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Keeping with his yearly tradition, Barack Obama has once again started the rollout for his favorite movies, books, and songs of the year, dropping the lists on the former two categories on Friday.
As he usually does, on the film front, the former president shared an eclectic mix of blockbusters and critical darlings, singling out 10 films for 2024. Timothée Chalamet stars in two of them: Dune: Part Two and A Complete Unknown, the latter of which comes out on Christmas. The rest of his list included All We Imagine as Light, Conclave, The Piano Lesson, The Promised Land, The Seed of the Sacred Egg, Anora, Didi, and Sugarcane.
Obama had some overlap with Rolling Stone‘s 20 Best Films of 2024 list, which also included Anora, Dune, and All We Imagine as Light.
As for the books, the first title on Obama’s list was Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, the book focusing on the negative impacts of smartphones on children, that topped the New York Times best-seller list for five weeks this year. Also on the list was Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo, one of the most anticipated books of the year. Other books included Dina Mengestu’s Someone Like Us, and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s posthumous memoir Patriot.
Obama hasn’t shared his favorite songs yet, though that will likely come before the new year. He shared his songs of the summer back in August, with a playlist that included Charli XCX’s “365,” Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby,” and Billie Eilish’s “Chihiro.”
