BEST OF THE "BEST".(The Talk of the Town)

As Aristotle said (was it Aristotle? maybe it was Parmenides), Man is the list-making animal. He was dreaming, no doubt, of a list, someday, of the Top Ten Philosophers. Such a list might fall a little short of universal appeal. That cannot be said, though, of the lists of the year's Top Ten Movies and Top Ten Albums (and also, in many publications, of the Top Ten Books, Art Exhibits, Moments in Sports, and so on) that arrive each December, during the week before New Year's. Everyone acts superior to lists (so arbitrary and invidious!), but the act is a bluff. The fact of the matter is basic and ineluctable: we need these lists. The year would not be complete without them. The year would not make sense without them.

The first response to the appearance of the ten-best lists is simple gratitude. It is good to know that someone has been paying attention. Once upon a time, you had at least heard the names of pretty much all the albums and movies that came out. Today, a visit to Tower Records or the Virgin Megastore is an invitation to vertigo. It's not just that you don't recognize ninety per cent of the stuff for sale. You don't even recognize the categories. Electronica, Techno-House, Alternative Country, IDM (it stands for Intelligent Dance Music, as opposed, evidently, to the other kind). There are rows of bins containing Christian-rap CDs, and people are actually looking through them. You need, you realize, a list, and in exactly the same way that a drowning sailor needs a life preserver. The people who make these annual lists, the daily or weekly reviewers, have crossed the great sea of packaged amusement, pathos, and distraction for us, and they have emerged, clutching in their hands just ten plastic jewel cases. Here, they say; these are the best. We can imagine the nausea and entertainment fatigue they must have suffered during their twelve-month ordeal. We admire their grit and their pluck, and we salute them.

Of course, like all things that pretend to perfect transparency, a top-ten list is the result of juggling and calculation. It looks straightforward: ten numbers, ten titles. Of the (at least) five hundred movies released in the United States in 2003, these just happen to be the best ten, and in this order. (Critics who present their top-ten lists alphabetically are dodging their own bullets. If ten movies are clearly superior to the four hundred and ninety others, why would it be elitist to make further distinctions? If you can get a top ten, why can't you get a top five, and a top three, and a top one?) But best-ness isn't the only factor that goes into the making of an annual ten-best list. After all, what does every critic who makes a ten-best list secretly wish? That his or her list will be the best ten-best list. The list itself has to be fun, interesting, good.

For example, it would not do to list ten movies all of which star Nicole Kidman. Pure eclecticism is to be avoided; it duplicates the dizzying randomness of the megastore experience. But a good list displays a healthy, big-tent ecumenism, and an expansive tolerance with respect to Billboard rankings and box-office gross. In a mass-market publication, a movie list should contain one foreign-language film that few readers have heard of. (Two might look effete.) Uniqueness is the desideratum ...