels That Earn Every Single Page
Doorstops that never feel padded. You'll be sad to finish them, not relieved.
1–3: Lonesome Dove — Larry McMurtry · The Count of Monte Cristo — Alexandre Dumas · Shōgun — James Clavell
Top 5 TV Cold Opens Better Than Most Full Episodes
The two-minute bits before the credits that were funnier, stranger or more gripping than whole seasons of other shows.
1–3: The Fire Drill — The Office ("Stress Relief") · Pants in the Desert — Breaking Bad ("Pilot") · The Hatch Wake-Up — Lost ("Man of Science, Man of Faith")
Top 5 Regional Pizza Styles Worth Starting a Family Feud Over
Everyone thinks their hometown pie is the real one; this ranking will upset all of them roughly equally.
1–3: New Haven Apizza — Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana · New York Slice · Detroit-Style — Buddy's Pizza
Top 5 Athlete Retirements That Still Feel Way Too Early
They walked away near their peak, and fans are still quietly doing the math on what could have been.
1–3: Barry Sanders — Detroit Lions, 1999 · Andrew Luck — Indianapolis Colts, 2019 · Björn Borg — Tennis, 1983
Top 5 Audiobook Narrators Who Deserve a Cut of the Royalties
The voices that turned a commute into the best part of the day and made you sit in the parked car until the chapter ended.
1–3: Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir, read by Ray Porter · Born a Crime — Trevor Noah · Lincoln in the Bardo — George Saunders, read by a 166-person cast
Top 5 Video Game Sidekicks Who Carried the Whole Team
The companions who handed you ammo, solved the puzzle and somehow made you care, while you mostly ran into walls.
1–3: Elizabeth — BioShock Infinite · Ellie — The Last of Us · Alyx Vance — Half-Life 2
Top 5 Play-by-Play Calls You Can Still Recite Word for Word
Broadcast moments so perfect that the call gets remembered right alongside the play, and sometimes beats it.
1–3: "The Giants win the pennant!" — Russ Hodges, 1951 · "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" — Al Michaels, 1980 · "The impossible has happened." — Vin Scully, 1988
Top 5 Live Albums That Make You Jealous You Weren't There
The records where you can hear the sweat, the crowd and the exact moment the band realized it was having the night of its life.
1–3: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963 — Sam Cooke · Stop Making Sense — Talking Heads · At Folsom Prison — Johnny Cash
Top 5 Diner Orders That Are Never the Wrong Call
When the menu is laminated, eight pages long and somehow sticky, these are the orders that have never once let anyone down.
1–3: Patty Melt on Rye · Biscuits and Gravy · Denver Omelet With Hash Browns, Extra Crispy
Top 5 Sitcom Coworkers You'd Actually Want at the Next Desk
Forget the funniest characters: these are the ones who would make a real Tuesday at a real job noticeably less miserable.
1–3: Leslie Knope — Parks and Recreation · Jim Halpert — The Office · Donna Meagle — Parks and Recreation
Top 5 Movies That Make You Want to Quit Your Job and Move to Italy
Films that leave you browsing one-way flights to Rome and wondering how hard Italian could be.
1–3: The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) — Anthony Minghella · Call Me by Your Name (2017) — Luca Guadagnino · Roman Holiday (1953) — William Wyler
Top 5 Store-Bought Cookies Worth Eating Over the Kitchen Sink
Supermarket cookies so good you skip the plate, the napkin and any pretense of having just one.
1–3: Tate's Bake Shop Chocolate Chip Cookies · McVitie's Milk Chocolate Digestives · Lotus Biscoff Cookies