The vast majority of historical cultures have been lost time. Some pieces of history that almost slipped through the cracks have allowed us to learn more about what we do and don’t know. Accidental finds by both archaeologists and regular people show that important finds can be made at any place and time.

10 The Varna Gold

From 1972 to 1991, excavations at a lakeside cemetery in Bulgaria produced around 6 kilograms (13 lb) of gold artifacts. These artifacts constitute one of the most profound archaeological finds in Europe because they are over 6,500 years old—only a few centuries after the first farmers showed up in Europe. They’re also the first evidence of a social hierarchy, since they were only found in a handful of the graves at Varna; four graves held 75 percent of the gold found.

All of the graves containing gold artifacts were occupied by men, a finding that disproved the theory that prehistoric European civilizations were run by women, which was popularized by influential archaeologist Marija Gimbutas. Over the course of 15 years, 312 graves were excavated, dating from 4600 to 4200 BC—the Copper Age, when humans were first beginning to experiment with metalworking. The variety of artifacts range from jewelry to breastplates to a golden penis sheath.

9 Mahendraparvata

In 2012, extensive study above the densely forested plateau known as Phnom Kulen revealed a millennia-old vanished civilization. It contained a pyramid-like structure, temples, and even an intricate, man-made water infrastructure. The remains of the city are located 40 kilometers (25 mi) north of the Angkor Wat complex and were first uncovered in the 19th century by French archaeologists. According to inscriptions on ruined walls, the city was called Mahendraparvata, and it was built by the ninth-century warrior-King Jayavarman II.

There was further exploration in 1936, but the site was again forgotten during the turmoil of the Vietnam War. When it was rediscovered decades later, it became clear that it was the template for the more famous Angkor Wat, built centuries later. While Mahendraparvata may have been forgotten, its legacy continues to live on.

8 The Mona Island Graffiti

Mona Island, located in the Caribbean Sea, was occupied by the Taino people in the 16th century. When the island’s cave system was explored recently, it was found that the Spanish conquistadors of the time and the Taino had a sort of cultural exchange, long forgotten to historical record. The cave graffiti includes depictions of Christian symbols, around 30 religious phrases, and the Taino’s own religious iconography.

These findings show that Spanish may have been less ruthless in their efforts than previously thought. Explorers required native help to explore the complex caves, and the iconography shows that they were most likely genial and tried to peacefully expose the Taino to Christianity and European culture, while the indigenous people engaged the explorers with their own culture and beliefs.

7 The Clovis Points

The Clovis points were first unearthed in 1932 in Clovis, New Mexico. Initially, their finder, archaeologist Edgar B. Howard, wasn’t looking for artifacts; he was looking for mammoth fossils. Mixed in with the bones, he noticed fine, hand-crafted blades, which were dubbed the Clovis points. Howard researched them further and stumbled upon an ancient American culture. The earliest Clovis points date back 13,500 years and have been found in 1,500 places throughout North America and have appeared as far south as Venezuela.

The Clovis people were some of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas, and the fact that no Clovis points have been found in Siberia (from which humans first migrated to the Americas) shows that they may have been the first American invention. They quickly swept across the continent, showing just how widespread the Clovis culture may have been at the time. The points were not for hunting like one would expect (only 14 Clovis sites were hunting areas) but rather as a general tool. While there were pre-Clovis tribes in the Americas, the Clovis culture remains the oldest known American civilization.

6 The Bobcat Burial

Feline domestication first occurred in ancient Egypt, but a mislabeled finding shows that it may have also occurred in North America in the past. In the 1980s, a 2,000-year-old Hopewell burial mound in western Illinois was uncovered during construction of a highway. Among the human remains, animal bones were found and believed to be dog remains, since the Hopewell were known to bury them.

For several years, the bones were labeled as canine until a researcher found that they more closely matched a bobcat’s. Not only were the bones found in special mound, but the bobcat had been treated with reverence, something not seen before in North America. It was buried with pendants and shell beads as a sort of collar, showing that it was cherished. There was no evidence that it was sacrificed and no sign of trauma. The bobcat was young, meaning that the tribe may have tried to tame it as a kitten.

5 The 18th-century Ship At The World Trade Center

After the Twin Towers fell in 2001, excavations at the site came up with a surprising discovery in 2010—the remains of a centuries-old ship. The wooden-hull vessel sat 6 to 9 meters (20–30 ft) below street level, and it became the first-large scale historical discovery in Manhattan in several decades. Apparently, when the World Trade Towers were being built, the ship wasn’t disturbed and most likely hadn’t been so for over 200 years.

The ship was most likely built in the mid- to late 1700s, but little else is known about it. However, there is proof that it was truncated and may have served as landfill material as a way to extend Lower Manhattan into the Hudson River. As soon as it was uncovered, the ship began to disintegrate because it had long been concealed and protected in dirt beneath a succession of buildings.

4 Pasargadae

Pasargadae, located in Northern Iran, was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire built by Cyrus the Great. Pasargadae was, at one time, the most important city in the world. The Achaemenid Empire served as the inspiration for Alexander the Great’s empire 200 years later and the Roman Empire after that. Nevertheless, the city fell by the wayside and was eventually forgotten. The Tomb of Cyrus still stood, but its true occupant was forgotten. Over time, locals began to refer to the tomb as belonging to the mother of King Solomon.

The city wasn’t uncovered again until German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld arrived in 1928. Many of the details of the capital had been forgotten, including its very location, but Herzfeld’s meticulous efforts eventually resulted in its rediscovery. He mapped and documented the ruins, its complex irrigation system, its palaces, and the Tomb of Cyrus, allowing for the city to be investigated by researchers today.

3 The Castle Under The Prison

In 2015, a men’s prison in Gloucester, England, began working on a proposed redevelopment. Beneath its yard, workers made a shocking discovery—the ruins of a 1,000-year-old castle. Two castles have been built in Gloucester over the centuries. The first was demolished and replaced in 1110, and the second stood until 1789, when it, too, was demolished. The castle found at the prison was probably the latter.

According to the BBC, its walls have “never been seen in the last 200 years.” The castle was a huge tower keep, comparable in size to the White Tower of the Tower of London, and was most likely a prominent building until its destruction. In 1791, two years after the Gloucester castle was destroyed, the Gloucester prison began to receive its first prisoners. Whatever remained of the old castle was covered by the prison yard.

2 The White City

The White City was long the stuff of legend in Honduras. According to the indigenous people, when the Spanish conquistadors first arrived and began to take over, they fled to a “white house” deep in the Honduran jungles. In the remote Mosquita region of Honduras, strange objects were found that seemed to indicate that there was some sort of civilization there. The site, along with three others, were discovered in 2012 using an aerial imaging technique called Lidar.

Excavations showed that there was an entire city deep in the jungle, just as the natives had said. Earthen pyramids, plazas, and artifacts were all found indicating that a long-forgotten civilization once dwelt there. Ground was broke at the White City site in 2016 with the Honduran president there to witness it.

1 Homo Naledi

In 2013, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger assembled a team to explore the Rising Star Cave in South Africa. The team consisted of six thin women; the reason for this was the fact that Berger needed them to squeeze into a narrow chute which ended in a gap just 18 centimeters (7 in) wide. Beyond the gap were 1,500 bones from around 15 skeletons. This find is important because those skeletons are the remains of a previously unknown species of human called Homo naledi.

When Berger first explored the Rising Star Cave, he wasn’t expecting to find anything so impressive. The cave had been regularly explored for 50 years but, but when Berger sat in a crevice, he found that his feet didn’t touch the bottom. The chute he discovered led to the find. Despite the fact that Homo naledi had heads the size of modern gorillas, they may have engaged in burial practices in the cave and seem to have been quite intelligent.

Eating out-of-date food is a gamble. On one hand, it could be perfectly fine; on the other, it could lead to crippling diarrhea and a ruined sofa. With that in mind, we’d advise people to avoid eating while reading this—not because it’s disgusting, but because it teaches us that food can be left for a lot longer than most of us assume. For example, consider . . . 

10 Kiviaq, The Dish You Leave Outside For 18 Months

In Greenland, during the colder winter months, food was traditionally incredibly scarce. Natives came up with a rather ingenious solution to the problem of potentially starving to death: kiviaq, a food that stays edible for up to a year, even if you leave it outside.

We should point out that we’re using the word “edible” very liberally here. Kiviaq is so pungent it’s advised to never eat it indoors, but it does stave off hunger, which is why we assume people still tolerate it. The dish is made by shoving as many auks (sea birds) into a seal carcass as possible, which is usually between 300 and 400 birds. The seal skin is then sewn up and stored under rocks.

The tiny auks liquefy and melt into a fine gooey paste. It may not be tasty, or good at parties, but you have to be impressed that you can leave food out in a pit and still be able to eat it a year later. Try that with a sandwich and a squirrel will just take it. But speaking of sandwiches . . . 

9 Battle Butties, The Sandwich That’s Fresh Two Years After You Buy It

The military has had a tradition of feeding personnel long-lasting, freeze-dried meals, but soldiers would always ask for the one thing they’d rather be eating: a simple fresh sandwich.

Scientists found two problems while trying to create a non-perishable sandwich. Bread goes stale, and the filling makes the bread soggy. Both problems may have been solved with the invention of “Battle Butties” a new, long-lasting sandwich that can sit for an astounding two years before going stale.

The creators say their ultimate goal is to create an immortal peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but in the meantime, soldiers have been generally positive about the fillings already on offer. As once soldier put it, “They’re the best two-year-old sandwiches I’ve ever eaten.”

We guess that’s as a good a review as they’re going to get.

8 Hardtack, The Cracker That Lasts For Years

When the military doesn’t feel like bothering with such details as “freshness” and “flavor,” it comes up with low-tech foods that last a good deal longer than any sandwich. For centuries, soldiers and sailors dined on a type of cracker called “hardtack.” The cracker contains just water, flour, and salt, and it’s specifically made to be as dry as possible to increase its lifespan. Though it’s commonly associated with the Civil War, variations on the hardtack recipe have existed for hundreds if not thousands of years.

We don’t really know the upper limit of hardtack’s lifespan, but soldiers regularly received year-old hardtack during the Civil War. These soldiers were so wary of the cracker that they often joked that the “BC” stamp on it represented not the bakers initials, but the date it was made.

Due to its exceptional dryness, a properly stored cracker would indeed last for years, at which point it could be eaten by adding it to water, coffee, or even whisky. Although you could eat hardtack dry, it was highly advised not to. If you’re wondering why, an alternate name for hardtack was “tooth dullers.”

Though unsubstantiated, persistent rumors even say hardtack made during the Civil War was later reissued during the Spanish-American War 35 years later.

7 Rations That Lasted 40 Years

Actually, never mind those rumors about hardtack. We know for certain that some military rations have lasted 35 years—and then some.

Stories tell of rations dating back as far as World War II being eaten up to 75 years after being prepared, but we’d like to focus on one story in particular. Mainly because the food in question is cake, a food that normally goes bad in just days.

US Army Colonel Henry Moak made a promise to himself that on the day he retired, he’d eat a piece of pound cake issued to him during the Vietnam War. True to his word, at his retirement ceremony in 2009, Moak opened and then consumed a 40-year-old piece of cake. He cut it with a sabre, of course, for optimal coolness.

Asked about the taste, Moak responded with a simple thumbs up, which means either it tasted great or he wanted an ambulance.

6 The Chicken Eaten After 50 Years

When Les Lailey married his wife Beryl in 1956, he made a promise that one-upped Colonel Moak’s. The pair received a can of chicken in a wedding gift hamper, and Les proclaimed to his new wife, “On our 50th wedding anniversary, I will eat that can of chicken.”

That can of chicken served as a constant sentinel to their marriage over the next 50 years. And on their anniversary in 2006, Les opened the can and dug in. He suffered no ill effect, other than a canned-shaped hole in his life as a result of eating poultry older than most people he’d ever met.

5 The 64-Year-Old Can Of Lard

Some of you may not even know what lard is, since it’s one of those things you rarely see anymore. Lard is animal fat that was commonly used in cooking. It can also be eaten raw, or with bread if you really have nothing else to cook with it.

We don’t advise people to take that latter option, but it’s the path eventually chosen by German food expert Hans Feldmeier. Hans received a can of lard in 1948 as part of a care package to Germany from the US, and he decided that he’d save the freedom fat for emergencies.

Sixty-four years later, no emergency had presented itself. But Hans did find himself getting into an argument one day about canned foods and expiry dates. The man pointed to his own can of lard (which had no expiry date on it) as proof that food in cans lasts more or less indefinitely.

Hans’s argument convinced no one, so he put his lard where is mouth was, opening the can and eating the contents. This proved his point, and also gave him the worst case of stink breath recorded in German history.

4 The 125-Year-Old Cake, Eaten By Jay Leno

We were pretty impressed a little while back by the army’s aged pound cake, but if we choose a different cake type, we can up the ante quite a bit. Bakers and cake aficionados reading this are likely well aware that fruit cake takes months to make properly and can last for years. Under the right conditions, science says that a fruitcake could last forever.

Fidelia Bates baked a regular fruitcake for Thanksgiving in 1878. She died before the holiday, and her family sentenced the cake to eternity in limbo beneath a plastic cover. In 2003, the ancient fruitcake got a last shot at life when Morgan Ford, Fidelia’s 83-year-old great grandson, sent it to Jay Leno at the Tonight Show. He took a bite with no visible ill effects.

3 Wine Drunk After Hundreds Of Years

Wine does indeed last for centuries, and people regularly pay incredible amounts for bottles found in forgotten larders or shipwrecks. But how often do those buyers actually end up drinking from the bottle? Rarely maybe—but it happens.

In 2010, for example, Finnish divers found 200-year-old bottles of beer and champagne in a boat wrecked in the middle of the Baltic sea. Researchers drank several of them after testing and declaring them safe for consumption. It just so happens that the bottom of the ocean is a great place to store alcohol. According to champagne bigwig Richard Juhlin, “Bottles kept at the bottom of the sea are better kept than in the finest wine cellars.”

As for the beer, the crew were hugely excited about it. Along with getting to shotgun a bottle older than a house, they had the chance to analyze the contents to replicate the recipe. The beer fizzed up as they opened it, indicating that the yeast inside it was still alive.

In other parts of the world, people have dug up and drunk even older bottles of wine. Perhaps the oldest ever were consumed by wine experts working with the Museum of London in 1999. The team tested 300-year-old wine bottles from a nearby archaeological excavation and then promptly drank the contents, for science. The experts described the irreplaceable wine as “fresh, clean, lively.” Which is pretty much what you’d find written on a 10-dollar bottle of plonk at 7/11. Great insight, guys.

2 Honey Edible After Thousands Of Years

Honey will virtually never go bad. Ever.

It can last for “millennia,” according to the Smithsonian Institute. This is because of honey’s acidic nature, and because it is “hygroscopic,” which is fancy way of saying it contains little moisture.

Honey is so hardy that scientists opening up ancient Egyptian tombs have found completely edible pots of honey among the 5,000-year-old mummies.

1 Animals Eaten After 50,000 Years

That’s not a typo. People have actually eaten food older than most of humanity itself.

If you’re wondering which magical animals have flesh edible after such a length of time, we hate to disappoint you by not answering, “Unicorns.” But we’ll try to make up for that disappointment by answering with: “Extinct ones.”

Mammoth corpses can and have been found with plenty of meat on their bones, due to the bodies lying in areas covered in permafrost. Some of this flesh is indeed edible. Many unconfirmed but interesting stories tell of hungry explorers, usually Russian ones, taking bites out of mammoth corpses.

We also have some confirmed cases of people eating food tens of thousands of years old. Like the paleontologists who cooked and ate a dish made with the marrow of a 50,000-year-old horse bone. Or the researchers who ate a piece of meat from a 36,000-year-old bison corpse, for no other reason than to see if they could.

We guess what we’re trying to say is one of two things. One: Old food isn’t going to kill you if you’re careful. Two: Studying hard might let you eat a dinosaur steak.

If you’d like to contact Karl, you can do so via Twitter or Facebook.

While we live in a world of short attention spans and ever-changing online games to cater to today’s generation, there is one thing that just never gets boring. That is board games! I guarantee that each of you has played at least one of these incredible top-selling board games, some of which have sold millions of copies and been played by billions of people worldwide. Check out this list of the top 10 board games of all time.

Note: because Christmas is just around the corner and inexpensive board games make good stocking fillers, I include links* to buy these on Amazon.

See Also: The 10 Most Offensive Board Games Ever Published

10Ticket to Ride

Buy Ticket to Ride On Amazon

Ticket to Ride has won dozens of awards and sold over 6 million copies since its creation. It is the most popular modern board game as it takes players on a train ride across the country while they collect cards of various types of trains which allow them to own railway routes between different locations. The game is simple to learn but requires great strategy and tactics to win. The longer the train routes each player claims means the more points they accumulate.

There is also a selection of “destination tickets,” which allow players to earn bonus points. To put it basically, each turn, you draw more cards, claim a route, or get a destination ticket. Don’t tell the kids, but it’s also educational. Everyone can brush up—or learn—their geography. There are also versions where you can build your routes throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and Africa. It’s a high-quality, modern game that everyone in the family can enjoy! Better get tracking!^[1]

9The Game of Life

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TheGame of Life is a board game from Milton Bradley that originated in the 1860s under the name, The Checkered Game of Life. The game simulates the steps one takes throughout their life—from college to retirement—with options for marriage, children, and homeownership along the way. There have been many versions of the game with various rule changes, with the game becoming less harsh in recent years. The modern version of the game was introduced in the 1960s and included squares for revenge against another player. These spaces were changed to “Sue for Damages” in the 1970s, and today, there are reward squares added—for recycling or helping the homeless.

The game is easy to play, with a game board, spinner (instead of dice), cards, tokens, cars, pegs, and money. After deciding on either the College path or Career path, you are on your way. Spin to advance and follow the instructions on that tile. You will have paydays, options to buy insurance or a house, have children (or not), and the one who retires with the most money wins. Have a good life!^[2]

8Clue

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Clue (Cluedo in some places) is the number one classic detective game that requires solving a crime. There is one murder with six suspects. The game aims to determine who the murderer is, what weapon they used, and in what room the crime was committed. To do this, you must make your way around a mansion into all the different rooms. Each player has been dealt an equal number of cards that have each suspect, weapon, and room on them. Once you reach a room, you are to ask the player to your left if they have a particular character, weapon, or room card, and they must show you if they have one of the three cards you have asked for.

In the case that they have none, the question goes to the next person to the left. Through the process of elimination, you can cross off each suspect, weapon, and room and eventually make an attempt at solving the homicide. If you are wrong, you are out of the game and play continues with the remaining players. This is definitely a game you want to keep your poker face on for.^[3]

7Battleship

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Battleship is a classic Hasbro game that requires some luck and some strategy. It is a naval-themed game requiring a player to sink all of their opponents’ battleships before they get to yours. The game is played on a 10″ by 10″ grid and starts with players positioning a number of different shaped and sized ships on said grid. Your goal is to strategically place your battleships to make it harder for your opponent to discover their position. From there, the excitement begins when you and your opponent take turns guessing locations on the grid where you think each ship might be located. If you have scored a hit, your opponent yells out, and you get another turn.

Once a ship has been sunk, the catchphrase, as advertised by Hasbro, is “you sunk my battleship!” The game carries on until one player has sunk all of their opponent’s battleships. The game is simple but fun, and there are endless ways to position your ships. Now there are countless versions of online BattleShip games which can be played all over the world. Happy firing!^[4]

6 Scrabble

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Scrabble was a game invented by Alfred Mosher Butts during the 1930s, the time of America’s Great Depression. Little did Butts know that his game would be a life-changer for many and would bring smiles to families who had little left to smile about. He analysed popular games such as chess, checkers, and bingo for years and concluded that word games didn’t reach the same popularity as other games because there was no score. Thus, Scrabble was born. The game is simple but requires a lot of thinking. Players start with 7 tiles, each with a letter and its corresponding point value typed on the front. After each turn, players take more tiles to replenish their “hand.” Each turn, the player forms a word using the tiles in their hand, and the points are calculated based on what squares the word is placed on. The words, however, must be attached to one or more letters of the words that have already been played. This adds an element of difficulty to the game.

Once a player has played all their tiles, and there are no more remaining in the pool (or once there are no more words possible to be made), players calculate the sum of their scores. Players with tiles remaining deduct the sum of the points from their hand from their total score. Your winner has the greatest number of points. Legend has it that the point system for each letter, as generated by Butts, was formulated from the letter’s likelihood to appear on the front page of The New York Times!^[5]

5 The Settlers of Catan

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The Settlers of Catan puts players back in history to a time of voyages and discovery. Your ships have landed on the coast of uncharted territory, and its name will be Catan. Therefore, as players, you are the Settlers of Catan. Although it isn’t the most popular game in the world, it is certainly up there among the best! It is, of course, another game based on trade and economy. The game aims to take over the island of Catan, although there are no fights or eliminations of other players. Instead, the players use the island’s natural resources to build cities and trade goods with one another. At the end of the game, there will be one person who has earned enough points to be deemed the dominator of Catan.

While the goal is to have the most points by the end of the game, it is impossible to win without trading with your opponents and sometimes giving up valuable resources. This is where the strategy comes in! Pay attention to what you need and what your opponents need and form a strategy to ensure fair trading and ultimately win.^[6]

4 Risk

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Created in 1957 by Frenchman Alber Lamorisse, it was originally titled La Conquete du Monde, which translates to The Conquest of the World. Parker Brothers then brought the game to the U.S. and retitled it to a more appealing sounding “Risk.” However, the aim of the game has always remained the same–to strategically eliminate your competitors and earn control of the board’s entire territory. The game took off in the 1960s and was hugely popular among high school and university students around the globe.

Its rise to fame was attributed to its challenging nature, which kept the minds of young students active and engaged. Although luck does play a little part in the outcome of the game, strategy is the ultimate key to conquering the board. Aside from Monopoly, Risk has been labelled as the best game for practicing and learning skills of negotiation and strategic interaction. Happy strategizing!^[7]

3Monopoly

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Monopoly is one of the most popular games in the world. I’m sure almost all of you have played it at least once or twice or at the very least have heard of it. Since its creation in 1935, more than 250 million versions of the game have been purchased and played by more than 1 billion people. Being one of the most popular board games known to man, it was officially inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 1998. For anyone who hasn’t played, Monopoly is a real-estate-based board game played by up to eight players. The main aim of the game is to be financially stable while simultaneously forcing opponents into bankruptcy.

Each player moves around the board purchasing properties and building hotels which opposing players must pay to land on. As one player builds up their empire, the rest will slowly dwindle until there is only one player remaining with all the money. While chance can help you win or lose faster, it is essentially a game of strategy. The original game was set in London; however, there are hundreds of versions of the game now with many destination and movie themes.^[8]

2 Stratego

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Stratego is a game where two opponents use pieces of opposing colours (typically red and blue). Each piece has a numbered rank on one side, which is played facedown to remain unknown. When a piece is moved to an opponent’s square, the pieces are flipped, revealing the numbers, and the piece with the smaller number is eliminated from the game. In the case that the pieces are of matching digits, both are removed from the game. The ultimate goal is to remove all of your opponent’s pieces or force them to surrender. True to its title, this game appeals to strategy enthusiasts and hearkens back to World War II.

Since it was released, more than 20 million copies have been purchased worldwide, particularly in the US, Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. Now, similarly to chess, there are national and world championships organized each year. As well as having new online versions released, there are several Sci-Fi-themed versions of the game. Definitely one to give you a headache!^[9]

1 Chess

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Chess is one of the oldest and most played board games in history. Played by two people on a checkered board of contrasting colours (standardly black and white) and corresponding pieces. The pieces consist of a King and Queen, two bishops, knights (usually depicted as horses) and rooks (from the Persian word for a castle tower), and eight pawns. Each piece moves in a different direction around the board, and the aim of the game is to corner the opponent’s king. The game first appeared in India around the 6th century AD and quickly spread to Asia and Europe. It soon became known as a “royal game” due to its popularity amongst the royal family and is still played exactly the same today as it was back then.

During the 20th century, the game underwent massive growth, leading to nationwide competition and player sponsorships. With recent mass growth in technology, many apps have been created, allowing people to play online, accommodating international games and competitions. I’m sure back when the game was founded, it was never dreamed that it would become the phenomenon it is today.^[10]

+ Competition

COMPETITION ENDED: This competition has now ended. Congratulations to the winners who have been announced in the comments below.

Five random commenters will be chosen to win this awesome classic board game 100 game set, which comprises “An array of over 100 classic games, made with premium quality materials, all inside a stunning gold-foil gift box. Enjoy playing with your family and friends. A weekend trip or a week-day routine, this game set has multiple games to engage and entertain all players. 5 double-sided printed game boards: Snake & Ladders, Checkers, Backgammon, Ludo, Solitaire, Chess, Nine-men Morris, Racing game, Goose game, Chinese checkers, and more. Comes with 5 rolling dice, 30 checkers/backgammon pieces, 32 chess pieces, 15 matches, 60 ludo pawns, and instructions.”

How to enter: Simply comment on the list. You can tell us what your favorite board game is, or perhaps your funniest board game-related story, or you can just compliment the list writer! All comments are eligible, and you can enter multiple times (by commenting more than once). The competition runs until midnight tonight. The winners will be chosen at random, so it doesn’t matter whether you comment at 1 am, 6 am, or 11 pm.

Abandoned places are captivating, as they often give us a direct glimpse of what life must have been like in the past. There are some locations that seem as if they are places that time forgot, as if life has ceased to exist.

10Tkvarcheli, Georgia

This Soviet ghost town is technically located within a country called The Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, which is only officially recognized by five other countries. To the rest of the world, these are just the remains of another Georgian town that supplied the Soviet industrial machine.

The town was constructed back in the 1940s to supply coal to the Soviets. As such, it was built to last long into the future. However, during the war of independence in the early 1990s, the town fell to Georgian forces. Tkvarcheli was occupied by the Georgians for more than a year, until Abkhaz forces reclaimed the town with the help of the Russians.

Sadly for the town, it was too late, as the Soviet era was already in decline. The population of the town steadily dwindled until it was eventually abandoned for good. Nowadays, it serves as a creepy reminder of life at the height of the Soviet Union.

9Hashima Island, Japan

At first glance, it’s not hard to see why this island was nicknamed “Battleship Island.” Approached from the water, it really does look like a giant concrete battleship, thanks to its high sea walls. But the history behind this small island isn’t nearly as pretty as its panoramic views.

Hashima was a coal mining town from 1887–1974, which aided in the industrialization of Japan. Naturally, mining is back-breaking work, so the demand for workers was high. By 1959, there were 5,259 miners living on the island, crammed into just 16 acres of land. As one of the most densely populated areas in the world, living conditions soon declined to prison-like levels.

In the 1960s, petroleum started to replace coal. Many mines throughout Japan were shut down shortly thereafter, including Hashima in 1974. Within a matter of weeks, one of the most densely populated places on Earth was deserted, and the island was left to rot and weather the elements.

8Kitsault, Canada

The town of Kitsault sits in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It featured more than 100 homes, 200 apartments, a hospital, a shopping mall, a movie theater, a sports center, and a bank. What more could you ask for this far up north? The only missing thing is the people.

The town formed in 1979 around the steel production industry after a molybdenum source was found nearby. For a while, all was well, but the town’s fate was sealed when the price of molybdenum crashed. As a result, the mine was shut down, and by 1983, Kitsault had turned into a ghost town almost overnight.

The town may possibly have found a saving grace, however, in the form of an entrepreneur who bought the place for $5 million in 2004. He hopes to resurrect the town from its slumber, but only time will tell if the plan is successful.

7The Parisian Time Capsule Apartment

Time capsules are always fascinating, as they provide a direct, unobstructed view into the past. Although most time capsules found nowadays are intentional, it’s exciting to stumble upon accidental ones like this amazing apartment in Paris.

In the 1940s, the apartment was owned by a Mrs. De Florian, who fled south just before World War II broke out. She left her apartment locked, never to return again, which is how it remained for 70 years. After De Florian passed away, the apartment was finally opened for her heirs to take inventory. Underneath layers of cobwebs and dust, everything was found just as De Florian had left it, including a stunning painting of a woman dressed in pink.

Along with this painting, the inventory team also found a couple of old love letters, which were neatly wrapped in ribbon. Most love letters are only interesting to the people who sent or received them, but these ones were much more than pretty words on paper—they were confirmed to have been written by Giovanni Boldini, who was one of the most influential painters of the Belle Epoque. He was the artist behind the painting, which depicted De Florian’s grandmother, a high-society French actress and courtesan. The painting was later sold for a staggering 2.1 million Euros ($2.85 million USD).

6The Buzludzha Monument, Bulgaria

Although at first glance, this structure looks like a giant concrete saucer on top of a mountain, Buzludzha is actually a monument dedicated to communism. The story behind its inception goes all the way back to 1891, when Bulgaria’s socialist faction met on this exact spot to discuss Bulgaria’s future. Construction began in 1974, and the building was richly decorated with an abundance of Bulgarian and Soviet symbols, including a series of colorful mosaic frescoes on the walls. Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Buzludzha Monument is the colossal hammer and sickle in the middle of the dome ceiling.

Sadly, this beautiful building eventually fell to squalor, as the Bulgarian communist party disbanded following a revolution in 1989. Ownership of the monument was transferred to the government, which simply sealed off the main entrance and left it to be ravaged by vandalism and the elements.

5Doel, Belgium

The town of Doel is 700 years old, but in an effort to expand the nearby harbor, the Belgian government scheduled the town for demolition and forced its residents to move. Subsequently, Doel turned into a ghost town, silently awaiting its demolition. The few citizens who refused to leave took an unusual stand against their predicament, bringing in street artists from all over Europe and encouraging them to turn Doel into their personal canvas as a form of protest.

The end result was spectacular, as the walls of the all-but-abandoned town transformed into a life-size living art gallery. The contrast between the old, historic buildings and the layers of modern graffiti that adorn them is breathtaking. Only 25 residents remain in this post-apocalyptic artistic paradise, and their future in Doel looks bleak. Demolition is still on the horizon, and they’ll all have to leave once the wrecking ball comes.

4Coco Palms, Hawaii

Known as the setting for the classic film Blue Hawaii, the island resort of Coco Palms is anything but a tropical paradise. The resort opened in 1953, and thanks to some marketing for the film Miss Sadie Thompson by MGM, business did not take long to pick up. However, once Elvis Presley arrived to film the instant hit Blue Hawaii, the resort became a runaway success. Couples from all over the globe, including A-list celebrities, wanted to spend their vacations and honeymoons on Elvis’s island nirvana.

For a few decades, it appeared that Coco Palms was here to stay, but in 1992, it fell victim to Hurricane Iniki. Most of the island was badly hit, and the resort couldn’t escape the colossal repair bills. Many insurance companies went bankrupt in the aftermath of the storm, so many repairs could not even be performed. This sent the whole island into a recession, from which the resort would never recover.

Still in tatters from the storm, the property was soon overtaken by vandals and thieves. Cottage 56, the suite where Elvis stayed, was an especially popular target. Although many redevelopment and restoration plans have been proposed, the resort is still a long way from recapturing its glory days.

3Two Guns, Arizona

The story behind Two Guns, originally called Canyon Lodge, is a sad one. It all started in the 1920s, when the infamous Route 66 gained massive traffic from adventurous travelers. Many of these travelers stopped for supplies at Canyon Lodge, which was just a small trading post run by Earle and Louise Cundiff at the time. The town’s success quickly caught the attention of the entrepreneur Harry “Two Guns” Miller, who recognized the the vast amounts of wealth to be gained there. He convinced the Cundiffs to lease him the site for 10 years and renamed the town. Under Miller’s command, the town was transformed into a full-blown tourist trap, complete with its own zoo and attractions.

One of these so called “attractions” was a nearby canyon, which was the site of a battle between the Apaches and the Navajos. Inside the canyon was a cave called the Apache Death Cave, which served as a tomb for 42 Apache men. Although the cave’s backstory is fascinating in its own right, Miller decided that it wasn’t intriguing enough for his tourists. He renamed it “Mystery Cave,” built fake ruins, sold the Apache skulls as souvenirs, and perhaps most egregiously, added a soda stand.

The town soon fell victim to a major robbery, which made relations between Miller and the Cundiffs very tense, culminating in a heated argument during which Miller shot Earle Cundiff dead. Incredibly, Miller was acquitted at trial, but shortly thereafter, he was attacked twice by mountain lions and bitten by a Gila monster. This trail of bad luck finally reached a tipping point in 1929, when a fire burned down the whole town. After losing a court battle with Louise Cundiff to keep the land, Miller left. Route 66 was rerouted to the opposite canyon, and Two Guns slowly faded into obscurity, its golden days long behind it.

2The Cinema At The End Of The World

In the middle of the Sinai desert lies a mysterious cinema that never saw an audience. Information about this place is very scarce, and it leaves us with more questions than answers.

The oddly situated setup was built by a French film buff named Diynn Eadel in the 1990s. Somehow, Eadel managed to secure the necessary building permits and convinced Parisian investors to buy seats and projectors from the old theaters of Cairo. The resulting arrangement, which would seat 700 people, sadly never saw an opening night, and no one seems to know why. The theater might have gone unnoticed for years had it not gathered attention from the media recently after it was vandalized and destroyed, most likely for scrap metal.

1Salton Riviera, California

Looking as if it came straight out of a post-apocalyptic world, the Salton Riviera is one of the most awe-inspiring locations on Earth. It was built around the Salton Sea, the largest body of water in California, which was amazingly created by accident when a flood poured in from the Colorado River over the course of two years at the turn of the century.

Many thought that the floodwater would eventually dry out, but years went by seemingly without a drop of evaporation. Developers soon recognized the opportunity the lake presented and built a full-fledged resort upon it, advertised as the “Miracle in the Desert.” The Salton Sea, as it had been named, became the French Riviera of California. Tourists flocked to the resort from all over the country, and many even settled down in a place that had once been uninhabitable desert.

However, this paradise would not last forever. Since the lake was only fed by agricultural runoff, the water became increasingly saltier over the years. Millions of dead fish floated to the surface of the lake, whose white sandy beaches were soon covered in their bones. All the tourists fled from the town, which had become overpowered by the stench of rotten fish. Almost overnight, the Salton Riviera was abandoned, left to become the toxic wasteland that it is today.

I’ve decided to take the plunge and start writing my own lists. You can send your comments and suggestions here.

Christmas is coming, and fast. Last minute shopping is underway, and the temptation to pick up a ton of cheap toys and go quantity over quality is getting ever stronger. If you haven’t picked up any of this year’s crop of presents yet, the temptation is even stronger, and if you were to happen across a big box of cheap vintage toys you probably wouldn’t think twice about scooping it up and taking it home to your kids.

Your vulnerable, fragile, incredibly mortal kids.

You definitely should not take home any of the toys on this list, however, because if they don’t outright kill you, they have a good chance of at least maiming you or causing some good old fashioned brain damage. Thankfully, most of these toys have long been pulled off the shelves, and you’d have to go out of your way to find them…but God help you if you do.

See Also: 10 Terrifying Toys From The Past

10 Aqua Dots

Aqua Dots seems like the safest thing you could buy as a present for your kids. They’re just soft little beads that stick together when exposed to water. No heat, no messy glue, and they’re small enough to be vacuumed out of the rug if spilled. What could possibly be the harm in buying them for your child?

Well, as we all know, kids like to swallow just about anything they can get in their mouths. Unfortunate, when it comes to Aqua Dots, that can be deadly, because Aqua Dots, when digested, turn into GHB, the date rape drug.

One child, having swallowed a handful of the little beads, had a seizure and then fell into a coma. He did eventually awaken from it, but suffered permanent brain damage as a result.

9 Easy Bake Oven

Can someone please explain to me why you would give a child an oven?

Easy Bake Ovens are small, true, and they are heated using a light bulb, yes, but they also reach temperatures of 350 degrees. That’s hot enough to bake a chicken breast! Not to mention the several cakes, cookies, pies, and other assorted treats that come in the little boxes of Easy Bake Oven mix.

In 2007, Easy Bake Ovens suffered a recall not once, but twice within a few short months of each other after several children got their fingers caught in the doors and burned them, often severely. One child reportedly even had to have portions of her finger amputated after the little powerhouse of an oven cooked it to the bone!

8 Hoverboards

We’re in the future, and it’s bright! Extremely bright, in fact, from all the fires. Hoverboards were long considered a staple of the ideal future, a sign that we had finally arrived at the peak of technological advancements.

What we got was…not as great as we had hoped. For one thing, the hoverboards had wheels, making them less hoverboard and more like a Segway without handlebars. Secondly, the darn things kept bursting into flames at the worst possible time, which is to say, anytime, ever.

Why were they bursting into flame? Well…we don’t know. Some of the reported explosions of fire and melted plastic happened with the hoverboard was simply sitting still and unused.

On the bright side, this is a great way to burn down your business for the insurance money and not get caught!

7 Sky Dancer Dolls

For a short time, every girl’s dream was to have a Sky Dancer doll. Like a mix between a Barbie and a Beyblade, these little fairy-esque toys would soar in the air, spinning in circles, blade-like wings whirling away…right into your face, where they would proceed to slice and dice you like a discount ham.

Sky Dancers were beautiful, but so, so dangerous, and would apparently often rocket right into your face and slice at any bit of unprotected flesh they could access, including eyes.

Not suitable for children, but great for a ranged weapon in a 90s themed battle.

6 CSI Fingerprint Examination Kit

Is there anything more fun as a child than pretending to be a crime scene investigator? You get to feel smart, and catch the bad guy by simple mistakes he can’t help but make. With the CSI Fingerprint Examination kit, you could play this little game even better, picking up actual fingerprints to inspect and compare. Finally, you can solve the mystery of who really took the last cookie from the jar!

Then, of course, you get cancer and die, because the fingerprint powder contained asbestos. In fact, the powder was roughly 7% asbestos, which is more than enough to give you mesothelioma (and render you eligible for financial compensation).

The mystery that should have been solved here is how this ever passed any safety checks.

5 Roller Skating Barbie

Barbie has more careers, expertise, and hobbies than I can count, but one of the forgotten hobbies that few remember is roller skating. Barbie is allegedly quite skilled at it, moving so fast on her skates that she leaves a trail of fire in her wake. Literally.

Rolling out in the 1980s, Roller Skating Barbie was a big hit, until it was discovered that her skates were literally creating sparks that would light anything even a little flammable like a candle.

After a few fires and burns, Roller Skating Barbie (and the matching Ken) were discontinued and recalled, never to be seen again.

4 Gilbert U238 Lab

Remember earlier, when I mentioned safety checks for toys? Apparently, they didn’t have those in the 50s, because this little mutant making wonder toy fell into the hands of thousands of children across the US, despite the fact that it contained 3 different samples of active uranium ore.

The kit also contained a small lab with which to examine the materials, and a Geiger counter, in case you wanted to know the exact dose of radiation you were getting that was making your skin green and itchy.

3 Aqua Leisure Inflatable Baby Boat

Imagine this: it’s summer, and you’re throwing a party to celebrate the fact that you’ve gotten a new pool. One of the big, deep ones, the kind that they show elephants stomping on in the commercials. You have your baby in the pool with you, in the little Baby Boat you just bought her. You look away for a second, but you hear the sound of tiny stitches popping. You swing back around just in time to see your baby slip under the water, headed for the bottom.

This was a situation that faced many parents after the Baby Boat from Aqua Leisure was found to have a defect in the stitching of the seat which, when it ripped (as it was fond of doing) dumped the babies straight down into the water, where several almost drowned.

2 Water Slides

Welcome back to summer. Your baby almost drowned in the pool, but you got her out just in time, thank goodness. You decide to set up another activity: a Slip-n-Slide, a can’t-go-wrong classic that keeps your party going.

The kids love it, the parents love that the kids are entertained, and all seems well until your husband decides to be a clown and just on the Slip-n-Side as well. Things are going good! Until he hits the end the the slide and nearly breaks his neck (and definitely slips a disk or 3) being thrown onto the grass from a sudden stop. The extra length and weight of an adult means extra speed, and extra speed means a sudden stop is more deadly than ever!

Some toys, it seems, are for kids only!

1 Gilbert Kastor Kit

These guys again? Last time we saw them, they were letting kids play with radioactive materials. Let’s see what they’re up to this time!

According to the description of the product, you simply cast your own little soldier toys and paint them lovingly. Well, that sounds really nice actually! What could be the problem?

Oh, right, you were meant to cast the soldiers out of melted lead. Real, actual, brain damaging lead, the kind that, you know, gives you brain damage. Or poisons you and sends you to the hospital.

This product has been off the shelves for decades, but it’s still incredible that a toy so damaging to your health could even get on the shelves at all!

Then again…it could explain quite a bit.

On June 5, 2024, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams left the Earth for the International Space Station. The mission had been delayed for seven long years thanks to various technical setbacks and other problems. The length of the mission was to be 8 days. Then something happened. 

The astronauts were using something called the Starliner capsule, made by Boeing, to get them to and from the ISS. Except the capsule has been suffering from issues like helium leaks and thruster issues. Boeing has been suffering numerous failures with its aircraft for years now.

The return of the astronauts has been delayed while the capsule is assessed to see if it’s safe for them to use. If not, they may not return to Earth until February 2025 with the crew from the next SpaceX mission. 

Everyone’s hoping it works out for the best, but that could mean these two astronauts, scheduled for just over a week, will end up spending 7 or 8 months in space. And long term stays in space come with side effects.

Space has no shielding from cosmic radiation the way Earth does. Our atmosphere protects us from a hell of a lot, but galactic cosmic radiation in space can pass right through spacecraft walls and human bodies. A normal stay in a shuttle or the ISS is not too dangerous as they are meant to be short trips, but the longer someone stays in orbit, the longer they’re going to be exposed. It’s just one of the issues that they’ll have to deal with.

When you’re not on Earth, it’s hard to get access to the things the rest of us take for granted. While it’s easy for us to go to a 7-11 to get a Slurpee, that’s not an option for an astronaut. And, in their cases, it’s less frivolous things than Slurpees they might need like medicine, food, water, and even air. None of these are just lying around up there. 

Imagine something happens to your supply of food, air, or water just as you reach Mars. It takes 9 months to get there, so turning around to pick up something you need is not an option. 

Mental health is a concern that NASA has in regard to astronauts isolated away from Earth for so long. In the case of the two astronauts stranded on the ISS, it’s likely to be worse since this was never planned. But even when it is a planned mission, or when we look ahead to extended missions to Mars, this is going to be a real concern.

Another major concern is how space physically affects the human body. We’re not designed to live in a gravity-free environment. This affects organs, bone density, vision, and more. Astronauts who come back after extended stays in space have had some pretty concerning health issues as a result. 

There are even a few sci-fi-sounding issues that astronauts need to deal with on extended missions. The current US record for time in space is 371 days, while a Russian cosmonaut made it 437 days. All of that resulted in changes in everything from the astronaut’s brain to the bacteria in their stomach. NASA has identified 30 health risks associated with missions in space. Let’s dive into a few more closely.

Cosmic Radiation Dangers

It’s estimated that, on a three-year Mars mission, astronauts could be bombarded by enough ionizing cosmic radiation to cause serious cellular and DNA damage. Right now we have no idea just how much radiation, what kind of radiation, or how damaging it could potentially be since no one has traveled that far for that long.

Potential side effects could be cancer, infertility, cataracts, and more. Research into exposure to cosmic radiation has concluded that cancer and degenerative diseases are to be expected, as in they aren’t just maybe unlucky potential side effects. They’re going to happen. 

Astronauts will be in contact with ionizing radiation between 50 and 2000 millisieverts (mSv.) One mSv is what you’d get from three chest X-rays. One thousand causes radiation sickness like vomiting and hemorrhaging. 

Isolation and Mental Health

As if radiation wasn’t bad enough, space also wreaks havoc on the mental health of astronauts. Imagine being trapped in a place you literally cannot leave, for months at a time, and you’re all alone. Or you’re stuck with one other person who you didn’t even know before it started. How long before you start to lose your cool?

Astronauts have been diagnosed with a condition psychologists call the “break-off effect.” It’s characterized by a sensation of feeling detached from the earth, like you’re no longer a part of it, and was identified as far back as the 1950s with high-altitude pilots.

Some astronauts find themselves feeling attached to the craft they are in instead of the Earth. Alan Shepherd, the first American in space, said that when he looked out at the Earth, he felt nothing. He thought it was underwhelming and insignificant but lied and said it looked beautiful because he knew that’s what everyone wanted to hear.  

Shepherd lied about his experience, and it’s something that astronauts are known to do. Psychologists have noted that astronauts are fearful of expressing their true feelings because they don’t want to be considered mentally unwell. In truth, many of them feel loneliness and disconnection from the Earth and are more interested in their vehicle than the planet they just came from.

Beyond these unique problems associated with space, astronauts are also subject to the same feelings that anyone on Earth would have if they were stuck in an isolated situation. Anxiety, depression, sadness, and more. The problem is that they often don’t have anyone else to talk to about it, and nowhere to go to change their surroundings.

The Dangers of a Lack of Gravity

Back when space flight was first being considered, one of the chief concerns about how we would adapt to zero gravity situations was the ability to eat and drink. To this day you can find lots of articles and videos about the novel ways NASA has come up with to ensure an astronaut can enjoy Tang in space. Turns out, eating and drinking were one of our least concerns.

In a zero-gravity environment, the human body suffers from a loss of bone mineral density. On Earth, your bones, like all your other cells, are constantly changing and growing. They react to the stress that they’re under all the time. The problem is, in space, they’re not under that stress anymore. Because gravity isn’t putting strain on your bones, as they grow and change while you’re in space they don’t need to be as strong. Your bones begin to grow weaker the longer you’re up there because nothing is stressing them out anymore.

After too long in space, your bones can become exceptionally weak. That means, if you do endure some kind of stress, you’re more prone to breaks and fractures. When you return to Earth, the stress of gravity weakens you a lot. It’s not just your bones either, it’s your muscles that have degraded because they’re not working against the force of gravity. There’s fear that, after a mission to Mars, an astronaut in their 30s would feel as weak as a person in their 80s when they got off the craft, even after exercising regularly.

Once astronauts get to Mars they have to deal with that shift in gravity from their module to the planet itself. Coming from Earth and returning to Earth means that there are three different gravities that their bodies are going to have to adapt to you. This can cause space motion sickness on top of muscle and blood pressure issues.

When Frank Rubio returned to Earth after his 371 days in space, he had to be lifted out of the capsule because he didn’t have the strength to get out on his own. 

In space, astronauts have to exercise up to 2 hours a day, every day, to prevent their muscles from atrophying. This includes their hearts which all diminish due to the lack of gravity. Astronauts who have returned from zero gravity have shown an inability to maintain blood pressure when they sit up and insufficient blood flow to the brain. 

Another issue astronauts face is fluid pooling behind their eyes, the eyeball flattening out, and swelling of the optic disc. The lack of gravity leads to serious vision issues dubbed Space-Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome. Astronauts on extended missions have had to get glasses with stronger prescriptions as their vision begins to fail them. Some of these changes are permanent.

Stomach bacteria suffer in zero gravity. After returning to Earth it’s been observed in astronauts that the amount of helpful stomach bacteria has decreased while more pathogenic bacteria increased. This one needs more study to figure out what’s happening and if it’s a potential danger, however. It’s not the weirdest side effect of being in space, though.

Time Dilation and Aging 

Time dilation is a real thing, not just something cooked up by Star Trek writers. It’s also something that has affected real astronauts here in the present. It’s not nearly so dramatic as anything you’ll find in a cool space travel story but it’s not nothing, either. Specifically, astronaut Scott Kelly went to space while his twin brother Mark stayed on Earth. Thanks to time dilation, the gap between their ages increased, and Mark aged a little more than Scott did.

The numbers here are extremely insignificant because we have not mastered exceptionally fast space flight yet and can’t do any of that “almost light speed” stuff that would allow someone to travel for a month while years pass on Earth. That said, Mark Kelly is now 5 milliseconds older than Scott compared to before he went to space. 

As Einstein once explained, the closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time goes. Scott Kelly was not going anywhere near light speed, but he was orbiting the earth at 17,500 miles per hour which is faster than most of us will ever go and he was not as close to the gravitational pull. After a year in space, he shaved off 5 milliseconds. 

If we could travel at light speed, the time difference would be far more significant. Light speed itself can never be achieved according to physics, as time would then stop entirely and that seems counterproductive. But what if we got close? At 99% of the speed of light, if you went on a 5-year trip in space, 36 years would pass on Earth. At 99.99999999% light speed, one second of travel equals 19.6 hours on Earth. One month at that speed would mean 5,876 years passed on Earth.

For long-term space travel, the time dilation would clearly leave the entire world behind. Imagine Star Trek’s five-year mission if they could achieve near-light speeds which their warp engines supposedly do. That 5-year mission at warp one would pass while 352,000 years passed on Earth. 

Back in reality, time dilation can still have curious side effects. Because of how gravity affects time, an astronaut on Mars could live there for 80 years but die 12 seconds earlier than they would if they lived the exact same 80 years on Earth. 

It’s not your speed that affects time dilation, but gravity as well. That means, if you were away from the gravitational pull of a planet and traveling through space at a normal speed, that is something well below the speed of light, time would end up moving slower for you than it would for people on Earth. That’s why high-orbit satellites age faster than those closer to Earth’s gravitational pull. 

More gravity means slower time. On a planet with high gravity, or like in the movie Interstellar where the planet is near a black hole, time would seem to slow down compared to time on earth.

As bizarre as all of this sounds, and it seems like it doesn’t make sense, it’s been proven many times over. Experiments with atomic clocks have shown time does slow down if you move away from a source of gravity. You can set up two precise clocks at the exact same time, lined up perfectly down to the microsecond, and the one that travels around the world will come back at a different time. 

Will time dilation be a big deal for any astronauts in our lifetime? Probably not. Maybe one day, if we develop an engine capable of near-light speed or somehow faster than lightspeed travel. Until then, we’re just dealing with fractions of seconds. Not the end of the world, but certainly interesting nonetheless.

Given all the horrible things that extended space travel can do, it’s nice to know that there’s at least one that’s just a little bit goofy but not dangerous.

Can you believe that after twelve years of writing lists we haven’t ever done a list of the best movies of all time? It’s true! So today we correct that terrible oversight.

You may find yourself staying in a lot over the next few weeks, and if you are, what better what to relax, and forget about your problems, than with a movie?

10 Influential Movies With Dark And Surprising Origins

No need to cross the door. There are thousands of films available on streaming services around the world. But which one do you choose? And how do you know it is going to be great?

You could watch hundreds of trailers, read thousands of reviews and make a spreadsheet ranking every film for watchability.

Or you could just read this list, and start watching some really great films.

20 Call Me By Your Name, 2017

If you are looking for a coming of age romance, or you just want something to make think of summer, try Call Me By Your Name. Released in 2017, it stars Timothée Chalamet as 17-year-old Elio, living with his family in an idyllic Italian villa. Armie Hammer is slightly miscast as Oliver, who is supposedly 24, but doesn’t look it.

Once you have got over that, however, the film is a beautiful story of first love. If you had to describe the pace of the movie in one word, it would probably be ‘languid’. It’s as if everyone is too hot to move quickly. The scenery is stunning, Hammer acts better than he ever has before, and Timothée Chalamet is brilliant as a young man who finds everything arousing – women, men, fruit.

It is not a movie about forbidden love. In Call Me By Your Name, all love is allowed, and celebrated.

Notably this is also the most significant film produced by James Ivory since the death of his partner in business and life, Ismail Merchant who, under the Merchant Ivory label, gave us such greats as Remains of the Day and A Room With A View.

19 The Seventh Seal, 1957

The Seventh Seal regularly makes an appearance on the list of the Greatest Movies Ever. Some people who voted for it actually watched it. The rest should.

Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, and set during the time of the Black Death, the film famously features Death playing chess for the possession of a human soul.

Is he playing to win, or does he have a different motive?

The movie is said to be an Existentialist Masterpiece, but don’t let that put you off.

Come and join the Dance Macabre.

18 Tokyo Story, 1953

Tokyo Story is a 1953 film by Yasujiro Ozu. If you haven’t heard of it, you should have. It is often regarded as one of the best films ever made, but, being in Japanese, has suffered from lack of exposure in the West.

Time to correct that. It is a simple story of an elderly couple who visit their children in Tokyo, only to find themselves largely ignored. Only their daughter-in-law makes an effort to be kind.

Their kids are vile, and far too busy with their own lives to care about their parents, and can’t wait to ship them off again. They give them passes to a health club because they want their room for an office.

Not a feel-good movie, this one, with its themes of loss and loneliness and the decline of family, but it is a simple story, beautifully told.

Bring tissues.

17 Die Hard, 1988

The only thing that makes Die Hard a Christmas movie is the Christmas tree in the lobby of the Nakatomi building, but don’t let that put you off. Alan Rickman plays the baddie, Hans Gruber, who will definitely kill you, but he will do it suavely.

Bruce is having a bad day. But it’s nothing to how bad it’s going to get. Die Hard spawned a million imitations. One lone tough guy, who prevails against overwhelming odds, whilst still finding time for humor. One dead bad-guy is used as a Post-It Note, with the message ‘Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho’ scrawled across his body.

There is one wince-inducing scene where Bruce has to walk over broken glass in bare feet, but other than that, its high-octane, explosive good times all the way.

Welcome to the party, pal.

16 Some Like It Hot, 1959

Some Like It Hot is the ultimate feel good movie. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis are fantastic as a couple of musicians on the run from mobsters after witnessing a mob shootout. They join a big band that is heading out on tour, only to discover that it is an all-girl group. Cue Lemmon and Curtis in drag. Unsurprisingly, Tony Curtis made rather a good-looking woman, although Lemmon had his admirers too.

Marilyn Monroe also stars as the band’s singer, Sugar Kane, in which she famously sings ‘I wanna be loved by you’, which is a recommendation on its own.

It’s hard to find anything to criticize in this movie. Which is surprising, since the film-shoot was said to be difficult. Monroe famously needed 47 takes to get the line, ‘It’s me, Sugar’, right. And when she had to say, ‘Where’s the bourbon?’ whilst rummaging through some drawers, the director, (Billy Wilder again) ordered the words to be pasted inside every drawer.

It took 59 takes.

But nobody’s perfect.

Top 10 Best of the Best in Movies

15 The Princess Bride, 1987

Cool guys get their pick of hero films, but if you are a little bit clumsy and a little bit of a chump, there is always The Princess Bride. The plot is, shall we say, complicated, but there are a variety of hero roles to choose from. You could be Westley, the farm hand who loves Buttercup (that’s a girl not a cow) and would do anything to please her. Or a giant named Fezzik, who is, well a reasonably friendly giant. Or Inigo Montoya, a Spanish fencing instructor on a quest for revenge against a 6-fingered man.

Which is enough hero for anyone.

The film, a fantasy/comedy/fairy-tale has become a cult classic, despite the ropey sets, cheesy dialogue and Mandy Patinkin in a truly awful wig. The ‘heroes’ succeed more by luck than judgement, but a win is a win, and a hero is a hero.

And anything else is inconceivable.

14 The Great Dictator, 1940

Charlie Chaplin made a lot of great silent films, of which City Lights is generally considered to his greatest, and he continued to work in the medium of silence long after everyone else was making talkies. But then, in 1940, just to prove that he could do it, Chaplin made his first full-length talking film. And it was a great one.

The Great Dictator was a film about fascism. At a time when the world was at war, Charlie Chaplin made a film lampooning Hitler and Mussolini, and the ridiculousness of their ideology. He starred both as the dictator, Adenoid Hynkel, and as a persecuted Jewish barber, who looks remarkably like a much-loved tramp.

After a complicated series of events, the barber is mistaken for the Adenoid Hynkel, and is pushed on stage to address a great rally. After some reluctance, the barber seizes the opportunity to make a different kind of speech, which leaves his audience feeling at first confused, and then empowered.

You are not machines.

The Great Dictator has everything that you know and love about Charlie Chaplin movies. Plus anti-Nazi propaganda.

It’s da banana.

13 Sunset Boulevard, 1950

Sunset Boulevard is a film about a washed-up movie star. Possibly Billy Wilder’s greatest movie, it starred Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, the aging silent movie star who lives alone, except for her butler.

The film isn’t just about the movie industry. It’s also about the arrogance of youth, the fragility of age, and dreams we can’t let go of. Mostly, it is a movie about obsession. Norma Desmond’s obsession with recapturing her stardom, her butler’s obsession with her (he wasn’t always her butler), and a playwright’s ruthless ambition to Make It in Hollywood.

Gloria Swanson took a huge risk in playing a washed-up has-been obsessed with her fading beauty, unable to come to terms with no longer being adored. After all, she was herself a former silent movie actress whose career stalled with the advent of the talkies, and she could have done lasting damage to her reputation. In the end, however, Sunset Boulevard became the outstanding film of her career, and ensured that she has a place in the top 10 of everyone’s greatest movie list.

12 Reservoir Dogs, 1992

A list about great movies wouldn’t be complete without at least 1 Tarantino film.

And there are plenty (well 9) to choose from. But we only have 20 films in this list, and so we are restricting ourselves to 1 QT film. And the most Tarantino-esque movie of all, is Reservoir Dogs.

His first feature film (according to his count), Reservoir Dogs has everything. It has pretty much every motif that he is famous for, from the shot looking out from the trunk of the car, to the Mexican standoff. It has more blood than could possibly fit inside one human body, and a disturbingly musical psychopath who sings while he works. It has sharp-suited criminals and long tracking shots.

It doesn’t have any women with bare feet, but only because, apart from a couple of background artists, there aren’t any.

11 One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975

Jack Nicholson plays crazy rather well. There’s The Shining, of course, where he is psychotic, or As Good as it Gets, where he has OCD, and, of course, he’s the Joker, which is madness personified.

Tell me, did you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

But his best film about insanity, was the one where he is the only sane man in the lunatic asylum. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a celebration of individualism, and a cautionary tale about pretending to be mad, when you’re not.

Based on Ken Kesey’s novel of the same name, the film won 9 Oscars, including Best Director, Film, Actor and Actress. Brad Dourif was also nominated for his supporting role as Billy Bibbit, a young man who discovers his manhood in a night of glory, and loses it again the morning after.

Louise Fletcher is terrifying as Nurse Ratched, for whom orderliness is next to godliness and sanity cannot be allowed if it makes the place look untidy.

The film’s end is truly horrifying, but compulsive viewing, nonetheless.

10 The Usual Suspects, 1995

Some films are easy to follow. Others make you pay close attention. For The Usual Suspects, you might need to take notes.

Described as a ‘neo-noir’ movie (like Noir, but newer), The Usual Suspects makes heavy use of flashback to tell the story of a group of con men, a jewel heist, a mysterious crime lord with a ridiculous name, who may, or may not, exist, a shit ton of cocaine and an explosion on a ship.

Kevin Spacey plays Verbal Kint, a weasel-like con man that no one likes, who is scared to death that Keyser Soze or his henchman, the equally implausibly named Kobayashi will wreak revenge on him and his family, if he tells what he knows.

Gradually, Verbal is persuaded, cajoled and threatened into telling his, frankly incredible, story, and the police, let him go.

And like that, he’s gone.

9 Apocalypse Now, 1979

Apocalypse Now is Francis Ford Coppola’s startling retelling of Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness. It stars Martin Sheen as Captain Willard, who is sent up-river in Vietnam to find Colonel Kurtz, as played by Marlon Brando, who is leading a team of Special Forces and who is believed to have gone mad.

The movie beautifully captures the true nature of war. Long periods of being shit-scared, while absolutely nothing happens, followed by brief bursts of action that achieves nothing.

Brando does not appear until late in the movie, but his appearance is worth the wait. Is Kurtz insane, or is being insane the only sane thing to be when you are living on your last nerve in the jungle, waiting for an unseen enemy to kill you in unspeakable ways?

Brando’s appearance is surreal and disturbing. As is the end of the movie. Will the horror of his actions have the same effect on Willard as it does on Kurtz? Is the horror contagious?

Although the shooting was beset by problems, not least Martin Sheen’s heart attack and Brando’s lack of preparation, the final cut of Apocalypse Now, edited, it is rumored, from over a million feet of film, is consistently voted one of the best films ever made about war.

8 Toy Story, 1995

Toy Story is a film of firsts. It was the first entirely computer-animated feature length film. It was the first feature by a new company called Pixar. And it was the first film to have the marketing built right in. Because the characters were all toys.

You make a kids film with toys in it, and then you sell the toys.

Genius.

What was also genius, was the script. The idea of toys that come to life when no one is watching wasn’t exactly new. But that didn’t matter, because the script was not about toys. It was about friendship. Toy Story is a buddy movie. It’s a movie about acceptance. Accepting ourselves, even when we don’t live up to our expectations, and accepting our friends, even when they are really irritating and give themselves stupid catchphrases that make no sense.

The script was so good, in fact, that it was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay. Watch this film with your kids, or better yet, without them, and let it take you to infinity. And beyond. (See? No sense at all.)

7 The Matrix, 1999

The Matrix was a 1999 sci-fi movie from the Wachowskis that was unlike any other sci-fi ever. Sure, it had the same dystopian future, we’ve-all-been-taken-over-by-aliens shtick going on, but apart from that, totally new.

For a start, Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and even Laurence Fishburne, looked cool. All black clothes, slicked-back hair and great sunglasses. They also had awesome Kung Fu moves. And then there were the special effects. Ground-breaking doesn’t begin to describe it. They may not have invented ‘bullet time’, but no one had ever used it as well.

The Matrix showed us that anything was possible. The trick was not to try and bend the spoon, but to realize that you can make $460 million by persuading people that the spoon is not there.

Both Matrix sequels were appalling, but nothing can take away the memory of seeing the first one.

Unless you take the blue pill.

6 Fight Club, 1999

The first rule of soap club is… It’s not about the soap. It’s about the fighting.

Fight Club, based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, is a film about men’s loss of identity in a civilized world. Or about the increasing dissatisfaction with capitalist society.

Or it maybe it was about the fighting.

Edward Norton, an insomniac who travels the world to look at car wrecks, literally, meets Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt). Tyler is everything that he is not. He is smart, he is tough, and he is without fear.

One of them is crazy.

They start a fight club because they don’t want to die without any scars. And soon half the city has a black eye or a busted lip.

While it barely made a splash when it was first released, Fight Club has become one of the most quotable films in history.

And the second rule of Fight Club is…

5 The Dark Knight, 2008

Not all superheroes movies are the same. They can be fun, sure, but they’re not usually good, and they are rarely great.

Last year’s Joker, with Joaquin Phoenix, was certainly great, but can hardly be called a superhero movie. It merely inhabited some of the same spaces. But The Dark Knight, which also features, a Joker, does qualify. Directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring Christian Bale as Batman, this is a much more sinister film than most superhero movies.

Gotham is a very dark place, both literally and metaphorically. And Christian Bale is great, but Heath Ledger is better. He brings a dangerous level of insanity to the Joker, his last great role.

The movie broke box office records, not just as tribute to Ledger but because the film made being a superhero sexy. Out went the spandex costumes, and in came black leather, moody lighting, and a bad guy so exuberant that you can’t help loving him a bit too.

4 Terminator 2: Judgement Day, 1991

Terminator 2 was better than The Terminator. Unfortunately, while the laws of time continued to be suspended throughout the rest of the Terminator series, the law of diminishing returns reasserted itself after Judgement Day, and by the time we reached Terminator 6, Dark Fate, it was considerably less good.

But still with Terminator Action.

Which is pretty cool.

But Terminator 2 was the one. It still had Arnold Schwarzenegger. But this time he had lines. He still said ‘Sarah Connor’ a lot, but he said other cool stuff too. Like, ‘hasta lavista, baby’.

And, ‘I’ll be back’.

It has lots of shooting, machines, chases, and blowing stuff up. If you are looking for great action, explosions and unnecessary muscle (and who isn’t), this is the film for you.

3 The Empire Strikes Back, 1980

There are lots of great movies about space. 2001: Space Odyssey, Alien, Guardians of the Galaxy (kidding). But Star Wars is in a galaxy of its own. Not those horrible later Disney versions, of course, but certainly the first 3 films. And if we could only pick 1, The Empire Strikes Back is it.

It has everything. Not only Luke, Hans, Leia and Darth Vader to provide the drama, but also some robots and a tiny Jedi master called Yoda, who talks kind of funny.

There are plenty of light-saber battles, explosions and a mind-blowing plot twist involving parental lineage, which make this film a must.

But, for best results, you should always watch The Empire Strikes Back after watching A New Hope. And if you’ve watched the first 2 films, you might as well keep going and watch The Return of the Jedi, too.

But stop there. For the love of God, stop there.

2 Harold and Maude, 1971

Can’t decide between a black comedy or a love story? Why not have both?

Released in 1971, Harold and Maude is the story of a teenage boy obsessed with death and suicide. He meets Maude at a funeral, and falls in love. Maude loves life, perhaps because, at the age of 79, she knows that she doesn’t have much of it left.

Maude teaches Harold a lot. While he drives around in a hearse, and continually plans his own demise, Maude makes every second count. She teaches him how to appreciate life. She teaches him to play the banjo.

And she teaches him how to love.

Harold and Maude is touching, funny, and yes, OK, it’s a little bit strange. But it has a whole lot of joie de vivre and a soundtrack by Cat Stephens

So, watch the film, and if you want to sing out, sing out.

1 12 Angry Men, 1957

The best courtroom drama ever, wasn’t filmed in a court room. There were no impassioned speeches for the defense, no expert witnesses, no damning testimony. There were just 12 Angry Men. Made in 1957, it starred Henry Fonda as Juror #8, and Lee J Cobb as Juror #3. As well as 10 other guys, obviously.

The film is a fascinating study of Crowd Behavior, and how people will abdicate responsibility to anyone with a stronger personality than their own. It was also ground-breaking, in that it was filmed almost entirely in one setting – the jury room, filled with 12 people who don’t know anything about each other. Not even their names.

After a cursory discussion, 11 jurors vote guilty. Only 1 man stands out against them. Yes, you’ve guessed it, Henry Fonda is not satisfied. He insists that they discuss the evidence, questions the reliability of the witnesses, and the rarity of the supposedly rare murder weapon, found in the defendant’s pocket. Henry Fonda, in fact, does the job that the defending barrister should have done, but presumably didn’t.

Fonda is not a man to be swayed by peer pressure, the cramped confines of the room, the heat, or the raging thunderstorm outside. He is prepared to sit there, calmly, and discuss the case all night, if need be.

12 Angry Men is tense, and genuinely suspenseful. It shows us how much we are swayed by the opinions of others and how far our own prejudices inform our thinking.

Most of all, it shows how one person, standing up for what is right, can make a difference. And who doesn’t want to watch that?

10 Ridiculous Myths We Believe Because Of Movies

Warning: you are not going to agree with this list. That’s because all lists like this are subjective and therefore flawed.

Some, however, are more flawed than others. Here’s one that ranks the Foo Fighters higher than Nirvana, a sign that the writer needs a good ear exam or a great therapist.

Hopefully this list is, if not less contentious, somewhat less ridiculous. Unranked except for the obvious first two entries, the only rules are that the group must be rock (so no The Cure) and must be a band (so no Bruce Springsteen). Without further ado, let the comment thread cyber-shouting begin.

Top 10 Most Overrated Bands

20 The Beatles

Let’s get the obvious ones out of the way: no list of top rock bands would be viable without the Beatles and the next band, the Rolling Stones. From 1963 until their breakup in 1970, the Fab Four enjoyed the most condensed run of brilliance in history, bar none. In the process they became bigger than Jesus^[1] and had their own mania named after them.

The numbers are just otherworldly. Over an eight-year run the Beatles had an astounding 27 #1 hits, and dozens others nearly adding to that total. They’ve sold 183 million records, the most ever. Perhaps most tellingly, no reliable figure exists for concert attendance… because fans were so rabid that the Beatles stopped touring in 1966.^[2]

Equally impressive is the band’s maturation. In less than a decade, they went from suited pop stars strumming simplistic ditties like “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to serve as soundtrack to the fast-changing times. They went from “Hard Day’s Night” to “Revolution” to Abbey Road’s “Come Together” and, along the way, tripped out with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

Any band in which the infinitely talented George Harrison is only the third most influential member is going to rank among the greatest ever.

19 The Rolling Stones

I was in high school in 1994 as the rock world mourned the death of Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain. That summer, a band that had been going strong for three decades dropped its 22nd studio album. The album was “Voodoo Lounge,” and the band was the irrepressible Rolling Stones.

The breakout single, “Love is Strong,” was testament to the fact that, even in the heart of the grunge era, a good rock song is a good rock song, period. Several years later, Sopranos creator David Chase chose the lulling, haunting “Thru and Thru” to close the show’s second season,^[3] cementing the record’s legacy.

This anecdote is a microcosm: The Stones are a refreshingly stubborn counterpoint to the Beatles; while the latter quickly adapted to reflect the tumultuous 1960s, the Stones catalogue is defiantly unaffected by its surroundings.

1971’s “Brown Sugar,” a song about sleeping with a black girl, seems out of place amid the Civil Rights movement, while 1966’s “Under My Thumb” is antagonistically misogynistic, flying in the face of the simmering women’s lib movement. Meanwhile, songs like “Wild Horses” and “Angie” reflect neither their times nor the band’s remaining catalogue; their commonality is that they are, quite simply, damn good songs. When a band has two of the greatest songwriters of all time, timing and even consistency mean nothing.

18 The Ramones

From this point forward, the list is in no particular order, except for this writer’s opinion that the greatest American rock band ever is and always will be The Ramones.

For starters, the Ramones were genre pioneers – a distinction that should elevate a band on any list (SEE: REM, Nirvana). Along with the Sex Pistols, the Ramones are generally credited with birthing punk rock. Emerging from the depressing early 1970s, their music, appearance and attitude were an amplified middle finger to everything from the societal status quo to conventional rock music.

Their music was never meant for the airwaves. If you’re listening to “Blitzkrieg Bop” on the radio, slowed down to less than half measure, you’re doing it wrong. No, the Ramones are the type of band whose music is meant to be played at warp speed and ear-splitting volume. We can and should enjoy “Rockaway Beach,” “Sedated” and “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” in their natural habitat: live, loud and at machine-gun pace.

I leave you with this: The Ramones Greatest Hits Live is the greatest (and at 37 minutes, the fastest) “best of” album ever. Mic drop.

17 Nirvana

Nirvana was the best rock band in one of its best decades: the 1990s. It is hard to overestimate Nirvana’s influence on both the music scene and pop culture. They were a transformative force despite fewer than five years in the limelight—a phenomenon abruptly ended with front man Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April 1994.

For starters, Nirvana launched grunge music with its 1991 breakout album, “Nevermind,” and a music video, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” that juggernauted the band to superstardom and has since become only the decade’s second to reach one billion YouTube views. Almost overnight, flannel and ripped jeans were in style and 80s power ballads outdated.

Nirvana’s music lived up to its stardom, driven by a generational genius with unparalleled songwriting talent and the uncanny ability to scream on key; “Lithium,”^[4] a song whose refrain is simply the word “Yeah” yelled rhythmically, is a prime example of Cobain’s rare vocal gift.

“Nevermind” and the band’s final full album, “In Utero,” might be the two best consecutive albums in rock history, and its incredible November 1993 MTV Unplugged performance leaves a haunting chill given Cobain’s tragic end just a few months later.

16 Pearl Jam

But what about the other Seattle-based grunge band with a heroin-addicted lead singer?

With lead singer Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam was less grungy than Nirvana but more diverse in its range of songs. Sampling the band’s first three albums – “Ten,” “Versus” and “Vitalogy” – fans were presented with tracks that, despite certainly fitting into the burgeoning alternative music genre, were essentially a spaghetti-at-the-wall smattering of random, terrific songs. And as evidenced by their breakout song “Jeremy” and subsequent hit “Daughter,” rhyming lyrics were optional.

The majority of those seemingly arbitrary songs were, simply, great. “Animal,” “Corduroy,” “Black,” “Alive,” “Evenflow.” Pearl Jam’s bench of hits was so deep that, in the early to mid-1990s, it seemed like a month couldn’t pass without a new one breaking onto the airwaves and ascending the Billboard charts.

Pearl Jam is an uncomplicated recipe: Eddie Vedder is on a short list of the greatest singer/songwriters of all time, and the band’s legend lives on his broad shoulders.

15 The Clash

The Clash is the most aptly named band on this list, because they’re what happens when punk rockers write what is essentially pop music. They were bad-asses with good rhythm.

Most of The Clash’s catalogue was written by some combination of front man Joe Strummer and guitarist Mick Jones. Wherever the source, one can see the hand of impromptu providence in such catchy hits as “Rock the Casbah” and “I Fought the Law,” as if a gritty, gutty punk rocker sat down to write a gritty, gutty punk song… but what popped into his head were epiphanies that, regardless of subgenre, are simply good rock songs.

The Clash, then, are punk rockers in their hearts but more traditional rock stars in practice; they couldn’t write non-catchy music if they tried. Ironically, on 1979’s “London Calling,” Strummer croons that “phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust.” It wasn’t true. The torch had simply passed to another set of geniuses whose image and attitude belied the immovable fact that a rock hit is a rock hit however it is packaged and presented.

14 Hole

No, Hole didn’t make the cut to add some gender diversity to an inevitably male-dominated list. They’re included because they absolutely wailed, both because of and despite lead singer Courtney Love’s electric volatility.^[5]

Calling them a chick band counterpoint to contemporaries like Nirvana – an obvious comparison given Love’s marriage to Kurt Cobain – sells them far short. They embodied a feminine heroin chic that resonated with disenchanted young Gen X women, a “Meh Generation” gender symbol giving the middle finger not just to men but everything else, including themselves. Hole captured female angst, fear and depressed self-loathing better than any rock band ever.

Their music reflected this mix of external rage and internal inferiority-complex wounds. On the 1994 album “Live Through This,” the refrain of “Violet” screams “Go on, take everything,” leaving listeners to wonder whether Love is confronting a male tormentor or declaring herself deserving of his torment. The lulling yet haunting “Doll Parts” has a similarly ambiguously placed hurt.

It was 1998’s “Celebrity Skin,” however, that cemented Hole’s legacy. A handful of hits, including the title track’s graphic depiction of a girl headed to Hollywood, headlined an entire track list worthy of a “best of” compilation. To this day hits like “Awful” and the addiction-addled “Malibu” are both catchy and gripping—meaningful melodies that stick inside our heads.

13 Metallica

Metallica holds the mantel of most influential metal band. The band grabbed an underground head-banging movement and took it mainstream… then were criticized for being too mainstream. Ah, the perils of success.

And successful they were. Even as the grunge/alternative music revolution simmered, 1991’s self-titled album, also called the “Black Album,” showed heavier stuff still had a place with hits like “Sad But True,” “Don’t Tread on Me,” and “Enter Sandman,” whose intimidating riffs and lyrics became both soundtrack and nickname for the greatest relief pitcher in baseball history.^[6] Meanwhile, power ballads like “Unforgiven” and “Nothing Else Matters” displayed their lingering 80s roots and timeless songwriting bona fides.

Metal traditionalists will point to a softening of Metallica’s sound over the years, particularly on the underrated 1996 album “Load.” But earlier efforts like 1986’s “Master of Puppets” and the follow-up “And Justice for All” were sufficiently hard to place them atop the all-time metal music mountain.

12 R.E.M.

Like any groundbreaking band, the mainstream music world’s first reaction to R.E.M. was probably “What the hell is this?”

That was 1987, and an obscure band with a cryptic name (it stands for “Rapid Eye Movement”) had just answered hair metal and cheesy pop music with “Document,” whose two smash hits, “The One I Love” and “It’s the End of the World,” were unlike anything before them.

In the process, R.E.M. made alternative music far less, well, alternative. Like Pearl Jam, the band has an “anything goes” approach whose signature sound is noticeable only by the distinct voice of its lead singer, Michael Stipe.

Starting in the late 80s and continuing through the 90s, R.E.M. put together a string of hits rivaling any band over any stretch, with the exception of the Beatles. “Losing My Religion,” “Everybody Hurts,” “Stand,” What’s the Frequency Kenneth,” “Orange Crush,” “Shiny Happy People.”

Their songs became so ingrained in pop culture that the 1999 biopic “Man on the Moon,”^[7] about the life of legendary alt-comedian Andy Kaufman, is named after the band’s hit single of the same name – an acknowledgement that everyone not only knew the song but that it chronicled Kaufman. That level of societal saturation is rare indeed.

11 The Heartbreakers

The Heartbreakers hold the title of “best band no one knows by name.” Hint: It’s Tom Petty’s group.

The Heartbreakers make the cut despite several obstacles. First, they’re a traditional rock band whose peak success came when traditional rock really wasn’t too big; starting with their 1976 self-titled breakout album, which featured “American Girl,” through 1991’s “Into the Great Wide Open” (the last to gain significant mainstream airplay), the band persevered through disco, punk, 80s pop, metal, alternative and grunge despite having exactly nothing to do with any of them.

The second hurdle was Tom Petty. Not Tom Petty the extraordinarily talented songwriter; Tom Petty the below-average lead vocalist.

I’ll go ahead and say it: Tom Petty’s voice is annoying. It’s nasally and weird. But like Bob Dylan before him, the songs are so good it doesn’t matter. From “Free Fallin’” to “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” to “Learning to Fly,” the Heartbreakers flew through headwinds into music immortality.

The only downside of Petty’s genius? Politicians using “I Won’t Back Down” as their campaign theme song.^[8]

10 Led Zeppelin

All “best of” lists are subjective – in the eyes (or in this case, the ears) of the beholder. But sometimes certain items make a list simply because the writer would look silly otherwise.

I do not like Led Zeppelin; they simply aren’t my cup of tea. But unlike other huge bands that didn’t make this list – Kiss, the Eagles, Radiohead – I feel compelled to include Led Zeppelin. They are beloved and critically praised enough that I must recognize their genius regardless of my personal taste. For God’s sake, Rolling Stone literally has an article called “The 40 Greatest Led Zeppelin Songs of All Time”.^[9] In the face or such rarified air, who am I to omit them?

Their playlist is undeniable – albeit, in my opinion, a bit played out. “Stairway to Heaven,” “Whole Lotta Love,” “Ramble On,” and “Gallows Pole” are all objectively terrific songs even if I subjectively never need to hear any of them again, ever. Oh, and naming your albums Roman Numerals is unoriginal and arrogant – there, I said it.

9 Guns N’ Roses

In justifying GNR’s appearance on this list, we need look no further than the band’s Greatest Hits album, which stacks up against any in rock history. In order: Welcome to the Jungle, Sweet Child O’ Mine, Patience, Paradise City, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Civil War, You Could Be Mine, Don’t You Cry, November Rain, Live and Let Die, Yesterdays, Ain’t It Fun, Since I Don’t Have You, Sympathy for the Devil.

Those songs alone let Guns N’ Roses snake dance^[10] onto the list, but let’s dig deeper. Despite its distinctly metal vibe, GNR’s legacy is driven by a lead singer with nearly unlimited range and a collective songwriting with completely unlimited range. Seamlessly, GNR pivoted from speed metal to power ballad to songs so soft that Cheryl Crow can cover them.^[11]

The band also holds an interesting distinction: At nearly nine minutes long, 1991’s “November Rain” is the longest song ever to break into the Billboard Top 10. The lilting, rolling piano ballad, interspersed with classic solos from lead guitarist Slash, became an airwaves mainstay for months.

8 The Go-Gos

The Go-Gos are the best all-female rock group of all time. They check a bunch of firsts and stand with some of the best.

When they burst onto the punk/new wave scene in the early 1980s, the Go-Gos were, unfortunately, somewhat of a novelty. The idea that an all-female rock band was both writing its own songs and playing its own instruments was new to mainstream music.

Novelty or no, the band’s debut album, “Beauty and the Beat,” became the first from an all-female group to top the Billboard charts on the strength of two smash hits, “We Got the Beat,” which peaked at #2 on US singles charts, and “Our Lips Are Sealed.”

Though the music stood for itself, the nascent music video business – pioneered by the then-fledgling MTV – played a significant role in catapulting the Go-Gos from hitmakers to superstars. As well as having the beat, the fivesome obviously had a look that young women emulated and young men salivated over. With “Vacation,” the title track and lead single of their second album, the Go-Gos proved they were no fluke, and their success continued with 1984’s “Talk Show,” featuring a trifecta of hits: Head over Heels,” “Turn to You” and “Yes or No.”

7 Marilyn Manson

When considering Marilyn Manson’s place in rock legend, close your eyes. Don’t look at the intentionally provocative, arguably Satanic imagery. Set aside the antagonistically gender-bending of its lead singer. Just listen.

Marilyn Manson is the N.W.A. of rock: people were too busy disparaging their look and their lyrics to fully appreciate their immense talent. A contemporary of theirs, Eminem, fell into the same overshadowing trap – and acknowledged that by featuring Manson in his video for The Way I Am.^[12] (“And they blame it on Marliyn/and the heroin/where were the parents at?)”

The group, of course, also brought vitriol upon themselves. In the aptly named “Irresponsible Hate Anthem,” Manson admits he “wasn’t born with enough middle fingers” on an album whose title, “Antichrist Superstar,” was a “f*ck you” unto itself.

But the music was fierce, unique and altogether outstanding. Despite going mainstream with, of all things, a cover of the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams,” the band had hit-worthy tracks on albums throughout the 1990s, starting with 1991’s “Portrait of an American Family” (“Get Your Gunn,” “Cake and Sodomy”) through 1998’s Mechanical Animal (“Dope Show”).

Adding to the talent-muted-by-noise factor, 1996’s Antichrist Superstar was both Manson’s most controversial album and its best – the rare album where every track is “best hits” caliber.

6 The White Stripes

The White Stripes are the only band on this list from the 2000s. Along with contemporary acts like the Strokes, Arctic Monkeys and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the band inhabits a rock subgenre called “garage rock revival” – basically a yearning for a back-to-basics approach in a post-alternative environment dominated by boy bands and hip hop.

It didn’t work. Rock died.^[13] But not before Jack and Meg White had something to say about it.

After two solid albums that failed to break through, “White Blood Cells” skyrocketed the band to stardom with “Fell in Love With a Girl.” Fans buying the album quickly realized that the remaining tracks, including oddball anthems like the twangy “Hotel Yorba” and mellow “We’re Going to Be Friends,” bore little resemblance to the breakout hit. It wasn’t what we expected, but it was… well, incredible.

That’s what the White Stripes are: a weird, nerdgasmic band who could also write mainstream megahits. “Seven Nation Army” and “Icky Thump” blended with “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” and “My Doorbell” for a run of unpredictably perfect albums.

5 Queen

If an absolutely awful biopic^[14] could disqualify a band from this list, Queen would not be on it. Luckily it can’t. because Queen’s combination of cultural influence, societal impact and songwriting ability rival any band in rock history.

That “bum bum-BUM!”^[15] sound you hear at every sporting event from the World Cup Finals to Little League baseball? That’s a Queen riff. And when one team is ultimately crowned the best, they play… a Queen song, “We Are the Champions.”

Queen is one of those bands good enough to outshine themselves, meaning their greatest hits were so great that the rest of their catalogue gets overlooked. When you bring the world “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Another One Bites the Dust” “Somebody to Love” and “I Want it All,” the songs that were just a little less remarkable – yet fantastic nonetheless – tend to stall in the background. Googling “Queen hit songs,” one inevitably comes across several terrific tracks that you either forgot Queen performed or forgot, period.

4 Aerosmith

Aerosmith is another band that checks too many boxes to be omitted from this list. A trippy, funky rock edge, versatile songwriting chops and a lead singer in Stephen Tyler with a distinct voice are all factors in them making the cut.

It is their staying power, however, that puts them over the edge. Aerosmith had big hits in three decades, and while having a few lull periods never really went away. Oddly considering the eventual smash hit “Dream On,” their eponymous debut album was recorded in 1973 but not widely received until 1975; in the interim, they released a second album, “Get Your Wings,” that received an equally lukewarm reception.

That all changed with 1975’s “Toys in the Attic.” The album’s breakout hits, “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion,” led to its earlier work being discovered and propelled Aerosmith to superstardom. Hits like “Rag Doll,” “Love in an Elevator,” “Janie’s Got a Gun,” and “Cryin’” kept Aerosmith relevant for decades, and the band even helped Run DMC go mainstream with a hip-hop remake of “Walk This Way.”^[16]

3 The Kinks

In 1964, while the Beatles were asking young ladies to hold their hands, the Kinks had higher aspirations. On the heels of their breakthrough hit “You Really Got Me,” from their self-titled debut album, “All Day and All of the Night” pushed the envelope of radio-permissible sexuality. And like Elvis before them, the reason the Kinks could push the envelope was because they were, quite simply, immensely talented.

Ahead of their time in both music and message, to this day the Kinks are one of the few bands that can get me to dance (poorly); they have a foot-tapping irresistibility that makes their double-album best hits compilation, “Come Dancing with the Kinks,” aptly named.

At the same time, many of their tracks exhibit a seething mockery of idyllic post-World War II Western life, with tracks like “Sunny Afternoon,” and my personal favorite, “A Well Respected Man,” dripping with sarcastic cultural critique. Other tracks, like “Tired of Waiting for You,” fall into a more traditional, “that’s just an incredible song” category indicative of rock legends.

2 Smashing Pumpkins

When considering the final 90s band on this list, it was between Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead. Billy Corgan’s group got the nod because, for all Radiohead’s hits, too much of their catalogue is filler that sounds similar to everything else they’ve done. The Pumpkins were decidedly more diverse and less risk-averse.

Cases in point: After breaking through with their second album – 1993’s “Siamese Dream,” featuring hits like “Cherub Rock,” Today” and the lulling “Disarm,” – most bands would be content to cement their stardom and avoid any accusation of flash-in-the-pan sophomoritis. The Pumpkins responded with a wildly ambitious 28-song double feature, “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” widely considered among the best rock albums in a decade loaded with them.

Mellon Collie displayed the bands unsurpassed range – a dichotomy spanning hard rock hits like “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” to the mesmerizing, violin-laden “Tonight, Tonight” (LINK 25) and the loopy, new wave-ish “1979.”

And then? Something entirely different. “Adore,” coldly received^[17] as an abrupt departure from the Pumpkin’s successful recipe, was a dark, slow library of absolutely brilliant songs, proving that the group would and could do pretty much anything they wanted.

1 U2

As we’re running long on word count, it’s tempting to just write “they made ‘Joshua Tree’” and cease typing immediately. But U2 was and is so much more than that, even if I don’t want their worst album free with my apple device,^[18] thank you very much.

All digital disasters aside, it’s hard to find something inventive to say about U2. They’re simply a great traditional rock band that recorded some of the best rock music ever. Even before “Joshua Tree,” 1984’s “The Unforgettable Fire” featured “Pride (In the Name of Love)”; after it, “Achtung Baby” brought “One” and “Mysterious Ways,” and 1993’s “Zooropa” successfully changed up the pace with “Lemon” and the rappy “Numb.”

And all that was before 2000’s “Beautiful Day,” a blockbuster hit even as the band entered its third decade and N’ Sync poisoned the airwaves. U2 wrote classic rock songs that would have been hits in any decade – a calling card of rock immortality.

“Funny like how? How am I funny… like I’m a clown to you?”

10 Hilarious Realities Behind Your Favorite Movie Scenes

Like Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta^[1] before us, we could all use a good laugh lately – a welcome escape from our current housebound humdrums. There may never be a better time to curl up on the couch and revisit some legendary comedy films. And whether or not you agree with every entry, I hope you’ll have as many chuckles reading it as I did putting it together.

Here are ten of the funniest films in movie history, presented in chronological order with a so-bad-it’s-good wildcard at the end.

10 Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

No, it’s not just a flesh wound.^[2] It’s comedic genius and a no-brainer addition to this list.

No comedy group does “morons on a mission” better than Monty Python. Half a dozen knights crouching dutifully behind a boulder, cautiously peering out at “the beast” that ends up being a bunny (“That’s the most foul, cruel and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!”). Efforts to vanquish the rascally rabbit include the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

When the gang comes across the Bridge of Death, they must answer three questions from a troll to gain crossing privileges. The troll goes easy on the first knight before asking the second two easy questions followed by “What’s the capital of Assyria?” The questions get more ridiculous from there (“What is the air speed velocity of a laden swallow?”). And of course, an attempt to lay siege to a castle is viciously repelled via catapulted livestock.^[3]

One of the reasons Holy Grail is widely considered its funniest film, I believe, is that comedy often doesn’t age well. This gives an advantage to something set in the Middle Ages, eliminating decade-specific references that grow stale with time.

9 Airplane! (1980)

Surely you didn’t think^[4] I’d leave Airplane! off this list. Produced for what even 40 years ago was the astoundingly low budget of $3.5 million, the ensemble-cast laugh-fest gets my vote for funniest film ever.

If comedy were boxing, Airplane! is a lightning-fast bantamweight that peppers rapid-fire jabs. Airplane! is spaghetti at a wall shot with a machine gun: the comedy comes so fast that the audience isn’t done laughing before the next joke lands.

Of course, that recipe can only work if enough of the jokes are good. And from the main character’s drinking problem^[5] to an old lady who helps the stewardess translate jive,^[6] Airplane! is so fast and laugh-out-loud funny that it’s hard to catch your breath.

Of note, Airplane! excels at comedy welded with wordplay. When a flight attendant tells passenger and disgraced fighter pilot Ted Striker that “there’s a problem in the cockpit,” he replies “The cockpit? What is it?”, prompting her to explain that “It’s a little room in the front of the plane, where the pilot sits.”

This device, in addition to recurring jokes like “I picked the wrong week to stop…”^[7], allows Airplane! to fill 90 minutes with a plot that could have been told in 15. “Plane in danger, hijinks ensue” is a simple way to put the plot on (a sexually satisfied) autopilot^[8] and clear the path for undistracted comedy brilliance.

8 Caddyshack (1980)

Any movie that ridicules golf – per George Carlin,^[9] an “arrogant, elitist game which takes up entirely too much room in this country” – is OK in my book. Riding Rodney Dangerfield’s boorish irreverence, 1980’s Caddyshack does so with a style that smacks the smarm right off a country club member’s face.

As brash, obnoxious nouveau riche protagonist Al Czervik, Dangerfield is both fish out of water and bull in a china shop. After yelling “Fore!” and hitting one of his antagonist’s square in the nuts with a tee shot, a self-satisfied Dangerfield declares “I shoulda yelled two!”.^[10] Later, at a posh party chock full of snooty septuagenarians, Dangerfield deems the shindig “The dance of the living dead.”

The movie also showcased two early Saturday Night Live cast members. Chevy Chase showcases his unsurpassed ability to deliver deadpan lines as an offbeat straight man. “Do you take drugs, Danny?” he asked the caddy. When Danny answers in the affirmative, Chase replies “Good.. so what’s the problem?” Meanwhile, Bill Murray takes a break from his groundskeeping duties for a horticulture hole in one, teeing off on flowers^[11] while mimicking a subdued TV announcer (“He got all of that one!”)

As a bonus, 1988’s Caddyshack 2 was one of the rare sequels worth making. Not as funny as the original, but in the same ballp… I mean, on the same fairway.

7 The Naked Gun (1988)

No, that’s not Enrico Palazzo.^[12] It’s Leslie Nielsen again, deservedly making his second appearance on this list.

A side-splitting big screen follow-up to the comedy series Police Squad!, The Naked Gun is the funniest TV-to-movie adaptation ever. The highly unorthodox foursome of Nielsen, Ed Williams, Priscilla Presley and a pre-alleged-double-homicide OJ Simpson^[13] left audiences laughing—and wondering why Police Squad! was canceled after just six episodes.

Like Airplane!, The Naked Gun has a spaghetti-at-the-wall, rapid-fire style where deadpan one liners, silly slapstick and general stupidity fly full-speed at the audience. Nielsen plays the perfect idiot protagonist—a bumbling investigator drawing parallels to Maxwell Smart.^[14]

Notably, while many comedies struggle to close a film, because the need to sew up the plot tends to pump the comedy brakes, The Naked Gun’s saves its best for last. Punctuated by a mangled Star-Spangled Banner^[15] (“And the rockets’ red glare/buncha bombs in the air”), a pregame bloopers reel featuring a decapitated outfielder (“How about that?”), and Nielsen as a breakdancing umpire, the baseball game at the film’s finale is among the funniest fifteen minutes in cinema history.

6 National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

The question wasn’t whether National Lampoon’s would make the cut, it was which movie. I went with Christmas Vacation, which holds the distinction of funniest holiday movie ever (honorable mention to Will Ferrell’s deranged classic, Elf).

This movie has so many quotable lines it’s impossible to know where to start, but how about Randy Quaid, playing Ellen’s white trash cousin-in-law, emptying an RV sewage tank into the street grate while waving to Clark’s uptight neighbor: “Merry Christmas! Shitter was full!”^[16]

Christmas Vacation might be the most hilarious cascading-disaster movie ever made. Clark’s elderly uncle burns down his tree with a “stogie”, a last straw that causes Clark to go berserk with a chainsaw and cut down the evergreen on his front lawn, which smashes his neighbors window as it falls. He drags it in… and a squirrel jumps out, prompting Eddie’s dog, the aptly named Snot, to chase the rodent and wreck the rest of the house. The solution? Clark opens the door and both squirrel and dog leap out… into the arms of Julia Louis-Dreyfus,^[17] who’d come over to confront Clark over the tree that has smashed through her window.

Christmas Vacation is one of those movies that, more than 30 years later, can and never will feel dated. It will be there year after year, comforting us amid a sea of annoying in-laws. Be thankful for it – and say grace. (“Grace? She passed away 30 years ago!”)^[18]

10 Great Overlooked Comedies

5 Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Yeah baby. Mike Myers’ James Bond parody was the funniest live-action movie of the 1990s (an honorable mention to Tommy Boy, starring the late great Chris Farley).

The film works on so many levels – the bad spy movie-mocking fight scenes (“Judo CHOP!”) and Myers’ impeccable comedic character development, to name just two. But perhaps the most successful element is the “double fish out of water” element. Myers plays both the protagonist Austin Powers and his archnemesis, Dr. Evil, each of whom have been reanimated after having been frozen for 30 years.

The result is an extra layer of cluelessness that allows Myers’ knack for awkward-moment hilarity to really pop; for example, Dr. Evil attempts to hold the world ransom for… “one MILLION dollars!”^[19] – a paltry price to prevent a lunatic from incinerating civilization with liquid hot magma.

Practically nothing Myers tries in this film falls flat. From pairing Dr. Evil with a clone 1/8 his size (“I shall call him… Mini-Me”) to his right-hand woman, Frau Farbissina (“head of the militant wing of the Salvation Army”) to Austin punching an old woman in the face^[20] out of suspicion she was really a “man, baby!,” the movie swings wildly and lands every punchline it throws. Its funniest scene might be Dr. Evil’s maniacal rant^[21] during a father-son therapy session, where he describes his childhood (“Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons… quite standard really.”)

4 South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

By far, the funniest animated movie ever is Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s adaptation of their envelope-pushing cartoon series, South Park. At a time when musical acts like Eminem and Marilyn Manson were causing parental uproar, Parker and Stone decided to troll the audience and society at large with one of the most subversive comedies ever.

I was in college when the movie came out. Sitting in the theater, I was surprised to see parents there with little kids; after all, the movie was rated R. Then it hit me: Parker and Stone had done this on purpose,^[22] luring unsuspecting parents to take their kids. After all, how raunchy could a cartoon really be?

At about ten minutes in, “Uncle F*cker,” the movie’s second musical number (yes, it’s a musical—a brilliant, foul-mouthed musical), answers this question with authority. (“Shut your f*cking face unclef*cker, you’re a c*cksucking asslicking unclef*cker…”) From there, a full album’s worth of uproarious songs, including the Grammy-nominated “Blame Canada,”^[23] amount to the funniest soundtrack in film history.

The movie’s plot – the South Park kids must rescue a pair of scapegoated comedians from being executed for telling fart jokes – ingeniously mirrors the reception Parker and Stone knew the movie would receive. The movie, then, both causes controversy and responds to it. And if you don’t like it, well, Cartman has a message for you.^[24]

3 Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

“I’m Ron Burgundy?”^[25]

His 2004 portrayal of a cluelessly misogynistic 1970s newscaster is the highlight of Will Ferrell’s comedic career – and that’s saying a lot. Like Austin Powers before it, you get the feeling ten minutes in that Anchorman is going to be a really stupid movie. And it is – it’s just stupidly terrific, a feat only pulled off with a fearsomely funny front man. From cheery-faced vulgar banter over the newscast’s closing credits^[26] (“You’re a real hooker, and I’m gonna slap you in public”) to wistfully musing that the name of his hometown San Diego translates to “whale’s vagina,” Ferrell’s delivery is sheer genius.

It’s the famous newscaster royal rumble,^[27] however, that puts Anchorman into the all-time top ten. Including Tim Robbins as a public access newsman (“No commercials… no mercy!”), the weapons-laden street brawl features Luke Wilson getting his arm chopped off with a machete while Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), a mentally-challenged weatherman, kills a horse-riding combatant with a trident. “Boy,” Burgundy says the next day to his team, “that escalated quickly.”

Still don’t think Anchorman belongs on this list? Then go f*ck yourself, San Diego.^[28]

2 Borat (2006)

Officially titled “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” Sacha Baron Cohen’s brilliantly offensive depiction of a foreigner exploring American society is the most side-splitting mockumentary ever (honorable mention to 2000’s Best in Show). Like his groundbreaking TV series Da Ali G Show, the movie’s greatest asset is that its subjects aren’t in on the joke.

As Kazakhstan native Borat Sagdiyev, Cohen uses America’s faux-inclusion and racism against it in a way that is revealing and revolting, yet hysterical. At a dinner party, Borat pleads ignorance of not only American customs but American indoor plumbing, graciously handing the host a bag with his feces after using the restroom. At a rodeo, he declares his support for America’s controversial Iraq War by declaring – to a ravenously applauding crowd of rednecks – “we support your war of terror” and hoping “George W. Bush drinks the blood of every man, woman and child of Iraq!”

At a honky tonk, Borat performs a song called “In My Country There is Problem,” eventually getting the crowd of cowboy hat-wearing dimwits to clap and sing along to the refrain “Throw the Jew Down the Well,^[29] so my country can be free!” When he meets an actual Jewish couple – a kindly old man and wife renting a room in their home to overnight guests – Cohen flips his mockery to the Middle East’s rampant hatred of Jews by throwing money at cockroaches, whom Borat believes are his shape-shifted hosts^[30] (“You could barely see their horns”).

1 Superbad (2007)

Moving into the most recent set of big-screen comedians, we’d be remiss not to include Seth Rogan somewhere on this list. And while The 40-Year-Old Virgin gets due consideration (and has Paul Rudd – whom everyone loves),^[31] 2007’s Superbad beats it out by the tip of an obsessively-drawn penis^[32] from a grade-school Jonah Hill.

Superbad is one of the rare comedies that manages to incorporate and resolve a variety of plot twists without sacrificing the humor. Difficulty getting alcohol for a high school graduation party, tension between the two main characters as each goes to different colleges, teen get-the-girl ambitions and insecure police dickishness are A, B, C and even D stories that combine to make the film both heartwarming and side-splitting – a rarity for R-rated comedies.

Superbad’s physical humor is particularly outstanding. Fogel’s nervousness as an obviously underage liquor store customer, including his ridiculous attempt to small-talk the cashier^[33] (“Been drinking the stuff for years… I hear they’ve recently added more -twitch- hops”) is interrupted by one of the best movie face-punches ever.

When the cops show up to interview the witnesses, his single-named fake ID draws suspicion and then pity, and the legend of McLovin’ is born.

+ The Room (2003)

“It’s ‘The Room’ bad.”

That was a film industry friend of mine reacting to the 2019 movie Cats, roundly mocked as among the worst movies ever made.^[34]

2003’s The Room – written, directed by and starring the eccentric, marble-mouthed Tommy Wiseau, who invested millions of his own money to produce and release it – was so bad (and so ridiculously weird) that it sparked a cult following (including a talking bobblehead)^[35] and even a hit movie about its making, 2017’s The Disaster Artist.

It’s awesomely awful. The dialogue, whose foibles include a prominent character announcing she has cancer, then never referencing it again, seems written by a bot that studied human behavior, albeit poorly. Two awkward, waaaaay too long love scenes leave the audience wondering whether Wiseau is familiar with basic human anatomy, and for some odd reason there are pictures of spoons in the background^[36] – prompting cult followers to fling silverware during indie theater screenings.

“So what?,” you may be thinking. “Lots of movies are awful.” True, but The Room wasn’t just parodied by mainstream Hollywood: it was torn a new one by the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Now called RiffTrax, the trio makes a killing from killing bad movies. Watching RiffTrax roast The Room^[37] is the funniest cinematic experience I’ve ever had. I highly recommend it.

10 Hilariously Horrifying Foreign Marketing Fails

There’s something about great movie villains that drive a movie like no hero ever could. Where would Luke Skywalker be without his father, and would anyone watch 12 Monkeys without John Doe? No, of course not, since that would be boring, but it takes a lot of talent to bring a perfect villain to the silver screen.

10 Heroes Who Lived To See Themselves Become The Villains

For nearly a century, movies have been a huge part of our lives, there have been countless villains, but that includes a ton who were forgettable. The truly memorable villains are the insidious and most pernicious ones, who bide their time and execute their plans with furious intensity, often building up a body count that can leave an audience speechless.

10 Loki—The Marvel Cinematic Universe

One of the best villains of the MCU is also one of the first. Loki may have started out as the main villain in the first Thor movie, but he quickly rose to become the principal antagonist of the first Avengers film, and he didn’t hold back on the evil one bit. Loki was fully driven to do whatever it took in his quest to open a rift in space over New York City. He killed and corrupted everyone in his path, and through his trickery and manipulation, he managed to turn the Avengers against one another on multiple occasions.

Once the rift was open, scores of Chitauri invaded Earth, killing a large number of people. The Avengers rallied to fight together against the threat and won the day by not only shutting the rift but also by lobbing a nuke at the mothership, killing all the Chitauri involved in the invasion. While they were bad guys, those bodies still count towards Loki’s rather impressive list of kills in the MCU. Fortunately, he became slightly less evil over time, and developed into an anti-hero of sorts, having given his life in a last-ditch attempt to kill his one-time benefactor, Thanos.^[1]

9 Agent Smith—The Matrix Franchise

Agent Smith was one of many programs introduced into the Matrix to maintain order. Agents could assume the bodies of anyone inside the Matrix, and supplant their form with their own. They were designed to be superhuman, and near-invincible killers, who would investigate any anomaly in the system with direct and intense violence. They were seen as government operatives by the people in the Matrix, but in truth, they were sentient lines of computer code, who ultimately followed the rules of the system, and maintained order.

That is, of course, until Agent Smith was destroyed by Neo at the end of the first film. Instead of letting himself be deleted, he returned to the Matrix, upgraded, and unplugged from the system. He went on to infect the residents of the Matrix with his code, effectively copying himself over and over again until nobody remained but him. Neo forged a deal with the machines to once more enter the Matrix, and destroy Agent Smith, which he ultimately did at the end of the third film, finally fulfilling the prophecy, and striking a peace between man and machine after years of bitter conflict.^[2]

8 Ultron—Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Tony Stark and Bruce Banner developed Ultron from the Mind Stone at the heart of Loki’s scepter, which they captured from Hydra at the beginning of the film. Ultron was an advanced form of Artificial Intelligence, developed to “save the world,” but the AI was malevolent, and interpreted this to mean he needed to wipe the human race from the planet’s surface. He jumped into a robot body, copied himself onto the Internet, and fought against the Avengers. He then went on a campaign to create an army of robot bodies of himself and engineered one out of Vibranium, making himself nearly indestructible.

He then enacted his plan to destroy the human race by turning the city of Novi Grad, Sokovia, into a meteor. Using Stark’s technology and his own intellect, he managed to completely lift the city, which he planned to crash down onto the surface of the Earth, mirroring the destruction caused some 65 million years earlier, which wiped out the dinosaurs. With the help of some S.H.I.E.L.D. friends, the Avengers managed to save most of the people of Sokovia from Ultron’s plans, but he still managed to build up a hefty body count before he was ultimately destroyed.^[3]

7 Lord Voldemort—The Harry Potter Franchise

Thomas Riddle was a powerful wizard early in his life, but he was plagued by an intense hatred of his parents and himself for being born to a Muggle father. He grew up in an orphanage before being taken to Hogwarts School of Whitcraft and Wizardry by Professor Dumbledore. While at the school, he excelled but explored the nuances of dark magic, which further eroded any decency he maintained via the creation of Horcruxes, which are magical artifacts that contain a portion of a wizard’s soul and can only be forged through murder.

He took on the name Lord Voldemort, and became the most powerful dark wizard of all time and amassed a legion of like-minded followers who terrorized the wizarding world, as well as the world of men. He killed without hesitation, including the parents of Harry Potter. When the boy grew up, he was continuously attacked and harassed by Voldemort’s followers until they could return their Dark Lord to his corporeal form. This led to a great war, which ultimately saw Voldemort’s soul trapped in Limbo for all eternity.^[4]

6 Darth Vader

If you look through movie villain lists all over the Internet, you won’t find many without a spot for the Dark Lord of the Sith. Darth Vader is one of the most iconic movie bad guys in history, and for good reason. After accepting the advice and tutelage of Darth Sidious, Anakin Skywalker embraced the Dark Side of the Force and was christened Darth Vader. One of his first acts after taking on the new name was to kill all of the younglings in the Jedi Academy. After this, his actions led to the death of his wife, and he turned against his closest friend and mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Vader then donned his infamous black armor, and traveled the galaxy, finding and killing every Jedi he came across. Every Jedi he killed was someone who would have once called him an ally, which makes his actions all the more insidious. Vader then stood by as countless billions were killed via the machinations of his Master, making him complicit in the deaths of entire star systems. In the end, he was redeemed by his son, though that hardly wipes out the incredibly large body count he left in his wake.^[5]

10 Surprising Good Deeds From History’s Greatest Villains

5 Skynet—The Terminator Franchise

The Terminator films focus 99.99% of their attention on the robotic assassins sent back in time to kill specific people, but those individuals are only foot soldiers in a war fought all over the world in the near future. Skynet was initially designed as an Artificial Intelligence computer system the military planned on using to control its nuclear armaments. Shortly after being brought online, Skynet became “self-aware” and came to the conclusion that the real threat was humanity, so it launched the United States’ nuclear arsenal at Russia, triggering a global nuclear holocaust.

The initial war killed around three billion people, and many more died soon after from the fallout. The survivors were left to fend for themselves in a post-apocalyptic war where the machines reigned supreme. Skynet sent Terminators and killer vehicles all over the world to kill the human resistance, and when the war was finally won by humanity, a desperate act by Skynet sent the first Terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor, the woman who would one day give birth to John Connor, a resistance commander who became instrumental in winning the war.^[6]

4 Grand Moff Tarkin—Star Wars & Rogue One

In the Star Wars universe, there are members of the Empire who hold a rank even higher than that of Darth Vader. One such person was Grand Moff Tarkin, a man Princess Leia greeted by saying, “Governor Tarkin! I should have expected to find you holding Vader’s leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.” His influence and power within the Empire was nearly unmatched, as he was the first person to hold the rank of Grand Moff in the newly created Empire. He was also the first Governor of the Outer Rim.^[7]

Tarkin was also the man behind the construction and development of the first Death Star, after taking that role from Orson Krennic as soon as it became operational. As soon as the Death Star was fully constructed, he took it to the Alderaan system and compelled Princess Leia into giving him the name of the system, where the Rebels could be found. She gave him a false name, but before he could take steps to determine this, he destroyed the planet of Alderaan anyway, instantly killing billions of innocent people.^[8]

3 Sauron—The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

It’s hard to find a villain more pernicious than Sauron in all of fiction, and that’s for good reason. J. R. R. Tolkien made a point of developing a character his readers wouldn’t have any trouble hating, as he is a pure representation of evil and malice. Sauron was a fallen Maia, the creator of the One Ring, and the conqueror of Arda. He crafted the Rings of Power to corrupt his enemies, and he was first defeated in the War of the Last Alliance during the Second Age, but this only weakened him for a time.

Sauron lost the One Ring during that battle, which robbed him of his corporeal form, but after centuries of lying dormant, he rebuilt his strength, and his mighty armies to once more conquer in the Third Age. Because he put so much of himself into the One Ring, it needed to be destroyed, so Sauron could be killed absolutely, so a young Hobbit carried the ring to Mount Doom, and cast it into the fires of the volcano, finally bringing about the end of an evil being who preyed on all that was good and virtuous for thousands of years.^[9]

2 Thanos—The Marvel Cinematic Universe

Thanos spent a large portion of his life killing half the population of the planets he visited in a perverted attempt to save them from destroying themselves. This made him the enemy of pretty much everyone in the universe, but things didn’t ramp up to apocalyptic levels until he filled all of the Infinity Stones into his gauntlet, and snapped his fingers, resulting in the deaths of half of all life in the universe. That act alone earned him a place on this list, but not the one most would think.

Most people might insist Thanos deserves the top spot on this list, but unlike every other evil bastard found here, he’s the only one to have his work undone by his enemies. Five years after annihilating half of all life, which included all single-cell and multicellular forms of life everywhere, his work was undone. Through some time travel shenanigans, he attempted to regain the Stones and recreate the universe as he saw fit, but was destroyed before he could carry out his plan. That being said, he slaughtered wantonly across the galaxy for decades, so he’s still an evil S.O.B.^[10]

1 Darth Sidious—Star Wars Sage

Darth Sidious, otherwise known as Emperor Sheev Palpatine, is easily the most pernicious villain in all of movie history. The man defines the word manipulation, and through his tiresome machinations, he managed to kill and supplant his Master, learn the secrets of immortality, develop weapons that easily destroy planets, slaughter nearly all of his rivals, and plenty more. With the release of Star Wars: Episode IX—The Rise of Skywalker, he returned to prove that everything fans had seen from the previous eight films had been the result of his work.

Trying to determine his body count is next to impossible, as any killings carried out in his name while he was the Emperor, or the deaths of anyone who was a follower of his during that time aren’t fully know. His work led to the destruction of at least 14 planets were destroyed in all of canon, which likely adds up to anywhere from 15 to 30 billion people killed. Deaths are only one aspect of Sidious’ blight on the galaxy, as entire species were wiped out or enslaved, making him the perpetrator of multiple genocides.^[11]

10 Real Men Who Transformed Themselves Into Supervillains