best video game essay channels reddit

Favoree's guide to YouTube

13 Best Video Essay YouTubers in 2024 According to Viewers

Tamara Indriana

First of all, what even is a video essay ?

The line between video essays and documentaries is often muddy. While both video essays and documentaries use audiovisual elements to convey ideas and narratives, they differ in their focus, narrative structure, visual style, and intended audience.

Video essays offer critical analysis and interpretation of visual media, while documentaries provide factual information on real-life events and experiences. One key tip to distinguish between the two is that documentaries focus on getting answers from primary sources , like conducting interviews.

Video essays have gained popularity in recent years, particularly on YouTube. The accessibility of digital editing tools and visual media makes it easier than ever for aspiring filmmakers, critics, and scholars to produce and share their own video essays with the world.

In this article, we have compiled a list of the best video essayists on YouTube. Join us as we unravel the intricacies of these digital storytellers who put their viewers on the edge of their seats.

If video essays are not your cup of tea and you’re looking for something more educational, check out our article on the best documentary YouTube channels .

13 Top Video Essay YouTube Channels in 2024

This list is compiled from the opinions of  Favoree  and  Reddit  users.

In no particular order:

1.  EmpLemon  – 1.2M Subscribers

Emplemon blends elements of documentary-style storytelling with humor and cultural critique. Through his videos, Emplemon tells stories about internet culture, dissecting its quirks with razor-sharp wit and insight.

His contents elicit a rollercoaster of emotions, from laughter at absurd internet phenomena to contemplation of the impact of online communities on society.

2.  ContraPoints  – 1.8M Subscribers

Natalie Wynn, better known as Contrapoints, makes incisive video essays about social topics. Initially gaining fame for providing leftist rebuttals to right-wing content, Wynn’s dark humor and elaborate productions captivate audiences.

While her style has evolved to include more intimate settings, Wynn’s content remains intellectually stimulating, featuring detailed philosophical discussions presented in a visually stunning manner.

Natalie is not only an icon for her video essays, she’s also one of the most influential Trans creators on YouTube .

3.  ColdFusion  – 4.7M Subscribers

ColdFusion is a prominent YouTube channel making high-quality videos on corporations and their scandals. The channel’s soothing narration style contributes to a relaxing viewing experience.

With professional editing and a focus on interesting subject matter, ColdFusion delivers compelling insights into the latest trends and developments shaping the world of business and technology.

Check out our article on the best economics YouTube channel if you’re interested in improving your financial knowledge!

4.  Wendigoon  – 3.4M Subscribers

Wendigoon’s exploration of horror and supernatural phenomena certainly gives viewers goosebumps. With a focus on topics like urban legends , paranormal encounters, and mysterious occurrences, Wendigoon delivers chilling narratives that leave viewers intrigued and unsettled.

The channel’s immersive storytelling and atmospheric visuals evoke a sense of unease, drawing audiences into the eerie world of the unknown. Wendigoon’s expertly crafted videos combine suspenseful narration with haunting imagery, creating an unforgettable viewing experience.

Can’t get enough of chilling true crime stories? Our article on the best true crime YouTube channels will help you find more creators to watch.

5.  hbomberguy  – 1.6M Subscribers

Hbomberguy is a highly respected YouTuber famous for his well-researched video essays. With a focus on various topics ranging from video games to social critiques of modernity, Hbomberguy delivers arguments backed by cited facts. His recent video that exposed Internet Historian has gotten the most attention and discourse.

Despite a sporadic upload schedule, his content is eagerly anticipated, offering deep dives into internet culture and thought-provoking analyses.

6.  Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell  – 21.8M Subscribers

Kurzgesagt is incredible at explaining complex scientific concepts and philosophical ideas in a simple way. Through stunning art and animation, Kurzgesagt brings these topics to life.

Covering a wide range of subjects from space exploration to biology, the channel’s videos are both educational and visually captivating, leaving viewers feeling inspired and enlightened. Kurzgesagt offers an immersive journey into the wonders of the universe, sparking curiosity and wonder in audiences worldwide.

7.  Fredrik Knudsen  – 1.2M Subscribers

A cult favorite, Fredrik Knudsen’s acclaimed series “Down the Rabbit Hole” investigates obscure corners of the internet and perplexing aspects of history.

Known for his unbiased and objective approach, Knudsen presents his subjects in a neutral manner, allowing facts to speak for themselves. His thought-provoking content offers insights into the complexities of human experiences and internet phenomena.

8.  blameitonjorge  – 1.7M Subscribers

Blameitonjorge is beloved for his videos centered around lost media, creepy events, and obscure topics. With a soothing and friendly voice, Jorge’s narration style is modest, respectful, and intelligently humorous, offering a refreshing contrast to typical list-making channels.

His videos cover a diverse range of subjects, including UFO sightings, nostalgia, horror movies, true crime, and Mexican urban legends, all presented with meticulous research and informative editing. Blameitonjorge’s efforts to uncover unanswered mysteries and controversies breathe new life into forgotten topics.

9.  Solar Sands  – 1.3M Subscribers

Solar Sands, an American YouTuber, specializes in video essays analyzing and reviewing art, culture, and archaeology. His long form contents concentrate on retrospectives on various aspects of artistic quality, including the history of low-resolution paintings in Minecraft and analyses of artists like Trevor Henderson .

Solar Sands’ content offers unusual insights into the world of art and culture, appealing to viewers interested in thought-provoking discussions and analyses.

10.  Philosophy Tube  – 1.5M Subscribers

Abigail Thorn, AKA Philosophy Tube, is a British YouTuber exploring philosophy, politics, and personal identity through theatrical presentations and insightful discussions. Abigail’s well-researched content creates a deeper understanding of complex topics and provides support for those grappling with personal identity.

Her inclusive and authentic approach transforms philosophical concepts into accessible narratives, while her openness about her transgender journey inspires self-acceptance in viewers. With a blend of academic rigor and theatrical flair, Philosophy Tube continues to educate and entertain her audiences.

Want a deeper understanding of philosophy without breaking the bank? Check out the best philosophy YouTube channels to learn more!

11. Super Eyepatch Wolf – 1.7M Subscribers

John Walsh, also known as Super Eyepatch Wolf , is an Irish YouTuber renowned for his analytical-style videos primarily focused on anime, with occasional forays into manga and video games.

Unlike many other anime YouTubers, his presentation style stands out for its calm and passionate delivery. His content resonates with audiences seeking thoughtful analysis and insightful commentary.

12. Folding Ideas – 920K Subscribers

Dan Olson or Folding Ideas is a YouTube channel offering long-form video essays on internet culture. From NFTs to nuggets, he makes any topic interesting and will leave you looking for more.

While the writing can occasionally seem overly clever, Dan Olson’s thoroughly researched insights provide valuable perspectives into tech grifts and other media. Despite only uploading every few months, the channel’s in-depth and insightful content is highly appreciated by viewers.

13. Jacob Geller – 1.2M Subscribers

Jacob Geller offers thought-provoking video essays that seamlessly blend topics such as video games, history, politics, and more. With a dark yet empathetic tone, Geller digs deep into philosophical, ethical, metaphysical, and psychological themes, using gaming as a springboard for discussions.

Whether discussing a specific video game mod or architectural design, Jacob’s talent shines through in his insightful videos, offering a deep exploration of video games with surprising depth.

Why are video essays important?

Video essays are important as they provide a platform for creators to offer nuanced interpretations and critical perspectives on various subjects. They serve as engaging educational tools, stimulating discussions and deepening understanding of visual media and cultural phenomena.

What are the benefits of video essays?

Video essays offer benefits such as fostering critical thinking, providing accessible and entertaining educational content, and offering a fresh approach to the analysis and exploration of visual media.

What’s the difference between a video essay and a documentary?

The difference lies in their focus, narrative structure, visual style, and intended audience. While video essays offer critical analysis and interpretation of visual media, documentaries provide factual information on real-life events and experiences, often by obtaining answers from primary sources through interviews.

Is video essay a genre?

Video essay is not a genre in the traditional sense. Rather, it is a format or style of content creation that can encompass a wide range of subjects and approaches, from film analysis to cultural critique.

Get YouTuber contacts and data

Tell us the categories of YouTubers you want to reach out for your campaign at [email protected]

We’ll share a list of verified email contacts from active and relevant channels. More info here .

Toy artist, illustrator, literary enthusiast. Chronically online and addicted to YouTube.

Are you a YouTube creator and you didn’t find your channel on our lists ? Let us know! 🔎

We are building the largest YouTube channel database.

Get access to millions of active YouTube channels.

Recent articles

How to Find the Subscriber Growth of YouTube Channels in 2024

How to Run an Influencer Marketing Campaign on YouTube in 2024

How to find out if a YouTube channel is monetized?

How to View Video Data on YouTube

6 Ways to Find Rising YouTube Channels in 2024

7 Best Alternatives To YouTube in 2024

How to Contact YouTubers for Advertising Campaigns in 2024

12 Best Reaction YouTubers in 2024

View all latest articles →

Are you a YouTube creator and you didn’t find your channel on our lists ?

Let us know! 🔎

Discover more from Favoree

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

Joseph Anderson & 9 Other Best Video Game Essay YouTube Channels

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

YouTuber's Stream Removed For Attempting No-Sleep World Record

Streamer claims to have beaten non-existent world record, getting swatted in the process, youtuber follows up world record no-sleep attempt with a 38 hour sleep stream.

A large majority of us get our gaming content from secondary sources. Whether it be a dedicated news website, or a favorite YouTuber. Gaming on YouTube isn't as prevalent anymore as it was around 2013-2016, but there are still people around putting in work!

RELATED: AVGN: 10 Best Episodes Of The Angry Video Game Nerd

These channels write and record dedicated videos about game reviews, topic points, and story analysis. The videos are usually over two hours long full of research and opinions alike that other fans are usually in agreement on. Compiled below are just 10 of these hard workers, but there are even more hiding in the corners of YouTube.

10 Joseph Anderson

Joseph Anderson is currently working on dissecting The Witcher franchise. He started off with a four hour video discussing Geralt's beginnings in the first game and has now reached The Witcher 2 in a five hour video.

Joseph's channel reviews focus a lot on story and ideas as it pertains to the game. Sometimes he works on five hour long videos that take months of writing, research, and editing. Other times he creates 10 minute videos of short but sweet reviews or opinions for people who prefer to get it down quick.

9 The Closer Look

The Closer Look takes a closer look at consumer response when it comes to video games and movies alike. He looks at how people reacted, and how developers/producers might have went wrong or right when it comes to their viewership being happy.

Henry of The Closer Look discusses topics most people have strong opinions on, even if they didn't realize they did. He also puts two and two together where fans never would have thought. Have no fear, though, because he too creates shorter videos sometimes.

8 Gaming Historian

Instead of talking about whether a game was good or not, Gaming Historian documents gaming as we have known it. He makes dedicated videos anywhere from 40 minutes long to five hours about historical moments gamers never knew or remember vividly.

Some of these moments include " When a 9-Year-Old Sued Nintendo " and " Who Invented the D-Pad? " The Gaming Historian provides closed captioning on most videos and does reviews here and there as well so you can never get bored!

7 Robin Gaming

From The Netherlands, Robin Gaming partakes in discussing various different things. He does reviews, story analysis, recommendations and more. Anyone who gets soothed by accents will enjoy listening to Robin Gaming all day.

RELATED: 10 Minecraft Youtubers Worth Watching In 2020

His topic range is vast. His shorter videos (compared to five hours) might be preferable for those with less time on their hands or who have trouble focusing.

6 Chris Davis

Chris Davis writes critiques about his takes and opinions on gaming genres and stories. His videos are ones you watch after finishing the game , wondering what everyone else thinks. Or maybe to see if it's worth getting in the first place.

As said in his description, Chris talks for however long he feels like. Therefore, his videos can be hours long or mere minutes! Every single video includes closed captioning, aiding anyone who needs to focus or cannot listen.

5 NeverKnowsBest

Reviews and critiques included, NeverKnowsBest also touches on wider topics like " How Mods Changed Gaming Forever " and " No game NEEDS an easy mode. "

Their reviews are mostly on RPGs like Fallout , Dragon Age , and Pillars of Eternity . NeverKnowsBest has fewer videos but is coming up in the video game essay world. Videos range to about an hour long.

4 PushingUpRoses

PushingUpRoses does a wide range of analytical work on her channel. She mostly writes up videos on old retro TV shows ( X-Files , Murder She Wrote ) and specific episodes, but still does gaming reviews on retro games as well.

She has a variety of old Let's Plays playlists' and recent playlists on video game reviews. Her video discussions come off like that of a charismatic TV show host, adding another layer of entertainment to the videos. Her video lengths are always around 10 minutes, being on the short but sweet side of things, and most contain closed captioning.

3 RagnarRox

If horror and dark themes are more your thing, RagnarRox is the essay channel to go to. RagnarRox focuses heavily on horror games like The Cat Lady , Resident Evil , and lots of classic Japanese horror.

RELATED: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Ninja And His Twitch Channel

He has recurring episodes & series on his channels. " Forgotten Gems " is one of these, where he reviews and discusses old and forgotten video games that deserve a discussion or two." Monsters of The Week " is another where a game is chosen and the enemy or monster in the story is given light. His videos are usually around 20 minutes long and all contain closed captions.

2 The Geek Critique

The Geek Critique is home to many discussions about retro  games . Games like the Sonic franchise, Metroid , and Mario are often analyzed here. Every now and again The Geek Critique speaks on different classic, but old, consoles and gaming tech. This is a retro spot for those who used to enjoy arcades full of Sega games.

1 Avalanche Reviews

Avalanche Reviews creates survival horror game reviews and critiques. He looks at popular franchises to dissect rather than the horror genre alone. There are many Resident Evil and Silent Hill videos for fans to enjoy, sprinkled with other dark survival games here and there like Daymare .

These reviews can be up to 40 minutes long. Anyone who's a long time fan of popular survival franchise's retro and new alike can find a home here at Avalanche Reviews.

NEXT: The 10 Gaming YouTubers With The Most Subscribers This Decade

• Download YouTube Videos
• What is YouTube Premium?
• Free Movies on YouTube
• Play YouTube in the Background
• What is YouTube Music?
• Best YouTube TV Alternatives

Let’s Plays are out. The gaming video culture essay is in

Over the last decade, long-form video essays have grown in popularity — arguably entering into a boom all their own . Viewers can easily look up a video essay on just about any topic they’d like to, from deep dives into filmmaking, theme park history, fashion, and everything in between. With such a large offering of video essays out there, one sub-genre that has found its own footing is that of the video game culture essay.

The draw of the video game essay

Niche topics in a not-so-new format, coexistence with traditional game reviews.

These particular gaming videos are a style of visual essay that offers both the creators behind them and viewers the space to explore video games in new ways that extend beyond what we’ve come to expect in a video game review. That flavor of video tends to dig more into a niche topic that the creator is most interested in — be that a theme, specific character, or even how artistic choices impact the game.

These gaming essays have managed to find their own foothold within the wider world of video game commentary while maintaining a pretty even coexistence with the traditional game review format. Both offer up individual thoughts and insight on video games while actively not detracting from the other.

To better understand that foothold and coexistence, I spoke with two creators who have been making culture gaming essays. They explained what exactly drives them to share their unique perspectives through this format and what serves as a draw to both gaming essays and reviews for viewers.

Understanding what initially drives a creator to get started on making video game culture essays can give us insight into why they’ve found such a strong foothold in the gaming space to begin with. There’s something to be said for knowing the passion behind something. For both Maria (also known as eurothug4000 ) and Daryl Talks Games , the initial interest to discuss more niche topics related to video games stemmed from outside influences.

Maria, who has been creating videos on YouTube since 2018, shared that her background in studying art during her A-Levels helped serve as inspiration for the discussions around art direction and aesthetics that she has in her video essays.

“I had a very good teacher throughout those years,” Maria tells Digital Trends. “There was one exercise, in particular, she would make the class do when analyzing the works of artists, which would basically just be a good old brainstorm diagram. We would have the painting or photograph in the center and write anything that comes to mind as we looked at it — texture, mood, content, etc. This is something I do in my mind when looking at games. It’s just a natural process so deeply ingrained into my brain — I can’t help it!”

“Essays give both players and creators a chance to find beauty in the mundane, clarity in the intricacy …” 

Daryl Talks Games initially started out on YouTube in 2009. But as a long-time gamer with an interest in psychology, he knew that he wanted to get back to making videos eventually. Nowadays, he makes “essays that center around the “interaction between psychology, video games, video game design, and life.” His inspiration came from Mark Brown’s Game Maker’s Toolkit , a channel that takes deep dives into every aspect of game design.

“I was captivated by his ability to explain things I had never noticed in games and how fascinating it was to learn why games work from a design standpoint,” he tells Digital Trends. “I came across his channel during my last year of undergrad and since I was studying psychology, I found myself making connections between a lot of the points he was making and the things I was learning in class. I pretty much just said ‘Let me try the whole essay thing, but my gimmick will be psychology.’ Since I was uninterested in grad school and a bachelor’s in psychology pretty much only qualifies you to be a YouTuber, I just kept on making videos!”

Both creators approach their gaming essays through a new lens that gives them the ability to explore games in ways that go beyond the limits of standard criticism.

With the broad range of possible topics that creators can explore in their gaming essays, it’s no surprise that creators choose to look at hyper-specific things that catch their interest — such as the space in games that players encounter between a respawn point and the boss.

Niche topics offer viewers the chance to see what creators are seeing in a game that extends beyond just a cursory playthrough or answering the question that many turn to reviews for: Is this a game that I’d like to play?

“They’re just documentaries, but smaller, with more personality, and sort of, dialed-in to one very niche topic. I have a whole essay on the mental health of this one particular side character in Deltarune . Jacob Geller has an entire video exploring games that specifically save their most interesting bits for last,” Daryl Talks Games says. “I think both myself and others that do this enjoy it so much because creatively, the sky’s the limit. Essays give both players and creators a chance to find beauty in the mundane, clarity in the intricacy, and generally just a chance to enjoy games on a deeper level than if we had just played them and moved on.”

That ability to explore and enjoy games a little deeper in gaming essays certainly offers viewers another way to look at and experience the games that they’re playing, almost peeling back certain layers in a sense. Some gaming essays tend to tread into lengthy territory as a result, often going over the 30-minute mark. Ladyknightthebrave has an hour and a half look at the Last of Us series , while some of Tim Rogers’ videos are about as long as an HBO miniseries.

Maria, who originally began producing game reviews, eventually figured out that she enjoyed making this style of gaming deep-dive more.

“A lot of the time I focus on the inspirations behind certain games that contribute to their art style,” Maria says. “For example, Demon’s Souls ‘ background in dark fantasy and its similarities to Frank Frazetta’s works, or the cultural aspects behind Resident Evil Village that I rarely see in games. In Kuon (PS2), even the saving mechanic is contextualized by having a small ritual involved instead of just a menu with a save button. While I love just how game worlds look, it’s really impressive to me when they can fit their mechanics into it as it makes me feel even more engaged.”

Gaming essays and game reviews have come to a rather unique coexistence. And while viewers and creators alike might prefer one form of gaming commentary over the other, both Maria and Daryl Talks Games honed in on the fact that both serve slightly different purposes at the end of the day — even as they both work to answer questions.

“They’re just documentaries, but smaller”

“A review, in my mind, is to inform someone whether they would want to purchase the game for themselves, or to simply see what other people generally thought about it,” Maria says. “A video essay can offer the same, but ultimately they’re about learning something new, whether that’s about the game, someone’s personal experience, or even something seemingly unrelated. A lot of my videos have got me researching all kinds of random topics. I’ve learned about Italian horror cinema, camp fashion, and even the origin of CPR dolls to name a few!”

“There are plenty of reviews for the game Omori out there, but I am definitely the only one offering a detailed analysis on how it illustrates dissociative amnesia.” Daryl Talks Game says.

That slight difference in overall purpose sets gaming essays and reviews apart from each other but also ties them together. Creators and viewers can easily pick and choose which of the two they’d like to create and watch respectively.

“We all see and play games differently which means that everyone gets their own experience,” Daryl says about the coexistence of gaming essays and reviews. “For some, the mechanics are more interesting, for others, it’s the music, for some it’s all of it! Just about any genre of gaming video will be important to someone out there and it will never be impossible for a person to only watch one type of gaming video.”

In a space that could easily have been dominated by one or the other, gaming essays have managed to find a unique coexistence alongside game reviews while maintaining their own individual draw. Creators like Maria and Daryl Talks Games find a lot of joy in the varied ways that they can discuss games in their essays, sharing special insight and discussions around topics that are important to them — all while deepening the collective toolkit we use to understand games.

Interview responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Grand Theft Auto 6 is unaffected by the video game voice actors strike
• New report discovers one culprit behind Nintendo game leaks: Google
• YouTube Playables gets wider availability — here’s where to find it
• Square Enix just set a new bar for video game demos with its latest RPG
• One of the Apple Vision Pro’s first games lets you play tabletop classics

I wouldn't have believed it if someone told me 10 years ago that the best TV and movies I would see in 2023 would be adaptations of video games. And yet, here we are. It's been a slow, grueling road filled with more downs than ups, and yet the code seems to have been cracked. Video game adaptations aren't just good now; they're often spectacular.

While we got a few hits here and there in years prior, such as the animated Castlevania series and Witcher show, it was in 2023 that shows like The Last of Us on HBO really made a statement to the world that, when understood and handled correctly, these adaptations could stand alongside any other prestige production. While it is satisfying in its own right for fans to get more quality content from our favorite franchises, the success of these shows and films will only be leveraged more by the industry in 2024 and beyond. Adapt and survive Repackaging games for film and TV is the equivalent of 1980s and '90s cartoons made exclusively to sell toys. Not to sound too cynical, but from a corporate perspective, they are funded with the intention of converting a new audience into gamers. And we have seen compelling proof that, when it works, it is very effective. Even a game that was dragged through the mud as much as Cyberpunk 2077 saw a huge surge in sales following the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime, even before the full 2.0 version and Phantom Liberty DLC launched. The same applies to older titles like The Last of Us, Mario, and The Witcher.

The Victrix Pro BFG is getting an upgrade in the form of new modules that feature Hall Effect joysticks. Those who own the modular controller will be able to purchase the new pieces in early 2024 either as a a two-pack or individually.

Released last year, the Pro BFG is a unique third-party controller that allows players to swap out several components on the fly. That includes taking out its joystick modules and slotting in a fight pad, or switching the orientation of the sticks to match PlayStation and Xbox layouts. Victrix will not double down on that design by releasing a standalone module that replaces its joysticks with those using Hall Effect technology.

Sony finally revealed more details about its upcoming handheld, now called PlayStation Portal, but these announcements have soured my opinion on the device rather than hyped me up for it. I enjoy cloud gaming and have used a variety of services like Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, and Xbox Cloud Gaming - across my phone and even dedicated devices like the Logitech G Cloud Gaming Handheld. Because of that, I was really excited to see what PlayStation could do as it entered the space. Unfortunately, some specific exclusions from PlayStation Portal's functionality that make it more of a remote-play device rather than a cloud gaming handheld indicate that Sony has a fundamental misunderstanding about what people would want out of a PlayStation game streaming handheld.

Namely, the device's positioning as primarily a "remote play dedicated device" and the exclusion of PlayStation Plus Premium cloud gaming compatibility drastically shrinks the number of reasons people should pick the device up. Cloud gaming and devices built around it have been around long enough to show that an inclusive approach to the number of services, games, and kinds of game streaming available is vital to success, and for a $200 handheld, PlayStation Portal seems like it's excluding way too much. Narrowing its appeal Remote play differs from what's more ubiquitously referred to as cloud gaming players are running the games on their own consoles rather than a third-party console or server. Still, it's a form of streaming games over a Wi-Fi connection, typically through an app on a phone or device like the Logitech G Cloud Gaming Handheld. That means you'll have to stick around your own home to use the PlayStation Portal, and its game library is limited to whatever the user owns on the console. That's limiting (it's like if Steam Deck only ran Steam Link) but does have some use cases. Still, it doesn't necessarily feel like it warrants a dedicated $200 device over a phone and a nice mobile controller like the Razer Kishi V2 or Backbone One - PlayStation Edition; haptic feedback and adaptive triggers only go so far.

The best video essays of 2023

Our annual poll spotlights 181 unique video essays, nominated by 48 international voters, showcasing the breadth and depth of current videographic practice.

Sign up for Sight and Sound’s Weekly Film Bulletin and more

News, reviews and archive features every Friday, and information about our latest magazine once a month.

Now in its seventh annual edition, the Sight and Sound poll for the best video essays of the year surveys the online sphere, film festivals and audiovisual research in almost equal measure. Its primary purposes are to mark notable works and keep track of the various schools of thought concerning what video essays can or should be, and how they can communicate to a range of audiences.

The poll was conducted with the assistance of 48 voters from 17 countries, including academics, critics, online creators and festival curators. Together, their 260 nominations include 181 distinct titles. Given the scope and abundance of recent video essays, even an extensive poll can only provide a cross-section of the topics, forms and rhetoric of their contemporary practice – a limitation many voters noted in their submissions. Of the nominated works, 47% were created by male video essayists, 39% by female, with several from non-binary creators and mixed teams. Around two-thirds feature voiceover, with the majority presented in English, although 14 languages feature in the overall poll.

The nominations saw a relatively equal split between essays created for YouTube and those created for academic research, with 50 YouTube and 47 academic videos (or entire series). Publicly available videos’ viewership varies broadly, from 9.5 million views (for MyHouse.wad ) to the low double digits; participants were keen to highlight new and underseen works as well as celebrating the achievements of established creators. Festival films or installation pieces also proved popular, with 53 arthouse shorts, features and documentaries nominated. Also present, although in a smaller proportion, were self-published Vimeo works or collaborative projects unaffiliated with a specific institution. However, within the yearly S&S poll for video essays, there seems to be a slight decline both in independently produced and published Vimeo content, and in video output by cinephile magazines, while the academic sector is slowly but constantly expanding.

The average runtime was 27 minutes, with most around the 15 minute mark – although a few marathon nominations like Will DiGravio’s Against Polish and Adam Curtis’ TraumaZone (three and seven hours respectively) stick out. Three videos were one minute long or shorter.

Leading the nominations, Maryam Tafakory and Johannes Binotto tie for 10 nominations, with Tafakory’s split-screen work chaste/unchaste and Binotto’s Practices of Viewing series coming out on top. A History of the World According to Getty Images by Richard Misek received nine nominations, the most for a single work. Returning essayists of note include Chloé Galibert-Laîné, Barbara Zecchi and Ariel Avissar, while new entrants with multiple nominations include Occitane Lacurie (three noms for Xena’s Body: A Menstrual Auto-Investigation Using an iPhone) and James DeLisio (four nominations for Cinema in Pain: Decoding “Mad God” ).

It is worth noting that some videos appear in consecutive polls: among them, Misek’s History of the World According to Getty Images and Galibert-Laîné’s GeoMarkr are now available online, while in the 2022 poll they were occasionally mentioned, but less widely seen. It is often the case that videos travel in festivals or are viewed in conferences and among peers before being made public. While the current poll has several dozen videos to which we cannot presently direct our readers, we hope that in the near future many will be similarly available with unrestricted access.

Videographic collaborations make up a number of nominations in this years’ list. Once upon a Screen: Vol. 2 , edited by Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer, returns with two nominations for its second instalment. Moving Poems , also curated by Kreutzer, received five nominations, chiefly for Desiree de Jesus’ a raisin in the sun. And the 169 Seconds series, commissioned by Danish journal 16:9 to celebrate its 20th anniversary, received three nominations, including returning essayists Catherine Grant and Jason Mittell. Independent videographic community The Essay Library also features with one nomination for Lara Callaghan’s contribution to the When Essay Met Library collaboration.

A number of essays were published through new academic journals, including Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft with five videos nominated; other new entrants include Teknokultura and Feminist Media Histories. [in]Transition, Tecmerin and NECSUS are by now certified in making the works they publish visible among videographic researchers.

Independent streaming service Nebula has continued to grow its base of creators, many of whom are video essayists. Out of 50 unique YouTube videos, seven were also published on Nebula. Three of these were directly cross-posted, another three were Nebula First (published earlier than YouTube), and one nomination – We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot by Big Joel – was a Nebula Plus video, meaning it includes extra content beyond what is available on YouTube. Lily Alexandre’s Nebula-first essay Everything Is Sludge: Art in the Post-Human Era received three nods, bringing the total number of Nebula nominations up to nine.

Billed as a creator-first streaming service , Nebula aims to give its creators the freedom that they cannot find on YouTube. Many video essayists have joined Nebula after finding their work coming up against YouTube’s advertiser-friendly guidelines, restricting the discussion of mature topics. In February 2023, Maggie Mae Fish launched her series Unrated exploring sexuality in film, and Broey Deschanel followed suit in November with the Taboo on Screen series. There’s an oft-noted divide between ‘Vimeo-style’ essays – with their more academic leaning and longer clip length – and YouTube essays – with their quick cuts and careful stepping around automatic copyright claims . This gap may be quickly closing, although whether a Nebula style will arise remains to be seen.

Although content creators can make money through AdSense and sponsorships on YouTube, many turn to community donations and subscriptions to fund their work. Forty-one of the nominated YouTube works included a link to Patreon, Ko-fi or PayPal in the video description. One nominated video, Brad Troemel’s The Literalists , is available exclusively on Patreon, with only a trailer uploaded to YouTube.

Vimeo essayists have also encountered in greater force the problems that have plagued YouTube essayists for years. Formerly a safe haven for video essays containing copyrighted materials, Vimeo has enacted a slew of copyright claims, viewing restrictions and takedowns on well-known video essays in recent months. This brings to mind Fandor’s 2016/2017 removal of multiple video essays from their channels in response to the threat of copyright claims, ringing alarm bells about the mixed potential of the Internet as an archive for videographic work. The long-running TV Dictionary project is just one example with multiple claims, despite its clear origin in academic research practice.

Nostalgia and memory, pop culture and cinephilia – sometimes mixed together – loom large in this year’s list, due in part to some popular academic series including Indy Vinyl for the Masses (curated by Ian Garwood) and the Screen Stars Dictionary (curated by Tecmerin and Ariel Avissar). Gender as spectacle makes its appearance in several videos, from the mainstream end of the spectrum (max teeth’s The Man/Car Gender Binary in John Carpenter’s Christine ) to critical discussions of star personae, cinema’s archetypal female protagonists as well as filmmaking/media practices (Morgane Frund’s short films, among other titles), to direct references to Laura Mulvey and Judith Butler at the other end.

As with all other areas of discourse this year, AI featured in multiple videos, usually more as a thematic concern than as a videographic tool (although text-to-speech and some generative techniques feature in the list). Futurism more generally, whether dystopian or utopian, was a common theme in the YouTube nominations.

Interrogation of the video essay form itself continues to stimulate discussion within the field, including the drawing to a close of Johannes Binotto’s popular Practices of Viewing series. While this self-reflexivity was first noted in the 2021 poll , it was seen more on YouTube in 2023, with videos ranging from assessing the state of the video essay landscape to dispensing advice about how to be a successful video essayist . Harris Michael Brewis, better known as hbomberguy, released a nearly four-hour exposé of plagiarism on YouTube with a particular focus on video essays. The video passed two million views within 24 hours of its publication.

While there are certainly great videos that remained unmentioned even with such dedicated teamwork on behalf of all voters, the present survey should be a solid starting point (and, in a few years’ time, a reminder) of the state of video essays in 2023. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Full list of voters

Ariel avissar, johannes binotto, philip józef brubaker, nelson carvajal, ben chinapen, isabel custodio, will digravio, flavia dima, chloé galibert-laîné, jacob geller, tomas genevičius, libertad gills, catherine grant, maria hofmann, oswald iten, delphine jeanneret, miklós kiss, jaap kooijman, evelyn kreutzer, occitane lacurie, colleen laird, kevin b. lee, adrian martin, daniel mcilwraith, dayna mcleod, queline meadows, carlos natálio, clare o’g ara, alan o’l eary, michael o’n eill burns, julian ross, josé sarmiento hinojosa, jemma saunders, dan schindel, shannon strucci, scout tafoya, max tohline, irina trocan, ilinca vânău, ricardo vieira lisboa, adam woodward, barbara zecchi, all the votes.

Film theorist, curator, and video essayist , Queen Mary University of London and Národní filmový archiv

A History of the World According to Getty Images by Richard Misek

A timely meditation on how even public domain images ‘we all know’ can become unattainable when they find themselves in the thrall of commercial archives and data banks. A powerful call for paying attention to copyrights after Vimeo started taking video essays down.

Machines in Flames by Andrew Culp and Thomas Dekeyser

Part desktop documentary, part evocative experimental film, this philosophical video essay succeeds in enacting the ‘detective logic of the digital’ like few other works I have seen. By jumping between the indistinct traces of CLODO , a terrorist group that bombed computer companies in 1980s France, it denies the pretension that the desktop interface is there ‘for us’ to make content readily available and uncovers the fundamental lack and self-destructivity of contemporary visual regimes.

Twisties! by Alice Lenay

A fascinating extension of the videographic impulse into a live performance. Lenay uses Zoom software to embody the experience of participating in the 1996 Summer Olympics and shakes our notions of audiovisual archives as well as the politics of individual and collective bodies.

Notes from Eremocene by Viera Čákanyová

Who would have thought that an essay film on blockchain and artificial intelligence could be so intimate and touching? Čákanyová achieves it through a catalogue of experimental techniques that turn photochemical as well as digital images into emblems of an indistinct future in which we yet have to find our place.

Teletext Revival by Karin Spišáková and David Scharf

A whimsically inventive video essay that resurrects the early 2000s’ teletext interface not just for its nostalgic appeal but chiefly for its unique temporality and inclusiveness.

Back to the Ruins by Jáchym Šidlák

A rare piece of videographic criticism that reworks a short Czechoslovak non-fiction film from the 1940s. Images of post-war reconstruction are poetically deconstructed to give voice to overlooked details and actors that shaped the spectacle in the first place.

Divine Horror by Kryštof Kočtář and Matouš Vaďura

A truly visceral experience that makes us sense how close experimental film, horror, and videographic criticism can be.

• Back to list of voters

Video maker and media scholar at Tel Aviv University

Arbitrary Motion: Accidentally/On Purpose by Farzaneh Yazdandoost

Yazdandoost’s video, exploring the use of the arbitrary motion of fur in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and other stop-motion films, is an absolute treat, start to finish. It was made under the mentorship of Catherine Grant, as part of a wonderful videographic symposium held in Hanover late last year, where I first got to see it — and was published earlier this year in the ZfM blog Videography, which followed that symposium. Don’t miss it — and also check out her shorter, lovely video, Wes Anderson’s Trains .

The Accented Sound of Camp by Barbara Zecchi

In another video first presented at the Hanover conference and published this year on the ZfM blog, Zecchi offers a 4-part exploration of the use of Italian accents in Hollywood films. Starting from House of Gucci, it examines various screen representations of Italians and Italian Americans and the political and ideological dimensions of the accented voice (following Zecchi’s previous work on the subject). It is insightful, entertaining and highly inventive, experimenting with a diverse range of videographic techniques and forms of voiceover.

Men Shouting: A History in 7 Episodes by Alan O’L eary

One of the explicit inspirations for Zecchi’s video above, O’L eary’s is a tour de force of parametric criticism, or what he calls a form of “cyborg scholarship”. It is a fascinating and highly generative piece, and remains playful throughout; O’L early must have had a lot of fun while making it, like a child playing with Lego. It would be difficult to explain here just what the video does with its subject material (three narrative films made about the 2008 financial crash); luckily, O’L eary has already done that himself, in the accompanying creator’s statement, which you should definitely read prior to watching the video if you want any chance of figuring out what the hell is going on!

Moving Poems: A Raisin in the Sun (1961) by Desirée de Jesús

Evelyn Kreutzer’s Moving Poems collection, which pairs poems with moving images, has generated some remarkable works over the past couple of years. This video by de Jesús is one of the standout pieces. It places the 1961 adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun in dialogue with Langston Hughes’s “Harlem”, from which its title was derived. It is an intelligent and complex piece, employing multiple, dense layerings of image, sound and text, and will benefit from repeat viewings. Check it out, as well as the other pieces in the collection – and consider contributing your own.

Unsteady (for Elisabeth Bronfen) by Johannes Binotto

I will not say much about Binotto’s touching tribute to his former teacher and close friend, Elisabeth Bronfen, who retired from Zurich university this summer. You should simply watch it (all the way to the very end) and smile.

Watching the Rehearsal by Jason Mittell

Why leave scholarship to chance? You’d better watch Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal before watching this one; and while you’re at it, watch some of Professor Mittell’s previous pieces, where he established some of the ideas and approaches he’s developed here in elaborate and unexpected ways; specifically, this and this .

Mast-del مست دل by Maryam Tafakory

This last one is unfortunately not available for viewing online, and has been making the festival round this past year – go and watch it if you get the chance. Is this a video essay? I don’t know. Here is how Tafakory describes it: “A love song that would never pass through the censors, Mast-del is about forbidden bodies and desires inside and outside post-revolution Iranian cinema.” Anyone who’s seen her previous work (and if you haven’t, you’re missing out), would recognise these themes and ideas that she has dealt with before. Here, she approaches them from a radically different aesthetic, masterfully blending clips from existing films, original footage, a scripted narrative and original score, to mesmerising and moving effect.

Media studies scholar, bricoleur, project leader videoessayresearch.org

No representative overview, no proper summaries. But a collection of echoes, reverberations of works I have seen this year and which keep playing in my head.

Moving Poems: Eine Erinnerung [A Memory] by Evelyn Kreutzer

“Sometimes I still picture myself.” Part of Evelyn’s fantastic Moving Poems initiative, yet a whole universe of its own. It pierces me. Everything in it. The artefacts of the video signal that devour the image, the high pitched hiss of the TV , the calm and sober voice that speaks of memories which sound innocuous but frighten you, and then the look on this face I recognise and which I have never seen like that.

With a Camera in Hand, I Was Alive + Introduction by Katie Bird

“I keep thinking about gestures”.

Katie Bird’s haunting video essay and its bittersweet introduction makes us keep thinking, keep wondering, about the weight and value of labour, of film labour, scholarly labour, of what it means to hold, a camera, a child, a body, yourself, and how we can continue by letting go.

Film Thought 5. Kuchar at Kmart by Will DiGravio

“In such places, he finds the people, the ones like my family, and friends, and neighbours from home…”

A videographic haiku, from one loving observer to the other, beautiful, personal, careful, vulnerable. It makes me fall in love with the filmmaker it portrays, with the people the filmmaker met, and with the person who made this video.

“How did you get it? I ask — They don’t know.”

An analysis of, as well as an act of resistance against visual capitalism going rampant. We need to fight a system that is already well ahead in co-opting, privatising, watermarking, and sealing the archives, depriving more and more people of their past, their collective memories. This video essay is an emergency call and a road map.

Thelma & Louise: Rape Culture, Mudflaps, and Vaginal Horizons by Dayna McLeod

“Ain’t it beautiful?” Playful. Painful. So precise. I cannot choose among the works of Dayna but I feel particularly connected to this one because I cannot separate it from all the conversations we had around it. Here is a beautiful artist and thinker driving at high speed to where video essays usually do not dare to go. Please take me with you, I will sit on the backseat.

Super Volume – A Tactile Art by Cormac Donnelly

“Intention re-situates to the hands and fingers.” Abstract and visceral at the same time it is this experimental video essay that made me suddenly and fully understand and feel what “working with sound” could mean, how it feels to grasp what cannot be touched. When you see it, everything vibrates.

mini_essay_5 (Body Parts) by Occitane Lacurie

“Balayez vers le haut pour afficher plus.”

Occitane’s mini-essays (what an understatement!) show iPhone navigation as a method of thoughts taking shape. Scrolling, clicking, touching, feeling through images and associations, a flow of intertexts at the tip of your invisible finger. You better be careful with what you open next. In this one I feel seen by all these bodies, dismembered, scattered, commodified. Looking through the mirror stage and back again. And what about this little screen in my hand? Part of my body or not?

Video essayist/experimental filmmaker

The 169 Seconds Series

I couldn’t pick only one video essay from this stellar series, so I nominate the entire body of work from 2023. I love the length requirement, which results in some creative interpretations of the source material.

It’s a Zabriskie Zabriskie Zabriskie Zabriskie Point by Daniel Kremer

A personal, feature-length essay film about Death Valley and its importance to the history of cinema as well as its longstanding resonance with the filmmaker. Kremer has admirably unearthed many underground and lesser known works that were filmed in this desert and included them here, to my delight. Kremer’s playful juxtapositions between the two main films is humorous and well-edited.

Memories of “It” by Kathleen Loock

Loock entwines her own experience growing up in a reunified Germany with the 1990 TV movie version of Stephen King’s It. A surprising association, but one that is fully realised and supported with her examples. Loock’s observations enrich the popular horror story as well as educate the audience about complications resulting from the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

The Thinking Machine #64: Inkblot by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Two cosmically intertwined tragedies from different films are synchronised beautifully in this succinct video mashup.

Webby Award-nominated video essayist, writer and television producer

Fire Film Supercut by Daniel Pope

The supercut, often an overlooked subgenre of the video essay, is much harder to pull off than it seems. When done right, you almost don’t even notice the splice. This supercut is, pun intended, fire.

New Beverly Cinema — October 2023 by Jeff Smith

Jeff Smith has cut a lot of the New Beverly’s monthly previews and to me, they’re pure video essays, on a pure pop-level. This one for October, a la Halloween, is especially captivating.

An electric and gripping use of animation and multi-screen to really get its thesis across. McLeod understands the exciting heights of the video essay form and has all the cylinders firing here.

YouTube creator /video editor and essayist

Why Tom Cruise’s Run Matters by Scene It

Scene it is a fairly new channel I came across, I found his content very refreshing as a new voice in the more standard “film essay” area.

string theory lied to us and now science communication is hard by acollierastro

This video came out of nowhere and blew everyone’s mind who saw it. An intriguing title, with a clearly stressed out person and also The Binding of Isaac in the thumbnail? What’s going on? Within 1 minute the purpose becomes clear; this woman who has very strong opinions and credentials will break down exactly what happened with the String Theory phenomenon while simultaneously stumbling through a playthrough of the vintage roguelike indie darling Binding of Isaac. A premise so absurd and hilarious (dare I say groundbreaking?) that you instantly want to watch and listen. It’s very informative and HIGHLY entertaining for the joke of the idea alone. I’m glad this took off because it was worth it. This is probably my most firm nomination out of the group.

Attack the Block: A Subversive Masterpiece by Kay and Skittles

Coming from very very early 2023; this one about John Boyega’s first leading role stood out for me; a beautiful look at an indie darling from one of my favourite creators breaking down the politics of crime in poor communities.

YouTuber ( Be Kind Rewind ) and film critic

Art Without the Artist (and Other Horrors from the Machine) by Dan Simpson, Eyebrow Cinema on YouTube

AI became a hotly contested subject in 2023, with studios eager to capitalise on its apparent ease and speed, and artists fighting to establish guardrails for its growth and use. Dan Simpson argues for the integrity of the artist over the dispassionate, surface-level results AI often prompts. It’s a rallying cry for those of us who advocate and appreciate the work of creative human beings.

We Must Destroy What the Bomb Cannot by Big Joel

Big Joel’s essays always stand out for their fluency in art history. Here, he weaves several works together, connecting material as disparate as Jenny Holzer and Godzilla in a stunning exploration of what words mean, contradictions, and subjectivity.

The Literalists by Brad Troemel

I’ve yet to find a better interpreter of online culture than artist Brad Troemel, whose work satirises some of the internet’s most exasperating modes of expression. In fact, he so effectively mocks these aesthetics that his work often goes viral, with choruses of the terminally online taking it, well, literally (a recent post about the unionisation of the Taylor Swift fandom comes to mind). In addition to these posts, he creates video essays outlining his observations of online behaviour. In The Literalists, he takes a look at “millennial cultural liberalism” and the inclination to scrub content clean of any possible offence, connecting the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s to the modern, flawed reasoning that it is morally bad to watch films with immoral characters. His essays are available exclusively on his Patreon, but it’s well worth at least a month’s subscription to binge them. You won’t regret it.

The Four horse_ebooks of the Apocalypse by Grace Lee/What’s So Great About That?

Everything happens so much. It’s an iconic tweet, an evergreen feeling, and the subject of Grace Lee’s exploration of the apocalyptic unease of modern life. She charts the decline of the relatively literal disaster film with the rise of a looming, paralysing belief in our pre-determined doom. It’s a fascinating topic, made even more compelling given that Lee is the best editor of video essays on YouTube.  

Host of The Video Essay Podcast; assistant editor, Cineaste; PhD candidate, University of Amsterdam

Each year, it gets more difficult to be a viewer of video essays; it is a beautiful and frustrating thing. More people are making them. They are longer. They screen at festivals, and in varied corners of the internet. Below are a few of the video essays that have resonated with me this year. Rather than try and explain why I picked them, I will instead attempt to describe something in each work. Here’s hoping it might inspire you to give them all a watch.

Joséphine Baker Watches Herself by Terri Francis

[3:43] On the left, Joséphine Baker performs in the famous skirt made out of bananas. On the right, a clip from a 1968 CBC interview with Baker. Below, a translation on screen: “No, it’s about work. You have to work hard.” A video essay that grows richer with each rewatch.

Apostles of Cinema (Tenzi za sinema) by Cece Mlay, Darragh Amelia, Gertrude Malizana, Jesse Gerard Mpango

“I like quality films. And I like difficult films,” says DJ Black. But if it is bad, “I can’t dub it.” [04:51] An incisive documentary about film culture in Tanzania.

watch me sleep: self-surveillance and middle-aging queer performance anxiety by Dayna McLeod

There’s a moment in the second minute I felt throughout my whole body. A revelation.

Void by Kevin Ferguson

The persistence of Robert Duvall’s bald head, especially at [00:13] and [04:46].

Why the Internet Loves Buster Keaton by Don McHoull

I imagine Don’s masterful montages of the internet’s response to Keaton’s artistry, and also that of Fayard and Harold Nicholas, playing on the wall of a gallery.

moving poems: a raisin in the sun (1961) by Desirée de Jesús

Water ripples. Sidney Poitier, playing with his lighter, gestures for a drink. His finger points to the text on screen, “in the sun?” Off-screen dialogue plays. [00:26] A harmonious blend of sound, image, and text.

Miss Me Yet by Chris Bell

Each episode begins with George W. Bush raising his middle finger to the camera, a gesture that becomes more grotesque and poignant the more one watches.

Film critic, programmer ( BIEFF )

A fleeting list — quite heterogeneous, and I must admit I’m not sure whether all of them are “ontologically” video essays, as definitions seem to become increasingly porous — of films that I discovered together with my colleagues at BIEFF during our work for this year’s editions.

Home Invasion by Graeme Arnfied

Simply stunning. Perhaps the best zero-budget film in many years — which affords itself the very rare “luxury” of playfully engaging with the legacy of Harun Farocki. You’ll never look at a doorbell with the same eyes after this film, not ever again.

Dear Gerald by Jasper Rigole

Rarely does the perspective of film archivists — with its particular way of looking at film, and its entire universe of both material and ethical dilemmas — actually transpire in film. Jasper Rigole’s short (aside from spotlighting his delightful IICADOM archives, a true goldmine for home movie enthusiasts) does exactly that, while also bringing into question the spectatorship of archival footage.

GeoMarkr by Chloé Galibert-Laîné and Guillaume Grandjean

Galibert-Laîné, brilliant as usual.

Bliss.jpg by Emily Rose Apter and Elijah Stevens

Some of the world’s most famous (digital — in all senses of the term) landscapes, reexamined, almost à la Richard Prince, or rather, a y2k take on the method of James Benning — brought back into materiality through 16mm film.

The Film You Are About to See by Maxime Martinot

Despite all the hand-wringing in recent years, content warnings are by no means something new to cinema — and the double helix-like structure (going both backwards and forwards throughout the history) of Martinot’s incisive and irreverent short reveals this to the fullest, together with excavating the various mores and taboos that cinema was transgressing at various times in modern history.

Gods of the Supermarket by Alberto Gonzalez Morales

I’m a sucker for any and all films that use ‘Wicked Game’ on their soundtrack. Especially so if they’re found-footage essays on queerness and bodybuilding culture.

Dancing at My Parents’ Wedding by Andreea Chiper

Finally, a pick from the local scene, still very much emergent — a tender exploration of personal videographic artifacts, as seen through the eyes of the child that knows how life is going to work out for those captured on a seemingly innocuous wedding tape.

Filmmaker and senior researcher at the Lucerne School of Art and Design

Having once again decided to nominate for this poll only makers whose work I discovered this year, I realise that the five videos that I want to highlight are works I watched in the presence of their authors. Not only did their films inspire me, but I was moved by all five Q&A sessions, for very different reasons. This may testify to a growing need for personal connection through videographic practices, in the midst of a media landscape that grows more cluttered and anonymous by the day. I also want to salute the engagement of makers who are committed to accompanying their creations in person and helping them reach an audience, even when economic or political circumstances are not favourable. My list is non hierarchical.

Artistes en zone troublés by Stéphane Gérard and Lionel Soukaz

Lionel Soukaz’s video diary Journal annales is not only a milestone in the history of French experimental cinema, it is also an essential piece of LGBTQIA + heritage. There is something extremely moving about the care and tenderness with which Stéphane Gérard approaches this audiovisual document, as he edits a new short portrait of Soukaz’s late lover Hervé Couergou from the thousands of hours of footage Soukaz shot, making this testimony to the history of the «années sida» and the evolution of the gay movement accessible to a new generation of spectators, artists and activists.

Ours / Bear by Morgane Frund

A personal exploration of the complex power dynamics between a male filmer and female filmed subjects, when the camera is suddenly turned towards he whose gaze had hitherto remained unchallenged. Frund’s video essay is uncomfortable in the best sense of the word, and leaves its viewers with more questions than answers, providing a starting point for an essential conversation about gender, class and generational differences, and the ethics of documentary.

Personne n’était sympa / Nobody Was Cool by Hélèna Villovitch and David TV

The film is a moving and hilarious evocation of a walk through the streets of Paris on 1 May 1986, based on the filmmakers’ memories and a wide range of audiovisual archives. Images and sounds are saturated, superimposed, iridescent; facts and fantasies merge in a hallucinatory stream of real and fabricated memories, to which a final twist gives a whole new meaning.

Dreams About Putin by Nastia Korkia and Vlad Fishez

Based on a selection of actual dreams that the filmmakers collected online, this essay explores how the figure of Vladimir Putin has crept into the psyches of Russian citizens since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Disturbing, violent, absurd, the dreams are narrated in voice over and accompanied by a visual score created with the 3D graphics program Unreal Engine, interspersed with bizarre and equally absurd archival footage of Putin. A nightmarish response to a nightmarish war, waged both on the frontline and on social media.

Non-alignés: Scènes des archives Labudović / Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudovic Reels by Mila Turajlic

A portrait of Tito’s official cameraman Stevan Labudović, this feature-length essay film exhumes previously unseen archival footage from the 1961 Belgrade conference to explore the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement. As educational as it is politically sharp, the film accounts for the difficulties faced by Turajlic in working with unprocessed, barely identified archives, and offers Labudović an opportunity to share his personal and often humorous take on this turning point in the history of world politics.

YouTube-based video essayist writing about the intersection of games, culture, art, and politics

Everything Is Sludge: Art in the Post-Human Era by Lily Alexandre

Alexandre’s dissection of how algorithms are morphing our artistic tastes is insightful and biting. Although viewers may expect a video about AI , more time is spent on how humans are more than willing to start producing AI -esque content by hand in order to serve the tastes of their perceived audience. The real star of this video is the production, however. Alexandre speaks as a kaleidoscopic projection of Subway Surfer, minecraft montages, and other “sludge” is projected onto their face. As interesting as the essay’s script is, the viewer’s eye will inevitably slip to the endless stream of meaningless attention-grabbing clips – just as Alexandre intended, I imagine.

History of Handedness in Video Games by Face Full of Eyes

Equal parts essay and visual compendium, Face Full of Eyes’ video contains a dizzying amount of clips from hundreds of video games, all answering the same seemingly inconsequential question: how do the game’s characters handle guns with their dominant and non-dominant hands? The answer for any particular game isn’t important. The point of the video is instead that no decision is meaningless when creating art. In a created world like a video game, everything is a chance for storytelling— even the choice to depict how a left-handed person might have to reload a right-handed gun.

Four-Byte Burger by Ahoy

The experience of watching Ahoy attempt a perfect replication of a digital illustration from 1985 somehow captures the energy of a 21st-century sculptor attempting to re-carve Michelangelo’s David. While he starts with modern Photoshop tools, the latter half of the video is a deep dive into save file formats and 40-year old display technology; a crucial realisation in the video comes from a monitor’s changing colour tone when turned to portrait orientation. The fact that all this is in service of a delightfully whimsical picture of a burger? Even better.

Film critic, kritikosatlasas.com

This video essay gives additional meaning to the idea that cinema is a warehouse of memory.

The Thinking Machine #73: Revealing Leone by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin

Video essay exploring Sergio Leone’s technique of “revealing”. But revealing what was hidden in the scene is also the most interesting feature of the video essay. This video “opens the doors” with a wonderful rhythm and music.

Practices of Viewing: Description by Johannes Binotto

A video essay that doesn’t use any film footage, but which is still very interesting to watch and listen to. A video essay about a description technique that can make you see things better than any images.

Some Thoughts Occasioned by Four Desktops by Ariel Avissar

A video essay made as a response and as a dialogue with the other four video essays, each of which uses desktop documentary form in different and unique ways.

Sensuous and Affective by Oswald Iten

Using various techniques, it explores how cinema affects us through audiovisual experiences and how video essays can reveal this.

Rain: A Phenomenal Catalogue by Stephen Broomer (Art &  Trash)

Many important avant-garde films were made in 1929, Joris Ivens’ Rain being one of them. This video essay shows what an amazing and groundbreaking film it is.

Memories of It by Kathleen Loock

Relationship between collective and personal memory, It (1990), VHS , the fall of the Berlin Wall – all of these somehow connect to my personal experience, interest and history, which, as this video shows, is not entirely unique.

Audiovisual essayist and professor of film at the University of Reading

Although it may not have been where I first encountered them, all of my nominations appear in two consecutive issues of [in]Transition. This is a reflection of the quality of work being published by the journal, rather than a lack of imagination on my part.

‘Isn’t That Going to Be Awfully Dull and Drab?’ George Hoyningen-Huene’s Use of Neutrals by Lucy Fife Donaldson

A follow up to the video essay on George Hoyningen-Huene’s work published in Movie last year, this piece again draws on archival research to sharpen our perception of production design choices, this time in relation to the potential of a muted colour palette.

This video was mentioned a couple of times in last year’s poll but has since been published. A brilliant interweaving of gaming, Chris Marker and reflection on the politics of Google Street View.

Mad Men’s ‘Babylon’: Mapping Out a Musical Metaphor by Ariane Hudelet

A compelling tracing of multi-stranded connections in an end-of episode musical montage: expertly and elegantly done.

Eye-Camera-Ninagawa by Colleen Laird

Graphically striking, temporally inventive, technically dazzling, formally compelling, surprising throughout.

I downloaded this film from its dedicated website, before the option to stream became available, and watched it without reading anything about it, thereby experiencing the full impact of its dramatic payoff.

Filmmaker, videoessayist, researcher and critic

It is exciting to finally be able to engage with Joséphine Baker’s media presence through film historian Terri Francis’ research and video essay. I had been waiting to see this video essay for some time so I was very happy to see it published in the journal Feminist Media Histories this year.

“Why this accent?” Barbara Zecchi takes a closer look -or listens more carefully- to the accents employed in House of Gucci (Ridley Scott, 2021) in order to explore (and undo) Hollywood representations of Italians. This video essay builds off her previous work on the subject of the accented video essay, with a once again playful and creative, as well as thought-provoking result.

Roberto Cobo: Screen Stars Dictionary by Catherine Grant

This video essay is part of the Screen Stars Dictionary, published by Tecmerin and edited by Ariel Avissar and Vicente Rodríguez. Although there are so many great ones to choose from, I am highlighting this one because in it Catherine Grant gives us the special opportunity to remember and rediscover the “rare” and wonderful late Mexican actor Roberto Cobo (1930-2002).

chaste/unchaste by Maryam Tafakory

A beautifully crafted and compelling video essay from filmmaker Maryam Tafakory which cuts together images from 32 films, spanning three decades, in order to dissect the binary of chaste/unchaste women in post-revolutionary Iranian cinema.

Practices of Viewing: Ending by Johannes Binotto

The final video essay in Binotto’s series titled Practices of Viewing. These videos are made with so much care and love for the artistry of filmmaking that we will surely come back to them with time, as these gestures of film viewing begin to transform and, in some cases, even disappear.

Nitrate: To the Ghosts of the 75 Lost Philippine Silent Films (1912-1933) by Khavn De La Cruz

Nitrate: To the Ghosts of the 75 Lost Philippine Silent Films (1912-1933) and National Anarchist: Lino Brocka’ are two masterful works made by filmmaker Khavn De La Cruz about Filipino film history through the recycling of archival materials. Both are fascinating films, made in a video-essayistic spirit, that will hopefully circulate widely after their premiere this year at IFFR .

A fresh take on the beloved film Thelma & Louise by video essayist and artist Dayna McLeod in which the final suicidal leap is transformed into a deep dive of the vagina (using an endoscopic camera)! Soon to be published in the special issue, ‘Right to Rage: Subjectivity and Activism’ edited by Barbara Zecchi and Diana Fernández Romero, in Teknokultura: Journal of Digital Culture and Social Movements (forthcoming). Final note: I promise to see everything that Dayna McLeod makes (which also goes for everyone else on this list).

Freelance film scholar and video essayist

In my opinion, it was an excellent year for video essays and so it was especially hard to make a selection for this poll. I used three parameters in the composition of my list: I had to choose works by different essayists from those for whom I voted in 2022; and my selection could only feature personal favourites in the field of videographic criticism, that is, a specific film, television and screen studies subset of the “video essay”. The videos also needed to be already published and freely available online, which ruled out a lot of great works for which I will undoubtedly be voting next year. I’m betting that 2024 will be an even more excellent year for video essays!

Shah Rukh Khan. Screen Stars Dictionary by Ritika Kaushik

This was the video essay I most enjoyed watching in 2023! It was part of a joint venture inaugurated this year in which I was delighted to participate - The Screen Stars Dictionary , launched by the Spanish audiovisual essay journal TECMERIN in conjunction with video-essay entrepreneur extraordinaire Ariel Avissar, whose own contribution to the dictionary (on Tom Cruise ) I also really loved.

Creative Geography, Creative Connections: Candyman by John Gibbs

An ambitious and highly significant work, published in Movie , that is the perfect match of videographic critical form and content. I am simply in awe of John Gibbs’ audiovisual research and composition here. A great and powerful model for future work on the performativity and facticity of film and television locations.

The Responsive Eye, or, The Morning Show May Destroy You by Catherine Fowler

Fowler’s magnificently inventive video essay on the two television series The Morning Show and I May Destroy You compared the relational technique that each takes to sexual abuse using a ‘feminist videographic diptych’ method. Her video formed part of a brilliant special issue on that method that she proposed, produced and guest edited for [in]Transition, the peer-reviewed journal I co-edit, which was full to the brim with similarly urgent and powerful feminist works using multiscreen and other juxtapositional procedures.

This was the most original work of those I loved this year, and one I was fortunate to follow the making of while it was in progress. Academic film and TV studies video essays have taken a very performative and embodied turn in recent years, but Mittell characteristically pushes this even further into the realm of extremely ambitious, very entertaining and deeply insightful pastiche. I can’t wait to see where his videographic approaches to televisual reflexivity will take him, and us, next.

A superbly made, genuinely risk-taking work that asks and answers ongoing urgent questions about the circulation of public domain images and films. We were delighted to publish Misek’s work at [in]Transition, where it headed a huge and very strong issue featuring numerous other works I would have loved to select for my best-of-the-year videos had it been a Top Twenty list, rather than a Top Seven one.

Filling (Feeling) the Archival Void: The Case of Helena Cortesina’s Flor de España by Barbara Zecchi

Zecchi gets my vote for Video Essayist of the Year for her prolific, always brilliant videographic work. This particular video, published in issue 9(4) of the journal Feminist Media Histories, is extraordinary. As the editor of that journal Jennifer Bean wrote of it in her marvellous introductory essay for the issue of FMH , “[Zecchi’s] voice as well as her embodied, emotive presence on the screen are intrinsic features of a project that deploys videographic tools to sustain what she calls a ‘practice-based counterarchive’ capable of reversing the ongoing ‘dispossession’ of women’s contributions to media history.” Terri Francis’s remarkable 2019 video essay Joséphine Baker Watches Herself is also published in the issue’s exploration of the potential of videographic criticism for feminist media historiographies, alongside powerful new work by Celia Sainz.

With a Camera in Hand, I Was Alive by Katie Bird

Katie Bird’s virtuosic exploration of the affordances of desktop filmmaking to access the sensations of using a physical camera (and its highly original and moving audiovisual maker’s statement) made a magisterial contribution to Kevin B. Lee and Ariel Avissar’s audiovisual essay dossier on the desktop documentary, for the Spring 2023 issue of NECSUS : European Journal of Media Studies. The other entries in the dossier were of excellent quality across the board, and I would particularly point to Ritika Kaushik and Brunella Tedesco-Barlocco’s great video essays for the ways in which, like Bird’s, their work points to how screen capture techniques can be harnessed to investigate very important and highly diverse screen studies research questions. 

Film scholar and video essayist ; University of Minnesota

Kiss me softly | crackly | sharply by Lucy Fife Donaldson

The combination of visuals and sound in this intriguing video forces the viewer into attention, listening and watching carefully while examining one’s own expectations and intimate reactions to individual moments.

Nebular Epistemics by Alan O’L eary

Incredibly dense on a theoretical level, performatively innovative, and yet still accessible and hilarious — what an accomplishment to combine these elements into a coherent whole and convincing argument.

Being Dolls (or Not): Spinning Mothers and Daughters in Elena Ferrante’s Adaptations by Barbara Zecchi

A dazzling watching experience that masterfully interweaves critical argument with audiovisual spectacle; a prime example of Zecchi’s superior sense of rhythm that permeates all her work.

Home Is Bleak. Is Home Bleak? by Delal Yatci

With Yatci’s piece too, rhythm is what captures my fascination. An examination of the home in Turkish films by female filmmakers takes shape by meandering between different film scenes, tied together by beautifully selected sound.

The Body • S05E16 • TPN ’s Buffy Guide by Passion of the Nerd

While I’m a fan of Passion of the Nerd’s entire series on Buffy, the episode on “The Body” weaves together such powerful narratives and meditations on grief and, at the same time, on the effect and personal meaning of media objects and their embeddedness not only in a cultural context but in our own private archives of (media) memories.

Once upon a Screen Vol. 2, Part 2

The second part of Once upon a Screen Vol 2 (edited by Ariel Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer) seems to have a much more sombre atmosphere in comparison to Part 1 and features another inspiring array of videos based on other creators’ written screen memories. To me, Avissar’s The 39 Shots, Oswald Iten’s Recreated Memories, and Johannes Binotto’s Down a Dark Spiral stand out in this collection of amazing works.

Film scholar , video essayist , animator, PhD researcher

Arbitrary Motion: Accidentally / On Purpose by Farzaneh Yazdandoost

Inventive videographic research about stop motion animation is still rare, but Farzaneh Yazdandoost finds striking images and sounds to draw our attention towards the arbitrary motion of animated fur.

A pamphlet, an act of deliverance, and a moving found (and partly licensed) footage film.

Critics’ Choice 9 : (putting) on Aftersun by Inge Coolsaet

When we see the same film, we each see a different film, especially when that film invites us to inhabit it ourselves. Inge Coolsaet’s refreshingly minimalist take on this idea did the same for me.

“Isn’t That Going to Be Awfully Dull and Drab?” George Hoyningen-Huene’s Use of Neutrals by Lucy Fife Donaldson

The wonderfully muted colour schemes of Technicolor movies have always fascinated me. Thanks to the well-researched video essays (the first one came out the year before) by Lucy Fife Donaldson I am now also aware of one of the creators and proponents behind those concepts.

Overflowing with ideas and hilarious moments, this personal multi-part investigation of Italian accents in American mainstream cinema feels a lot shorter than it actually is.

Twisties! A Live Performance by Alice Lenay

The notion of what videographic criticism can do has been constantly challenged for a few years now. Alice Lenay is pushing the boundary further with her fully embodied live video essay performance in which she inserts herself into television footage from the 1996 Olympics, obscuring bodies, revealing camera angles, and the setup’s inherent dissociation.

Lecturer at University of Art and Design HEAD – Genève, co-director Festival Cinéma Jeune Public, curator at Locarno Film Festival and Int. Short Film Festival Winterthur

La Maison by Sophie Ballmer

Sophie recounts the renovation of a house inherited by her partner Tarik in the Vallée de Joux. Attracted by the potential, they began by destroying everything. Then it was time to rebuild. To the weight of the rubble cans was added the weight of their families’ dreams and values. With affection and humour, Sophie deconstructs patriarchy, capitalism and inheritance in an attempt to make room for achievable utopias.

Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black) by Derik Lynch, Matthew Thorne

The film follows Yankunytjatjara man Derik Lynch’s road trip back to Country for spiritual healing, as memories from his childhood return. A journey from the oppression of white city life in Adelaide, back home to his remote Anangu Community (Aputula) to perform on sacred Inma ground. Inma is a traditional form of storytelling using the visual, verbal, and physical. It is how Anangu Tjukurpa (story connected to country / dreaming / myth / lore) have been passed down for over 60,000+ years from generation to generation.

Æquo by Eloïse Le Gallo, Julia Borderie

The sound of an alphorn echoes in the mountains while glaciers are dripping. Far away, on an oceanographic boat, researchers probe the invisible seabed. Geological bodies of salt and ice emerge from the digital depths of a software. They melt and disintegrate in the hands of scientists. The filmmakers place encounters at the heart of their approach, anchoring their creative process in a poetic approach.

Pacific Club by Valentin Noujaïm

In 1979, the Pacific Club opened in the basement of La Défense, the business district of Paris. It was the first nightclub for Arabs from the suburbs – a parallel world of dance, sweat, young love, and one-night utopias. Azedine, 17 years old at the time, tells us the forgotten story of this club and of this generation who dreamed of integrating into France but who soon came face to face with racism, the AIDS epidemic, and heroin. The film gives visibility to the forgotten, the invisible and reflects on the power dynamics and dominance system within French society. 

Out of the Blue by Morgane Frund

In 2013, an auteur film causes a scandal due to its sex scenes. The filmmaker is 16 and one of the angry viewers. Ten years later, she is ready to settle the score with this film in the form of a video essay. Her film visits ways to tame the ‘male gaze’ and understand her position in a still man-made/thought world.

Tierra de leche by Milton Guillen and Fiona Guy Hall

On New England dairy farms, daily life orbits around the milking parlour. Here, machinery and cows come together as an exploitation mechanism of migrant workers from Central America, consuming their every waking hour and even infiltrating their dreams. The film denounces a terrible reality told in the most poetic and respectful way. 

Not sure what a video essay is, so my choices might be slightly off-topic.

Mickey Takes Acid by AI Generated Nonsense

It is great, very funny, and not sure a human could find all those weird connections.

TraumaZone by Adam Curtis

I heard many people complaining that Adam Curtis’s essay is simplistic, you cannot express the collapse of the USSR in such a short time etc. Maybe it is so, but it is exactly because of this method that he achieves a kind of poetic truth, if I may say so.

Der Elvis by Joe Moritsugu

It is older, but since I never have heard of it, I consider it new. I heard of this filmmaker because two of his films were freeleech on karagarga. This short essay is ahead of its time and has a punk energy not so easy to find anymore.

Video essayist and Subaru nomad. Co-moderator of the wonderful Essay Library .

The “Pay For It” Scam by Carlos Maza

I’ll start my list off strong by fudging the numbers – this video came out in the last months of 2022, and yet Carlos Maza’s work demands a spot in my recommendations. Maza is an online video veteran, previously creating for Vox. His independent work allows him to flex his style: a blend of professionalism that says “this is worth taking seriously and I’ve put in the work” and casualness that says “we’re still going to make a tough topic go down easy.” He tackles some of the most contentious topics affecting our political landscape – this video covers the manufacturing of the “debt crisis” in the minds of the American public. The heart of each video lies in the wrap-up: Carlos has a knack for leaving viewers off with a perfect mix of “this sucks,” and “but I believe in us” and finally, “fuck yeah.”

Cinema in Pain: Decoding “Mad God” by James DeLisio

“Physical pain does not simply resist language but actively destroys it.”

This thought-provoking video is an approachable look at a notoriously repulsive film (which I do not say lightly, as a squeamish viewer myself!). It proposes one lens of interpretation: what if a film like Mad God is our best chance as an audience to experience an articulation of pain through art? If pain is incommunicable through words, what sights and sounds, what deviations from expectation, can bring us into that headspace? This examination of the non-straightforward means through which cinema may operate has bent my brain, and I must recommend that you experience it for yourself.

The Man/Car Gender Binary in John Carpenter’s Christine by max teeth

“Men are of course men and cars are cars but women are also cars.”

In the vein of Women Are Not Objects, but Objects Are Still Women, Max takes us through the special cinematic relationships between a man and his car, a man and his car who is also a woman, and a man and another man and a car which is somewhere nearby. The point: how have we learned to signify masculinity on screen? And how does John Carpenter’s Christine induce horror by perverting those signifiers? A cherry on top: this video is hilarious.

As a bonus, I’ll also recommend their video on Hereditary for its crisp, creative, and playful visual style.

The Essential Whiteness of One-Hit Wonders by The Nukes

“Hey Josh, you’re white. Who sang Tainted Love? I answered easily and without thought: ‘Soft Cell.’ But a few have offered me a truth that I, in my whiteness, did not know then, but do know now. Soft Cell’s Tainted Love is a cover.”

This is a tale as old as time, and yet even if you think you know this story, this video is a journey worth taking. Josh from The Nukes takes us on a personal musical tour through the many, many hidden (and not so hidden) ways that the music industry has historically catered to white sensibilities. Interesting, frustrating, and relentlessly funny – make sure to read the chapter markers for an extra dose of “this creator is having way too much fun.”

(Another bonus recommendation: Josh’s “ Is it Impossible to Dad ” is a heartfelt, prescient examination of the gap we attempt to bridge in parenthood – and in all relationships, really. Watch both, enjoy!)

I Watched 151 Celebrity House Tours and They’re Full of Lies by Kendra Gaylord

You might’ve noticed that I lean toward thoughtful, exploratory content that pulls you in with a premise, then surprises you with a run of jokes. Well, in that vein, Kendra’s channel has been a fantastic discovery for me this year. Kendra talks about architecture the way I talk about That One Funny Thing My Friend Did That One Time. Her style feels comfy and inclusionary, like you’re both laughing together.

It’s always fun letting someone take you on a journey through their random obsession, and watching all 151 Architectural Digest home tours probably enters “obsession” territory (and yet, one gets the sense that if not for the video, Kendra still would’ve done this anyway). The impression is less “I self-flagellate for content,” and more “let me give you my best takeaways from a task that you will likely never do yourself.” The difference between the two, I realised, is surprisingly important to me!             

The Importance of Spaces in The Last Black Man in San Francisco by KaiAfterKai

This video is a lovely exploration of the importance of personal connection to space, the ability to self-actualise through space, and connection to history through space, which all feel especially prescient to a generation of young adults who have been gatekept from home ownership.

It feels like listening to a guided meditation tape; Kai is, as always, soothing in their delivery, punctuated by perfect music choices and encapsulated within a flawless structure. This is the essay equivalent of sitting back in a field, relaxing, letting ideas wash over you.

Is the “Off-Grid” Lifestyle a Lie?? by Maggie Mae Fish

Also on the topic of spaces, Maggie explores a trend that may seem like a dream to young people growing increasingly unsure that they will ever be able to afford typical homeownership: off-gridding. Specifically, she calls attention to the way that people discover new lifestyles through the Internet, and whether the people selling that lifestyle are leaving out important details (and why they may be incentivised to do so!).

Following up on her 2022 video on the Netflix show Motel Makeover, this video continues Maggie’s deep dives into the ways in which the lens of “content” turns building and designing spaces into a sales pitch, while unearthing the hidden costs that these shows are not incentivised to reveal.

Associate professor in audiovisual arts and cognition at University of Groningen, NL / co-author of Film Studies in Motion: From Audiovisual Essay to Academic Research Video

Trying to have a full grasp on a year’s videographic output is increasingly becoming an impossible effort. This inevitably leads to a highly personal selection (and possibly less overlap among the featured videos – perhaps Kevin B. Lee will figure that out for us), but it’s also great news as it is due to a rapidly expanding videographic scene and community.

From what I’ve seen, this was one of this year’s most eloquent videographic ruminations on the theory and then applied practice of audiovisual t(h)inkering, brilliantly marrying an appeal for the exploratory research method with its explanatory mode of clear presentation.

Mind Autopsy by Johanna Vaude

(One of the) best producer(s) of supercut mashups these days is Johanna Vaude. Fans can watch her treatment of variously similar criminal investigations in Fincher’s oeuvre until we get our 3rd season of Mindhunters.

Sound Before Picture by Cormac Donnelly

I always enjoy it when someone finds an unexplored cinematic niche (in this case the sounds, full with clues and anticipation, leading the movies in before they even begin) and makes the most out of it through engaging audio(!)visual presentation.

Embodied Visual Meaning [in] Motion by Maarten Coëgnarts

Imagine how challenging it would be to argue for the functioning of abstract dynamic patterns as fundamentals for representing a variety of cinematic drama – a challenge Coëgnarts himself is dealing with in his excellent writing. Beyond its inevitable scholarly qualities, this video’s virtue is how simple it makes such (textually) difficult concepts understandable (in videography).

Rain: A Phenomenal Catalogue by Stephen Broomer

Making me want to view the movie they’re studying is one of my (very personal) benchmarks for evaluating the quality of video essays. A 27-minute contemplatively thorough dissection of Joris Ivens’ 12-minute short film Regen [Rain] – that creates an ‘archetypal rainstorm’ out of an 8-month sampling of rainy images – is exactly such a videographic work.

An attentive response, in desktop video form, to the four desktop videos (by Johannes Binotto, Katie Bird, Brunella Tedesco-Barlocco, and Ritika Kaushik – wish I could include all these videos in this best-of selection) that were part of the audiovisual section of the Spring edition of the Necsus journal. It does the work viewers normally do when watching and assessing video essays.

Koker in Fragments by Ardeshir Shirkhani and Arshia Shirkhani

A student project for my videographic criticism class, this little ‘screwmeneutic cinemagraph’ pauses the main action and keeps running the peripheral happenings and sound around it. Such tender intervention is not only a lovely tribute to Kiarostami but in fact a brilliant way of illustrating his characteristic “gentle humanism … that reveals the cosmic majesty and mystery of ordinary life” (The Criterion Collection for Kiarostami’s The Koker Trilogy).

Associate professor Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam

Natalia Oreiro by Jiří Anger and Veronika Hanáková

Part of the innovative Screen Stars Dictionary series published by Tecmerin, “Natalia Oreiro” by Jiří Anger and Veronika Hanáková stands out in both topic and aesthetics. The essay breaks with the US -dominance in the study of (global) stardom by focusing on a Latin American star who becomes famous in Russia, Israel, and Central-European countries, thereby calling attention to a transnational movement that is not often addressed in star studies. The playful aesthetics of early 2000 digital culture highlights the importance of the internet in this transnational movement between “periphery” and “periphery.

Published in Feminist Media Histories, “Joséphine Baker Watches Herself” by Terri Francis shows the added value of videographic criticism to more conventional academic work. By connecting archival footage of early stage performances by Joséphine Baker to televised interviews with the iconic star in which she looks back and comments on her own star image, provides space for the Baker’s agency and voice within the narrative of her stardom in a way that could not be done so effectively (and affectively) in a written essay.

chaste/unchaste by Maryam Tafakory Published in [in]Transition, “chaste/unchaste” by Maryam Tafakory effectively challenges the binary that is spelled out in the title. Starting with a four-way split screen and a graphic that looks like a target finder from a rifle (or like a measuring rod), the audiovisual essay presents images of women from Iranian cinema, thereby highlighting how they are continuously scrutinised and policed, yet also how they challenge the omnipresent gaze. Using mirroring and repetition, combined by an uncanny soundtrack, the essay forces viewers (at least me) to question their preconceived notions and binary thinking. And what a surprise when the credits reveal that the footage comes from 32 films! As Maria Walsh concludes in her peer-review of the essay: “This is brave work.”

Postdoctoral researcher and video essayist , Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf

Just like in past years, I want to emphasise that I do not consider this a or my “best of” list but rather a list of video essays from different sub-genres and platforms that I found particularly interesting this year and with which I aim to hint at the breadth of video essay production.

An evocative and very layered meditation on poetry, drama, film and their (cross-)adaptations. A wonderful contribution to the Moving Poems project, which I’m running on Vimeo.

A dense, rich audiovisual analysis of the two Candyman films (1992 and 2021) that delves deeply into the films themselves but at least as much into questions of urban planning, architecture, and racial segregation in Chicago and beyond.

Extra Local: Extras as Actors in Breaking Away by Jacob Smith

A fascinating analysis of a commonly overlooked type of film labour and performance — extras — that starts and returns to a rich microanalysis and in the meantime provides a thorough historical and conceptual discussion of this form of acting. The video also includes one of the best “plot twists” I’ve seen in video essay work so far!

Why Do We Make Comedies about Existential Dread? by Afterthoughts

A highly entertaining and evocative video on contemporary absurdist, dark, “meme-y” comedy that asks questions like “Why are we so weird and sad right now?” and ponders on realisations like “When I’m alone with my thoughts, I’m alone with y’all’s thoughts.”

Another great piece from Binotto’s Practices of Viewing series – one that I referred to as an “anti video essay” when I first saw it.

Hello Dankness by Soda Jerk

An impressive assemblage of excerpts from all kinds of Hollywood films from the past ca. 40 years, sampled into a dark comedic take on the 2016 US elections and the Trump presidency.

How to Make Money from Video Essays: A Guide to Pitching by Will Webb

An unconventional pick since it’s not a video essay itself but a video about how to make (specifically pitch) video essays but one that I find useful to include here (perhaps as a bonus pick) because it provides insights into the ways in which video essayists produce and monetise their work outside the direct infrastructures of academic institutions.

Video essayist, critique and researcher in visual culture

Cycles of Labor: In the Metaverse, We Will Be Housewives by Veronika Hanáková, Martin Tremčinský, Jiří Anger

Using interfaces familiar to anyone who grew up in the 2000s and 2010s, the authors reedit a film that recently won the votes of the Sight and Sound Greatest Films of all Times poll: Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman. I really loved how they manage to produce a feminist and environmental analysis of the film using these layouts, subverting our video-essayistic habits (using cinema as a hermeneutic tool) by calling on videogame grammar to study film.

O fumo do fogo (Smoke of the Fire) by Daryna Mamaisur

Daryna Mamaisur is a Ukrainian artist and a refugee in Portugal. In her essay, she films closeups of her Portuguese handbooks, finding echoes of dispatches her friend sends her from their country – the dots and shapes of the three-colour printing of the old-fashioned books resemble the low-quality videos. I was fascinated by the way Mamaisur films her hands hovering over her desktop covered by childlike images, and how as soon as the editing flips them, the war and its trauma appears.

البحث عن السوري الإرهابي In Search of the Syrian Fanatic by Abou Naddara

The Syrian filmmaker collective Abou Naddara conducted this year a multimedia investigation about an image and a corpse, both hidden underneath layers of French colonial propaganda. The images come from one of the first silent fiction films, The Assassination of General Kléber (Georges Hatot, 1897), depicting the murder of the Napoleonic officer in 1800 by a Syrian student in Egypt. Abou Naddara discovered the remains of the presumed perpetrator, Soleyman El-Halebi, are kept by a French Museum, in its colonial collection and decided to take action: he wrote both a written and a videographic letter to French authorities, asking them to return the body as well as renounce the racist cliché, first printed in visual culture by the 1897 film, of the fanatic Syrian.

Alain Krivine, le trotskisme permanent (Alain Krivine, the Permanent Trotskism) by Usul and Ostpolitik

This video is part of a series created by the French videaste Usul and Ostpolitik, the “Portraits” telling the stories of central figures of French political history in a critical perspective (the series is published for the online channel Blast, continued by Ostpolitik and another youtuber, Modiie; meanwhile, Usul started another series, “Rhinoceros” about the rightisation of media). Together, they also produced “Ouvrez les guillemets” (“Open the Quotes”) (for the online journal Mediapart) about political news. I wanted to cite one of their works for several reasons. One of them is that I find it very interesting how a video essay can engage with social and political criticism through mediatic images – the way Serge Daney, for instance, used to do it in a textual way in Libération. I also wanted to pay a specific homage to Usul, who for the last ten years, is, in my opinion, the most stimulating political video essayist of the French YouTube landscape and draws me to the art of montage and media criticism with his latest series “Mes chers contemporains” (“Dear Contemporaries”).

I Would Like to Rage by Chloé Galibert-Laîné

Finally and above all, I wanted to mention a piece by Chloé Galibert-Laîné, whose work in general is of crucial importance to me, and whose I Would Like to Rage, in particular, touched me enormously. As I had the chance to tell them, their work navigates brilliantly the tricky art of self-memeification to address gendered and intimate political issues, escaping every trap set by the internalised (patriarchal) injunctions of concealing the “I” and its revolts.

Assistant professor of Japanese cinema, The University of British Columbia

Thelma & Louise: Rape Culture, Mudflaps, & Vaginal Horizons by Dayna McLeod

With this righteous and riotous very close look at Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise (1991), Dayna McLeod continues to be one of the boldest and bravest new practitioners of the video essay. Constructed in three acts, the piece highlights the interplay between actions and reactions, both in the film and beyond to the discourse surrounding it. The end result, and in particular the resulting ending, is a thought-provoking dive into videographic criticism and film scholarship.

Every time I watch a piece by Maryam Tafakory, I am overwhelmed by contradictory emotions. “chaste/unchaste,” Tafakory’s contribution to the ‘Feminist Videographic Diptych’ special issue of [in]Transition, is no exception. The use of uncanny repetition and graphic matches is both mesmerising and agitating, familiarising and defamiliarising, grounding and destabilising. And as always, I’m stunned by the quantity of films Tafakory uses to create the illusion of effortless coherent cohesion.

A Tactile Art by Cormac Donnelly

It’s worthwhile to access Cormac Donnelly’s “second iteration of the Super Volume project” on his Deformative Sound Lab website to read about the process of making a video that is very much about process and processing. While Donnelly considers the piece a representation of a tactile art, what haunts me about the video is the juxtaposition of the ephemerality in the piece—both of the transparent layering of the participants’ hands as well as the audio track itself—with the technology at the intersection of the two: the artefact of interaction. I find this work unsettling in the very best of ways.

Cycles of Labour: In the Metaverse, We Will Be Housewives by Veronika Hanáková, Martin Tremčinský, and Jiří Anger

With each collaborative work, I find the dynamic duo of Veronica Hanáková and Jiří Anger increasingly enchanting. I can’t help it; I like their style. I was torn between this video and their entry in Ariel Avissar’s new Screen Stars Dictionary project which has some similar formal conceits, but the tongue-in-cheek nature of reframing Jeanne Dielmann’s daily routine as a “The Sim’s”-esque video game was the deciding factor. All too often, scholarly videographic criticism can feel heavy and bleak, particularly with trends in exploring thematised trauma. Here, along with Martin Tremčinský, Hanáková and Anger make a case for serious fun.

Crochet Is Sick by Alison Peirse

A companion piece to last year’s award-winning and frequent festival feature “Knit One, Stab Two,” here Alison Peirse shifts a feminist lens from the needle to the hook, and from the voice-over to the visualised voice, in this work on the role of crochet in horror. Peirse is developing a distinct videographic style and “Crochet” is a prime example of this aesthetic that takes the video essay (and what we think we know about horror) delightfully and impishly up a notch (or three). Note the original soundtrack created especially for the work.

Currently only available on the festival circuit, Chloé Galibert-Laîné’s most recent work is a deeply personal performance of catharsis years in the making. It is also, thankfully, very funny. The video is an inspiring whirlwind through multiple media objects and platforms, a flurry of failed and forced expressions of rage, that sticks its landing and compels us, once again, to rethink what we know about the potentials of the video essay. Details about forthcoming availability are likely to be found on their website in the future.

Xena’s Body: A Menstrual Auto-Investigation Using an iPhone by Occitane Lacurie

I had the pleasure of seeing this video as a work in progress piece at the ‘In the Works: Makings and Unmakings of the Video Essay’ conference held at the Lucerne School of Art and Design at the beginning of November of this year. Even in an unfinished form, it was still one of my favourite videos I encountered this year, as well as one of the most timely. A desktop video in cell phone portrait mode, and perhaps even edited on one, Lacurie’s remarkable production brings together the personal and the political through the act of “doom scrolling” that involves, among other things, an episode of “Xena: Warrior Princess,” the iPhone menstruation application, text messages, online message boards, demonic imaginations of cell phone home screens, website searches, and an online tarot reading. Forthcoming and not soon enough.

Video essayist , filmmaker , professor

More than ever, the video essays that left their imprint on me were ones which staked a position not only within film and media objects, but in the world at large.

Dreams Have No Titles by Zineb Sedira

When I first saw this at the 2022 Venice Biennale, I didn’t recognise it as videographic, using physically reconstructed movie scenes for what might be called “spatial remix”. Seeing it again this year at the Hamburger Bahnhof, I could appreciate how much care it takes in reconstructing sites of Algerian cinema: not only sets from films set in Algeria, but also spaces where Algerian cinema is screened, preserved and contemplated. The video essay as artistic theme park, in the best sense possible, film history playfully resurrected. (See also: Goddess of Speed , Frederic Moffet)

Pictures of Ghosts by Kleber Mendonça Filho

A deeply personal psychogeographic exploration of film as home, even in the face of a looming societal ruin. Even while keeping within the format of a feature film, it is as expansive as Sedira’s installation, bravely projecting itself into a post-cinematic, post-human finale. (See also: Mast-Del , Maryam Tafakory)

Introduction to “With a Camera in Hand I Was Alive” by Katie Bird

As excellent as — and somehow longer than — the video essay it introduces, it is also a radical new proposition for videographic scholarship. Creator statements are usually written, but instead we have an experimental selfie-video layered with reflections — academic, political, personal — on women’s labour in cinema. (See also: Jill, Uncredited , Anthony Ng)

A scholarly video essay that pursues its research object so thoroughly that it becomes its mirror reflection, art and life entwined in an inextricable dialogue. (See also: Laterally , Maria Hofmann)

An inspired series of interrogations of the Italian accent in Hollywood movies as a contested site of cultural identification. This video asks who cinema really speaks for, and in doing so speaks its own truth back into cinema. (See also: Dressed to Kill Cis Hetero Patriarchy , Nicole Morse)

Feeling Cynical About Barbie by Broey Deschanel

This vlog-style essay brilliantly links two phenomena from the summer — Barbie and the Hollywood strikes — to critique media capitalism’s insidious strategies for possessing and exploiting the cultural imaginary. (See also: A History of the World According to Getty Images by Richard Misek)

Games That Don’t Fake the Space by Jacob Geller

Among the video essays occupied with audiovisual form, I especially admire Geller’s vast research and deft navigation through the surprising spatial environments found in video games. (See also: Sensuous and Affective by Oswald Iten)

Film critic

In this list, I have tried to avoid simply listing my friends, and instead tried to cover a little of the diversity of audiovisual essay venues existing today.

Performance: Divine Horror by Kryštof Kočtář and Matouš Vad’ura

Puts the destruct in deconstruction.

The Mechanics of Fluids by Gala Hernández López

A deep dive into online incel culture.

@Concert: Liveness in the Time of Coronavirus by Landon Palmer

An inspired assemblage of awkward moments in a live-but-not-living world.

Searching for Incognita by Johanna Vaude

Another stunning work by this master of the form: the motif of ‘adventuring’ in film, deftly gathered and revealed.

Why Do Movies Feel So Different Now? by Thomas Flight

An extended, thoughtful reflection on ‘metamodernism’ in recent popular cinema.

The Address from Beyond the Grave by Roz Mortimer

Mortimer illuminatingly relates her own filmmaking work to that of other women, films in which ‘spectrality’ is hauntingly tied to historic, socio-political traumas.

Undercurrents: Meditations on Power by Margot Nash

Nash, among Australia’s greatest artists, would probably prefer this to be known as a film, but it has a special relation to the audiovisual essay: a montage from her previous works, it forms a powerful, urgent poem for our times.

Video essayist, filmmaker

Sleeping Sickness: The Downtrodden in Pedro Costa’s Cinema by Alexander Melyan

A beautifully crafted video. It got me lost in the images of Costa’s films all over again.

Great concept, better execution. A very satisfying watch and listen.

Takes me back to my days in foley classes. Brought a smile to my face watching and the odd grimace.

Queer performance-based media artist

What an incredible video essay! This enthralling and meticulously edited piece uses a binary of chaste vs. unchaste to collapse in on itself as a gendered structure of representation in Iranian cinema. Tafakory uses repetition and juxtaposition to emphasise this undoing and mirrors clips of women in grids of four where they are (now) engaged with each other onscreen. She overlays certain clips, which seep into and onto each other as a form of touching, as if to queer the materiality of these clips as well as the newly formed relationships she has created through her editing.

A masterful and hypnotic piece that is seemingly edited on a smartphone that simultaneously demonstrates the source materials and inspiration for the work, while showing the methods and thinking of its construction. Lacurie takes us on an expansive menstruation journey that is personal and political—navigating apps, memes, video clips, and a tarot card reading through the analysis of a fatal penetrative wound on Xena Warrior Princess’s body. A mesmerising video essay from, In the Works: Makings and Unmakings of the Video Essay, Lucerne School of Art and Design, Switzerland. See Lacurie’s other work: https://vimeo.com/lacurieo

A video essay with an ending you can dance to, I Would Like to Rage is smart, tender, and funny. Galibert-Laîné’s thorough and thoughtful practice is fully on display as they take us through various machinations of online and mediatised rage, its performativity, expression, and ownership, and how they experience or rather, attempt to experience rage authentically. A triumph of intelligent vulnerability expressed through an assemblage of self-reflection, video clips, memes, gifs, and Leslie Knope homages, this endearing delight of a video essay is surely coming to a film festival near you.

An impeccable experimental video essay that exaggerates and emphasises the uncanny through foley and feminist intervention. Fife Donaldson aptly mixes and amplifies the sharp edges of ASMR sound artist Julie Rose Bower’s work by replacing the soundtrack for the knife scene in Kiss Me Deadly. Switchblades pop and fist punches snap and crack onscreen through Fife Donaldson’s use of this unique collection of sound, and her use of visual repetition and slow motion. I am particularly drawn to how she lingers on sound during a slow motion shot of the would-be attacker’s descent to the ground as he slides down a wall after the attempted knife fight.

A gong repeatedly sounds as ‘The End’ title text from a variety of films are shown onscreen in several languages. We hear a tapping—a soft clicking that is perhaps his keyboard, our viewership guided by his hand. The way that Binotto has arranged these endings and silenced their corresponding soundtracks are filled with loss as they each mark an ending to a specific film as well as the end of his incredible Practices of Viewing series . Binotto cites Roland Barthes while seemingly articulating his own work ethic: “writing as absolute brings with it a particular existential movement: the drive to finish the work in order to start again”. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Using Evelyn Kreutzer’s Moving Poems prompt that asks makers to pair a poem with a media object, moving poems: a raisin in the sun (1961) is a poignant and poetic work that capitalises on affecting performances from the 1961 film adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun. De Jesús engages Langston Hughes’s short poem Harlem in onscreen text while expertly and artfully using opacity, repetition, movement, dialogue, and match cuts to sound in this stunning and layered poetic video essay.

Jeanne Dielman: On / Off by Dan Noall

A sublime supercut of every time the title character of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles turns on and off the lights. Noall jumpcuts us through each of the rooms of this film and the quiet bland domesticity of house and sex work with this simple task. Only fans of this iconic film will recognise the importance of Noall’s final shot where Jeanne turns off the light of the kitchen while firmly grasping her silver scissors and shutting the door behind her with a thud.

Video essayist (as kikikrazed ) and community manager for The Essay Library

Everything is a Remix (Complete Updated 2023 Edition) by Kirby Ferguson

Kirby Ferguson has revisited this project multiple times since it debuted in 2010, remixing his own work to create new iterations. The 2023 edition, described as “the definitive Everything is a Remix experience” by Ferguson, includes a new part about AI art, also released individually in 2023. Unfortunately, the video currently sits at under 100,000 views on YouTube due to unjust copyright claims that contradict fair use and the remix philosophy.

The PS1 Start-up Tells a Story by Dennis Gallagher

Gallagher’s 40-second essay (really only 30 seconds if you forget the credits) is a perfect example of a video essay with zero fluff. He narrates alongside the PlayStation startup sequence, guiding us through it with a sense of awe. The fantastic digital portal metaphor doesn’t overstay its welcome in this bite-sized treat.

Four-Byte Burger by Stuart Brown (Ahoy)

Brown documents his faithful recreation of his favourite piece of Amiga art, Jack Haeger’s Four-Byte Burger. In the process, he reveals how technological constraints can foster creativity. His passion and personal investment in the original artwork is clear throughout this journey.

The Chaos Behind The Wizard of Oz (and why it turned out ok anyway) by Isabel Custodio (Be Kind Rewind)

Custodio explores the production of The Wizard of Oz through each of its four directors, balancing substantial research with personal evaluations of their filmographies. In my own video essay work, Be Kind Rewind is one of my biggest inspirations. Every video amazes me with the sheer knowledge and passion for film on display. This essay is no different as it juggles the interconnected careers of actors, producers, and directors within the studio system at the time.

Some video essays that rely on literature to examine a film can become too text-heavy, but this essay never feels like that. DeLisio’s careful narration and textured sound design allows him to speak with the film instead of over it. This intelligent, well-edited video cements James DeLisio’s status as one of the most exciting emerging video essayists.

Film teacher and researcher at Escola das Artes in Católica University (O Porto); film programmer at IndieLisboa Film Festival; film critic at À pala de Walsh website.

Exotic Words Drifted by Sandro Aguilar

At the edge of the word lies silence, hesitation. On the other side of colour, there are bright colours, gray, black and white. This is a film that sits on the other side of the mirror and takes us through the tense and enigmatic reverse side of classic cinema. In Aguilar’s audiovisual essay, everything floats, expectantly, waiting to happen, inaugurating a new order, like a tense relationship between day and night, between the negative and the positive of a film stock.

Audiovisual essays are tools to unlock the imaginary and highlight possible paths and barriers. Misek’s work invites us to understand the struggles to show and hide images in contemporary digital agoras, where public versus private ownership is at stake in order to disseminate controlled versions of history.

Réseau des sens by Mirjam Leutwiler

For each contact, each touch there is a split “I”, a network of sensation. Mirjam Leutwiler’s short audiovisual essay is not only interpreting Michel Serre’s text “The Five Senses. A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies”, but also telling us how that network about touching and feeling is underway in the cinematic phenomenology.

Kinoapparatum Remade. A Videographic Montage Experiment. by Johannes Binotto, Maurice Dietziker, Linus Bolliger, Arseni Gavrilov, Kilian Frei, Andrina Moos, Cécile Brossard, Sven Friedli, Mirjam Leutwiler, Jana Schlegel, Melina Hofer, Anja Hubmann, Fynn Groeber, Nora Gruetter.

Kinoapparatum Remade is not only an homage to Vertov, Kaufman and Svilova’s seminal film Man with a Movie Camera. And also not only a reflection on Manovich’s ideas on the film regarding new media. It is all of this but it is also a collective collaborative effort in which we can see that recreation it also followed by actualisation, complementation and creative choices based on movement and form. And these particular choices of the “collective with the moving images” tells us that it is not only a question of past versus incoming future when we look at 1929’s masterpiece.

Against Polish or, Notes on Videographic Labor or, You Could Remix Blazing Saddles Today Will Digravio

Digravio’s original audiovisual essay may work against the idea of perfection and neatness as a possible disguised style. But it is also an exposition of the work involved in the audiovisual essay. In this sense, it enters a loop, a mise-en-abîme where a “meta worker” develops a similar “meta mirror” to better highlight the nature of what is involved when reworking the images and sounds of a film. 

Media and cultural studies graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

The Future Is a Dead Mall — Decentraland and the Metaverse by Dan Olson (Folding Ideas)

Another long-form triumph from the creator of Line Goes Up – The Problem with NTF s and In Search of a Flat Earth .

Searching for Humanity in Fortnite’s Battle Royale by Jonathan McIntosh (Pop Culture Detective)

A fusion between a “Let’s Play” and a conventional YouTube video essay, this moving autoethnography finds optimism and community in one of the most unlikely online gaming spaces.

Alexandre’s cleverly profound work on gender, sexuality, art, and digital culture never disappoints. Everything Is Sludge, which interrogates the rise of split-screen “sludge content” on TikTok, is yet another home run, and takes particular advantage of the traditional YouTube format. 

Associate professor of film and media in digital contexts at Aarhus University, Denmark; visiting researcher in the Centre for World Cinemas and Digital Cultures, University of Leeds, UK ; author of Workshop of Potential Scholarship: Manifesto for a Parametric Videographic Criticism, NECSUS  2021.

There has been so much exciting work to learn from in 2023 that I found it near-impossible to make this selection, even limiting myself (as I have) to ‘scholarly’ video essays. Let me name some makers in addition to the many mentioned below that have impacted my understanding of the practice this year: Ariane Hudelet, Cormac Donnelly, Dayna McLeod, Irina Trocan, Jemma Saunders, John Gibbs, Kevin Ferguson, Liz Greene, Maria Hofmann, Maud Ceuterick, Oswald Iten, Richard Misek, Susan Harewood… My point with this list, which could have been indefinitely extended, is that investigating the possibilities of the video essay is a collective endeavour. Brian Eno has a notion of collective ‘scenius’ (as opposed to individual ‘genius’) which refers to “the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene”: it’s this boisterous collective intelligence that I think we’re witnessing with the explosion of the video essay. Can it last? I do worry that the period of expansion, exploration and experimentation will exhaust itself, and that a single preferred mode of audiovisual rhetoric will be asserted or be insisted upon by the journals. I’m relieved this hasn’t happened yet, not in 2023 at any rate. And so my selection (which could easily have been several further sets of seven videos) is intended to indicate some of the striking variety, as well as the quality, of the work being done. Memories of It by Kathleen Loock ‘Memories of It’ mixes film, trailer and documentary footage with personal reflection and interview in order to tease out Kathleen Loock’s traumatic memory of watching (and fast-forwarding) the 1990 adaptation of It on VHS as a child. She links this memory with the condition of the Wendekinder, children like her of the former GDR forced to cope with a new world after German reunification. Does Kathleen over-sociologise her act of retrospectatorship by invoking shared generational experience? Is the video an attempt to contain as well as explain the threat of traumatic eruption? I’ll just have to watch ‘it’ again… Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime by Drew Morton

Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland is my favourite novel and one joy of my 2023 was encountering Peter Coviello’s Vineland Reread, a book that mixes literary criticism, cultural theory and autobiography to evoke the presence of Vineland in Coviello’s life and teaching. Drew Morton’s account of re-viewing and teaching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind at intervals since that film’s release is a similarly rich and joyful intellectual experience – Drew even shares some hard-earned lessons in love. (I recommend comparing the earlier version of the video linked in the creator statement, to see how an adept maker engages with challenging peer review.)

Desktop Documentary by Johannes Binotto

Johannes Binotto’s literally/ironically titled ‘Desktop Documentary’ is expressly a “call to clutter”. As such, it makes me terribly anxious. But this is a brilliantly conceived and engagingly performed piece of explicatory and programmatic rhetoric that draws on YouTube how-to videos even as it nods to the opening of Cléo de 5 à 7. I am happy to grant Binotto’s fiction that his desk has not been curated because I am persuaded by his account of the desktop as recalcitrant technology. And I am especially seduced by his call for productive accident and a-rational research methods that look back to surrealism.

True Enough by Chloé Galibert-Laîné

True Enough might seem a jeu d’esprit compared to Chloé Galibert-Laîné’s longer video essays. But even as it draws on the functional aesthetic of the karaoke video, this adaptation of a text by Will Webb, made for Ariel Avissar and Evelyn Kreutzer’s Once upon A Screen project, is a work of great refinement. Galibert-Laîné creates a “fictional offscreen space” with beautifully composed filmed footage enlivened by dancing light from an unseen television. The cheerful font and sung accompaniment extend the possibilities of onscreen text and voiceover. As an added bonus (or intrinsic moment), it contains the best Simpsons allusion ever.

This has been a vintage year for multiscreen. Like the videos by Mittell and Arlander discussed below, Colleen Laird’s Eye-Camera-Ninagawa and Adam Cook’s A Cinema of Bodily Sense deploy multiscreen in powerful but contrasting ways. Maryam Tafakory uses it differently again in ‘chaste/unchaste’. The video is a supercut of female faces (plus one big cat and a gas hob) made from thirty-two Iranian films. It stages its imagining of queer desire as a progression from multiscreen to single screen to superimposition. ‘chaste/unchaste’ is a condensed masterclass in how argument can be made in formal terms without the aid of voiceover.

169 Seconds: Trimming Time in Breaking Bad by Jason Mittell

To celebrate its twentieth anniversary, the Danish film journal 16:9 has been publishing 169-second video essays in a series that features makers like Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin, Jaap Kooijman, Catherine Grant, and Barbara Zecchi, with two impressive videos by my Aarhus colleague Mathias Bonde Korsgaard. My favourite is Jason Mittell’s cheeky afterthought to his videographic project on Breaking Bad (it traces Walter White’s story arc through his hairstyles). I like how the application of strict but ludic formal parameters, which Mittell derives from the journal name and video duration, generate a cryptic visual tapestry of the entire series.

Revisiting the Aspen Tree by Annette Arlander

Between 2002 and 2014, artist Annette Arlander recorded weekly visits to locations on Harakka Island near Helsinki in a series of videos. In Revisiting the Aspen Tree, she returns to one such site and embeds those videos in the video document of the more recent visit. Differently from Mittell’s Trimming Time, Arlander uses parameters to dictate a practice that is physical, repetitive and durational. But it reminds me of Will DiGravio’s Rio Bravo project, and like DiGravio’s four-hour Against Polish, it suggests the value of an ‘ambient’ scholarship, in which iterative academic labour is presented in something like real time.

Host and producer at Wisecrack

My selections focus on creators who are pushing the critical boundaries of the video essay format. In particular, these are creators who both utilise critical theory, social theory, and philosophy while also producing videos that are entertaining and accessible. They also make the types of videos that leave you feeling like more questions have been opened than answered. Which, especially on YouTube, is an increasingly rare thing.

Griftonomics: Why Scams Are Everywhere Now by Tom Nicholas

This video might be Nicholas’s magnum opus, and it feels more like a digital documentary than it does a traditional video essay with a runtime of almost two hours. But he earns every minute of the video by not only exploring the growing phenomenon of digital grifters, but by showing how the logic of grifters exists in an ongoing dialectical relationship with the larger economic structures in our world. In this way he arrives at the logical core of the modern digital grifter, and shows how this same logic is at the heart of much of modern culture. He balances this out by also exploring the psychological factors that have made grifter scams and content so popular. Nicholas also deserves credit for working a level of theatricality into this video (and all of his videos) that’s visually engaging without being distracting. In a world of sad ex-grad students making videos about capitalism ruining our world, Nicholas is the relatable and entertaining lad that takes you just as deep without any performative nihilism.

What Red Pill Philosophy Gets Wrong by Then &  Now

2023 was a banner year for content made by reactionary young men utilising various philosophical and political ideas to justify a sense of growing alienation. While it’s easy to dismiss this contingent of creators completely, the harder task is to engage with these trends, openly interrogating their ideological core. And this video does an exemplary job at this task, taking red pill philosophy to task, and in the process, exposing how it offers a shallow simulacrum of actual philosophical responses to complex social problems. The video acknowledges the alienating cultural conditions that produce the “manosphere” while exposing the illogical core at the heart of these ideas. In doing so, Then & Now has created a video that pushes the viewer to not simply dismiss the modern reactionary, but to understand the logic of this movement, and see how this manner of thinking is more common than we might realise. Ultimately, it’s a video that skillfully uses seemingly esoteric and academic ideas to re-frame the contemporary crisis of masculinity while showing us all why we should care.

the parasite class is killing us. by Alice Capelle In this video, Alice Capelle uses the logic of vampire capitalism to show how the modern digital economy increasingly depends on acts of parasitism. She shows how the type of parasitic class relationships exemplified in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is replicated in digital spaces, and in particular, among self-styled business gurus using YouTube videos as a way to repeat the logic of class exploitation in the guise of self-help and business advice. Like most of Capelle’s work, this video utilises her ability to synthesise a French brand of critical social theory with an English-language based digital cultural space. This video feels like a sort of ethnography of the contemporary digital parasite, one that both exposes the exploitative core of their content, while hopefully encouraging us to undermine this logic however we can.

Assistant professor, Leiden University, and film programmer

Ross’s recommendations were submitted without comment.

El juicio by Ulises de la Orden Dau:añcut // Moving Along Image by Adam Piron

Silence of Reason by Kumjana Novakova

Mast-del by Maryam Tafakory

Limitation by Elene Asatiani, Soso Dumbadze

An Asian Ghost Story by Bo Wang

Still Film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins

Film critic and curator of The Moving Image from Lima, Perú

This year has been particularly scarce in terms of what I’ve seen or experienced in cinema due to various reasons. But here is a small selection of works I deem worthy to be mentioned, all from the fantastic [in]Transition: Journal of Videographic Film & Moving Image Studies.

A magnificent view on the dual nature of the portrayal of women in Iranian cinema.

Through the spirit of Chris Marker, this playful video essay runs the gamut of exploration via the Geo Guesser application and Marker’s cinema.

“Visual capitalism.”

Audio-Visual PhD student at University of Birmingham

Double Takes: A Series of Short Video Essays by Sarah Atkinson

Elegantly simple in their conception and execution; and cumulatively damning.

Insincere Inclusion? Ignorant Appropriation? A Symphony Orchestra Plays South Indian Film Music by Sureshkumar P. Sekar

I listened and I learned. A truly audio-visual piece.

Why Does Gotham Look like That? by Will Webb

An extensively researched and engaging exploration of this fictional city’s screen history.

A fascinating, haptic, personal inquiry that I couldn’t stop thinking about afterwards.

Indy Vinyl for the Masses: Lollipop by Ariel Avissar (curator) Matt Payne, Mingyue Yuan and Charlotte Scurlock

Pure fun and a wonderfully cohesive melding of song, theme (walking) and chosen keyword (kids). Hats off to Ian Garwood too for conceiving this project!

Freelance critic

I was flabbergasted last year when I somehow missed Mark Brown’s Platformer Toolkit , which I’m noting here because I think it absolutely represents a vital step forward for this art. I hope to see more work in interactive essays in the future.

Plenty of essays are about specific issues. This one manages to also embody its own ethos by acting as a conduit to get good-quality public domain imagery into the actual public.

A great rumination on acceptable expressions of anger, mediated through the desktop form in the same way that our emotions are mediated through technology.

The History of the Minnesota Vikings by Jon Bois et al

I think at this point Jon Bois just has a permanent spot in my ballot each year. He continues to innovate and refine his form. No one is making documentaries like this.

Pictures of Ghosts by Kleber Mendonça Filho et al

A beautiful meditation on memory as channeled through both personal and public archives, and the relationship between cinema spaces and their communities.

Brilliant in its simplicity, a Rorschach test that reveals the underlying absurdity of its own premise, and in turn the entire premise of censorious morality.

Nonbinary scholar-practitioner working at the intersections of artistic research and critical theories of embodiment and identity; reader in media and performance at University of Huddersfield; founding editor of Journal of Embodied Research.

I am a performance theorist and practitioner who has been working for several years to educate myself in the ways of videographic thought. My selection is eclectic and formally diverse, mostly coming from outside film and media studies.

Peribiophoty by Tom Murray, Karen Pearlman, Stephanie Russo, Hsu-Ming Teo, Rowan Tulloch, Rachel Yuen-Collingridge, Malcolm Choat

This item is from the journal I edit. I chose it from our 2023 video articles because of how it uses a formally simple concept to stage a deep dive into a range of scholarly projects. This is a co-authored video article sharing the research of five academics, who not only speak to the camera about their work but also interact physically with various objects on a sparse kind of set. It is elegantly produced and designed to examine “the personal and intellectual contexts (peri) surrounding academics and their biographies (bio) through audio-visual representation (photy).”

The World like a Jewel in the Hand by Ariella Azoulay

This film is technically from 2022 (I don’t know which month), but since this is my first Sight and Sound poll, I have decided to include it. As far as I can tell, it has primarily been screened in 2023. In the film, scholar Ariella Aïsha Azoulay explores the complex history of colonialism between Algeria and Israel, with an emphasis on the gradual erasure of the important figure of the Arab Jew. Azoulay manages to put this history in the broader context of European colonialism in Africa and to interrogate the ongoing practices of colonial museums, all through the simple action of touching and talking about a wide array of books, photographs, mezuzot, and other objects on her desk. When I first saw this film, I immediately felt that it brings an extraordinary depth and power to the concept of the “desktop documentary.”

Familiar Phantoms by Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind

I have to confess that I have not seen this film, only the trailer. I recently got a chance to see In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain (2016) and In Vitro (2019) by the same creators. One of the challenges in selecting the “best” video essays from a given year is that so much videographic thought still takes place within the economy of fine arts and is therefore not made available online because it would thereby lose its aura. Larissa Sansour is a Palestinian video artist and filmmaker whose work is powerfully situated and discussed in Gil Z. Hochberg’s book, Becoming Palestine. I am including Familiar Phantoms on my list of selections as the 2023 video work I most wish to see.

A Short Film About Stealing (in Norway) by Pouria Kazemi

I have been able to find very little about Pouria Kazemi online and nothing about this film, which I had the chance to watch when it was submitted to a video festival I co-curated. This short animated video essay is a perfectly composed, brilliantly understated autobiographical statement about the necessity of petty theft under late capitalism. Among the more delightful and poignant touches is that the author’s friends, to protect their anonymity, are given as pseudonyms the names of the Norwegian royal family.

Hold On, This Matilda Musical Snapping 💀💀 by @wonder_kidd

Hold On, This Matilda Musical Snapping was a TikTok / Instagram trend in which a scene of dynamic choreography from the movie version of the musical Matilda is overlaid by various alternative musical tracks. While putting forward a 25-second social media remix as one of the best video essays of the year is certainly pushing the limits of the form, all the key elements are there: a creative and incisive juxtaposition of a video track with a distinct audio track is contextualised by the critical commentary of a textual annotation. The version I have chosen to link uses @wonder_kidd’s remix of Beyonce’s ‘Cuff It’, a choice that (as many of the Instagram commenters noted) effectively brings out the black cultural roots of Ellen Kane’s choreography, in sharp relief against the massively predominant whiteness of the British schoolchildren who perform it. In just a few seconds, this remix gives us both a snapping new version of Matilda and a cultural critique of how black dance knowledges circulate in predominantly white cultural fields.

Video essayist at StrucciMovies , actual play host on Oddity Roadshow

Colleen Ballinger and Commentary Culture by Ro Ramdin

Ro Ramdin’s work is incredible. Always sharply written, insightful, very funny, beautifully shot, and deeply thoughtful under the meticulous aesthetic and entertaining editing style. She’s one of those essayists I am more than happy to watch even if I have zero interest in the subject matter. I chose this video of hers in particular because I found her reflection on her place in the commentary channel ecosystem navigating the “algorithmic nightmare” of YouTube (as she puts it) especially compelling.

Does Fresh Garlic Actually Taste Better than Garlic in a Jar? by Ethan Chlebowski

Ethan Chlebowski has made several videos posing the question of whether more expensive versions of the same ingredient are worth it and why, including on balsamic vinegar, olive oil, parmigiano reggiano, vanilla, and, here, garlic. Each video is a deep dive on the cultural history of how the food is used and why, the basics of the culinary science behind it, and Chlebowski doing several taste tests and then giving recommendations at varying price points. While some of his conclusions are down to personal preference, his videos are nevertheless fascinating and done without judgement or pretension. I’d consider them a must-watch for new home cooks or those looking for a great example of engaging educational content that doesn’t condescend.

Wayfinding Flight Rising Dailies & Accessibility by PSJ ulie

I started a Neopets account in elementary school, over twenty years ago. My interest in Neopets or other pet sim sites has long since waned but I’m still fascinated by the work of Pet Simmer Julie, who crafts in-depth videos on virtual pet games. Her depth of knowledge and passion for these games and communities is immediately evident with any of her videos. This video, for example, helped me understand my own problems navigating real-world attractions that had poor wayfinding, and I’ve thought back to it many times after watching.

Filmmaker , author, video essayist, critic

A perfect capper to Johannes’ indispensable series

It’s a Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie Point by Daniel Kremer

Daniel finally makes his epic, a great odyssey about why we get lost in movies.

Against Polish or, Notes on Videographic Labor or, You Could Remix Blazing Saddles Today by Will DiGravio

With the insouciance of late Godard or Leos Carax’s New Order music video, Will disassembles our need to assemble.

Ozu Without Ozu by Green and Red

Deliciously busy exploration of auteurism.

Once upon a Screen: The 39 Shots by Ariel Avissar

A recontextualisation of what’s in plain sight.

Random Acts of Flyness Season 2 by Terence Nance

Terence and co’s vibrant and deeply necessary attack on commerce and media’s hideous parasitic relationship is an inspiration to all creators. One of the best to ever do it.

Independent scholar, video essayist

Practices of Viewing by Johannes Binotto

I remember where I was, shaking my head, beaming, and stifling a gasp, when I realised that Practices of Viewing is our generation’s Ways of Seeing or Histoire(s) du Cinema. A project of this scope, originality, insight and depth of audiovisual thinking may never happen again.

Jill, Uncredited by Anthony Ing

The log line says it’s a subtle, masterful tribute to the nearly-invisible labour of a background actress you’ve never heard of. But really, it’s a ground-up retraining of your whole visual cortex. Squint between the film grains, and you might even find a remake of Rose Hobart that outdoes Cornell.

Non-Euclidean Therapy for AI Trauma [Analog Archives] #SoME3 by neoknowstic

I’ve been meaning to include a mathematics video essay for years, and this one’s a revelation. A horror film starring an AI image generator lost in its own vector space, trying to remember enough matrix algebra to escape from the ‘dream’ of a grotesque face that it can’t stop making.

William Shakespeare’s Course of True Love by Lara Callaghan

Full disclosure: I was a participant in the group project that this essay belongs to, but I had nothing to do with this inspired entry. Unfortunately. I’m so jealous that I never realised that a video essay could parody other genres – in this case, the infomercial – to enclose its insights into an envelope of fleet-footed wit that belies their depth.

Elaine Scarry says pain can’t be expressed in words, but this essay claims that Phil Tippett’s film Mad God offers a counter-argument: maybe using a different system of signification CAN express pain. Magnificently, this essay doesn’t assume that scholars have more authority than artists, and opts instead to orchestrate a coequal conversation between two of them.

Indians from 1967: A Reaction by Ritika Kaushik

A time-capsule doc from 1967 resurfaces recut online and inspires a bevy of reaction videos. Why’d that happen? If we can’t explain why, maybe we can at least reproduce the effect, but with all the tools out in the open. And that’s what this essay does. After a forensics of the recut itself and a cataloguing of the reactions, a little zoom and slow motion unexpectedly imbue me with the same fascination with wonder and impermanence for contemporary online culture.

The AI Revolution Is Rotten to the Core by Jimmy McGee

This is ground zero of visual culture now, and most of us are either too tired to catch up or hoping it’ll just go away. If you don’t know where to turn, turn here. It’s rigorously researched, historically grounded, theoretically canny, sardonically wise, and as quotable as Casablanca. “We need to choose between building a world for money to live in or building a world for people to live in.”

Freelance film critic , film studies lecturer at UNATC  Bucharest

In retrospect, I seem to have compiled a mostly glum list, if not directly referring to contemporary events, at least haunted by them:

Scenes of Extraction by Sanaz Sohrabi

This installation work surveys the history of Iran over several decades, focusing on oil extraction by the foreign company soon to be known as British Petroleum, through a technique called reflection seismography. The challenge, of course, as postcolonial scholarship taught us, is to look beyond the audiovisual self-representation of the company – and the artist accomplishes this extraordinarily well. A voiceover accompanies a collage/montage documenting industrial processes, while the collage in itself operates on the images – which sometimes look like spectral cutouts – workers disconnected from the background, initially black, that slowly takes shape behind them), while at other times these images show their age (for instance, when 1930s maps are juxtaposed with recent CGI ).

Between Revolutions by Vlad Petri

Films about revolutions often – and quite paradoxically – treat the event like a solidly contained point on the historical axis, with a beginning and an end, missing exactly their transformative potential and their collective character. One way to avoid this is to resort to the not-entirely-manipulable archives from the depicted era (and not just in short clips to lend the veneer of truth to fictional reenactments), and Between Revolutions is a pretty convincing demonstration of this strategy. Maria and Zahra are fictional med students from Romania and Iran, trying to figure out life amid social turmoil – but the footage, poems and songs that illustrate their journey existed in the world long before the making of this film, and even when made with obvious artistic or educational intent (not to mention elaborate choreography!), these reworked materials contain some trace or emotional truth of their times.

This Is the End by Vincent Dieutre

By the most expansive definition a “videographic” work, Dieutre’s Los Angeles pandemic film has, I would argue, a family resemblance with Thom Andersen’s survey of polysemic Californian cityscapes. Love, longing and poetry readings (with actors’/directors’ cameos!) interrupt the grim silence of lockdown.

She Asked Me Where I Was From by Aulona Fetahaj

I reviewed this short film for Kortfilm.be.

Incident by Bill Morrison

Bill Morrison is known to be interested in film only when it is analogue and beautifully degraded, and in this respect the CCTV /bodycam-sourced Incident is a long distance from Buried News . The killing of Harith Augustus by the Chicago police was previously examined by Forensic Architecture to persuasively oppose the authorities’ version of the event, but Morrison and Jamie Kalven at the Invisible Institute set out to do something else. The 30-minute film, often showing in split-screen multiple angles and parallel events, only tracks a short span of time, although 1) it seems dispiritingly endless and 2) it already anticipates the community’s reaction to seeing yet another African American killed, while the policemen, in an onlooker’s phrasing, “get their story straight”. Augustus’s lifeless body is present in the frame for a long stretch of the runtime, contrary to the CPD ’s attempt to erase the “accident” from memory, while the eloquent rage of everyone in the community seems tragically rehearsed in similar prior events. The victim’s neighbours don’t get to express solidarity, but the colleagues of the policemen who fired the gun can, and do, help erase criminal guilt.

Makeover Movie by Sue Ding

You’d think this is the second-oldest topic in the feminist book (immediately after suffrage), but makeovers seem here to stay. Just look at what the too-radical teen in Barbie has to go through, or scroll down any social media app on a new account. Luckily, well-informed critiques, spanning many decades of US films, and listing all the problematic tropes implicit in the “makeover” are also competing for our attention. I can only hope that more young spectators see “The Makeover Movie”, where Sue Ding conjures a multiracial telephone slumber party with her girlfriends to understand how these films taught them “not only how to be a woman, but also how to be American”. Teen classics provide most material, but a handful of musicals plus Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale and Vertigo also fit the bill.

Screen Stars Dictionary. Natalia Oreiro by Jiří Anger and Veronika Hanáková

I grew up with Natalia Oreiro in her many disguises on my TV screen only to realise that nobody referred to her in the many pop surveys of Film and Media Studies. Therefore, I owe Veronika and Jiří many thanks and a loud high-five for allowing me to mention her again as a media scholar in my 30s. Autobiography aside, this playful video is a throwback to 2000s TV series, music clips and shows, computer interfaces, and a persuasive argument about how the model-periphery theory of dissemination is a far from rigorous model.

Film programmer and researcher

Where Is Little Trixie? by Carlos Baixauli

A very moving work that packs a lot of wonder and attentive detail in under four minutes, building a bridge between the works of two women filmmakers more than a century apart.

Who Speaks? Possessing Lyotard by Oscar Mealia

It points the way to new possible intersections between philosophy, film research, and video essay formats.

Isn’t That Going to Be Awfully Dull and Drab?’ George Hoyningen-Huene’s Use of Neutrals by Lucy Fife Donaldson

Packs surprise and captivating visuals into a video essay able to pleasurably unpack original academic and archival research.

Film critic ( À pala de Walsh ) and film programmer (Cinemateca Portuguesa, IndieLisboaIFF)

The latest film by James N. Kienitz Wilkins is an intriguing and exhausting audio play voiced by the director, who plays the four main characters in a court inquiry about film memories, film still photographers, Kodak as a pharmaceutical enterprise, the negative aura of Tom Hanks, boom operators, and the elusiveness of Hollywood as a cultural agent. All of this is put together with a seemingly random selection of film stills. As usual, in Kienitz Wilkins’ work, discourse is moving and images are ecstatic.

Le film que vous allez voir by Maxime Martinot

Maxime Martinot’s 11-minute film is an immensely funny compilation of disclaimer cards presented at the beginning of films throughout history. Edited as a frantic accumulation of non-images, we expect the worst and suffer the anticipation of immoral, violent, or graphic images. Without the images themselves, we are left with an essay on morality and sensibility as they evolve through time and shape the way we see the world around us and ourselves.

Où en êtes-vous, Tsai Ming-Liang? by Tsai Ming-Liang

A 20-minute meditation by the greatest living filmmaker on back pain, the pleasure of sitting, the beauty of chairs and how to paint them.

Chambre 999 by Lubna Playoust

A conceptual remake of Wim Wenders’ Chambre 666, made 40 years later. Cinema has changed, and today’s issues concerning viewership, distribution, and production are radically different from those of 1982. An uneven collection of thoughts that includes a wonderful opening act by Wenders himself as a burlesque doomsday prophet.

Onde está o Pessoa? (Where is Pessoa?) by Leonor Areal

From a few minutes of film, shot in 1913, Leonor Areal loops, zooms, pans, and examines every detail (as in Ken Jacobs’ Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son), looking for the poet Fernando Pessoa, who was a cinephile, designed the logo of a movie company, wrote several film scripts, and was never caught on film. Or was he?

Even if Godard is dead, he lives in Maryam Tafakory. Mast-del is a collage of post-revolution Iranian cinema that produces mesmerising film compositions of gestures, textures, sounds, and words. A thin narrative line runs through public images and intimate feelings, delineating a complex web of recollections where memory and film history merge together.

Filmmaker , video essayist . Commissions include Sight and Sound / BFI , Little White Lies, Curzon and Arrow.

As ever, excited to see constant variety within the video essay world. My picks prioritise new creators and formal inventiveness.

MyHouse. WAD – Inside Doom’s Most Terrifying Mod by Power Pak

A masterpiece of recapping, Power Pak’s video is essentially a narrated journey through an ingenious mod. A good recap doesn’t just communicate plot, but also the point of the essay; this does both. Excellent pacing and vocal delivery communicates the tone of the map, and becomes a jumping off point for an analysis of horror in gaming / the oft-discussed topic of liminal spaces. And, a special shoutout to an almost unedited six-minute segment of black and silence in the middle. Commitment to the bit!

Interrogating one of the strangest releases of last year, this essay takes on the unenviable task of articulating how the film articulates the inarticulable (via Elaine Scarry). DeLisio’s commentary includes text elements that are ingeniously expressed in a similar visual language to the film’s (faded, grainy, blurry). As commenter Max Tohline puts it, “not under the knife of Scarry, but in coequal conversation with Scarry”.

Is It Impossible to Dad? by The Nukes

A trademark The Nukes / Josh Geist essay in its analysis of a throwaway family animation property through a serious academic viewpoint – not (just) for the comedy of applying highbrow to lowbrow, but to recognise that even (and maybe especially?) the forgotten parts of pop culture express truths about humanity. Josh reorders his text via its characters’ viewpoints to tell a story about father-son communication – and, perhaps, the impossibility of communication itself.

Alexandre investigates ‘sludge’ content – those splitscreens of a narrated reddit post and a Subway Surfers video, for instance – through a clever visual device. Talk about ‘embodied practice’: hard for me to imagine a more clear example than Alexandre projecting the edited video text onto their own body for the entirety of this video. An interruption a few minutes in from YouTube’s algorithm –a split-screen beer advert no less– just added to the gag on my viewing. And throughout the to-camera presentation, I found my eye drawn off to the Minecraft parkour constantly, in a clever proving of Alexandre’s argument. Behind the overstimulating presentation, Alexandre’s analysis offers an insightful categorisation of a media type inexplicable on the surface but ever-present in the developing digital landscape.

The breezy recap of the man/car binary in the opening moments of max teeth’s essay is authoritative, funny, and thought-provoking – everything a video essay can be, especially on YouTube. And the speed with which that’s just assumed and dropped as we speed into the main matter is a great example of how to explain succinctly. YouTube’s got too many 1hr+ essays – more like this, please.

Seinpeaks by @seinpeaks

There’s a fine line between a shitpost and a videographic work; ironically, the more academic end of video essays (with their lack of in-video explanation due to abstract support, and leaning towards supercuts and split-screens) are more like this than popular YouTube works. Seinpeaks illustrates the fine line beautifully. It’s a long-running project mashing up Twin Peaks and Seinfeld (with guest appearances from other stalwart shows like Always Sunny and Friends). These two shows aired simultaneously and their shared visual language provides a jumping-off point for a surprising collab that draws out the humour in Twin Peaks and the absurdism in Seinfeld.

Editor-at-large and YouTube channel manager at Little White Lies magazine

How Jane Campion Subverts the Violence of the Male Gaze by Carly Mattox

This was an idea pitched to me around focusing on the image of the woman on the street in cinema, especially at night, and especially in films directed by women. It took a little bit of back and forth to nail the structure and pacing, but the tone and central thesis of the piece was rock solid from the outset. I was delighted with how it turned out, and am really excited to see what Carly comes up with next.

Oppenheimer Is the Perfect Christopher Nolan Protagonist by Lara Callaghan

There was a lot published around Nolan’s atom bomb opus, but I’m not sure anything I’ve seen has managed to tap into his preoccupations as a filmmaker as astutely as this.

Adam Driver Driving by Luís Azevedo

This video stemmed from a silly conversation Luís and I had, but I think the result – aside from being superbly edited – speaks to something more serious about how actors choose to present themselves in certain ways on screen.

Professor and director of the film studies programme, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Very hard to limit myself to these nominations only.

Practices of Viewing series by Johannes Binotto

By all means this is the major project in videographic criticism of the year – or I should say of the last three years, since FFW , the first one (I believe) was produced in 2020. A work of art that redefines the boundaries of what’s possible in the medium. Its richness, originality, and creativity combine to create an experience that truly blows the mind. This videographic project is a testament to the limitless potential of form, its academic rigour, and artistry. It’s a visual and intellectual rollercoaster that will leave you in awe from start to finish.

RAWR by Maud Ceuterick

Beginning as a creative spark in an Aarhus workshop, it expanded at Middlebury College to become a true gem. Drawing from Judith Butler’s groundbreaking work, Ceuterick passionately interprets and deforms scenes of female rage, challenging gender norms. This transformative journey echoes Audre Lorde’s call for a radical change through the expression of rage. It’s a brilliant fusion of scholarship and creativity.

This is Not What I Normally Do: An Insignificant Step in the Downfall of the Humanities by Ariel Avissar

This is THE video essay of the year. A bold departure from convention, this video defies expectations with its remarkable layers of provocation. Meticulously edited and expertly crafted, it pushes the boundaries of videographic criticism, skilfully weaving a captivating tapestry of thought-provoking insights in the field

One of the most captivating sound projects I’ve ever encountered. This video essay ventures into uncharted territory, pairing the audio from the beginning of films with the closing images, creating an extraordinary mosaic of sound and visuals. The result is an auditory and visual tapestry that defies conventional expectations. It’s a seamless blend of the familiar and the unexpected, challenging our perception of film narratives.

169 Seconds: Una mujer reflejada / A Reflected Woman by Catherine Grant

In this brief but profoundly impactful exploration, Catherine Grant manages to distil the essence of the film’s themes, performances, and significance with remarkable precision, a testament to the art of succinct and effective storytelling. It’s a research gem that demonstrates the power of brevity in conveying complex ideas. In just 169 seconds, this video essay is the best piece of research ever “written” on Sebastián Lelio’s film.

This provocative video essay skillfully employs desktop editing on an iPhone to present a feminist perspective on the enduring control of women’s bodies through the dissemination of misinformation about menstruation and the menstruation apps. It is an awe-inspiring blend of resourcefulness, scholarly research, activism, art, exceptional editing skills, and creativity. 

Sensuous and Affective: The Potential of Videography for Studying Audio-Visual Relations by Oswald Iten

A beautifully edited and profoundly insightful exploration of the dynamic interplay between sight and sound.

Emerging voices

The voters had the option to nominate essayists to the ‘Emerging voices’ section as a way to highlight new and exciting talent in the video essay space.

acollierastro (nominated by Ben Chinapen)

[Ben also nominated this creator’s video on string theory in the main poll, and resubmitted his explanation from there to clarify why he was nominating them for Emerging voices.]

This video came out of nowhere and blew everyone’s mind who saw it. An intriguing title, with a clearly stressed-out person and also The Binding of Isaac in the thumbnail? What’s going on? Within one minute the purpose becomes clear; this woman who has very strong opinions and credentials will break down exactly what happened with the String Theory phenomenon while simultaneously stumbling through a playthrough of the vintage roguelike indie darling Binding of Isaac. A premise so absurd and hilarious (dare I say groundbreaking?) that you instantly want to watch and listen. It’s very informative and HIGHLY entertaining for the joke of the idea alone. I’m glad this took off because it was worth it. This is probably my most firm nomination out of the group.

Morgane Frund (nominated by Delphine Jeanneret)

Morgane Frund was born in 1997 in Lausanne, Switzerland. She studied Film Studies, English and German at the University of Lausanne. From 2019 to 2022, she studied Video at Hochschule Luzern, Design and Kunst, graduating with a Bachelor degree. BEAR (2022), her graduation film, screened in numerous festivals and won several prizes. OUT OF THE BLUE (2023) premiered in competition at the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur. She is active in the fields of documentary film, video essay and performance arts.

Eloïse Le Gallo and Julia Borderie (nominated by Delphine Jeanneret)

Born in 1989, Julia Borderie and Éloïse Le Gallo have been a duo since 2016. They graduated from Le Fresnoy in 2023. In an exploratory mode, they approach water as a substance that influences the territories it flows through and the bodies that live in it. Taking a poetic, documentary approach, they make the experience of otherness a condition of artistic creation. The camera eye acts as a catalyst for encounters, while questioning the human gestures that shape materials and territories.

At the heart of a mesh of viewpoints and disciplines (craft techniques, geology, chemistry, marine biology, etc.) and at the crossroads of sculpture and cinema, they are interested in the origin of the materials that form a landscape. Recently, their research has led them to question more specifically the complementarities between learned form and sensitive form, working with scientists on objects generated by their cutting edge technologies. [Bio from Le Fresnoy]

Rodrigo Campos (nominated by Evelyn Kreutzer)

Campos participated in a mentorship program I co-organised with Anna-Sophie Pilippi, Maike Reinerth, and Kathleen Loock, as part of the Videography conference in Hanover 2022. There he worked with Barbara Zecchi. The resulting video, published in the ZfM Videography blog this year, is a deeply poetic, affective, and analytically profound investigation of Brazilian colonial screen history.

Doing Women’s Global Horror Film History Collaboration (nominated by Colleen Laird)

A collaboration of 30 makers, the Doing Women’s Global Horror Film History project has been in the works since an original call for proposals in February 2022. Although just a few of the participants are experienced (full disclosure: myself included), the grant-funded project was designed by Alison Peirse to train and mentor new talent from around the globe through a series of online videographic workshops over the course of approximately six months. Thereafter, participants would produce their first video essay and would refine their edits through online peer feedback. As one of the collaborators, it has been my great privilege to see the works of so many new creators grow and evolve and I am excited for their collective debut. The collaboration will be published online in the first quarter of 2023 in the journal MAI : Feminism & Visual Culture .

Carlos Baixauli (nominated by Adrian Martin)

Sometimes, audiovisual essays can do a simple thing very well. Baixauli’s ingenious mix of the silent Falling Leaves (1912) by Alice Guy with Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman (2021) hits that spot.

Green & Red (Kasra Karbasi and Mohammad Amin Komijani) (nominated by Adrian Martin)

These Iranian cinephiles pursue very original film analyses.

Martín Vilela (nominated by Adrian Martin)

Like Cooper in Twin Peaks: The Return, Chandler from Friends is multiplied and interacts with himself, uncannily. In Argentina, Vilela’s country!

May Santiago (nominated by Dayna McLeod)

A queer Puerto Rican feminist filmmaker, May Santiago’s unique voice and perspective makes her a video essayist to watch out for. She will have new work in Alison Peirse’s Doing Women’s (Global) (Horror) Film History ( DWGHFH ) project which will be featured in a special issue of MAI Feminism & Visual Culture in 2024. I was lucky enough to see May’s practice first hand at Embodying the Video Essay, a videographic workshop in Maine this summer and was blown away by May’s spectacularly intricate and layered work. She crafts soundtracks to complement a unique and riveting visual language, combining archive and horror while using herself as narrator and performing subject in front of the camera. Do keep an eye out for May’s work at film festivals and online: https://www.maillim.com/

Svanik Surve ( SUAVE , SUAVE cinema , svanik SUAVE ) (nominated by Queline Meadows)

Svanik Surve has been making video essays steadily for a few years now, but expanded his output in 2023 when he created two new YouTube channels. This year, his work explored Indian culture, international art cinema, and philosophy. His creative, intelligent, and funny videos deserve a much larger audience.

framemygaze (nominated by Queline Meadows)

In my eyes, there is nobody more immersed in the YouTube media and culture video essay landscape than framemygaze, and I say that as someone who runs a Discord server for video essay creators! I’ve found her in the comment sections of countless videos writing detailed notes that reflect her care and close attention to everything she watches. Framemygaze has only released one video so far, but if her deep understanding of the video essay community is any indication, there will be many more great videos in the future.

Alice Cappelle (nominated by Michael O’N eill Burns)

Alice’s videos offer an intriguing perspective at the borders of Francophile and Anglophile culture. She’s a French creator making videos in English, often about topics and phenomena specific to English language digital spaces and culture. This perspective allows her to use the critical force of a French leftist theorist to tackle seemingly vapid and conceptually empty trends and practices. At other times, she’s able to translate the specificity of the French political moment to a broader audience in a way that’s far more accessible than standard news coverage.

Jackson Maher (nominated by Michael O’N eill Burns)

Jackson is an already accomplished editor who in recent years has put himself in front of the camera to create video essays that lure viewers in with analysis of popular media properties, but uses this as the occasion to expose deeper cultural ideologies buried within pop culture. His series of videos on Copaganda does a masterful job at showing us how the logic of policing has infected so much of our culture, down to popular children’s programme Paw Patrol. But maybe most impressively, Jackson does all this while being relatable and curious, never making the viewer feel judged but instead inviting us to dig deeper alongside him.

Lara Isobel Callaghan (nominated by Will Webb)

Lara is a new face on the video-essay scene, with a number of commissions across Little White Lies and the BFI . Although the commissioned work is excellent, I’m highlighting this video from the Essay Library collab, When Essay Met Library, due to its formal inventiveness and cheeky sense of humour. Using Hindi film Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan as a jumping off point, Lara examines Shakespeare’s influence on the rom-com genre through the lens of a 1980s infomercial. William Shakespeare’s Course of True Love: available now!

Jemma Saunders (nominated by Will Webb)

A doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham, Jemma’s particular focus on sense of place (and Birmingham especially) comes to the fore in this fascinating essay examining automotive representations of the city. Other works in this vein include Reaching Out Remotely , covering UK soap Doctors’ covid episode, made all the more poignant by its cancellation this year.

Carly Mattox (nominated by Adam Woodward)

I met Carly in late 2022 when I gave a talk to the second year students at NFTS . She reached out to me earlier this year and has since contributed a handful of videos to the LWL ies YouTube channel.

The new issue of Sight and Sound

David Lynch on music, innovation and his future as a filmmaker Plus, in a music special: Kneecap on their blistering biopic – Brian Eno in conversation with Walter Murch – Great 21st century scores, as chosen by Ishibaki Eiko, Colin Stetson, Fatima Al Qadiri and more

There appears to be a technical issue with your browser

This issue is preventing our website from loading properly. Please review the following troubleshooting tips or contact us at [email protected] .

China Brief: Chinese Card Game Turns Political

Create an FP account to save articles to read later.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Downloadable PDFs are a benefit of an FP subscription.

Subscribe Now

World Brief

• Editors’ Picks
• Africa Brief

China Brief

• Latin America Brief

South Asia Brief

Situation report.

• Flash Points
• War in Ukraine
• Crisis in the Middle East
• U.S. election 2024
• U.S. foreign policy
• Trade and economics
• U.S.-China competition
• Artificial intelligence
• Asia & the Pacific
• Middle East & Africa

Could Civil War Erupt in America?

The china challenge, ones and tooze, foreign policy live.

Summer 2024 Issue

Print Archive

FP Analytics

• In-depth Special Reports
• Issue Briefs
• Power Maps and Interactive Microsites
• FP Simulations & PeaceGames
• Graphics Database

Catalysts for Change

Webinar: how to create a successful podcast, fp @ unga79, ai for healthy cities, her power @ unga79.

By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time.

Your guide to the most important world stories of the day

Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent

The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week

Weekly update on what’s driving U.S. national security policy

Evening roundup with our editors’ favorite stories of the day

One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture

Weekly update on developments in India and its neighbors

A curated selection of our very best long reads

Chinese Card Game Turns Political

A newspaper has blamed guandan for corruption—but it really underscores the informal politics that keep the chinese communist party running..

• James Palmer

Welcome to  Foreign Policy ’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: A major newspaper blames the popular card game guandan for fueling official corruption, the United States removes a Chinese laser manufacturer from a Pentagon blacklist, and two major releases cap off a big summer for Chinese video games .

Sign up to receive China Brief in your inbox every Tuesday.

The ccp’s informal ties that bind.

A major newspaper in China’s capital, the Beijing Youth Daily , recently launched a barrage of sharp criticism against a popular card game—blaming officials who play guandan for slacking off, conspiring for personal gain, and building corrupt relationships. The coverage is a tone shift that shows how easily things in China can now become politicized.  

Guandan was invented in the 1960s in Jiangsu province as a spinoff of another game ; the provincial government has sought to promote the game for years, listing it as intangible cultural heritage in 2014. Last year, guandan surged in popularity after being featured in the 2023 Spring Festival Gala , China’s most watched television program. It now has an estimated 140 million players nationally.

Until now, the game seemed to enjoy only praise , hailed as a superior alternative to games such as poker. In China, betting is seen as a persistent social evil, and illegal gambling is common; crucially, guandan doesn’t inherently involve money. It is a trick-taking game that involves a lot of counting. Originally, the name meant “throwing bombs,” but it was gently euphemized to the homophonous “throwing eggs” (although the game’s hands are still referred to as bombs).

So, why the sudden turn? In the last year, guandan has also become a popular vehicle for building relationships for both Chinese officials and businesspeople—boosting the kind of social connections that are strongly associated with corruption . The game has come to enjoy a similar status among Chinese financial professionals to so-called liar’s poker on Wall Street. These professionals are currently in the crosshairs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Communist ideology also treats factions within the party as one of the biggest political threats, leading to regular campaigns against so-called cliques. Likewise, the Beijing Youth Daily articles condemn guandan as creating “gangs,” “cliques” and other such dangers. Other pastimes have previously faced similar crackdowns in China, including golf.

Yet, like any organization, the CCP depends on connections beyond its normal hierarchies to function—especially given the party’s culture of secrecy and its reluctance to share information through formal channels. Since at least 2004, party leadership has attempted to introduce a “ culture of transparency ” to formally counteract the party’s opacity.

But in practice, the habits of secrecy are deeply ingrained—and calls for such transparency sit uneasily alongside fears of espionage and growing censorship .

As a result, informal politics have often been more important than formal politics within the CCP. Friendly personal ties allow things to get done, but they also provide potential for officials to scheme against their superiors and get around hierarchy. That poses a particular danger for the party leadership, given growing questions about Xi Jinping’s rule since China’s COVID-19 crisis and economic slowdown.

Consider also the shadow of card-playing former leader Deng Xiaoping, who used his social skills to build extensive networks even while facing formal censure during the Cultural Revolution. Deng favored bridge , meeting regularly with other officials to play and scheme. Those networks helped him plot the coup against the Gang of Four that ended the Maoist era and eventually to take power himself . In his nominal retirement in the 1990s, when he still maintained control of China, the only formal title Deng kept was chairman of the China Bridge Association.

As political scientist Wen-Ti Sung pointed out last week, the guandan ban is part of a pattern of pushing the blame for China’s faltering economy and poor governance onto the failings of individual authorities rather than the leadership. “A recreational hobby is being politicized as a sign of economic unproductivity and political cronyism, which gets connected to poor performance and political corruption, which entails disobedience to leadership’s calls for more cadet moral purity & discipline,” Sung noted on X.

It’s not clear where China’s top leadership falls on guandan yet. The Beijing Youth Daily is a relatively important outlet, but it is not at the very top of the hierarchy. An earlier shot at guandan from the Beijing News in January went nowhere. Some local papers have already pushed back , and the biggest outlets haven’t weighed in.

However, there are reports that internal bans have already gone out to officials, and people have shared an image of a supposed form requiring officials to report any cliques formed through gaming. It may be time for Chinese officials to get a new hobby. Have they tried studying Xi Jinping Thought together?

What We’re Following

U.S. reverses blacklist decision. The Financial Times on Monday reported that the U.S. Defense Department will remove Chinese laser sensor manufacturer Hesai from a blacklist after officials decided that it couldn’t defend the ban in court. The company accounts for roughly 47 percent of the global market for LiDAR technology—an advanced form of detection that uses pulsed lasers rather than sound (as with radar).

Hesai was added to the blacklist in January based on 2021 U.S. legislation that targets China’s so-called civil-military fusion strategy . It immediately sued in response, but it was not the first company to be removed: Chinese phone manufacturer Xiaomi got itself taken off the list in 2021.

On the one hand, the move is mildly embarrassing for the Pentagon, making the initial justification for Hesai’s inclusion seem thin. On the other hand, it is a useful sign for Chinese companies that the list isn’t entirely arbitrary and that there are steps that they can take to avoid inclusion.

Russian bank bans. Banking between China and Russia is becoming more difficult, with small Chinese banks once willing to work with Russian partners increasingly backing off due to U.S. sanctions. Larger Chinese banks suspended trading after the United States introduced more secondary sanctions last December.

The last holdout acted after further sanctions were extended in June; smaller banks are rapidly following suit. Russian outlet Kommersant reports that roughly 80 percent of bank transfers between the two countries are being returned to Russia. The changes have led to a yuan liquidity crisis in Russia, with banks resorting to third-party maneuvers to try to cover the shortfall.

Tech and Business

Video game launches. It’s a big summer for Chinese video games—one of the country’s biggest, though often battered , markets. The public loves video games, while the CCP, as ever, fears fun and often targets the industry . That means that although Chinese firms, especially Tencent, are heavily invested in foreign studios , China has produced few global hits.

The exception is Genshin Impact , a massively popular gacha game , a genre originating in Japan. These games are free to play, but players are encouraged to buy randomized loot boxes that give in-game benefits. For Genshin Impact , that has led to more than $5 billion in income . The publisher’s follow-up, Zenless Zone Zero , was released last month and has already gathered a substantial player base and glowing reviews .

However, the release of the long-anticipated Black Myth: Wukong next week may mark a real breakthrough. Black Myth , based around the ever popular character of the Monkey King (Sun Wukong), is the first big pitch by a Chinese studio for a global AAA game —high-budget and slickly produced like a blockbuster movie. Early previews of the game are good, although the studio’s history of sexism may draw criticism.

EV breakthrough. China reached a milestone for green technology in July, as electric and hybrid vehicles overtook internal combustion engine vehicles in sales for the first time ever. China, the world’s largest auto market, has invested heavily in EVs , helping to drive down prices amid fierce competition—which has given them a sales boost despite weak overall auto sales this summer.

FP’s Most Read This Week

• Ukraine’s Invasion of Russia Could Bring a Quicker End to the War by Andreas Umland
• Harris and Walz Can Remake U.S. Foreign Policy by Mark Hannah and Rachel Rizzo
• The State Department’s Gaza Policy Has Failed by Hala Rharrit and Annelle Sheline

A Bit of Culture

Throughout Chinese history, most people heard famous stories rather than reading them. For a premodern society, literacy in China was often relatively high , but storytellers were the norm, drawing audiences from across the spectrum. Below, Ming dynasty writer Zhang Dai (1597-1684) describes the skill of one such in-demand master of tales. —Brendan O’Kane, translator

Excerpt From  Dream-Memories By Zhang Dai

Liu Jingting of Nanjing had a dark, pockmarked face, an easy manner, a scorn for all pretense and affectation, and a rare talent for storytelling. He would tell one episode a day, charging as his fee one ounce of silver, and had to be booked—with retainer—10 days in advance. Even this was subject to availability, which (since he was one of Nanjing’s two most in-demand performers, along with the chanteuse Wang Yuesheng) was rare.

I once heard him tell the story of how the outlaw Wu Song killed the tiger on Jingyang Ridge. It was very different from the version in the book. Liu described every detail vividly and precisely, with never a word too many, in a voice that rang out like a massive bell, and at key moments he would let loose a bellow that shook the rafters. At the part where Wu Song gets to the inn and finds nobody there to serve him, Liu roared so ferociously that all the empty pots and jugs kept on ringing after he was done.

Even the parts where nothing happened were lively in his telling.

Liu would not open his mouth until his hosts were sitting quietly and listening with bated breath, and if there was any hint of whispering among the servants or any sign of yawning or flagging interest in the audience, he would immediately stop speaking and refuse all entreaties to resume. Often, he would continue his tales past midnight, as servants wiped the tables, trimmed the lamps, and served tea in tasteful porcelain cups.

Liu’s pacing and intonation were always perfectly suited to the characters and their situations, and if one could have grabbed every other storyteller in the world and dragged them by the ears to listen to him, I have no doubt but that they would have been struck dumb if not dead with amazement.

James Palmer is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy . Twitter:  @BeijingPalmer

Join the Conversation

Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription.

Already a subscriber? Log In .

Subscribe Subscribe

View Comments

Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now.

Not your account? Log out

Please follow our comment guidelines , stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs.

Change your username:

I agree to abide by FP’s comment guidelines . (Required)

Confirm your username to get started.

The default username below has been generated using the first name and last initial on your FP subscriber account. Usernames may be updated at any time and must not contain inappropriate or offensive language.

Sign up for Editors' Picks

A curated selection of fp’s must-read stories..

You’re on the list! More ways to stay updated on global news:

Recent Coverage

The philippines is washington’s new front line against china, the geopolitical opportunity of ukraine’s kursk offensive, the taliban enter fourth year in power, the ‘axis of evil’ is overhyped, editors’ picks.

• 1 How Japan’s Yen Carry Trade Crashed Global Markets
• 2 The Geopolitical Opportunity of Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive
• 3 What Is Ukraine’s Goal in Kursk?
• 4 Japan’s Public Didn’t Buy Fumio Kishida’s New Capitalism
• 5 The Philippines Is Washington’s New Front Line Against China

Kenya Cracks Down on Journalists

Gaza cease-fire talks resume in qatar without hamas in attendance, biden administration out of step with ukraine, israel war decisions, how are palestinians in gaza fleeing to egypt, what's next for japan as kishida steps down, more from foreign policy, the top international relations schools of 2024, ranked.

An insider’s guide to the world’s best programs—for both policy and academic careers.

Harris and Walz Can Remake U.S. Foreign Policy

The VP pick may help Harris reinvest in diplomacy—and abandon America’s reflex for military interventionism.

The Two Biggest Global Trends Are at War

World leaders will have to learn to navigate the contradictions of the new world order.

Ukraine’s Invasion of Russia Could Bring a Quicker End to the War

One aim of the surprise breakthrough may be for Kyiv to gain leverage in negotiations.

Trump Made Progress on Foreign Lobbying. Biden Reversed It.

Japan’s public didn’t buy fumio kishida’s new capitalism, how japan’s yen carry trade crashed global markets, inside putin’s kremlin, kenyan protests see journalists in the firing line, hamas skips cease-fire, hostage release talks in qatar, washington is out of sync with its wartime allies, how 100,000 palestinians are surviving in egypt without refugee status.

Sign up for World Brief

FP’s flagship evening newsletter guiding you through the most important world stories of the day, written by Alexandra Sharp . Delivered weekdays.

Other subscription options, academic rates.

Specialty rates for students and faculty.

Lock in your rates for longer.

Unlock powerful intelligence for your team.

• Summer Racing Northeast
• Champions League
• Motor Sports
• High School
• Shop Northeast
• PBR Northeast
• 3ICE Northeast
• Stubhub Northeast
• Play Golf Northeast

Where to watch Team USA Basketball vs. Serbia: TV channel, time, live stream, odds for 2024 Paris Olympics

Team usa can advance to the gold medal game on thursday.

Team USA's path through the 2024 Paris Olympics has largely been easy thus far. Yes, the Americans had to play Serbia in the opener, but their last three games have come against opponents ranked No. 12 (Brazil), No. 16 (Puerto Rico) and No. 33 (South Sudan) in the world, according to FIBA . The star-studded American roster was never going to lose to any of those teams. Things should get more interesting starting Thursday in the semifinals in a rematch against Serbia with a spot in the gold medal game against France on the line.

Yes, Team USA has beaten Serbia twice in the past month, but this is an opponent that actually could credibly win a single game against the best team in the field. Serbia defeated Team USA at the 2019 World Cup. It took home silver in the 2023 World Cup. It has the best player in the field (and the world) in Nikola Jokic , and unlike the last two times these teams have met, this is a single-elimination matchup. The loser is going home without the gold medal. For the first time, this is a game Team USA genuinely needs to take seriously.

Here's the pertinent viewing info for Thursday's Olympic semifinal as Team USA tries to keep its hopes alive for a fifth consecutive gold medal. Serbia, meanwhile, has never won Olympic gold and is looking for its second trip to the gold medal game. The Serbian national team finished with the silver medal in 2016, losing to Team USA in the gold medal game.

Where to watch USA basketball vs. Serbia

Time : 3 p.m. ET | Date : Thursday, Aug. 8 Location : Bercy Arena -- Paris TV channel : USA Network | Live stream : fubo (try for free), Peacock Live updates : Follow along

Below are our best bets for the battle with Serbia.

Team USA vs. Serbia best bets

Team USA won their group stage game against Serbia by 26 points... but it won the nine minutes or so that Nikola Jokic spent on the bench by exactly 26 points. When Jokic was on the floor, for roughly 75% of the game, these two teams were even. That was despite the fact that Serbia shot 9-of-37 from 3-point range (24.3%) while Team USA shot 18-of-32 (56.3%). Team USA is probably going to win this game. It's just really hard to imagine Team USA blowing Serbia out three times, if you include their exhibition bout. Serbia can beat Team USA on a good day. On an average one, these teams should be competitive. The Pick: Serbia +16.5

I keep picking unders and the overs keep hitting. I'm finally flipping to the over largely because it behooves Team USA to play this game with pace. Jokic doesn't have many weaknesses, but his biggest is holding up in pick-and-roll against speed. If Team USA plays a slower, plodding style with anyone pounding the rock too much, that plays right into his hands. The idea is going to be to play fast, get Serbia in rotation and take advantage of the fact that Jokic is neither an elite rim protector nor switch defender. If that compels Serbia to play fast, which Jokic can do quite well with his full-court passing, then all the better. The Pick: Over 187.5

Sadly, the books caught up after setting Jokic's assist line at a preposterously low 4.5 in the group stage game against Team USA. At 7.5, the value is gone. But his point total at 20.5 seems more reasonable. If nothing else, I don't expect Jokic to sit nearly as much as he did in the first game. This is the medal round. Team USA has no obvious way of defending him one-on-one. If ever there were a time for Serbia to just say, "We have the best player and we're going to ride him for 40 minutes," it would be now. On that front, I like all of his overs. But given the stakes of this game and the matchup advantages he has, the thought of him posting a gaudy point total stands out. The Pick: Jokic Over 20.5 Points

Our Latest Olympics Stories

Chiles: Decision to take away bronze medal 'unjust'

Steven taranto • 2 min read.

IOC declares Romania can award Ana Barbosu bronze medal

Chris bengel • 1 min read.

Raygun calls amount of hate 'devastating'

Flavor Flav offers Chiles bronze clock necklace

Dr. Dre wants to compete in archery at 2028 Olympics

USA Gymnastics: CAS won't reconsider Chiles ruling

Share video.

Expert picks: USA vs. Serbia in semifinals at Olympics

Olympic medal count: Where USA stands

Biles, Richardson among U.S. athletes getting bonuses

Where to watch all of the top olympic events.

Jordan Chiles' floor exercise medal may be in jeopardy

A promising sign of where Olympic basketball is going

Khelif earns gold in boxing amid gender debate

Five questions for Elana Meyers Taylor

Vonn scatters grandfather's ashes

Russian women go 1-2 in figure skating

• Login / Sign Up
• Special Issues
• Masterpieces of Streaming

The video essays that spawned an entire YouTube genre

If you buy something from a Polygon link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

by Wil Williams

Polygon’s latest series, The Masterpieces of Streaming , looks at the new batch of classics that have emerged from an evolving era of entertainment.

Like every medium before it, “video essays” on YouTube had a long road of production before being taken seriously. Film was undervalued in favor of literature, TV was undervalued in favor of film, and YouTube was undervalued in favor of TV. In over 10 years of video essays, though, there are some that stand out as landmarks of the form, masterpieces to bring new audiences in.

In Polygon’s list of the best video essays of 2020 , we outlined a taxonomy of what a video essay is . But time should be given to explain what video essays have been and where they might be going.

Video essays can be broken into three eras: pre-BreadTube, the BreadTube era, and post-BreadTube. So, what the hell is BreadTube? BreadTube, sometimes also called “LeftTube,” can be defined as a core group of high production value, academically-minded YouTubers who rose to prominence at the same time.

A brief history of video essays on YouTube

On YouTube, video essays pre-BreadTube started in earnest just after something completely unrelated to YouTube: the adoption of the Common Core State Standards Initiative (or, colloquially, just the “Common Core”). The Common Core was highly political, a type of hotly-contested educational reform that hadn’t been rolled out in decades.

Meanwhile, YouTube was in one of its earliest golden eras in 2010. Four years prior, YouTube had been purchased by Google for $1.65 billion in stock, a number that is simultaneously bonkers high and bonkers low. Ad revenue for creators was flowing. Creators like PewDiePie and Shane Dawson were thriving (because time is a flat circle). With its 2012 Original Channel Initiative , Google invested $100 million, and later an additional $200 million, to both celebrity and independent creators for new, original content on YouTube in an early attempt to rival TV programming.

This was also incentivized by YouTube’s 2012 public change to their algorithm , favoring watch time over clicks.

But video essays still weren’t a major genre on YouTube until the educational turmoil and newfound funds collided, resulting in three major networks: Crash Course in 2011 and SourceFed and PBS Digital Studios in 2012.

The BreadTube Era

With Google’s AdSense making YouTube more and more profitable for some creators, production values rose, and longer videos rose in prominence in the algo. Key creators became household names, but there was a pattern: most were fairly left-leaning and white.

But in 2019, long-time YouTube creator Kat Blaque asked, “Why is ‘LeftTube’ so white?”

Blaque received massive backlash for her criticisms; however, many other nonwhite YouTubers took the opportunity to speak up. More examples include Cheyenne Lin’s “Why Is YouTube So White?” , Angie Speaks’ “Who Are Black Leftists Supposed to Be?” , and T1J’s “I’m Kinda Over This Whole ‘LeftTube’ Thing.”

Since the whiteness of video essays has been more clearly illuminated, terms like “BreadTube’’ and “LeftTube” are seldom used to describe the video essay space. Likewise, the importance of flashy production has been de-emphasized.

Post-BreadTube

Like most phenomena, BreadTube does not have a single moment one can point to as its end, but in 2020 and 2021, it became clear that the golden days of BreadTube were in the past.

And, notably, prominent BreadTube creators consistently found themselves in hot water on Twitter. If beauty YouTubers have mastered the art of the crying apology video, video essayists have begun the art of intellectualized, conceptualized, semi-apology video essays. Natalie Wynn’s “Canceling” and Lindsay Ellis’s “Mask Off” discuss the YouTubers’ experiences with backlash after some phenomenally yikes tweets. Similarly, Gita Jackson of Vice has reported on the racism of SocialismDoneLeft.

We’re now in post-BreadTube era. More Black creators, like Yhara Zayd and Khadija Mbowe, are valued as the important video essayists they are. Video essays and commentary channels are seeing more overlap, like the works of D’Angelo Wallace and Jarvis Johnson .

With a history of YouTube video essays out of the way, let’s discuss some of the best of the best, listed here in chronological order by release date, spanning all three eras of the genre. Only one video essay has been selected from each creator, and creators whose works have also been featured on our Best of 2020 list have different works selected here. If you like any of the following videos, we highly recommend checking out the creators’ backlogs; there are plenty of masterpieces in the mix.

PBS Idea Channel, “Can Dungeons & Dragons Make You A Confident & Successful Person?” (October 10, 2012)

Many of the conventions of modern video essays — a charismatic quick-talking host, eye-grabbing pop culture gifs accompanying narration, and sleek edits — began with PBS Idea Channel. Idea Channel, which ran from 2012 to 2017 and produced over 200 videos, laid many of the blueprints for video essays to come. In this episode, host Mike Rugnetta dissects the practical applications of tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons . The episode predates the tabletop renaissance, shepherded by Stranger Things and actual play podcasts , but gives the same level of love and appreciation the games would see in years to come.

Every Frame a Painting, “Edgar Wright - How to Do Visual Comedy” (May 26, 2014)

Like PBS Idea Channel, Every Frame a Painting was fundamental in setting the tone for video essays on YouTube. In this episode, the works of Edgar Wright (like Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World ) are put in contrast with the trend of dialogue-based comedy films like The Hangover and Bridesmaids . The essay analyzes the lack of visual jokes in the American comedian style of comedy and shows the value of Wright’s mastery of physical comedy. The video winds up not just pointing out what makes Wright’s films so great, but also explaining the jokes in meticulous detail without ever ruining them.

Innuendo Studios, “This Is Phil Fish” (June 16, 2014)

As documented in the 2012 documentary Indie Game: The Movie and all over Twitter, game designer Phil Fish is a contentious figure, to say the least. Known for public meltdowns and abusive behavior, Phil Fish is easy to armchair diagnose, but Ian Danskin of Innuendo Studios uses this video to make something clear: We do not know Phil Fish. Before widespread discussions of parasocial relationships with online personalities, Innuendo Studios was pointing out the perils of treating semi-celebrities as anything other than strangers.

What’s So Great About That?, “Night In The Woods: Do You Always Have A Choice?” (April 20, 2017)

Player choice in video games is often emphasized as an integral facet of gameplay — but what if not having a real choice is the point? In this video, Grace Lee of What’s So Great About That? discusses how removing choice can add to a game’s narrative through the lens of sad, strange indie game Night in the Woods . What can a game with a mentally ill protagonist in a run-down post-industrial town teach us about what choices really mean, and how is a game the perfect way to depict that meaning? This video essay aims to make you see this game in a new light.

Pop Culture Detective, “Born Sexy Yesterday” (April 27, 2017)

One of the many “all killer no filler” channels on this list, Pop Culture Detective is best known as a trope namer. One of those tropes, “Born Sexy Yesterday,” encourages the audience to notice a specific, granular, but strangely prominent character trait in science fiction and fantasy: a female character who, through the conceit of the world and plot, has very little functional knowledge of the world around her, but is also a smoking hot adult. It’s sort of the reverse of the prominent anime trope of a grown woman, sometimes thousands of years old, inhabiting the body of a child. When broken down, the trope is not just a nightmare, it’s something you can’t unsee — and you start to see it everywhere .

Maggie Mae Fish, “Looking For Meaning in Tim Burton’s Movies” (April 24, 2018)

Tim Burton is an iconic example of an outsider making art for other outsiders who question and push the status quo ... right? In Maggie Mae Fish’s first video essay on her channel, she breaks down how Burton co-opts the anticapitalist aesthetics of German expressionism (most obviously, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ) to give an outsider edge to films that consistently, aggressively enforce the status quo. If you’re a die-hard Burton fan, this one might sting, but Jack Skellington would be proud of you for seeking knowledge. Just kidding. He’d probably want you to take the aesthetic of the knowledge and put it on something completely unrelated, removing it of meaning.

hbomberguy, “CTRL+ALT+DEL | SLA:3” (April 26, 2018)

Are you looking for a video essay with a little more unhinged chaos energy? Prepare yourself for this video by Harry Brewis, aka hbomberguy, analyzing the webcomic CTRL+ALT+DEL, and ultimately, the infamous loss.jpg. But this essay’s also more than that; it’s a response to the criticisms of analyzing pop culture, saying that sometimes art isn’t that deep, or that works can exist outside of the perspective of the creator. This video is infamous for its climax, which we won’t spoil here, but go in knowing it’s, at the very least, adjacent to not safe for work.

Folding Ideas, “A Lukewarm Defence of Fifty Shades of Grey” (August 31, 2018)

Speaking of not-safe-for-work, let’s talk about kink! Dan Olson of Folding Ideas has been creating phenomenal video essays for years. Highlighting “In Search of Flat Earth” as one of the best video essays in 2020 (and, honestly, ever) gives an opportunity to discuss his other masterpieces here: his three-part series dissecting the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise. This introduction to the series discusses specifically the first film, and it does so in a way that is refreshingly kink-positive while still condemning the ways Fifty Shades has promoted extremely unsafe kink practices and dynamics. It also analyzes the first film with a shockingly fair lens, giving accolades where they’re due (that cinematography!) and ripping the film to shreds when necessary (what the hell are these characters?).

ToonrificTariq, “How To BLACK: An Analysis of Black Cartoon Characters (feat. ReviewYaLife)” (January 13, 2019)

While ToonrificTariq’s channel usually focuses on fantastic, engaging reviews of off-kilter nostalgic cartoons — think Braceface and As Told By Ginger — takes this video to explain the importance of writing Black characters in cartoons for kids, and not just one token Black friend per show. Through the lens of shows like Craig of the Creek and Proud Family , ToonrificTariq and guest co-host ReviewYaLife explain the way Black characters have been written into the boxes and how those tropes can be overcome by writers in the future. The collaboration between the two YouTubers also allows a mix of scripted, analytical content and some goofy, fun back-and-forth and riffing.

Jacob Geller, “Games, Schools, and Worlds Designed for Violence” (October 1, 2019)

Jacob Geller ( who has written for Polygon ) has this way of baking sincerity, vulnerability, and so much care into his video essays. This episode is rough, digging into what level design in war games can tell us about the architecture of American schools following the tragic Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. It’s a video essay about video games, about violence, about safety, and about childhood. It’s a video essay about what we prioritize and how, and what that priority can look like. It’s a video essay that will leave you with deep contemplation, but a hungry contemplation, a need to learn and observe more.

Accented Cinema, “Parasite: Mastering the Basics of Cinema” (November 7, 2019)

2019 Bong Joon-ho cinematic masterpiece Parasite is filled to the brim with things to analyze, but Yang Zhang of Accented Cinema takes his discussion back to the basics. Focusing on how the film uses camera positions, light, and lines, the essay shows the mastery of details many viewers might not have noticed on first watch. But once you do notice them, they’re extremely, almost comically overt, while still being incredibly effective. The way the video conveys these ideas is simple, straightforward, and accessible while still illuminating so much about the film and remaining engaging and fun to watch. Accented Cinema turns this video into a 101 film studies crash course, showing how mastery of the basics can make a film such a standout.

Kat Blaque, “So... Let’s Talk About JK Rowling’s Tweet” (December 23, 2019)

In 2020, J. K. Rowling wrote her most infamous tweet about trans people, exemplifying a debate about trans rights and identities that is still becoming more and more intense today. Rowling’s tweet was not the first, or the most important, or even her first — but it was one of the tweets about the issue that gained the most attention. Kat Blaque’s video essay on the tweet isn’t really about the tweet itself. Instead, it’s a masterful course in transphobia, TERFs, and how people hide their prejudice against trans people in progressive language. In an especially memorable passage, Blaque breaks down the tweet, line by line, phrase by phrase, explaining how each of them convey a different aspect of transphobia.

Philosophy Tube, “Data” (January 31, 2020)

One of the most underrated essays in Philosophy Tube’s catalogue, “Data” explains the importance of data privacy. Data privacy is often easily written off; “I have nothing to hide,” and “It makes my ads better,” are both given as defenses against the importance of data privacy. In this essay, though, creator Abigail Thorn breaks traditional essay form to depict an almost Plato-like philosophical dialogue between two characters: a bar patron and the bar’s bouncer. It’s also somewhat of a choose-your-own-adventure game, a post- Bandersnatch improvement upon the Bandersnatch concept.

Intelexual Media, “A Short History of American Celebrity” (February 13, 2020)

Historian Elexus Jionde of Intelexual Media has one of the strongest and sharpest analytical voices when discussing celebrity, from gossip to idolization to the celebrity industrial complex to stan culture . Her history of American celebrity is filled to the brim with information, fact following fact at a pace that’s breakneck without ever leaving the audience behind. While the video initially seems like just a history, there’s a thesis baked into the content about what celebrity is, how it got to where it is today, and where it might be going—and what all of that means about the rest of us.

Princess Weekes, “Empire and Imperialism in Children’s Cartoons—a super light topic” (June 22, 2020)

This video by Princess Weekes (Melina Pendulum) starts with a bang — a quick, goofy song followed by a steep dive into imperialization and its effect on intergenerational trauma. And then, it connects those concepts to much-beloved cartoons for kids like Avatar: The Last Airbender , Steven Universe , and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power . Fans of shows like these may be burnt out on fandom discourse quickly saying, “thing bad!” because of how they view its stance on imperialization. Weekes, however, has always favored nuance and close reading. Her take on imperialization in cartoons offers a more complex method of analyzing these shows, and the cartoons that will certainly drum up the same conversations in the future.

Yhara Zayd, “Holes & The Prison-Industrial Complex” (July 7, 2020)

2003’s Holes absolutely rules, and Yhara Zayd’s video essay on the film shows why it isn’t just a fun classic with memorable characters. It’s also way, way more complex than most of us might remember. Like Dan Olson, Yhara Zayd appeared on our list of the best video essays of 2020, but frankly, any one of her videos could belong there or here. What makes this analysis of Holes stand out is the meticulous attention to detail Zayd has in her analysis, revealing the threads that connect the film’s commentary across its multiple interwoven plotlines. And, of course, there’s Zayd’s trademark quiet passion for the work she’s discussing, making this essay just as much of a close reading as it is a love letter to the film.

D’Angelo Wallace, “The Disappearance of Blaire White” (November 2, 2020)

D’Angelo Wallace is best known as a commentary YouTuber, someone who makes videos reacting to current events, pop culture, and, of course, other YouTubers. With his hour-long essay on YouTuber Blaire White, though, that commentary took a sharp turn into cultural analysis and introspection. For those unfamiliar with White’s work, she was once a prominent trans YouTuber known for her somewhat right-wing politics, including her discussion of other trans people. In Wallace’s video, her career is outlined — but so is the effect she had on her viewers. What is it about creators like White that makes them compelling? And what does it take for us to reevaluate what they’ve been saying?

Chromalore, “The Last Unicorn: Death and the Legacy of Fantasy” (December 3, 2020)

Chromalore is a baffling internet presence. With one video essay up, one single tweet, and a Twitter bio that simply reads, “just one (1) video essay, as a treat,” this channel feels like the analysis equivalent of seeing someone absolutely captivating at a party who you know you’ll never see again, and who you know you’ll never forget.

This video essay discusses themes of death, memory, identity, remorse, and humanity as seen through both the film and the novel The Last Unicorn . It weaves together art history and music, Christian iconography and anime-inspired character designs. It talks about why this film is so beloved and the effect it’s had on audiences today. It’s moving, deeply researched, brilliantly executed, and we will probably never see this creator again.

Khadija Mbowe, “Digital Blackface?” (December 23, 2020)

“Digital Blackface” is a term popularized by Lauren Michele Jackson’s 2017 Teen Vogue essay, “We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs.” The piece explains the prominence of white people using the images of Black people without context to convey a reaction, and Khadija Mbowe’s deep dive on the subject expands on how, and why, blackface tropes have evolved in the digital sphere. Mbowe’s essay involves a great deal of history and analysis, all of which is deeply uncomfortable. Consider this a content warning for depictions of racism throughout the video. But that discomfort is key to explaining why digital blackface is such a problem and how nonblack people, especially white people, can be more cognizant about how they depict their reactions online.

CJ the X, “No Face Is An Incel” (April 4, 2021)

Rounding out this list is a 2021 newcomer to video essays with an endlessly enjoyable gremlin energy that still winds up being some of the smartest, sharpest, and funniest discussions about pop culture. CJ the X, a human sableye , breaks down one of the most iconic and merch-ified Studio Ghibli characters, No Face, who is an incel. This is a video essay best experienced with no knowledge except its main thesis—that No Face is an incel—so you can sit back, be beguiled, be enraptured, and then be convinced.

TCL’s 85” Class XL Collection

TCL’s new XL collection creates a larger-than-life entertainment experience. From watching movies and shows to playing the hottest new game these 85” TVs come loaded with features to suit any entertainment needs.

• Entertainment

More in The Masterpieces of Streaming

Most Popular

• JD Vance’s favorite Magic: The Gathering card was banned for good reason
• Why did the ending of The Umbrella Academy suck so much?
• Astarion’s Thirst cards revealed for MTG’s 50th Anniversary D&D Secret Lair
• Elusive Samurai is one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful anime I've ever seen
• Humble’s latest games bundle is a trip through CRPG history

Patch Notes

The best of Polygon in your inbox, every Friday.

This is the title for the native ad

More in Masterpieces of Streaming

The Latest ⚡️

• View on Facebook Page (Opens in a new tab)
• View our Twitter Page (Opens in a new tab)
• View our Instagram Page (Opens in a new tab)
• View our Youtube Page (Opens in a new tab)

10 of the Most Niche YouTube Video Essays You Absolutely Need to Watch

YouTube’s algorithm is designed to keep your eyeballs glued to video after video (after video, after video...). The dangers of this rabbit hole are well-documented . However, for every ideological radicalization enabled by YouTube, I like to think there’s at least one innocent, newfound pop culture obsession discovered at 3 a.m. via the greatest medium of our time: the Video Essay.

The genre of YouTube video essays is more interesting than it sounds. Sure, any piece of video content that advances a central thesis could be considered a “video essay.” But there are key components of video essays that elevate the genre into so much more than simply a YouTube version of a written article. Over the past few years, the term “YouTube video essay” has grown to evoke connotations of niche fascination and discovery. For creators, the field is highly competitive with strong personalities trying to get eyes on extremely in-depth analysis of a wide range of topics. The “niche” factor is especially important here. Ultimately, the hallmark of a good video essay is its ability to captivate you into watching hours of content about a subject matter you would have never expected to care about in the first place. Scary? Maybe. Fun? Definitely.

Whether you’re skeptical about the power of video essays, or you’re an existing fan looking for your next niche obsession, I’ve rounded up some of my personal favorite YouTube video essays for you to lean in and watch. This is not a comprehensive list by any means, and it largely reflects what the algorithm thinks (knows) I personally want to watch.

Other factors that influenced my selection process: The video essays needed to have a strong, surprising thesis—something other than a creator saying “ this thing good ” or “ this thing bad. ” These videos also stood out to me due to their sheer amount of thorough, hard-hitting evidence, as well as the dedication on the behalf of the YouTubers who chose to share with us hours upon hours of research into these topics.

And yes, I have watched all the hours of content featured here. I’m a professional.

Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History

Let’s start strong with a documentary so premium, I can’t believe it’s free. Multiple articles and reviews have been dedicated to Defunctland’s video series about, well, waiting in line. I know what you’re thinking—the only thing that sounds more boring than waiting in line is watching a video about waiting in line. But Defunctland’s investigation into the history of Disneyland’s FastPass system has so much more to offer.

Class warfare. Human behavior. The perils of capitalism. One commenter under the video captures it well by writing “oddly informative and vaguely terrifying.” Since its launch in 2017, Kevin Perjurer’s entire Defunctland YouTube channel has become a leading voice in extremely thorough video essays. The FastPass analysis is one of the most rewarding of all of Defunctland’s in-depth amusement park coverage.

I won’t spoil it here, but the best part of the video is hands-down when Perjurer reveals an animated simulation of the theme park experience to test out how various line-reservation systems work. Again, no spoilers, but get ready for a wildly satisfying “gotcha” moment.

Personally, I’ve never had any interest one way or another about Disney-affiliated theme parks. I’ve never been, and I never planned on going. That’s the main reason I’m selling you on this video essay right off the bat. Defunctland is a perfect example of how the genre of video essays has such a high bar for investigative reporting, shocking analysis, and an ability to suck you in to a topic you never thought you’d care about.

Watch time : 1:42:59 (like a proper feature documentary)

THE Vampire Diaries Video

No list of video essays can get very far without including Jenny Nicholson , a true titan of the genre. Or, as one commenter puts it, “The power of Jenny Nicholson: getting me to watch an almost three hour long video about something I don’t care about.” I struggled to pick which of her videos to feature here, but at over seven million views, “THE Vampire Diaries Video” might just be Nicholson’s magnum opus. Once you break out the red string on a cork board, it’s safe to say that you’re in magnum opus territory.

I haven’t ever seen an episode of CW’s The Vampire Diaries , but since this video essay captivated me, I can safely say that I’m an expert on the show. Nicholson’s reputation as a knowledgeable, passionate, funny YouTuber is well-earned. She’s a proper geek, and watching her cultural analyses feel like I’m nerding out with one of my smartest friends. If you really don’t think The Vampire Diaries investigation is for you (and I argue that it’s for everyone), I recommend “ A needlessly thorough roast of Dear Evan Hansen ” instead.

Watch time : 2:33:19

In Search Of A Flat Earth

Did you think you could get through a YouTube video round-up without single mention of Flat Earthers? Wishful thinking.

“In Search of Flat Earth” is a beautiful, thoughtful video essay slash feature-length documentary. Don’t go into this video if you’re looking to bash and ridicule flat earth conspiracy theorists. Instead, Olson’s core argument takes a somewhat sympathetic gaze to the fact that Flat Earthers cannot be “reasoned” out of their beliefs with “science” or “evidence.” Plus, this video has a satisfying second-act plot twist. As Olson points out, “In Search of Flat Earth” could have an alternative clickbait title of “The Twist at 37 Minutes Will Make You Believe We Live In Hell.” Over the years,  Dan Olson of Folding Ideas has helped to popularize the entire video essay genre, and this one just might be his masterpiece.

Watch time : 1:16:16

The Rise and Fall of Teen Dystopias

Sarah Z is your go-to Gen Z cultural critic and explainer. The YouTuber brings her knack for loving-yet-shrewd analysis to dig into fandom culture, the YA book industry, and why the teen dystopia got beaten into the ground.

I’ve found that one of the most reliable video essay formulas is some version of “what went wrong with [incredibly popular cultural moment].” In the case of teen dystopias, it’s a fascinating take on how a generation of teen girls were drawn to bad ass, anti-establishment heroines, only to watch those types of characters get mass produced and diluted into mockery. But maybe I’m biased here; as the exact demographic targeted by the peak of The Hunger Games, Twilight, and Divergent, this cultural debrief speaks to my soul.

Watch time : 1:22:41

A Buffet of Black Food History

Food is an effective way to combine economic, cultural, and social histories–and Black American food history is an especially rich one. Food resonates with people, allowing us to connect with the past in a much more real way than if we were memorizing dates and locations from a textbook. Historian Elexius Jionde of Intelexual Media is a pro at taking what could be a standard history lesson and turning it into an interesting journey full of crazy characters and tidbits.

Most of the comments beneath the video are complaints that the video deserves to be so much longer. It’s jam-packed with surprising facts, fun asides, and, of course, tantalizing descriptions of the food at hand. Jionde even warns you right at the top: “Turn this video off right now if you’re hungry.”

Watch time : 22:39

The reign of the Slim-Thick Influencer

At this point, I’m assuming you know what a BBL is. Even if you aren’t familiar with the term (Brazilian butt lifts, FYI), then you’ve still probably observed the trend. Before big butts, it was thigh gaps. The pendulum swing of trending body types is nothing new. Curves are in, curves are out, thick thighs save lives, “skinny fat” is bad, and now, “slim thick” looms large. How do different body types fall in and out of fashion, and what effect does this have on the people living in those bodies?

Creator Khadija Mbowe identifies and analyzes a lot of the issues with how women’s bodies (especially Black women’s) are commodified, without ever blaming the bodies that are under fire. Mbowe handles the topic with grace and humor, even when discussing how deeply personal it is to them. If you’ve ever found yourself staring at a photo of an Instagram influencer, please do yourself a favor and watch this video essay.

Watch time : 54:18

Flight of the Navigator

Once again: I have been sucked into a video about a film that I have never seen and probably never will. Captain Disillusion, whose real name is Alan Melikdjanian, is another giant of the video essay genre, posting videos to a not-too-shabby audience of 2.29 million subscribers. Most of Captain Dissilision’s videos that I’d seen before this were of the creator debunking viral videos, exposing how certain visual effects were “obviously” faked. In this video, he turns his eye for debunking special effects not to viral videos, but to the 1986 Disney sci-fi adventure Flight of the Navigator.

This behind-the-scenes analysis of the Disney film is incredibly informative, tackling every instance when someone might ask, “ Hey, how did they manage to film that? ” It also touches upon the history of the special effects industry, something that deserves a little extra appreciation as CGI takes over every corner of movie-making.

Watch time : 41:28

The Failure of Victorious

YouTuber Quinton Reviews is dedicated to his craft, and I thank him for it. As you’ve certainly caught on to by now, you truly do not need to know anything about the show Victorious to enjoy an hours-long video essay that digs into it. What makes this video stand out is the sheer amount of content that this YouTuber both consumed and then created for us. Part of the video length—a whopping five hours—is due to the fact that every single episode of the Nickelodeon show is dissected. Another reason for the length is all the care that Quinton Reviews puts into providing context. And the context is what made me stick around: the failures of TV networks, the psychological dangers of working as child stars, and the questionable adult jokes that were broadcast to young audiences…if you’re at all interested in tainting your memory of hit Nickelodeon shows, this video is for you.

Watch time : 5:34:58 ( And that’s just part one. Strap in! )

Why Anime is for Black People

In this video Travis goes through the history of the “hip hop x anime” phenomenon, in which East Asian media permeates Black culture (and vice versa, as he hints at near the end). Although I am (1) not Black and (2) not an avid anime fan, I first clicked on this video because I’m a fan of comedian and writer Yedoye Travis. And yet—big shocker—I was immediately engrossed with the subject matter, despite having no context heading into it. Once you finish watching this video, be sure to check out Megan Thee Stallion’s interview about her connection to anime .

I haven’t run this part by my editor yet, but now would be a prime time to plug Lifehacker Editor-in-Chief Jordan Calhoun’s book, Piccolo Is Black: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Pop Culture . Just saying.

Watch time : 18:34 (basically nothing in the world of video essays, especially compared to the five hours of Victorious content I binged earlier)

Efficiency in Comedy: The Office vs. Friends

I’m rounding out this list on a note of personal sentimentality. This is one of the first video essays that got me hooked on the format, mostly because I had followed creator Drew Gooden to YouTube after his stardom on Vine (RIP). This video is one of his most popular, combining comedy and math to pit two of the most popular sitcoms of all time in a joke-for-joke battle.

Gooden in particular stands out as someone who excels as both an earnest comic and a thoughtful critic of comedy. I appreciate his perspective as someone who knows what it’s like to work for a laugh and wants to get to the bottom of why something is or isn’t funny. This isn’t even one of Gooden’s best videos (I actually think his take on the parallels between Community and Arrested Development has a much stronger argument), but it’s a great example of the sort of perspective best situated to make video essays in the first place. Because what makes all these video essays so compelling is often the personality behind the argument. These aren’t investigative journalists or professional critics. They’re YouTubers. Really smart YouTubers, but still: These videos are born out of everyday people who simply have something to say.

I believe the modern YouTube video essay is uniquely situated to put cultural critique back into the hands of the average consumer—but only if that consumer is willing to put in the work to become a creator themselves.

Watch time : 17:36

Screen Rant

10 best youtube channels for film video essays, according to reddit.

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Five Years Ago, Star Wars Secretly Confirmed Mace Windu Didn't Fall To The Dark Side

"we're taking the stephen king book & adding a lot of fun": glen powell explains edgar wright's remake of the running man, blink twice review: zoë kravitz's clever psychological thriller is an unforgettable movie experience.

With Wakanda Forever closing off Phase Four on November 11, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is preparing for an introduction to its fifth phase, and many fans are excited to see what the franchise has to offer. Yet, many are also questioning how all these new Phase 4 characters connect to each other, with the multiverse looming as the main arc. After all, most Marvel movies are now somewhat disconnected.

Thankfully, there is a vast host of YouTube reviewers and analysts who are dedicated to explaining the intricacies of movies and anything fans might have missed. Most of these YouTube video essays are made by some key YouTubers who do an excellent job getting fans caught up in the worlds of Hollywood.

YourMovieSucksDOTorg

Some reviewers do a great job of taking apart popular movies to show why they're excellent. The film YouTuber YourMovieSucksDOTorg is best at showcasing just why fans may dislike certain movies. While that might be inherently more negative, it can still be enjoyable.

"His Toy Story 3 review blew my mind. I knew I hated it but he kind of showed me why," says a now-deleted Reddit user. While he addresses both beloved and critically panned movies, the panned movies tend to be the videos that draw the most love from audiences. Sometimes fans just need to know why a plot feels weak or repetitive.

Possum Reviews

Another YouTuber who tends to focus on movies that received overwhelmingly poor receptions, Possum Reviews has grown a large fanbase by putting his attention on reviewing "garbage" movies, as his possum icon indicates. "I really love watching Possum Reviews even though his reviews of blatantly bad movies are really cynical," says Redditor Owijs .

Most of his reviews tend to be funny, which helps to keep the content engaging even when the actual film he reviews is appallingly bad. While he sometimes addresses beloved movies, it's the mediocre ones that draw the most eyes.

While most moviegoers don't think about soundtracks, the YouTuber Sideways goes into detail on just how the best soundtracks in movies interact with each film and create an environment. Tackling both musical and nonmusical movies, the channel does an extraordinary job of teaching fans about sound in films.

"Genuinely such interesting analysis of music in shows/movies from a very funny, intelligent guy who always sounds like he’s having the best time talking about whatever he’s talking about," states Reddit user ameboleyn . His excitement, even when addressing movies like Cats , is palpable and keeps viewers as engaged as he is.

Red Letter Media

A YouTube channel focused on friends reviewing movies that are both good and bad, RedLetterMedia has picked up many fans through the years, and for good reason. With the channel often known for its dry humor, Redditor TylerKnowy described it as "a mix of comedy and insight."

The channel has different shows with each addressing several topics. From Re:View 's more positive view of film to the often maligning Half in the Bag , the channel has something for everyone — as long as everyone likes their sense of humor. Of course, given that they often tackle movies that divide critics and audiences , they can be contentious.

With videos ranging from 10 minutes to over an hour long, the YouTube channel FilmJoy has things for everyone to enjoy. Of course, while the channel offers several shows, most of the channel's supporters tend to find themselves more engaged by the Movies with Mikey show.

"Intelligent, funny and extremely heartfelt. His whole approach is to discuss beloved films and why they're so special," says Reddit user johnspost . Instead of focusing on cynicism and encouraging fans to dislike certain movies, it brings about positivity, which is somewhat rare among YouTubers.

This Guy Edits

While many film critics focus on acting, character development, plot, or setting, the YouTuber This Guy Edits focuses on the editing in film and how it affects each movie. Instead of critiquing individual movies, the channel educates the public to help them consider editing in their own review of films.

"I find myself analyzing cuts and sound design way more after watching This Guy Edits," shared Reddit user InuitOverit . Considering how many movies are edited after their initial release , it's got a wide array of content to sift through, which means fans have a lot to learn from a true professional.

Lindsay Ellis

A film critic who used her YouTube channel to launch a book of her own, Lindsay Ellis recently left the YouTube scene, but her remaining backlog of content is still fascinating to look through. "Her videos are really funny while also being very interesting," commented Redditor bman9919 .

Often, Ellis considered topics that most fans failed to consider and showcased just why she took that perspective. She focused on a wide array of issues, including animation, the influence of the filmmakers on each film, and even why the greatest movie musicals are no longer particularly popular.

Like Stories Of Old

The YouTuber Like Stories of Old is a critic who likes to go into depth with each video, which is why it's so rare to see content for his channel under 20 minutes long. It's also why he only tends to release videos irregularly, often with a month or more between releases.

"His voice and delivery is so unique and soothing... it's pretty remarkable how well constructed each piece is," says Redditor stumpcity . The channel addresses wide-ranging issues in Hollywood, like the Hero's Journey, entire genres in film, and archetypes within the industry. He offers a fascinating in-depth look at whatever topics he chooses, and it's why he's a beloved critic.

Every Frame A Painting

While there are many visually stunning movies that can awe viewers, the YouTuber Every Frame A Painting takes apart movies to show fans exactly why they come to love the looks and aesthetic of movies. It also takes a look at how to improve those very aesthetic through editing.

"They were mainly about filmmaking techniques, editing, shot composition, blocking, etc., instead of plot/story/theme like the majority seem to be," says Reddit user scoutcjustice . While unfortunately Every Frame A Painting has stopped producing videos, fans still have a lot to learn from the content the channel already produced, as the majority continues to be relevant today.

Thomas Flight

Often addressing topics like director preferences and the impact of particular films, the YouTuber Thomas Flight could give a masterclass in film criticism, as most fans would agree. "Thomas Flight does a really good job at highlighting technical details and is also great at explaining the historical reference points for many directors," posits Reddit user redditaccount001 .

With essays about editing, genres, and sound quality in movies, fans may come for the analysis of their favorite film and leave with a new appreciation for dynamic styles in film. The channel's in-depth analysis explains why each upload comes somewhat inconsistently, but the content is quality enough that fans hardly mind.

Next: 10 Best "Let's Play" YouTubers For Fans To Watch

The Best Video Essay Channels, Ranked

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

The Deadpool & Wolverine Cameos Have a Deeper Meaning in the MCU

The umbrella academy ending makes no sense (and that's a problem), the real star of this tom selleck western is his rifle.

If you’re a die-hard movie fan, you don’t have to be a hardcore collector to know that you can find a lot of your special features free on YouTube – from movie trailers and top-ten lists to reaction videos and cast-and-crew interviews. But the crème de la crème for any budding cinephile is YouTube ’s subculture of video essayists.

The best of these content creators, particularly those focused on dissecting and analyzing film and television, give viewers a lot of food for thought, making them consider things they hadn’t before, even when it comes to movies they have watched 100 times. There is an embarrassment of content out there, but this article seeks to separate the wheat from the chaff – we are recommending only the channels with the best, most refreshing, and most original analysis. If you're a film lover or budding buff, you owe it to yourself to check out these great video essay channels.

What’s So Great About That?

UK creator and pop-culture academic Grace Lee makes video essays examining themes and form in both horror and animated media; she has an affinity for the deeper, more unexpected thoughts evoked by her favorite genres. Whereas many content creators are quippy or sarcastic, Lee’s voiceover narrative approach is one of measured thoughtfulness.

Related: Explained: How Twin Peaks Changed Television

While her output as What's So Great About That? is not as large as some other creators on this list, that is far from a bad thing as Lee seems to focus more on quality than quantity. Each video discusses fairly narrow topics within a given property – examples include the “treachery of language” in the work of David Lynch or the concept of the “unnatural” in the original Evil Dead film.

You might mistake Canadian vlogger Sarah Z (pronounced “Zed”) for your best friend. She sits on the couch with a cup of coffee and speaks directly to you, a monologuist spending hours on end about all of her opinions, from toxic fandoms to true-crime documentaries.

But these monologues are not the boring, meaningless yarns that you might expect. Rather, Sarah’s channel is an ever-deepening trove of incisive and engaging media analysis encased in a shell of light and fluffy entertainment. The whole thing is driven by Sarah’s palpable excitement and enthusiasm for the topics she is covering, and a penchant for long, detailed videos that are extensively researched. Some videos will even stretch far beyond the one-hour mark, including a 90-minute video on geek culture and a full two hours on Dear Evan Hansen .

Another Canadian creator steps up to the plate in the form of Sage Hyden , a fantasy novelist whose essay channel Just Write seems particularly preoccupied with film’s place in the cultural conversation. In particular, Hyden is fascinated with the messages that movies send us, what they are trying to communicate (consciously or subconsciously), and how they shape our perceptions and prejudices.

For topics that can sometimes land on the serious side, Hyden’s tone and writing style are conversational and often funny, and his insights are fairly eye-opening. Topics include Willy Wonka and its relationship to misconceptions about poverty, the importance of the original Mulan film, and the cinematic lineage of the modern murder mystery Knives Out .

If you consider yourself an outsider or find yourself disagreeing with most of your friends on their favorite movies, you might find a mutual kinship with creator Yhara Zayd , whose videos examine film and television through lenses both personal and political. Zayd’s is not the kind of detached analysis you can expect from many YouTubers; rather, though she is very well-researched, she is also full of unapologetic hot takes, and her videos are brimming with the caustic personality of a modern-day Pauline Kael.

Related: These Are the Best Marilyn Monroe Movies

In some ways, Zayd has crafted the perfect synergy between the highly-opinionated critic and the relentless deconstructionist, enthusiastically dissecting and questioning the images and media we regularly consume. She also has a distinct knack for self-awareness, gazing inward as she gazes outward, a quality which separates her content from that of many of her peers. Zayd covers such divergent subjects as the commodification of the great Marilyn Monroe, reflections of housing discrimination in 1980s horror films , and the under-appreciated legacy of Not Another Teen Movie .

For something a little less personal but no less fascinating, it is worth checking out the prolific Susannah McCullough and her channel The Take . McCullough and her extraordinary team make what are probably the best “Explained” videos you’ll be able to find, along with character breakdowns, deconstructions of tropes, and the lessons movies can teach us. They’ve got videos that deconstruct and explain Donnie Darko , The Sopranos , Get Out , and many, many more. They’ve also nerded out with full series on different franchises, including detailed character analyses in shows such as Friends and Breaking Bad .

The writing is smart but accessible, and the arguments are utterly convincing. The videos themselves are breezily edited and full of poppy visuals. The channel also covers many, many genres and types of movies, so you are sure to find something on a movie or TV show you love. The Take offers incisive film analysis in a context that is fun and completely unpretentious.

Maggie Mae Fish

Decadent, performance-driven vlogs like ContraPoints and Philosophy Tube are all the rage these days, and film buffs finally have their own version in the form of Maggie Mae Fish . Ms. Fish is a singular, idiosyncratic voice who pivots wildly from dedicated film scholar to sketch-comedy caricature and back again. She typically sits center-frame in a variety of ornately designed sets, dressed in colorful outfits, while she patiently spoons out detailed, thoughtful analysis over the course of long videos.

For any video-essay enthusiast, Fish is the real deal – wickedly entertaining, subversive, accessible, and always thought-provoking. Her recent two-video series on Twin Peaks is catnip for any fans seeking a new perspective on the show – and an excellent dressing-down of Twin Perfect’s infamous 4.5-hour breakdown. She also deconstructs auteur theory through the works of David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick, and spends two hours discussing Loki ’s debt to Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker .

Lindsay Ellis

When it comes to distinct personalities, no vlogger quite matches the likes of the controversial but brilliant Lindsay Ellis . She is a brand unto herself, with an over-the-top, self-deprecating style that can only be described as a hopped-up, sleep-deprived, but no less informed, Adam Curtis. She is often seen drinking wine in her videos, breaking down popular media like Disney movies, musical adaptations, and The Lord of the Rings franchise.

Ellis is one of the originals of the medium, and her work is so singular that her influence has likely extended to all the other creators who occupy this list. Some of her most brilliant work includes “The Whole Plate,” a nine-video series that completely deconstructs the first Transformers film through the lenses of gender, sexuality, and film studies. Her most iconic work includes 40-minute videos ranting about the film adaptations of Rent and The Phantom of the Opera . Due to recent Internet events, she has stopped making videos on YouTube, but her existing videos are still there for all to see and are absolutely worth checking out.

Every Frame A Painting

Sometimes the most obvious answer is still the best one. Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou’s gorgeous video series Every Frame A Painting is still the benchmark against which all other video essayists are judged. You’ve probably seen their video on Edgar Wright and visual comedy, or the one on silence in the films of Martin Scorsese. The channel has been defunct for several years now, but the content still feels as fresh and original as it did when it was first published.

The topics covered are narrow and unexpected, but they all work extraordinarily well. The writing is tight and evocative, and Zhou’s voice is unforgettably soothing and inviting. The editing is also crisp and beautiful. Ramos and Zhou have become so renowned for their work that they were even invited to contribute to David Fincher’s Voir , a video essay project for Netflix.

The video essay boom

Hour-long YouTube videos are thriving in the TikTok era. Their popularity reflects our desire for more nuanced content online.

by Terry Nguyen

The video essay’s reintroduction into my adult life was, like many things, a side effect of the pandemic. On days when I couldn’t bring myself to read recreationally, I tried to unwind after work by watching hours and hours of YouTube.

My pseudo-intellectual superego, however, soon became dissatisfied with the brain-numbing monotony of “day in the life” vlogs, old Bon Appétit test kitchen videos, and makeup tutorials. I wanted content that was entertaining, but simultaneously informational, thoughtful, and analytical. In short, I wanted something that gave the impression that I, the passive viewer, was smart. Enter: the video essay.

Video essays have been around for about a decade, if not more, on YouTube. There is some debate over how the form preceded the platform; some film scholars believe the video essay was born out of and remains heavily influenced by essay films , a type of nonfiction filmmaking. Regardless, YouTube has become the undisputed home of the contemporary video essay. Since 2012, when the platform began to prioritize watch-time over views , the genre flourished. These videos became a significant part of the 2010s YouTube landscape, and were popularized by creators across film, politics, and academic subcultures.

Today, there are video essays devoted to virtually any topic you can think of, ranging anywhere from about 10 minutes to upward of an hour. The video essay has been a means to entertain fan theories , explore the lore of a video game or a historical deep dive , explain or critique a social media trend , or like most written essays, expound upon an argument, hypothesis , or curiosity proposed by the creator.

Some of the best-known video essay creators — Lindsay Ellis, Natalie Wynn of ContraPoints, and Abigail Thorn of PhilosophyTube — are often associated with BreadTube , an umbrella term for a group of left-leaning, long-form YouTubers who provide intellectualized commentary on political and cultural topics.

It’s not an exaggeration to claim that I — and many of my fellow Gen Zers — were raised on video essays, academically and intellectually. They were helpful resources for late-night cramming sessions (thanks Crash Course), and responsible for introducing a generation to first-person commentary on all sorts of cultural and political phenomena. Now, the kids who grew up on this content are producing their own.

“Video essays are a form that has lent itself particularly well to pop culture because of its analytical nature,” Madeline Buxton, the culture and trends manager at YouTube, told me. “We are starting to see more creators using video essays to comment on growing trends across social media. They’re serving as sort of real-time internet historians by helping viewers understand not just what is a trend, but the larger cultural context of something.”

A lot has been said about the video essay and its ever-shifting parameters . What does seem newly relevant is how the video essay is becoming repackaged, as long-form video creators find a home on platforms besides YouTube. This has played out concurrently with the pandemic-era shift toward short-form video, with Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube respectively launching Reels, Spotlight, and Shorts to compete against TikTok.

TikTok’s sudden, unwavering rise has proven the viability of bite-size content, and the app’s addictive nature has spawned fears about young people’s dwindling attention spans. Yet, the prevailing popularity of video essays, from new and old creators alike, suggests otherwise. Audiences have not been deterred from watching lengthy videos, nor has the short-form pivot significantly affected creators and their output. Emerging video essayists aren’t shying away from length or nuance, even while using TikTok or Reels as a supplement to grow their online following.

One can even argue that we are witnessing the video essay’s golden era . Run times are longer than ever, while more and more creators are producing long-form videos. The growth of “creator economy” crowdfunding tools, especially during the pandemic, has allowed video essayists to take longer breaks between uploads while retaining their production quality.

“I do feel some pressure to make my videos longer because my audience continues to ask for it,” said Tiffany Ferguson, a YouTube creator specializing in media criticism and pop culture commentary. “I’ve seen comments, both on my own videos and those I watch, where fans are like, ‘Yes, you’re feeding us,’ when it comes to longer videos, especially the hour to two-hour ones. In a way, the mentality seems to be: The longer the better.”

In a Medium post last April, the blogger A. Khaled remarked that viewers were “willing to indulge user-generated content that is as long as a multi-million dollar cinematic production by a major Hollywood studio” — a notion that seemed improbable just a few years ago, even to the most popular video essayists. To creators, this hunger for well-edited, long-form video is unprecedented and uniquely suitable for pandemic times.

The internet might’ve changed what we pay attention to, but it hasn’t entirely shortened our attention span, argued Jessica Maddox, an assistant professor of digital media technology at the University of Alabama. “It has made us more selective about the things we want to devote our attention to,” she told me. “People are willing to devote time to content they find interesting.”

“People are willing to devote time to content they find interesting”

Every viewer is different, of course. I find that my attention starts to wane around the 20-minute mark if I’m actively watching and doing nothing else — although I will admit to once spending a non-consecutive four hours on an epic Twin Peaks explainer . Last month, the channel Folding Ideas published a two-hour video essay on “the problem with NFTs,” which has garnered more than 6 million views so far.

Hour-plus-long videos can be hits, depending on the creator, the subject matter, the production quality, and the audience base that the content attracts. There will always be an early drop-off point with some viewers, according to Ferguson, who make it about two to five minutes into a video essay. Those numbers don’t often concern her; she trusts that her devoted subscribers will be interested enough to stick around.

“About half of my viewers watch up to the halfway point, and a smaller group finishes the entire video,” Ferguson said. “It’s just how YouTube is. If your video is longer than two minutes, I think you’re going to see that drop-off regardless if it’s for a video that’s 15 or 60 minutes long.”

Some video essayists have experimented with shorter content as a topic testing ground for longer videos or as a discovery tool to reach new audiences, whether it be on the same platform (like Shorts) or an entirely different one (like TikTok).

“Short-form video can expose people to topics or types of content they’re not super familiar with yet,” Maddox said. “Shorts are almost like a sampling of what you can get with long-form content.” The growth of Shorts, according to Buxton of YouTube, has given rise to this class of “hybrid creators,” who alternate between short- and long-form content. They can also be a starting point for new creators, who are not yet comfortable with scripting a 30-minute video.

Queline Meadows, a student in Ithaca College’s screen cultures program, became interested in how young people were using TikTok to casually talk about film, using editing techniques that borrowed heavily from video essays. She created her own YouTube video essay titled “The Rise of Film TikTok” to analyze the phenomenon, and produces both TikTok micro-essays and lengthy videos.

“I think people have a desire to understand things more deeply,” Meadows told me. “Even with TikTok, I find it hard to unfold an argument or explore multiple angles of a subject. Once people get tired of the hot takes, they want to sit with something that’s more nuanced and in-depth.”

It’s common for TikTokers to tease a multi-part video to gain followers. Many have attempted to direct viewers to their YouTube channel and other platforms for longer content. On the contrary, it’s in TikTok’s best interests to retain creators — and therefore viewers — on the app. In late February, TikTok announced plans to extend its maximum video length from three minutes to 10 minutes , more than tripling a video’s run-time possibility. This decision arrived months after TikTok’s move last July to start offering three-minute videos .

As TikTok inches into YouTube-length territory, Spotify, too, has introduced video on its platform, while YouTube has similarly signaled an interest in podcasting . In October, Spotify began introducing “video podcasts,” which allows listeners (or rather, viewers) to watch episodes. Users have the option to toggle between actively watching a podcast or traditionally listening to one.

What’s interesting about the video podcast is how Spotify is positioning it as an interchangeable, if not more intimate, alternative to a pure audio podcast. The video essay, then, appears to occupy a middle ground between podcast and traditional video by making use of these key elements. For creators, the boundaries are no longer so easy to define.

“Some video essay subcultures are more visual than others, while others are less so,” said Ferguson, who was approached by Spotify to upload her YouTube video essays onto the platform last year. “I was already in the process of trying to upload just the audio of my old videos since that’s more convenient for people to listen to and save on their podcast app. My reasoning has always been to make my content more accessible.”

To Ferguson, podcasts are a natural byproduct of the video essay. Many viewers are already consuming lengthy videos as ambient entertainment, as content to passively listen to while doing other tasks. The video essay is not a static format, and its development is heavily shaped by platforms, which play a crucial role in algorithmically determining how such content is received and promoted. Some of these changes are reflective of cultural shifts, too.

Maddox, who researches digital culture and media, has a theory that social media discourse is becoming less reactionary. She described it as a “simmering down” of the hot take, which is often associated with cancel culture . These days, more creators are approaching controversy from a removed, secondhand standpoint; they seem less interested in engendering drama for clicks. “People are still providing their opinions, but in conjunction with deep analysis,” Maddox said. “I think it says a lot about the state of the world and what holds people’s attention.”

That’s the power of the video essay. Its basic premise — whether the video is a mini-explainer or explores a 40-minute hypothesis — requires the creator to, at the very least, do their research. This often leads to personal disclaimers and summaries of alternative opinions or perspectives, which is very different from the more self-centered “reaction videos” and “story time” clickbait side of YouTube.

“The things I’m talking about are bigger than me. I recognize the limitations of my own experience,” Ferguson said. “Once I started talking about intersections of race, gender, sexuality — so many experiences that were different from my own — I couldn’t just share my own narrow, straight, white woman perspective. I have to provide context.”

This doesn’t change the solipsistic nature of the internet, but it is a positive gear shift, at least in the realm of social media discourse, that makes being chronically online a little less soul-crushing. The video essay, in a way, encourages us to engage in good faith with ideas that we might not typically entertain or think of ourselves. Video essays can’t solve the many problems of the internet (or the world, for that matter), but they can certainly make learning about them a little more bearable.

• Internet Culture

Most Popular

• Why is everyone mad at Blake Lively?
• How Raygun earned her spot — fair and square — as an Olympics breaker
• Why does it feel like everyone is getting Covid?
• What can be done about this Supreme Court’s very worst decisions?
• The hidden reason why your power bill is so high

Today, Explained

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.

This is the title for the native ad

More in Money

It is important to hang onto grudges against the Supreme Court.

Is the Federal Reserve finally about to cut interest rates?

It’s the latest way Biden is trying to combat pesky “junk fees” driving up prices.

Elon Musk’s social media site is accusing brands of breaking antitrust laws.

The musicians spent 10 years renovating a derelict old building in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and turned it into a thriving business.

An app called YNAB wants to take the dread out of talking about money. For a price.

Get the Reddit app

A hub for video essays, super cuts, and other videos critically observing media texts.

Video Essay Channel Master List

By continuing, you agree to our User Agreement and acknowledge that you understand the Privacy Policy .

Enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app

You’ve set up two-factor authentication for this account.

Enter a 6-digit backup code

Create your username and password.

Reddit is anonymous, so your username is what you’ll go by here. Choose wisely—because once you get a name, you can’t change it.

Reset your password

Enter your email address or username and we’ll send you a link to reset your password

Check your inbox

An email with a link to reset your password was sent to the email address associated with your account

Choose a Reddit account to continue