Bushisms. Sex Scenes. Evil Tech Companies. Slate’s Ranked It All.
Slate · L · trust 37/100
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Much in the same way Slate was early to formats that would come to dominate digital publishing—explainers, deliberately counterintuitive arguments, chat podcasts—so too were we early progenitors of the internet listicle. In our very first year, we kicked off the Slate 60, an annual ranking of the 60 most generous philanthropic donors in the United States that ran every year up through 2011, as a counter to the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. (The concept was then brought back with a twist in 2018, as seen below.) Not long after, we began Jacob Weisberg’s yearslong tabulation of the George W. Bush gaffes known as “ Bushisms ,” as well as another Forbes spoof, the 80 Over 80 (which ran from 2008–10 and saw a brief revival in 2020, as seen below).
Slate’s three decades have seen countless beginner’s guides , staff recommendations , tabulations of game-night commercials , and “ Completist ” roundups of everything from Pepperidge Farm cookies to Super Bowls. As such, some exclusions were necessary to make this List of Lists work, including year-specific rankings, gift ideas, and stuff that’s simply far too outdated. Still, the following 60(!) lists and rankings from over the years will give you a good sense of Slate’s canon-making, provocative, whimsical approach to one of digital media’s most stubbornly persistent constructs.
Year: 2009 Compiled by: Jacob Weisberg Of note: Selected from more than 500 Bushisms collected from 1999–2009, many of which were also printed in a book .
Year: 2011 Compiled by: David Robert Mitchell Of note: Commissioned to commemorate Mitchell’s debut feature film, The Myth of the American Sleepover , years before he would really break out with It Follows .
Year: 2012 Compiled by: Tom Scocca Of note: Evaluated via the Kinsey scale .
Year: 2012 Compiled by: Matt Gaffney Of note: Decided by “ Shortz Factor ,” an equation formulated by Gaffney and named for the famous puzzle master, in order to rank famous people who are “better known by regular crossword-solvers than by the general population.”
Year: 2012 Compiled by: Katy Waldman Of note: Commissioned in recognition of then–VP Joe Biden’s professed support for marriage equality. Appropriately, an updated version of this list would have to include Mike Pence’s refusal to challenge Biden’s 2020 victory .
Year: 2012 Compiled by: Aisha Harris Of note: Written as a counter to the A.V. Club’s very white, very male list of the best of the ’90s; many of the selections here would later make it into Harris’ Black Film Canon (see below).
Year: 2013 Compiled by: Slate Staff Of note: Published in honor of Gandolfini after the Sopranos star’s untimely death.
Year: 2013 Compiled by: Slate Staff Of note: Per the subheading, this encompasses “almost-forgotten moments” from recent history “that would have ‘won the Internet’ if they happened today.”
Year: 2014 Compiled by: Forrest Wickman Of note: Each remix was rated on a scale of “surfborts.”
Year: 2014 Compiled by: Forrest Wickman and Ellie Skrzat Of note: The rapper Birdman is ranked near the bottom, a fact that I personally resent.
Years: 2014 Compiled by: Eliza Berman and Slate Staff Of note: Other Slate-curated reading lists exist for Gawker , the Toast , and the Awl/the Hairpin .
Year: 2014 Compiled by: Ben Blatt Of note: Every Declaration of Independence signatory is ranked here by how many square inches their name takes up.
Year: 2014 Compiled by: Slate Staff Of note: The first year of Slate Plus!
Year: 2015 Compiled by: Dana Stevens Of note: Written in commemoration of the show’s finale, although the Phineas and Ferb movies that have been released since then may necessitate a reassessment . [ Editor’s note: My daughter and I think the omission of “Squirrels in My Pants” is criminal. —Hillary Frey ]
Year: 2015 Compiled by: Matthew J.X. Malady Of note: My home state’s appropriate word? Yooper .
Year: 2015 Compiled by: Laura Bennett Of note: Although the numerical scale spanned from 1–10, one particularly ignominious scene earned a score of −1.
Year: 2015 Compiled by: Laura Bennett Of note: Accompanied Bennett’s classic cover story “ Why Did the Harrowing Personal Essay Take Over the Internet? ”
Year: 2015 Compiled by: Jeffrey Bloomer Of note: Yes, Gremlins is on here.
Year: 2016 Compiled by: Jonathan L. Fischer, Ian Prasad Philbrick, and Daniel Hubbard Of note: The state represented at No. 1 has not given its electoral votes to a Republican presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush.
Year: 2016 Compiled by: Gabriel Roth Of note: Both a “definitive list of reasons the films of Joel and Ethan Coen seem to beg us to organize them by perceived merit” and a personal ranking of said filmography by Roth.
Year: 2016 Compiled by: Aisha Harris and Dan Kois Of note: Earned a sweeping update and expansion in 2023 as The New Black Film Canon .
Year: 2016 Compiled by: Marissa Martinelli and David Canfield Of note: Includes at least two Hamilton cast members.
Year: 2017 Compiled by: Josh Levin and Marissa Martinelli Of note: The No. 1 pick really captures how things felt after the 2016 election.
Year: 2017 Compiled by: Slate Staff Of note: Sadly, none of these terrible movies has ever earned a Disaster Artist –style treatment. There’s still time!
Year: 2017 Compiled by: Lawrence Ware Of note: Number of a cappella groups represented in this list: 1.
Year: 2018 Compiled by: Slate Staff Of note: One entry here bans an entire group.
Year: 2018 Compiled by: Several music critics (all ballots here ) Of note: Accompanied by two playlists that exclusively feature covers of all the listed future classics.
Year: 2018 Compiled by: Felix Salmon and Slate Staff Of note: “The Slate 90…
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