Art & Literature
60 lists25 rankings
Top 5
1Europe (1794) — William Blake's fierce illuminated prophecy unveiling the shadow-war of Los and Orc against the oppressive female will of Enitharmon
2Kubla Khan (1816) — Samuel Taylor Coleridge's intoxicating fragment of pure visionary Romanticism, dramatizing the ecstatic perils of poetic inspiration
3The Book of Urizen (1794) — William Blake's dark Bible of Hell satirizing Genesis, detailing the horrific birth of rationalist tyranny and material limitation
4The Second Coming (1920) — W B Yeats's apocalyptic modernist prophecy foreseeing historical gyres uncoiling and a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born
5Ode on Intimations of Immortality (1807) — William Wordsworth's supreme Romantic elegy mourning the fading of childhood's visionary gleam while discovering transcendent comfort
Bottom 5
Top 5
1A Rose for Emily (1930) — William Faulkner's foundational Southern Gothic short story unpacking postbellum aristocratic decay, necrophilia, and time
2Frankenstein (1818) — Mary Shelley's defining masterpiece of Romantic Gothic fiction, birthing science fiction through Promethean hubris and tragic isolation
3Jane Eyre (1847) — Charlotte Bronte's Victorian Gothic realism exploring female autonomy, societal confinement, and the madwoman in the attic
4Wuthering Heights (1847) — Emily Bronte's savage, windswept Yorkshire romance transfiguring Gothic dread into a profound cosmic drama of obsessive, destructive passion
5The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) — Edgar Allan Poe's unrivaled study in homicidal monomania, auditory hallucination, and the breakdown of guilt-stricken sanity
Bottom 5
1Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) — Ray Bradbury's dark carnival fantasy transfiguring Midwestern nostalgia into a lyrical American autumn Gothic
2The Phantom of the Opera (1910) — Gaston Leroux's tragic, grand-guignol romance of subterranean deformity, operatic obsession, and catacombs
3The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) — Oscar Wilde's aesthetic and decadent inversion of the Gothic portrait trope exploring moral corruption, vanity, and the fractured soul
4Beloved (1987) — Toni Morrison's monumental historical Gothic transfiguring the literal haunting of slavery into an American epic of collective memory
5Lady Audley's Secret (1862) — Mary Elizabeth Braddon's sensation fiction apex using bigamy, murder, and Gothic secrets to expose Victorian fragility
Top 5
1Lord Voldemort (Tom Riddle) — Dark Lord / Leader of the Death Eaters
2Severus Snape — Double Agent / Potions Master
3Bellatrix Lestrange — Death Eater / Voldemort's Lieutenant
4The Dementors of Azkaban — Dark Spectral Guardians
5Fenrir Greyback — Werewolf / Death Eater Ally
Bottom 5
1Lucius Malfoy — Death Eater / Hogwarts School Governor
2Draco Malfoy — Slytherin / Death Eater
3Gilderoy Lockhart — Fraudulent Author / Obliviator
4Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail) — Death Eater / Traitor to the Potters
5Cornelius Fudge — Minister for Magic (Bureaucratic Denialist)
Top 5
1East of Eden (1952) — John Steinbeck's ambitious, allegorical retelling of the Cain and Abel story set against the backdrop of the Salinas Valley.
2Catch-22 (1961) — Joseph Heller's masterpiece of absurdist anti-war satire, ruthlessly exposing the deadly, inescapable circular logic of military bureaucracy.
3To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) — Harper Lee's universally beloved, Pulitzer-winning Southern coming-of-age narrative centering on childhood innocence and racial injustice.
4Invisible Man (1952) — Ralph Ellison's visionary, surrealist masterwork confronting the profound social and intellectual erasure of Black Americans.
5The Sound and the Fury (1929) — William Faulkner's stunning modernist masterpiece employing fractured timelines to trace the tragic collapse of the Compson family.
Bottom 5
1As I Lay Dying (1930) — William Faulkner's darkly comic, multi-perspective odyssey following a deeply dysfunctional Southern family's grim burial journey.
2Beloved (1987) — Toni Morrison's Pulitzer-winning, deeply haunting neo-slave narrative where the visceral trauma of slavery literally resurrects as a ghostly houseguest.
3Gravity's Rainbow (1973) — Thomas Pynchon's impossibly complex, encyclopedic postmodern epic tracing the surreal, paranoid trajectory of a V-2 rocket during WWII.
4Gone with the Wind (1936) — Margaret Mitchell's massive, culturally polarizing Civil War epic centering on the ruthless survival instincts of Scarlett O'Hara.
5The Catcher in the Rye (1951) — J.D. Salinger's culturally seismic, fiercely rebellious portrait of adolescent alienation and lingering grief via Holden Caulfield.
Top 5
1The Brothers Karamazov — Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
2Crime and Punishment — Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)
3War and Peace — Leo Tolstoy (1869)
4Demons / The Possessed — Fyodor Dostoevsky (1872)
5Anna Karenina — Leo Tolstoy (1878)
Bottom 5
1The Death of Ivan Ilyich — Leo Tolstoy (1886)
2Dead Souls — Nikolai Gogol (1842)
3Fathers and Sons — Ivan Turgenev (1862)
4Oblomov — Ivan Goncharov (1859)
5A Hero of Our Time — Mikhail Lermontov (1840)
Top 5
1George Orwell (1903–1950)
2Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
3Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
4Albert Camus (1913–1960)
5Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
Bottom 5
1Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
2William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
3Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
4D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930)
5Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002)
Top 5
1William Faulkner (1949)
2Ernest Hemingway (1954)
3Kazuo Ishiguro (2017)
4Albert Camus (1957)
5Kenzaburō Ōe (1994)
Bottom 5
1Anatole France (1921)
2Günter Grass (1999)
3Luigi Pirandello (1934)
4Saul Bellow (1976)
5André Gide (1947)
Top 5
1Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (1981)
2The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
3Life of Pi - Yann Martel (2002)
4George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)
5Eleanor Catton - The Luminaries (2013)
Bottom 5
1Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (2009)
2Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending (2011)
3Paul Beatty - The Sellout (2016)
4Richard Flanagan - The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2014)
5Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings (2015)
Top 5
1The Colosseum - Rome, Italy (70–80 AD)
2The Parthenon - Athens, Greece (447–432 BC)
3Taj Mahal - Agra, India (1653)
4The Forbidden City - Beijing, China (1420)
5St. Peter's Basilica - Vatican City (1626)
Bottom 5
1Farnsworth House - Plano, Illinois (1951)
2The Shard - London, UK (2012)
3Kimbell Art Museum - Fort Worth, Texas (1972)
4CCTV Headquarters - Beijing, China (2012)
5Neuschwanstein Castle - Bavaria, Germany (1886)
Top 5
1William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
2Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)
3Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953)
4Tennessee Williams (1911–1983)
5Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)
Bottom 5
1Yasmina Reza (1959–present)
2Heiner Müller (1929–1995)
3Jean Genet (1910–1986)
4Clifford Odets (1906–1963)
5Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Top 5
1Platonism
2Dualism
3Aristotelianism
4Psychoanalytic Theory
5Philosophy of Science
Bottom 5
1Relativism
2Postmodernism
3Absurdism
4Empiricism
5Nihilism
Top 5
1The Stranger – Albert Camus (1942)
2Beyond Good and Evil – Friedrich Nietzsche (1886)
3Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)
4The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
5No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy (2005)
Bottom 5
1The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera (1979)
2Immortality – Milan Kundera (1990)
3The Idiot – Fyodor Dostoevsky (1869)
4Amerika – Franz Kafka (1927)
5The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera (1984)
Top 5
1The Shining (1977)
2The Stand (1978)
3The Talisman (1984)
4Misery (1987)
5Cujo (1981)
Bottom 5
1Cell (2006)
2From a Buick 8 (2002)
3Hearts in Atlantis (1999)
4Bag of Bones (1998)
5Dolores Claiborne (1992)
Top 5
1The Starry Night – Vincent van Gogh (1889, Museum of Modern Art)
2The Birth of Venus – Sandro Botticelli (1486, Uffizi Gallery)
3The Creation of Adam – Michelangelo (1512, Sistine Chapel)
4Water Lilies – Claude Monet (1916, Musée de l'Orangerie)
5The Persistence of Memory – Salvador Dalí (1931, Museum of Modern Art)
Bottom 5
1The Arnolfini Portrait – Jan van Eyck (1434, National Gallery London)
2The Kiss – Gustav Klimt (1908, Belvedere Museum)
3Black Square – Kazimir Malevich (1915, Tretyakov Gallery)
4Campbell’s Soup Cans – Andy Warhol (1962, Museum of Modern Art)
5No. 5, 1948 – Jackson Pollock (1948, Private Collection)
Top 5
1David – Michelangelo
2Terracotta Army
3Great Sphinx of Giza
4The Charging Bull – Arturo Di Modica
5The Thinker – Auguste Rodin
Bottom 5
1Manneken Pis
2The Kiss – Auguste Rodin
3Balloon Dog – Jeff Koons
4Another Place – Antony Gormley
5Lobster Telephone – Salvador Dalí
Top 5
1Herman Melville (1819–1891)
2William Faulkner (1897–1962)
3John Steinbeck (1902–1968)
4Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007)
5Joseph Heller (1923–1999)
Bottom 5
1Philip Roth (1933–2018)
2Jonathan Franzen (1959– )
3Norman Mailer (1923–2007)
4John Updike (1932–2009)
5Willa Cather (1873–1947)
Top 5
1The Starry Night (1889)
2The Night Café (1888)
3Olive Trees (1889)
4Wheatfield with Cypresses (1889)
5The Railway Bridge over Avenue Montmajour (1888)
Bottom 5
1Still Life with Absinthe (1887)
2Still Life: Vase with Irises (1890)
3Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace (1885)
4The Potato Eaters (1885)
5Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889)
Top 5
1Vincent van Gogh - NLD (1853–1890)
2Claude Monet - FRA (1840–1926)
3Paul Gauguin - FRA (1848–1903)
4Paul Cézanne - FRA (1839–1906)
5Pierre-Auguste Renoir - FRA (1841–1919)
Bottom 5
1Albert Dubois-Pillet - FRA (1846–1890)
2Henri-Edmond Cross - FRA (1856–1910)
3Odilon Redon - FRA (1840–1916)
4Théo van Rysselberghe - BEL (1862–1926)
5Frédéric Bazille - FRA (1841–1870)
Top 5
1Muichiro Tokito
2Shinobu Kocho
3Giyu Tomioka
4Mitsuri Kanroji
5Sanemi Shinazugawa
Bottom 5
1Hantengu
2Enmu
3Gyomei Himejima
4Kokushibo
5Gyokko
Top 5
1Volume 19: Butterfly Mansion (2020)
2Volume 20: The Final Battle Begins (2020)
3Volume 22: Flowing Time (2020)
4Volume 8: The Strength of the Hashira (2017)
5Volume 1: Cruelty (2016)
Bottom 5
1Volume 18: Assault (2019)
2Volume 16: The Red Light District (2019)
3Volume 15: Endless Train (2019)
4Volume 12: The Upper Ranks Gather (2018)
5Volume 23: Life Shining Across the Years (2020)
Top 5
1King Lear (1605)
2Hamlet (1601)
3Macbeth (1606)
4The Tempest (1611)
5Othello (1604)
Bottom 5
1Henry VI, Part 3 (1591)
2The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594)
3Antony and Cleopatra (1606)
4Timon of Athens (1608)
5King John (1596)
Top 5
1David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (1850)
2Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (1899)
3The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
4War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (1869)
5As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner (1930)
Bottom 5
1The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde (1890)
2The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera (1984)
3Les Misérables - Victor Hugo (1862)
4Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (1932)
5Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon (1973)