The Things We (Actually) Loved to Watch in 2024
No matter how hard we try to fight it, sometimes the algorithm wins
Looking back at what we’ve watched over the past 12 months, one thing is clear: Between keeping up with all the movies hitting theaters (and streaming services), the latest in TV, our daily For You page perusal, or actually going outside, the competition for our eyeballs is real. And while we’d love to say that we’re totally tapped into all of the best in TV and film, we have to be real with ourselves: Our watch hours (did I really just type that?) aren’t always occupied by the apps we subscribe to. Here’s a look at what The Ringer staff was really watching in 2024.
Conner O’Malley on Late Night With Seth Meyers
From Coreys to Rap World to Stand Up Solutions, it was a big year for Conner O’Malley and the sickos who bow down to him. But if you ask me, the best thing he did this year was this interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers, a nine-plus-minute tour de force of ironic gonzo chaos. Talking to his former boss, O’Malley jumps from why he got fired (either because Meyers wouldn’t let him open-carry his airsoft gun or because he’s Irish) to his left-on-the-cutting-room-floor role in Twisters as the guy who gets anally penetrated by a tornado to speaking directly to camera and imploring Criss Angel to reach out to him (“There are people in your sphere that have your worst interests in their mind”). At one point, he responds to one of Meyers’s questions by asking, “What do you fucking care?” At another, he opens up the interview to questions from the audience by saying, “Yeah, you!” At the end of the interview, he asks, “Are you still doing late night?!”
Meanwhile, Seth Meyers is just along for the ride, trying to hang on, trying not to die laughing. The same goes for the viewer—even after you’ve watched this video a thousand times like I have, you somehow still don’t quite know what’ll happen next. —Andrew Gruttadaro
Whales
I moved to San Diego a year ago, and pretty much the first thing anyone says to do is go whale watching. So when I got my first visitor and an excuse to spend $60 to see some whales, I booked a tour. Most of the way, you’re riding the vast expanse, ignoring the moaning of seasick passengers who forgot their Dramamine and the teens trying to get a signal on their phones. Maybe a pod of dolphins swims by—cute, sure, but old news, and too eager to please. Every glimmer of light on the water could be a fin, any sea spray the sign of a spout. But then, if you’re lucky, someone on board will shout, “Whale!” and actually be right, and the captain will steer us in the direction of the elusive sea beast. He’ll explain that whales are known to dive deep underwater to get as far from us as possible, unwilling to play along with our bucket list checking and photo ops. But there, in the distance, is something real, the churn of a gray whale’s back as it surfaces for the popcorn eaters and slams its tail in the water to get farther from our goggling eyes. Those on board are brought together then, as we tiptoe for a last look at the departing whale and share the knowledge that the things we want most don’t care about us at all. But just catching a glimpse of it—a glimpse of something great and totally unconcerned by us—is enough for us passengers anyway. —Helena Hunt
Brest Talk
One way to look at the life of a professional athlete: You’re making a career out of being a giant kid. And in the case of CBS Sports’ Champions League crew, athletes get paid to goof off in their post-playing careers, too. This season, the Ligue 1 team Brest have not only qualified for the competition but have also given themselves a strong chance of advancing past the group stage; it’s an impressive achievement in its own right. But presenter Kate Scott and the show’s trio of former players, Thierry Henry, Jamie Carragher, and Micah Richards, can’t stop thinking about this team for another reason: Brest is just a fun word to say. (Ask your inner 12-year-old why these guys are tickled to talk about “Brest.”) In a November segment, a conversation about Brest—in which Richards was “banned” from talking—instantly devolved into punny nonsense. “Do you think Brest could get exposed tonight?” Scott asks Carragher ahead of their match with Barcelona. “I hope so!”
So dumb, so delightful, and so emblematic of why CBS’s Champions League coverage is soccer’s closest equivalent to Inside the NBA: Nothing’s better than watching this crew shoot the shit. As for Brest, well, they’re a sight to behold. —Miles Surrey
Somebody Somewhere
There were moments in the third and final season of Somebody Somewhere when I wondered if this little, unassuming HBO show was one of the very best series made in this quarter century. (Having also watched all of The Sopranos for the first time this year, it wasn’t a musing I took lightly.) Nothing against broken games of cosmic telephone or the allegorical superstructures that drive conflict in so much of TV, but sometimes you just need to cut through the bullshit. Sometimes you need a show that seeks honest-to-goodness equipment for living.
Somebody Somewhere doesn’t profess to have any answers to its questions, of which there are many. Is there a right way to grieve a death in the family? Is it wicked to center yourself in a friend’s transformational life milestone—or is that shift in a relationship dynamic worthy of its own grief? How do you give yourself the care and grace that you give to others? How do you dismantle the prison of believing you are unworthy of friendship, unworthy of love?
This final season is a beautiful curtain call for Sam and Joel (portrayed by Bridget Everett and Jeff Hiller, respectively), one of TV’s great friendships—outcasts who, brick by brick, rebuild each other’s self-esteem and affirm each other’s self-worth through fart jokes and (tiny) martinis. Their lives become immeasurably richer because of the other, in ways that finally allow them to seek a life and love beyond the other. —Danny Chau
Rick Ross’s Instagram
It gets called the Drake-Kendrick beef, but that obscures the fact that a dozen or so A-listers came together like the Allies in World War II to take down the great Canadian dictator. Future, Metro Boomin, the Weekend, Ja fucking Morant—the list of Drake’s haters was as long as it was impressive. When you consider the size of the egos involved and how quickly they were set aside, you can arrive at only one conclusion: Drake must really suck.
Case in point: He and Rick Ross had recorded an LP’s worth of classic collaborations over the past decade and a half. You may have thought this meant Rozay would at the very least play Switzerland. Not so: Within days of its release, he was riding around and blasting “Like That,” posting it on Stories. When Drake responded with a few lines on “Push Ups”—lines that were curiously edited, as if by libel attorneys, between the leak and the official version—Rick responded first with a song (it was fine) and then with many more posts on IG (they were excellent). For a few weeks, @richforever’s poolside dispatches became the greatest source of comedy on the internet. The highlight was Rick bestowing his onetime confidant with a new nickname, BBL Drizzy. It led to the only good use of AI to date and maybe the world’s first diss beat. Even Drake rapped on it, like Mussolini cracking open a Budweiser at the end of the war to be like, “See? All good.” It wasn’t, and we have the screen records of Rick Ross’s IG Stories to prove it. —Justin Sayles
Timothy Chernyaev’s TikToks
One of my favorite small joys of this year has been opening one of the scrolling apps and seeing a new video from Timothy Chernyaev, a.k.a. @relaxitsonlyfashion. He’s a Los Angeles–based stylist with a long résumé that includes names like Ariana Grande and Beyoncé. His videos are mostly runway show breakdowns, some red carpet reviews, plus the occasional commentary on, say, the “mob wife aesthetic” trend or the costume designs in The Batman. Chernyaev is smart and funny and toggles between discussing clothes as art and as commerce. One thing I appreciate is that, as much as possible, his content shows videos of clothes as opposed to the stills you see in magazines and in a lot of social media content. Even if that means you’re viewing looks styled for a runway, it’s a more realistic way of understanding an outfit. In a year with a huge amount of turnover at top fashion houses like Chanel, Celine, and Margiela, Chernyaev’s breakdowns were my favorite way to learn about one of the most gatekept creative industries. —Nora Princiotti
Chimp Crazy
I wish I kept track of the exact number, but when I watched HBO’s four-part documentary about primate pet ownership, I bet I full-on gasped at least 20 times. It’s lurid in a way that, frankly, made me uncomfortable. Yet I couldn’t look away.
What hooked me wasn’t the horror of it all (if you somehow didn’t already know, cooped-up chimpanzees are capable of astonishing violence!) or the kooky characters (Tonia Haddix feeds her “son” Tonka McDonald’s and Powerade). It was how director Eric Goode, who dubiously used a proxy to gain his wary subject’s trust, gets to the bottom of why exactly someone would want to raise a chimp. Spoiler: It’s usually for sad reasons.
All this to say: Underneath all the disturbing details and, OK, I’m just going to say it, funny moments—seeing Tonia try and fail to make PETA’s mild-mannered attorney into a supervillain made me laugh—is a sympathetic psychological study. After I finished the series, Tonia’s subculture made a little more sense to me than it did when I started. —Alan Siegel
Megalopolis
When you think back on the best things you watched in 2024, maybe a particularly impressive IMAX screening comes to mind, or a streaming series that had you glued to your TV, or maybe even a YouTube channel that kept you staring at your phone late into the night. But what about when visual media transcends the screen? I’m of course referring to Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, which, yes, is a movie, and there was plenty that happened on the actual screen that was, if anything, very memorable. But I’m talking about the moment when an actual, real, living, breathing human being walked into my theater with a microphone and had a conversation with Adam Driver, an actor in the movie Megalopolis, which was playing on the screen in front of this real, living, breathing human being. Let me reiterate: There was a real dude who asked a question to the screen. And the screen answered!
The scene itself is set at a press conference for Driver’s Cesar Catilina where the live actor asks a question about whether there’s anything to be afraid of in the future, which Catilina answers with a convoluted monologue about love and Ralph Waldo Emerson. That’s cinema, baby! Now, was the scene largely inconsequential and probably a pain in the ass to execute? Sure—but when we’re talking about the necessity of an experimental scene in a movie as batshit as Megalopolis, we’ve lost the plot. Ultimately, Megalopolis delivered something that, I’m going to assume, neither you nor I had ever seen in a movie theater before, and that’s exciting. And while it’s hard to give any credit to Coppola after a video of him kissing extras on the Megalopolis set came to light, we can celebrate the dedication of those live performers who came out to deliver a line to a theater that was probably, like, a third full. So to those performers, thank you for your service—if it were up to me, Uncredited Press Conference Attendee at the Landmark Theatres Sunset would be up for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year. —Julianna Ress
The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s Instagram Account
I’m deeply skeptical of animal stories on Instagram. That’s a lie. I’m the world’s biggest sucker for animal stories on Instagram. Make a time-lapse of a sad little shelter dog transforming into a jolly family pet and tack on the cheesiest neo-folk soundtrack banger of 2019, and you will make me gaze around the coffee shop with glistening eyes, holding my phone out indiscriminately to strangers and saying, “Look! Some things in the world are still good” in a slightly too-loud voice.
The algorithm knows this and exploits me mercilessly, as it should. Dogs who are best friends with tortoises. Iguanas who are best friends with wombats. Fish who are totally indifferent to their surroundings but edited to look like they’re best friends with Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote. Montages of sad pets cheering up under the care of loving humans are oxygen to me now. I used to watch prestige television. Now I watch traumatized marmots learn to trust again.
My favorite animal content from 2024, however, was easily the Instagram account of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a home for orphaned elephants and rhinos in Kenya. It’s both way more hardcore than most animal content (helicopter rescues of imperiled elephants are not uncommon) and way more emotionally captivating (if you think you love an indoor goat you saw in one 80-second video, wait till you spend years watching a mischievous baby rhino grow up). You learn the names and relationships of the orphans. You follow their daily lives. All the photography is great. The caption writing is top-notch. Today I watched a two-week-old elephant named Lenny teach himself to somersault. What else do you want from a Tuesday? Lenny! Some things in the world are still good. —Brian Phillips
The People’s Joker and The Wedding of Vera Drew and the Joker
The best piece of Batman-inspired media to hit screens this year wasn’t The Penguin. (The HBO hit was actually the best piece of Sopranos-inspired media of 2024, if you’re keeping score.) Rather, the best use of the Caped Crusader was a low-budget, lo-fi movie about transness that exists only because of the fair-use doctrine.
Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker went through all sorts of legal hell after the DIY movie hit the festival circuit in 2022. And it’s easy to see why: It’s 92 minutes of repurposed DC IP (along with the best depiction of Lorne Michaels I’ve ever seen, apologies to Jason Reitman). But it’s also something much more than that: Drew—a comedian who had worked mostly behind the scenes on shows like Nathan for You and I Think You Should Leave—tells the story of her coming of age and coming out through the lens of her consumption of Batman movies. (More specifically: Batman Forever, the 1995 edition that featured the Batsuit with the protruding nipples.) Eventually, as her journey takes shape, she becomes the literal Joker—or more accurately, Joker the Harlequin, which draws heavily from Joaquin Phoenix’s rendition—and falls in love with another Joker (this one inspired by Jared Leto’s). Watching Drew and her crew exist in a crudely animated CGI Gotham and take on the Batman (here depicted as a groomer) is, of course, a little silly. But it’s also touching in moments—and more importantly, it’s really funny. (Special shout-out goes to The People’s Joker’s Penguin, Nathan Faustyn, who doesn’t need to go full gabagool to turn in a great performance.)
In real life, Vera took on—and beat—a foe even tougher than Batman: the Warner Bros. attorneys. After several years of fighting back against cease-and-desist letters, the film’s star-director was able to release the movie in theaters in 2024. It became an instant cult hit, with Vera showing up in full clown makeup to a handful of screenings and syncing her dance moves with the movie during at least a few. The demand was so fervent that she rereleased in July with an extended intro, The Wedding of Vera Drew and the Joker. It’s essential for any People’s Joker fan—the Christopher Dorner joke is worth the price of admission alone—but you can’t watch it right now. Vera has thus far remained true to her word that The Wedding would be a one-night-only affair. It’s essentially lost media. Call it parody if you must, because the lawyers probably insist you do. I’ll call it something else: punk as fuck—something so chaotic that even the actual Joker could respect. —Sayles
50 Cent’s Instagram
“My dogs are being trained, they can’t be shitting all over the place. I like them better than people WORLD & WAR,” claimed 50 Cent on his Instagram account back in June. Where else can you find relatable art such as this? Curtis’s petty social media behavior allowed him to amass almost 34 million Instagram followers, and 2024 took his content to new heights following Diddy’s demise and arrest. Curtis curated the hell out of his account with memes and videos to celebrate his enemy’s downfall. And he did it with style, ending each caption by tagging his two liquor brands. His photo could be about anything, celebratory or sad, and you will always see “@bransoncognac @lecheminduroi” at the end of it. In an ever-changing world, it’s beautiful to witness consistency. Somehow, my favorite post from him this year followed the presidential election, when he shared blurry photos of him and Donald Trump with the caption, “I still don’t know what’s going on congratulations!” Was I confused? Yes. And so was Bad Sisters actress and daughter of Bono Eve Hewson, who commented, “NO!” But was I also entertained? Yes. And that’s all that matters. —Bridget Geerlings
Culinary Class Wars
Few TV shows that were released in 2024 hooked me the way that Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars did. I don’t watch much reality TV, and my skills in the kitchen leave a lot to be desired, but I was mesmerized by this Korean cooking competition. The series gathers 100 elite chefs, with a wide range of specialties and personalities between them, and divides them into two classes based on prestige: the Black Spoons and the White Spoons. The Black Spoons feature 80 chefs who are lesser known or achieved acclaim in unconventional ways, from a longtime elementary school cafeteria cook to a self-taught chef who learned how to cook by reading comic books. Meanwhile, the White Spoons feature 20 distinguished chefs: masters of their craft who have already cemented their place in the industry. Judged by celebrity chef Paik Jong-won and three-Michelin-star chef Anh Sung-jae, as well as a number of surprise guests along the way, these 100 chefs compete against each other until only one remains to claim a 300-million-won prize.
What sets Culinary Class Wars apart from the abundance of other cooking competitions on TV is its massive scale and over-the-top production. Like Physical: 100 before it, there is a clear aesthetic and conceptual influence from Squid Game, with stunning set designs and high-stakes challenges that reimagine how shows like this can go. Culinary Class Wars was such a hit in South Korea that reservations at the contestants’ restaurants exploded following the show’s release in September, and Netflix quickly renewed the series for a second season. With 12 episodes of nerve-racking (and deeply frustrating) cliff-hangers and tantalizing dishes that showcase the expertise and creativity of these culinary savants, each installment will make you race to watch the next one—and incredibly hungry. —Daniel Chin
The Little Birds That Come Take Big, Silly Baths at My $20 Plastic Birdbath
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before (you have), but I have continued my slide into unhinged bird ladydom apace. Last year around this time, an entire chirruping flock—not really the right word here; horde or swarm is a great deal more accurate—of robins found an empty flower pot on my deck that had filled up with rainwater. They spent days besieging it a dozen at a time for guzzling drinks, pathetic attempts to bathe in its too-small opening, and (especially) screaming avian dances with one another to determine who could guzzle/fail to bathe first. I figured human ingenuity might be able to either help or (depending on whether the person you’re talking to shares Terminal Bird Lady Syndrome and/or lives on my block) dramatically amplify this problem, so I purchased a $20 plastic birdbath that screws onto a ledge, which I installed a mere 10 feet from my living room couch. And lo! Have you ever watched a bird take a bath—really watched one? It is ridiculous! No animal has ever looked so graceful only to so totally and delightfully debase itself. Robins splish-splashing all year long. Regal blue jays diving in and fluffing themselves up into preposterous, soggy caricatures. Cowbirds stopping by in little mismatched pairs (doubtless on their way back from—and this is a scientific term—carrying out “mafia behavior”). Starlings chattering and diving, mourning doves using their beaks like weird little straws, sparrows and finches and cardinals everywhere! I now run what is, if not the hottest, then certainly the funniest (and noisiest) club in my neighborhood. My cat, who still enjoys hurling herself at the little birds who bravely come to dine at my similarly flimsy suction-cup window feeder, has grown so overwhelmed that she basically hides from them. A mockingbird has lately begun accepting raspberries from me—keep an eye on this space. (If you don’t hear from me, I have been taken by the birds, joyfully.) —Claire McNear
Sajam’s Will It Kill?
Sajam is one of the most popular streamers in the world of fighting games, an affable guy with an easy demeanor and a deep knowledge of the genre. A few years ago, he started hosting a monthly series called Will It Kill? It’s a killer premise, as far as games streaming goes: Viewers send Sajam clips of some character in some fighting game executing a combo that does some arguably unreasonable amount of damage, melting the opponent’s health bar—but will that combo successfully K.O. the opponent or leave them with a sliver of health? Sajam pauses the clip once the combo starts, the chat places bets, and then everyone revels in the aftermath. “Will It Kill?” is a clever way of showcasing a wide variety, in style and vintage, of fighting games, everything from Street Fighter 6 to Melty Blood to Ultra Fight Da ! Kyanta 2. It’s a good hang, ultimately, and this year, it’s become low-key but nevertheless must-see appointment viewing for me. —Justin Charity
The Bluey Season 3 Finale, “The Sign”
Wait, how did a children’s show end up here? Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Bluey isn’t a kids’ show. It’s a parenting show, in child-friendly packaging. In case you don’t have a child in the 3-8-year range, here’s what you need to know: Bluey is about a family of blue heeler dogs, living a suburban life in Australia. The two pups, Bluey and her younger sister, Bingo, are rambunctious, silly, sweet, and curious. Their parents, Chilli and Bandit, are loving and wise and, well, flawed. They are among the most richly drawn parents in all of television—and they’re cartoon canines. Bluey’s typical eight-ish-minute episodes are often hilarious, layered with jokes both kids and parents will find amusing (highly recommend the episode “Family Meeting,” which is about farts). But this show is full of heart. Episodes regularly deal in empathy and acceptance and what it means to grow up and develop and maintain friendships and relationships.
That brings me to “The Sign,” a supersized 28-minute episode that dropped in April, essentially a season finale for Season 3. (On Tuesday, Bluey’s creators announced an animated film is coming—and “The Sign” may have been the first experiment in a slightly longer format.) “The Sign” includes a family wedding, family drama, and a blue heeler getting cold feet but, most importantly, the entire core family grappling with uncertainty about the future. Will they sell their house and move away for Bandit’s new job? What is the meaning of home and community? There are no tidy answers; that’s the beauty of Bluey. If you’re the parent of a youngish child, good luck getting through it without shedding a tear or two. —Lindsay Jones
Sam Sulek’s YouTube Channel
I am not one of Sam Sulek’s nearly 4 million YouTube subscribers, but one wouldn’t know it from my watch history. I’ve never needed to subscribe because YouTube already recommends his videos to me, knowing I’ll click consistently. Sulek, a 22-year-old bodybuilder and fitness influencer whose subscriber count entered its bulking phase soon after he started uploading early last year, must be one of my most-viewed YouTubers, even though I’ve never watched one of his updates straight through. If I did, I couldn’t keep up with his posting pace.
Sulek’s videos, each of which runs for roughly the length of a prestige drama episode, have a hypnotic, conversational quality. He drives to the gym; he works out and poses down; he heads home again. Along the way, he monologues, grunts, and good-naturedly swears into a mic clipped to his ever-present cap. As the weeks and months pass, he bulks up and cuts down, in pursuit of the goal listed in the description of his first video: “300 lbs lean.”
Sulek likes to lift at odd hours, and the gyms he visits are sometimes almost empty. In the car, on occasion, he drives in darkness, dome light aside. His video titles tend to be barebones—generally just the day of the cut or the bulk, followed by the body part he’s working. Sporadically, Sulek collaborates with a legend of bodybuilding, but even then, there’s no flashy editing, no cinematic drone footage, and no soundtrack aside from the clang of the weights and the shop talk of two unimaginably meaty men. As my former Ringer colleague Chris Almeida noted for The New York Times this past spring, “He’s become a fascination not simply because he is physically massive and fairly charming, but because of his almost defiant commitment to a lo-fi strategy.”
Sulek, who looks like jacked SpongeBob when he removes his sweat-sodden shirts, maintains presences on some other platforms—he has more than 6 million followers on Instagram, where he hardly posts—but YouTube is his natural habitat. In the 699 days from his January 19, 2023, debut through December 18, he published 664 videos. The constancy is comforting—and effective, as far as the algo goes. By training to failure, he’s found colossal success.
Unlike a lot of fitness figures who are clearly on gear, Sulek doesn’t claim to be natural, but he doesn’t explicitly promote steroid use, either. It’s still somewhat concerning that he’s a hero to his young, overwhelmingly male audience, considering the body-image issues and health risks that can come with dreams of matching him muscle for muscle, or stepping on stage. Yet when he whips off his pump cover, effortfully flexes, and delights in how huge he is—often actually laughing at the sight of his own size or “freaky” definition—you can’t help but be happy for him. Sometimes it’s dangerous to do what you love.
Clearly, a large audience loves following Sulek’s growth—though I have noticed some conspicuously low view counts for his calf, quad, and hamstring workouts, compared to back, chest, shoulders, and arms. Which just goes to show that no one likes leg day, even via video. —Ben Lindbergh
Luke Combs and Tracy Chapman Singing “Fast Car” at the Grammys
I’m not proud, but I’ll admit it: For a time, I was one of those people who would hear country singer Luke Combs’s omnipresent cover of Chapman’s 1988 all-timer “Fast Car” on Top 40 radio and sniff that nothing can ever match the original, hmph! Until I tuned in to the Grammy Awards back in February, that is, and was immediately disarmed by a pre-recorded interview with Combs in which the big guy effectively said the same thing. “It was my favorite song before I even knew what a favorite song was,” Combs said in the segment, remembering how as a boy he’d listen to “Fast Car” on cassette in his dad’s truck. “It’s already iconic before you’ve even heard the words,” he added about the song’s opening lick. “OK, Luke Combs,” I thought. “I’m listening.”
And then, live from the Grammys stage, those notes kicked up from someone’s guitar, and it was everything Combs described and much more. The stars seated up front noticed first—that’s Tracy Chapman!—and as the camera panned to her beaming face and the speakers swelled with her gluey voice, the people in back realized it, too, new rounds of cheers popping up from each tranche. Nothing can ever match the original, and here the original was, her light laid out before us, a reverent Combs on stage beside her and also clearly beside himself. He looked like a little boy sitting shotgun again, wide-eyed and deeply thrilled to be along for the ride. He looked just how I felt. Now, since that February night, whenever I hear either version of “Fast Car” on the radio, I reach out and turn up the volume, as high as it goes. —Katie Baker