Lists: dontcha hate them?

Some people hate lists. My dearest friend, for example, does. I, however, love them. When I was at medical school I created hundreds of them as a way of memorizing the immense slew of information it is necessary for the would-be doctor to absorb. And ever since I have found them of inestimable value in deciding which films to watch (as in the list of 256 "4 star movies" to be found at the end of Halliwells celebrated film guide) or books to read, as may be found in the closing part of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, where a community of people have committed the text of some of the world's great novels to memory in the absence of written books, most of which have been burned.

Let us start with television. Here there are only two items on the list:
1. BBC TV's Wolf Hall
2. Channel 4's Fargo, series 1 and 2.

Wolf Hall was unquestionably the best thing to come out of British television this year, and is a worthy successor to the great historical dramas of the 60s and 70s, namely The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth R  and The Shadow of the Tower.
Both series of Fargo I found gripping, terrifying and totally addictive. Created and in large part written by Noah Hawley, they both exhibited high standards of acting and production values throughout, and completely justified the Coen brothers decision to allow the name of their great movie Fargo to be used.

FIVE BOOKS:

1. THE MAKIOKA SISTERS, by Junichiro Tanizaki
2. BUDDENBROOKS, by Thomas Mann
3. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, by Winston S. Churchill
4. THE WHITE GUARD, by Mikhail Bulgakov
5. THE BOOK OF DAVE, by Will Self

TEN FILMS:
1.  SHOA D- Claude Lanzmann
2.  THE BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB D- Wim Wenders
3.  STILL ALICE W/D- Richard Glatzer
4.  OCTOBER 1917: TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD D- Sergei Eisenstein
5.  BOYHOOD W/D- Richard Linklater
6.  EX MACHINA D- Alex Garland
7.  SOPHIE SCHOLL D- Marc Rothermund
8.  THE TIME THAT REMAINS D- Elia Suleiman
9.  ANGEL FACE D- Otto Preminger
10.NANOOK OF THE NORTH W/D- Robert J Flaherty

Please note these are the best books and films I have encountered for the first time this year. Hence I don't count classics like The Third Man which I saw just a few days ago, possibly for the 27th time. I have been privileged to discover them this year, and you would do very well to do the same next year, should any of them have passed you by thus far. Enjoy!