So what was your best stuff of 2022?

I think I'm going with Prey as best movie of 2022. I didn't play many games this year.

Best Movie: Knives Out, maybe?
Best TV: Old Man and Station Eleven. Andor too. For me this is new since I haven’t watched TV beyond cooking shows in 20 years
Best Dish: Beef Wellington
Best Video Game: Jedi Fallen Order
Best Trip: Colorado Springs, August
Best Concert: Barenaked Ladies & Friends
Best Purchase: Either my house, my new Xbox, or my Ernie Ball Music Man BFR Axis Semihollow in Buttery Blonde
Best Present: Kero from Secret Satan!
Best Board Game: Decktective series!
Best Album: Sob Rock by John Mayer or Chris Cain’s Raisin Cain. Or maybe Eric Bibb’s Live á Fip.
Best Random Event: Went to an ATM and there was 60$ extra in my withdrawal.

Best Dish was probably the sausage-dog i had at I think first BBQ since pre-covid. If there's anything better than BBQ that someone else cooked then I can't think of it.

2022 was a rough year for me. To my ear, 2022 sounds like "2020 Too," but this was more of year of struggling to get back to normal with limited success. I can't even fill in most Best categories, because too often I only have one nominee. Or zero. For example, I only bought one board game this year, so it feels odd to say it was any sort of best. Best TV is a tough category because I really spent an excessive amount of time watching tv since March 2020. A fair chunk of my time involved dating, or at least trying to date by responding to a lot of online dating profiles. I somehow managed to average one date every other week this year, but it instead feels like a long dry spell compared to being in a serious relationship.

Best TV Show - Severance, Better Call Saul and Andor as runner up
Best Film - The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All At Once runner up
Board Game - John Company 2nd Edition
Video Game - Marvel Midnight Suns
Best Purchase - A loft bed for my kid. Told her we couldn't get one because I was worried she'd fall out (she seems to get hurt in some semi-serious way every year or so). Her surprise and elation when we surprised her was wonderful.

I don't have much that comes to mind here....
Best TV: Yellowjackets
Best video games: Elden Ring, Vampire Survivors
Best concert: Pet Shop Boys and New Order

I'm trying to figure out if this is this years thread where we all pretend to be too cool to like board games despite being a big ol' bunch of board game playing nerds posting on a board game website. I'm more than happy to chat about the elephant.

Best game
Although there are games that are technically better designed, more involving, and heck I even enjoy playing more, my best of the year is Cat In The Box. It's such a clever and innovative piece of work, something that I admire as much as if not more than I enjoy playing.
John Company feels like a 2021 game to me given all the TTS play we've had, but I suppose it should be a 2022 hit for me as well. Pretty much the perfect game for me in every respect, it manages to straddle the line between interaction and mechanical play with some real thematic statement thrown in as a bonus.
Really digging Eleven as well, I appreciate it is going to be very niche but it bang on target hits a certain sweet spot for me.
I will also risk the ire of the boo-boys by saying that Ark Nova is a really great game and thoroughly deserves the attention it is getting. I'll maintain that the learning curve is very shallow and very long, which generates a lot of misconceptions about things in the game not working or being broken that really just need some time to understand better - but I do respect and appreciate that is a journey that many are not interested in taking which is perfectly fine with me.

Best TV
It's an older show but this was the year that I was turned onto Joe Pera and it's simply fantastic, with a subtle, nuanced and very very dry sense of humour that I enjoy.
For shows first released in 2022 I'd say that Wednesday edges out Andor for us as family-watching shows. I liked Sandman quite a bit despite the divisive reaction. Nothing else jumps to mind as a stand-out.

Best Movie
Another older one but first watched this year - I thoroughly enjoyed The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent was simply brilliant. Not only does Nic Cage have the role of a lifetime playing a gonzo and very self-deprecating take on himself, it also manages to have a whole bunch of unexpected twists and turns that were a genuine delight. I think it's his best movie by a long mark, standing out especially due to all the DTV stuff he's ending up in these days. Lots still on my to-watch list that I need to get through so I'm often behind the zeitgeist, but the best released in 2022 that I've managed to catch was Prey.

Best Comic/Graphic Novel
In by Will McPhail is actually a 2021 release that I first read early this year, an engaging tragicomedy that explores themes of personal connections, challenging our preconceptions of the thoughts and emotions of others, and how we build our own barriers/masks/shells to cope with what we mistakenly believe are external expectations on our behaviours and actions. The visual style in which it is told is cleverly done with lots of subtle jokes in the background and some quite stunning visual effects later in the book.