Culture Ranking 2024 – Christian Lindner of the Year: Stefan Raab

Bahareh Ebrahimi

Best film: a) Drama: “All We Imagine as Light” by Payal Kapadia; b) Documentary: “Daughters” by Angela Patton and Natalie Rae; c) Tragicomedy: “A small piece of the cake” by Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha

Best Series: “Achtsam Morden” wasn’t the best series of the year, but it was the most fun.

Best book: The only book that inspired me this year was Running. Eat. Sleep.« by long-distance hiker Christine Thürmer from 2016: A woman frees herself from conventional office life in Germany and goes hiking in the USA.

Christian Lindner of the year: Bashar al-Assad

Dumbest word: “Nationality”

Worst sport: Competitive sports

Superpower of the year: a week without sleep at the Cannes Film Festival

Comeback of the year: Director Mohammad Rasoulof. Instead of going back to prison in Iran, shortly after his escape he ended up on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival… and perhaps soon at the Dolby Theater in LA

Best exhibition: »Anthony McCall: Split Second« im Guggenheim-Museum in Bilbao

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Larissa Kunert

Best motion picture: “A Different Man” by Aaron Schimberg – a surprising, funny, but sometimes oppressive reflection on the relationship between appearance, self-perception and society.

Best series/show: Of course, like every year, our columns in the nd feature section.

Christian Lindner of the year: All prime ministers who have spoken out in favor of the new media state treaty. The aim is to put an end to numerous public television and radio stations – privatizer Lindner would be proud.

Best book: “Café Marx” by Philipp Lenhard. The historian vividly tells the story of the Frankfurt School, one of the most important philosophical movements of the 20th century. Thanks to an nd article by Gert Lange, this year I also discovered the exiled writer Ulrich Becher, who was born in Berlin in 1910. I recommend his novella “The Black Hat” (1957).

Best dream/nightmare: The dream that Fridolin has in Arthur Schnitzler’s “Dream Novel” (1926) and Bill Harford in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation “Eyes Wide Shut” (1999). For me the film is a classic at Christmas time.

Dumbest word: The phrase “position,” which is so used in art criticism, should finally be discarded. “Work”, “approach”, “work”, “attitude” – everything is better than “position”.

Worst sport: The gym is undoubtedly a godforsaken place – yet I keep going back.

Superpower of the year: Red wine that makes you talkative.

Comeback of the year: The so-called dumbphone, which only lets you make calls and send text messages.

Bad buy of the year: A silk dress that I didn’t wear to a wedding; a ticket for a train that I didn’t take; the peace with my neighbors, acquired through indulgence, but which did not last.

Best exhibition: Maybe it’s reactionary to think Alfred Kubin is good, but his drawings in the Albertina in Vienna captivated me. It’s a shame that there is hardly any space for small-format works in the contemporary art world.

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Christof Meueler

Best film: “The Holdovers” by Alexander Payne. The bruised and left-behind of the bourgeoisie only come together at Christmas at the boarding school: a profound, touching hippie dream in the most beautiful snow and music landscape.

Best Series: “Ripley” on Netflix. A psychopath to enjoy: slow-motion film adaptation of the first “Ripley” crime novel by Patricia Highsmith in brilliant black and white aesthetics.

Christian Lindner of the year: Olaf Scholz, who throws Christian Lindner out of the cabinet (scripted).

Best book: a) Non-fiction book: “Abolishing Time” by Simon Nagy; Communism can come – if you take the time for it. b) Novel: “But I can fly” by Jürgen Teipel. A disturbingly open-hearted introspection of the attempts to be less afraid and to want to live differently through the punk movement.

Dumbest saying: »That is my honest opinion.«

Worst sport: Wrestling

Superpower of the year: Merkels Raute (ooops, she did it again)

Comeback of the year: VfL Bochum managed to avoid relegation at Fortuna Düsseldorf 5:6 on penalties.

Bad buy of the year: FIFA World Cup 2030 (three continents) and 2034 (Saudi Arabia)

Best exhibition: “Happiness is not always funny” by Rirkrit Tiravanija, in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin. Long live social plastic!

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Christine Odes

Best film: This year there are two films. Both are about violence. In the documentary “Behind Good Doors” she is not directly present, but only through stories and excuses. Filmmaker Julia Beerhold asks her mother why she and her father subjected her to massive physical and psychological humiliation as a child. How courageous to confront your own parents so mercilessly with their greatest transgression! Number two: “Des Teufels Bad” by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala is definitely the most terrible film of the year and therefore one of the best.

Best Series: “Ripley” (Netflix) is a very well-told and aesthetically staged crime thriller; “A New Summer” (Netflix) is a nasty portrait of the morals of the American upper class.

Christian Lindner of the year: Stefan Raab

Best book: Both are already old and one works well in contrast to the other: “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang is deadly boring. Don’t read it if it’s still on your list. On the other hand, “The Taming” by Gisela Elsner is over 20 years older, but tells the story of a failed marriage that is far more bizarre, evil and funny.

Best dream: Sleeping in on a Monday.

Dumbest word: »School entrance examination«

Worst sport: Hobby horsing. Nobody wants to grow up, but this is going too far. However, a generation that invents such a sport cannot further ruin our planet in the future.

Superpower of the year: My immune system. Towards the end of the year it finally comes up to operating temperature and has killed off three daycare germs in a row.

Comeback of the year: Corona. Things get better after the third time.

Bad buy of the year: Did I mention that “The Vegetarian” is not an interesting book?

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Carl Vesper

Best film: “With love, your Hilde” by Andreas Dresen. A moving, sensitive and impressive film that commemorates two heroes of the workers’ resistance against Hitler’s dictatorship, which is still underappreciated in the Federal Republic.

Christian Lindner of the year: The Indian multi-billionaire’s son Anant Ambani, who celebrated his wedding for three days. But not just like Lindner with boring semi-celebrities from politics and business, but with international stars like Kim Kardashian. In addition, he didn’t come up with the absurd idea of ​​walking through a whale’s teeth after saying his yes.

Best book: “Freedom” by Angela Merkel. But only because it perfectly demonstrated typically male defensive reflexes when a self-confident woman speaks up. The fact that she shook up the male-dominated CDU and modernized the stuffy Federal Republic still outrages those of the past.

Worst nightmare: That the flag squire and devil’s advocate Friedrich Merz becomes Chancellor of Germany. Perhaps the last compelling reason to leave the land of the Pan-Germans.

Dumbest word: “warworthy”

Worst sport: Wife-carrying, a world championship since 1992 in Sonkajärvi, Finland: the wife shouldered by the husband, her face on his buttocks, her legs wrapped around his chest – this is not only discriminatory, but also unaesthetic and painful.

Superpower of the year: Gisèle Pelicot, who reported her violent husband and his unscrupulous cronies and bravely emerged from anonymity: “Shame must change sides.”

Bad buy of the year: The 60 CH-47 Chinook transport helicopters that Boris Pistorius bagged from Boeing in Philadelphia. The shopping spree of the Defense Minister, who concluded a total of 380 contracts with US defense companies in May, alone consumes a third of the Bundeswehr’s special assets. And doesn’t let us sleep any more peacefully. On the contrary.

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Erik Zielke

Best book: “Free. Growing up at the end of history” by Lea Ypi

Christian Lindner of the year: Work should always be more worthwhile than giving up a job, said Christian L., Germany’s cheekiest unemployed person. That’s why: Make cars from the automobile manufacturer Porsche now public property.

Best dream: The main thing is undisturbed.

Dumbest word: “Culture cuts.”

Worst sport: The morning transition from the horizontal to the vertical.

Superpower of the year: Sobriety – according to Antonio Gramsci, means “pessism of the mind” and “optimism of the will”.

Comeback of the year: The kitchen table.

Bad buy of the year: The colorful range of goods from Rheinmetall.

Best play: “Little Man – What Now?” directed by Frank Castorf at the Berliner Ensemble