The best and worst of pop culture in 2022

one of the year’s most popular albums, and while isn’t necessarily her strongest work, it shows that 10 albums in, the singer-songwriter still has fresh musical expertise to impart to the world. (“You’re On Your Own, Kid” and “The Great War” are a couple of outstanding tracks). Swift swept the trophies at this year’s VMAs, EMAs, and (whew!), earned four 2023 Grammy nods, was awarded by the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and broke sales records with Midnights. Let’s not forget the Tribeca and TIFF appearances to promote the music video. Ticket sales for her Eras tour led to national outrage over Ticketmaster, which shut out millions of people as they tried to score seats. [Saloni Gajjar]

Ticketmaster hasn’t been exactly beloved—memes about their exorbitant service and processing fees go back at least to the Obama administration—but they really stepped in it this year with the botched roll-out for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. The presale was so chaotic, leaving fans waiting hours in digital queues, that the official sale was ultimately canceled before it began. Rarely do we get to have such an easy common enemy, so perhaps that’s one small silver lining we can be thankful for. Now, Ticketmaster, hear us: you need to get this sorted out before the Renaissance tour. [Drew Gillis]

While the specifics of ’s box office success can be debated—a , but —there’s no denying the film is indeed a triumph. That also applies critically, with James Cameron’s latest wracking up award nominations from the likes of the National Board of Review, Golden Globes, and Satellite Awards (with the Oscars surely next). The only way the long-awaited sequel was going to end up on this list as a “loser” is some huge cultural controversy (although some of that) or a second global pandemic discouraging moviegoing (Eywa forbid!). Instead, audiences will surely continue flocking to and feasting their eyes upon Pandora, as was foretold. [Jack Smart]

When was released, it seemed like a rare misstep for Pixar. The film underperformed at the box office and missed badly with critics, too. The fifth installment in the Toy Story film franchise pushed all the wrong buttons, disappointing fans and leaving everybody with questions. Like why make a Toy Story movie without Tom Hanks or Tim Allen? Buzz and Woody are great … and greater together. Buzz without Woody or their circle of friends just isn’t the same. Chris Evans was game as Allen’s replacement for Buzz, but the execution let him down, right along with would-be movie-goers. [Ian Spelling]

really stepped up in 2022. Not only did the show introduce the wonders of Kate Bush to a whole new generation, it also gave us the delight of Joseph Quinn as Eddie Munson. After a three-year gap between seasons, Stranger Things faced major pressure for its fourth season. The Duffer Brothers responded, delivering the thrills, monsters and group dynamics that made the show a hit to begin with. The fourth season of Stranger Things set a Netflix record, racking up seven billion minutes of viewership, thanks to strong performances by all the leads, including Sadie Sink as Max, and a deliciously creepy villain in Vecna. [Saloni Gajjar]

In 2022 several streaming services decided to split the seasons of some of their biggest series, and honestly, it’s just supremely annoying. What is the point of dropping five outings and saving the remaining however many—which are usually filmed already—for another few weeks? Sometimes, it’s to ensure the early installments get counted for potential Emmys, but that doesn’t help viewers. , and are among the shows that contributed to the trend. The most egregious, though, was , which aired five episodes and left only two for later. Cue a big sigh. [Saloni Gajjar]

For all the highs of making fun of Morbius, there’s the low of Morbius actually existing. A truly awful movie in every respect, it makes you wonder just how easy it is to make it in Hollywood if the bar is set this low. How hard would it be for anyone to, say, write a better screenplay, direct better action, or design stronger CGI? The answer, judging by the screen disaster that is Morbius, appears to be not very hard at all. [Jack Smart]

We’ve had six more months to reflect on ’s single-shot episode and, yeah, it’s still one of the most impressive things we’ve seen on TV this year. The penultimate episode of The Bear’s first season starts with comfortable morning chatter and builds to a deafening breaking point, all within the cramped confines of a Chicago Italian beef joint—and all captured within a single shot. It’s a technical marvel, as the camera careens around corners to follow the action, making you really feel like you’re in a chaotic kitchen. But the performances—by Jeremy Allen White as head chef Carmy, Ayo Edebiri as ambitious sous chef Sydney, and Lionel Boyce as pastry obsessive Marcus—are what really sell the episode. [Tim Lowery]

You’ve definitely heard the joke (), but Netflix killed again in 2022. The half-hour comedy had a stacked cast: Randall Park, Melissa Fumero, J.B. Smoove, Tyler Alvarez, and Madeline Arthur, among others. . When it premiered in November, Blockbuster was met with a raft of negative reviews, and it didn’t take the streamer long to announce that show wouldn’t be getting a second season. [Saloni Gajjar]

Yeah, there were a lot of Arrowverse cancellations from The CW this year, but TV superheroes still had a pretty good 2022. The small screen served up refreshing and innovative supe storytelling with new seasons of The Boys on Prime, The Umbrella Academy on Netflix, Harley Quinn on HBO Max and the debuts of Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk on Disney+. In their own unique ways, each show presented a cultural reset of how we’ve viewed the genre, offering a good step away from the usual big screen fare without compromising on originality and quality. [Saloni Gajjar]

With the , we all lost. It was a media circus from the beginning, turning two people’s personal traumas into a public debate. And now, on the other side of it, there’s still nothing much to be learned here—except that, as always, we can still sink lower. [Jen Lennon]

From a sanitized Disney remake to a deeply strange Pauly Shore-led project, there has been no shortage of Pinocchios lately. Leave it to to cut through the noise and deliver a thoughtful, artistic take on the classic tale. Del Toro crafted a film with children in mind, but it decidedly isn’t for kids; seriously, the first 10 minutes of the movie see Geppetto’s real son killed in a church during a World War I bombing, driving the grief-stricken father to craft Pinocchio in a drunken rage. In a landscape where so much media talks down to kids, del Toro says something bold: that children are people, and they’re smart. [Drew Gillis]

Upon its release, this version of was a bit of a puzzler: it seemingly came out of nowhere and had a limited marketing push, which is strange for a film directed by Robert Zemeckis that stars Tom Hanks. After it debuted, though, it became clear why Disney tried to shove this one under the rug: it just wasn’t very good. And it’s even worse in hindsight, now that we have Guillermo del Toro’s instant-classic version to compare it to. [Jen Lennon]

Leave it to Nathan Fielder to find a way to perfectly encapsulate the strangeness of the current moment without meaning to. Or maybe he did mean to—Fielder’s motivations, as always, remain frustratingly yet delightfully opaque in . Whatever his intent, the final product was so engaging and bizarre that we’re still talking about it half a year later. The show itself, which essentially is about following people as they rehearse for life’s big moments, is a lot, and you’d be excused for wondering aloud “Wait, HBO just lets him do this?” Beyond the scale and insane level of detail and meta-ness, though, is a howlingly funny show with some real depth, even if said depth is predicated on such a ridiculous premise. [Tim Lowery]

We’re still scratching our heads about this one, and likely will be forever, as HBO has already pulled from its streaming service, making it unavailable to watch just seven months after its premiere. Showrunner Steven Moffat’s adaptation didn’t seem to get that Audrey Niffenegger’s novel isn’t about time travel at all. It’s about what it’s like to love someone with a chronic disability that makes it impossible to live a normal life, and the complications that creates for both partners over time. But that’s not even the worst of this show’s litany of sins against quality television. We also got the creepy optics an a man paying regular visits to a young girl until she’s old enough to date him, two bland leads in Rose Leslie and Theo James with no chemistry, distractingly bad wigs and makeup, and a series with a wildly uneven tone. [Cindy White]

One of the biggest shockers of the year was Warner Bros.’ decision to hand the reins of the DCU to James Gunn and Peter Safran. WB had been looking for DC’s answer to Kevin Feige for a while, and several people refused the job. It was all very public, and it did nothing to dispel the idea that the franchise could not be salvaged. But then, out of nowhere, that maybe, just maybe, we’d get a halfway decent DC cinematic universe. Gunn kept that hope alive by quickly dismantling the Snyderverse, pissing off Zack Snyder fans, and refusing to let Dwayne Johnson dictate the future of DC Films. And yeah, there have been some very vocal critics of Gunn’s quick and decisive changes, but they can stay mad while the rest of us join a new Superman in looking to the future with hope. [Jen Lennon]

Before James Gunn stepped in, though, the DCU was a mess. It wasn’t just bad reviews that were sinking DC’s films—then-new Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav kicked off his tenure by cancelling Batgirl after it had already finished production. It was a blow to star Leslie Grace and directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi, and it was a blow to us as we’ll never get to see Brendan Fraser’s take on the villain Firefly. For as exciting as Gunn’s appointment is, there’s still a lot of bad press—and bad films—to overcome. [Jen Lennon]

showed us . The pointless, glorified fan fiction that was did not. And then along came—not out of nowhere, although few could have predicted this result—the most compelling and essential Star Wars series yet. Created by Tony Gilroy and led by producer-star Diego Luna, Disney+’s Andor stunned critics, Star Wars fans, and casual viewers alike week after week this fall. It’s the latter camp for whom this edge-of-your-seat thriller following ’s Cassian Andor was particularly tailored; you can sense soon into the premiere episode that Gilroy and his collaborators are intentionally eschewing the so-called Easter eggs that have made franchises like this one feel like homework. Andor has no Force, no lightsabers, no Skywalkers taking up all the dramatic weight in this galaxy far, far away. Instead we find relatable human characters with nuanced inner lives, on both sides of an all-too-recognizable divide—the tyrannical Galactic Empire against the burgeoning Rebel Alliance. But those are merely vehicles for the real-life politics this series has no problem, and even makes a point of, resembling. Star Wars has always had roots in the struggle between dictatorship and freedom, in depicting the personal costs of rebellion. But it took a team of storytellers as skilled as they are audacious to push that to the emotional extreme that was Andor’s prison break episode, “One Way Out,” this year’s most triumphant TV moment. [Jack Smart]

As innovative and exciting as Andor was, was equally staid and disappointing. Even Ming-Na Wen couldn’t save this needless nostalgia trip. The worst thing about The Book Of Boba Fett, though, is that it simply couldn’t justify its own existence. The show had nothing new to say and no interesting stories to tell; it was exactly what every Star Wars fan had feared it would be. Hopefully, Lucasfilm learns from this—and follows Andor’s example in the future. [Jen Lennon]