Which pop-culture moment are you most thankful for in 2022?

“Your love can live in this world.” Seven words at the heart of Meredith Gran’s Perfect Tides, the game that touched my heart most deeply in 2022. Set in a moment of crystallized adolescence as familiar as the sound of the old “door open.wav” sound playing (because your crush just logged on to AIM), Gran’s retro-visualized adventure game is all about figuring out who you want to be by being all the versions of yourself that you don’t. As I played it, I could feel decades of cynicism sloughing off, at least for a bit, all building to those seven words: an acknowledgment that the world can be hard, it can be ugly, it can be cruel. But there are places within it where your love can always live. [William Hughes]

Marvel has spoiled Daredevil fans over the last few years, with Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s great run in the comics and Charlie Cox appearing as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home. But Hornhead’s appearance in Disney+’s She-Hulk was the real treat. Not only did we get Cox back in his Daredevil suit, but we also got the instantly iconic image of him leaving She-Hulk’s house with his boots slung over his shoulder after spending the night. Pure, joyous superhero fan service, all based around the fact that everyone loves Daredevil. [Sam Barsanti]

The last time we saw Naveen Andrews, Lost’s beloved recovering torturer Sayid was hanging out in the peripherals of Sense8. No one could fault him for getting lost in such a cramped, globetrotting ensemble, so it was to my delight that he scored a plum role on one of the year’s best shows: The Dropout. Playing the mercilessly uncool Sunny Balwani, Andrews is a hatchetman by way of the Staples’ checkout line, one who breaks up the mundanity of defrauding heads of state with petulant outbursts that make his threats of emails and NDAs seem worthless, empty, and painfully pathetic.

After a decade of charlatans dressed as Steve Jobs foisting stupid, inane, and useless products on American culture, The Dropout finally nailed something vital about 2010s tech culture: Silicon Valley isn’t sexy. To that end, Andrews’ Balwani puffs out his gut, tucks in his Oxford, and corrects the record. These guys may suck, but hey, at least Naveen Andrews gets to show us why. [Matt Schimkowitz]

We, as gay people, get to choose our spectator sport, and that’s RuPaul’s Drag Race. An Emmy-winning institution that has, well, dragged the art of drag into the mainstream, RuPaul’s empire is going strong because it can still shock its audience and elevate talented queens to name-recognition status. The best recent example of both was Lady Camden, who, truth be told, hadn’t made much of an impression before season 14’s high point, “Daytona Wind.”

The English queen followed up her challenge win by toppling onto the runway, only to reveal it was a psych-out. Standing tall in a Freddie Mercury-inspired mustache, she swaggered up to the judges and into the collective consciousness of queer people watching the world ’round. (The reaction from gay bars probably registered on the Richter scale.) We tune into reality competition shows for just this kind of star-is-born moment. [Jack Smart]

The Sandman comics have always meant a lot to me, but after decades of failed attempts at adapting them into a movie, I had doubts that it could ever be done properly. I was even starting to think it might be best if it wasn’t done at all. Seeing it finally come together on Netflix, though—with Neil Gaiman’s involvement and approval every step of the way—changed my mind. I still can’t believe it actually happened. Everything about the production, from the casting to the visual design to the story development, convinced me that the project is in the hands of people who care about it as much as I do. Now that a second season has been officially greenlit by Netflix, I’ll have something to be thankful for next year, too. [Cindy White]

This year in pop culture, we saw the world turn to romantic comedy once more, with buzzy releases like The Lost City, Fire Island, Bros, and Ticket To Paradise. Each spurred their own discussions on the current role of the rom-com, that classic mid-budget genre. Ticket To Paradise and The Lost City boasted the return of rom-com royalty Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts, and other films welcomed newer stars like Bowen Yang, Billy Eichner, Luke Evans, and Joel Kim Booster. And next year promises even more romantic comedies, with Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Jennifer Lopez projects on the way. [Gabrielle Sanchez]

In a year full of terrifying real-life bullshit, it was great to get lost in the world of fictional horror. The genre has had a top-notch stretch both in film and TV, but let’s not forget that 2022 began with a new Scream film. Eleven years after the fourth installment, the franchise roared back with Scream 5, introducing new characters and villains as two killers donned Ghostface’s mask to slash and burn again.

The film is a personal reward because it honors the previous beloved movies (all four are great, okay—even and especially Scream 3) and continues the tradition of satirizing the present-day Hollywood zeitgeist in a slasher format. It’s an intriguing whodunit that successfully brings Sidney Prescott, Gale Weathers, and Dewey Riley into the fold even after all these years. It’s upsetting that Neve Campbell and David Arquette won’t return in the future (for different reasons). However, I’m still sticking around because Scream 5 makes a solid case for why a new generation deserves these films. Also of note: Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega’s excellent performances.

Was it the best horror/slasher film of the year? For my nostalgia, yes, but otherwise, it also kicked off a year that thankfully bestowed us with gems like Nope, Barbarian, Prey, Smile, X, Pearl, Men, Crimes Of The Future, Fresh, The Menu, and Bodies Bodies Bodies. [Saloni Gajjar]

I know that at this point, some people see the words Don’t Worry Darling and immediately groan. But in my eyes, the DWD phenomenon never stopped being fun. [Stefon voice] This story had everything! A colorful cast of characters (Olivia Wilde, Harry Styles, Florence Pugh, Chris Pine, Kiki Layne, the list goes on), celebrity relationship drama, on-set tension, and an absolutely lethal press tour-premiere combo that culminated in one of Twitter’s best nights of the year, a.k.a. Spitgate. (Less delightfully, but still notably, the story also involves a troubling back-and-forth with former star and alleged abuser Shia LaBeouf, who called out Wilde for claiming to have fired him.)

The saga ended with a film that succeeded at the box office but failed to impress critics—and didn’t live up to the feminist principles that Wilde had been espousing. In a perfect denouement, the movie gave us one last tabloid drama that concluded with the snarky sharing of Nora Ephron’s salad dressing recipe. Serve it to your relatives and give thanks: Hollywood is back, and it’s more bonkers than ever. [Mary Kate Carr]

There’s a lot to love about The Batman (Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Robert Pattinson’s makeup routine, holy Jesus, that sound design). The moment that lives rent-free in my head, though, is when the Penguin (Colin Farrell) disarms Batman (Pattinson)—which several goons have just failed to do—with only a few words. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Take it easy, sweetheart,” he says in a thick New York accent.

The thing that makes this moment stick for me is the way Farrell takes all the toxic masculinity baggage typically associated with that accent and flips it on its head. Penguin’s not taunting Batman here; he’s not trying to imply that Batman isn’t tough. He’s just being a sarcastic asshole and using humor to catch the superhero off-guard, and it works. [Jennifer Lennon]

“I haven’t wAtChed Do Revenge. I don’t even know what it LOoKs LiKeee!” That’s because as soon as I saw Sophie Turner’s bonkers line reading all over Twitter, I knew no other moment in the film could possibly measure up. These are the most important eight seconds of cinema this year, and they’re going to single-handedly usher in a new golden age of celebrity cameos. Really, they’re better than therapy. If Turner had been allowed to bring even a fraction of this energy to Game Of Thrones, winter wouldn’t have come in the first place. [Emma Keates]

As Florence Pugh-as-Yelena Belova once said: “It was real to me.” Tár, Todd Field’s masterful return, follows Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár, an enigmatic conductor embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal. Lydia, a.k.a. “Petra’s father,” isn’t based on a real person. But Field and Blanchett so ingeniously build Tár’s elitist, post-#MeToo world that some people found themselves searching for her Wikipedia page, wondering how society could have possibly let her get away with all that. An anti-hero so sublimely made that even critics are convinced she exists offscreen? One small step for Tár, one giant leap for all Tárkind. [Hattie Lindert]

And by no one, I mean, of course, me. I’m a huge Tom Perrotta fan. But something about the novelist returning to Tracy Flick, the character at the center of his breakout Election who, thanks to the bitingly funny film adaptation (and a powerhouse performance in it by Reese Witherspoon), has become iconic and very steeped in the ’90s, didn’t excite me. (I really enjoyed his last novel, Mrs. Fletcher, which, like a good amount of his stuff, made its way to our screens, and want him telling new stories, not turning back to old ones.) But then I started reading the sequel, which catches up with the former overachieving high-school student who’s now an overachieving high school vice principal in New Jersey, and I was sucked right in. Something about perfect candidates still not getting what they want—and probably deserve—and trying to piece together why is timelessly funny and American. [Tim Lowery]

My pick? The seemingly endless onslaught of insane stories Matthew Perry unleashed on the unwitting public. While his struggle with addiction is harrowing, and I’m glad he’s overcome it, to me there was nothing more entertaining than Perry seemingly jumping out of a bush to share some crazy story about beating the breaks off of Justin Trudeau as a child or being weirded out by Salma Hayek. No one was safe from his oversharing,. [Peter Scobel]

Leave it to the BeyHive to work overtime. For many of us, Renaissance has been on repeat since Beyoncé released it nearly four months ago. However, there has been a conspicuous lack of visual material for an artist who is famous for breathing new life into the form with her albums. Outside of a short teaser, there has been nothing from Beyoncé herself. The fans have more than picked up the slack, though; between the “Cuff It Challenge” to increasingly deranged fancams, Renaissance has become a different kind of shared experience than Bey’s preceding albums. Maybe that was her plan all along. [Drew Gillis]

As a longtime Duran Duran fan, seeing the Fab Five get their long-overdue recognition with one of music’s most prestigious honors was a glowing moment for me this year. Finally, after over four decades in the music business, they made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sure, they had seen some notable accolades throughout their career, but there are few honors more coveted by bands than being inducted into the Rock Hall.

And how great was it that Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr., inducted them? “Duran Duran invites us all to put our best days here, now and still in front of us. Cool, sophisticated fun. You know who’s got that in spades? Duran Duran,” the actor gushed. “They own that space, and they have for over 40 years. Read the lyrics to “Paper Gods.” Watch the video for “Anniversary.” Cry in the mirror as you lip-sync to “Ordinary World.” I adore this band. They’ve grown and changed and aged out of one mode and embraced the next.” As a proud Duranie myself, I couldn’t have said it better. [Gil Macias]