My Favorite Movies, TV Shows, Books, Podcasts, Music, Video games

This is a list of my favorite movies, TV shows, books, podcasts, music, and video games

Movies

• Mr. Nobody (2009)
• Gladiator (2000)
• Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice) (1971)
• Before Sunrise (1995) + Before Sunset (2004) + Before Midnight (2013)
• Apocalypse Now (1979)
• Climax (2018)
• The Square (2017)
• Hardcore Henry (2016)
• Manifesto (2016)
• The Neon Demon (2016)
• Macbeth (2015)
• Ex Machina (2014)
• Духless 2 (2015)
• Kis Uykusu (Winter Sleep) (2014)
• Across the Universe (2007)
• Hercules (2014)
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
• Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
• The Departed (2006)
• The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
• Equilibrium (2002)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• Pi (1997)
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
• Project X (2012)
• Saving Private Ryan (1998)
• Духless (2011)
• Pulp Fiction (1994)
• To Rome with Love (2012)
• Crank (2006)
• Crank: High Voltage (2009)
• Stalingrad (1993)
• Sin City (2005)
• Interstellar (2014)
• Брат (1997)
• Civil War (2024)
• Все умрут, а я останусь (2008)
• Metropolitan (1990)

TV shows

1. Skins (UK, season 1)
2. Generation Kill
3. Project Runway (season 1)

Honorable mentions:

• True Detective (season 2)
• Слово пацана (Boy’s word) (2023)
• Breaking Bad
• American Dad
• Scrubs
• Daria
• My So-Called Life
• Futurama

Books

Autobiographies / Memoirs:

• Freeman Dyson’s From Eros to Gaia
• Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
• Steve Friedman’s Lost on The Treasure Island
• Vladimir Bukovsky’s To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter (И возвращается ветер)
• Nikolai Ostrovsky’s How the Steel Was Tempered (Как закалялась сталь)
• James Watson’s The Double Helix
• Blake Butler’s Molly (2023)

Self-help

• Scott Adams' How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big (2013)

Fiction:

• Richard Aldington’s Death of a Hero (1921)
• Milan Kundera’s The Joke (1967)
• Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov (Братья Карамазовы) (1872) & Demons (Бесы) (1880)
• Theodore Dreiser’s Trilogy of Desire: The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), The Stoic (1947)
• Abbe Prevost’s Manon Lescaut (1731)
• Stendhal’s The Red and the Black (1830)

Non-fiction:

• Andrew Groen’s Empires of Eve
• William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience
• Robert Caro’s The Power Broker
• Michael Soussan’s Backstabbing for Beginners
• Занимательная Греция Михаила Гаспарова
• Ryan Holiday’s Conspiracy
• John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood
• James Gleick’s The Information
• Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things
• Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind
• Ryan Holiday’s Trust Me, I’m Lying
• McLynn’s Napoleon
• Montefiore’s Young Stalin & Stalin
• Garrow’s Rising Star
• Green’s Alexander of Macedon
• Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (see also my critical review)

Podcasts

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History

Note: after adding this I learned that HH has lots of serious factual errors (a). I still enjoy it a lot but think of it as “inspired by true events” kind of podcast now.

Best episodes: 01 - Alexander versus Hitler, 03 - The Organization of Peace, 05 - Meandering Through The Cold War, 09 - Darkness Buries the Bronze Age, 12 - Steppe Stories, 13 - Bubonic Nukes, 17 - Judgment at Nineveh, 19 - Apache Tears, 20 - (Blitz) History Under The Influence, 21-23 Punic Nightmares, 26 - (BLITZ) Addicted to Bondage, 33 - (Blitz) Old School Toughness, 34-39 Death Throes of the Republic, 50-55 - Blueprint for Armageddon, 61 - (BLITZ) Painfotainment

Music

A few of my most favorite songs ever:

• Two Door Cinema Club - Changing Of The Seasons
• Meg Myers - Sorry
• Marina and the Diamonds - Are You Satisfied?
• The Cardigans - And Then You Kissed Me
• The Cardigans - Paralyzed
• Garbage - Stupid Girl
• Atmosphere - The Waitress
• Eminem - The Way I am
• MS MR - Hurricane
• Aimee Mann - You Never Loved Me
• Tessa Violet - On My Own
• Владимир Высоцкий - Вершина
• Oxxxymiron - Башня из слоновой кости
• Noize MC - Когда-нибудь
• Земфира - Искала

English

• Aimee Mann
• Atmosphere
• Avril Lavigne
• The Beatles
• The Cardigans
• Eminem
• Florence + The Machine
• Garbage
• Gossip
• Highly Suspect
• Ida Maria
• Jack Wood
• Justin Bieber
• La Roux
• Lana Del Rey
• Lera Lynn
• Lil Peep
• Marina and The Diamonds
• Meg Myers
• MS MR
• The Neighbourhood
• Paramore
• Parcels
• PJ Harvey
• Tessa Violet
• Two Door Cinema Club
• The Pretty Reckless
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• N.W.A.

Russian

• CENTR
• Noize MC
• Oxxxymiron
• Андрей Макаревич
• Владимир Высоцкий
• Звери
• Земфира

Video games

• Battlefield 2
• Battlefield 3
• Mount and Blade: Bannerlod
• Starcraft 2
  • Favorite players: Stephano (zerg), sOs (protoss), Taeja (protoss), Life (zerg), MC (protoss)
  • Favorite matches: sOs vs. herO (IEM Katowice 2014)
• Europa Universalis 4
• Civilization 5
• CS:GO

Sports

• Favorite football players:
  • Luke Kuechly
  • Julian Edelman
  • Tom Brady

Appendix

Anirudh Kannan writes about How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big:

You mention that How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big is “probably the most important book [you’ve] ever read.”

I’ve had a similar experience with that book; I downloaded the audiobook in March 2020 and went from suicidal 19 y/o to profoundly optimistic (etc.) at 20. Hard to overstate the impact it’s had on me.

Other people’s favorite lists

1. Matt Lakeman