Infinite Media Recommends: 2024 Edition
Our favorite discoveries of the year
Happy New Year from everyone at OSV!
A January gift for you: we’ve each picked three of our favorite media discoveries of 2024. As with our previous recommendations, there were no rules about the original publication date, so get ready for some deep cuts from the last 50+ years…
Let us know some of your favorite discoveries in the comments!
Jim O’Shaughnessy 🇺🇸
Our glorious leader. Follow Jim on X.
🎥 Flipside (2023) | Of course I picked this one! Chris Wilcha’s Flipside, which was released in association with Infinite Films, was rightly hailed as his “masterpiece,” weaving Chris’ abandoned projects into something new and defiantly triumphant. If you’ve ever experienced creative failure (I know I have), this documentary is as cathartic as it comes. I chatted to Chris about the film back in May.
📖 Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future; by Mike Maples Jr & Peter Ziebelman (2024) | Once again, for those at the back: I believe that the collapse of the old models presents enormous opportunities to those savvy enough to seize them. It was, therefore, a delight to read Pattern Breakers, which articulates a new model of foundership, one built on the simple premise that transformative startups upend rather than improve current practices. A hint: the book's lessons extend well beyond startups (why else do you think OSV is so interested in books, films & other media?). I chatted with Mike about the book in September.
📖 William Blake vs the World; by John Higgs (2021) | "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." The English poet William Blake was WAY ahead of his time. This sharp biography is an excellent intro to his life and work.
Atman Pandya 🇮🇳
Head honcho of our Fellowships program. Sharing mental tools, ideas, and frameworks to unlock peak performance at The Knowledge Toolkit. Follow Atman on X.
📖 Self-Control: Its Kingship and Majesty; by William George Jordan (1905) | This century-old, eloquent, self-help philosophical book stands the test of time and delivers exactly the kind of advice we need to hear a lot more of. Freely available on Project Gutenberg.
🎵 Breathtaker (Live at Hangar 30); by SYML (2024) & Lights Are On; by Tom Rosenthal (2018) | These piano tunes are beautiful and haunting. Some of the best music I've heard this year.
🖥️ Supernote Nomad | A product for media consumption and creation. My favorite purchase of the year. Perfect e-ink notebook and reader. In a world of purely digital devices, this one manages to strike the perfect balance between the physical and digital. Think of it as a magic notebook that never runs out of pages.
Camellia Yang 🇨🇳🇳🇿
Building OSV’s world-class community. Bilingual content creator whose podcast and Substack, Chiwi Journal, boast thousands of followers. Follow Camellia on X.
📖 The Red Book; by Carl Jung (1914-1930) | I’ve tried reading Carl Jung’s Red Book a few times, but it was only this year that it truly resonated with me and I finally made it through to the end. If you’re curious about exploring the depths of the human psyche and gaining a richer understanding of your inner world, give it a go! You might find it as meaningful and enlightening as I did.
🎙️ Creative Codex Podcast by MJDorian (2018-present) | This is one of the best podcasts I found this year! If there's one show that nearly rivals my obsession with Founders Podcast, it’s this one. MJDorian has an incredible talent for crafting a cinematic experience with every episode, blending deep research with exceptional music-scoring skills. The result is something super unique and captivating!
📺 Ripley (2024) | If you enjoy psychologically complex stories and rich visual symbolism, consider watching the new Ripley series. It integrates Caravaggio’s dramatic artistry and the myth of Narcissus to offer a riveting exploration of identity, morality, and human nature. I wrote about it here.
Diego A. Rojas 🇨🇴
Artist-technologist. Follow Diego on X.
📺 Arcane (2021) | Adapted from the world of League of Legends, this Netflix series is an emotionally rich, visually stunning tale of power, identity, and resilience. It blends steampunk aesthetics with vibrant artistry that immerses you in the city of Piltover and the undercity of Zaun. Its story explores universal themes — family, betrayal, ambition—through unforgettable characters. A must-watch!
🏛️ The British Museum | On my most recent journey to London, I spent hours wandering the halls of the British Museum. What struck me most was how deeply interconnected we are as a species. The museum reminded me of our shared heritage and our boundless capacity for creation.
📖 Nexus; by Yuval Noah Harari (2024) | Harari combines rigorous research with thought-provoking insights into technology, ethics, and the human condition. I left this book with more questions than answers: How do we balance technological innovation with humanity’s ethical compass? What role will artificial intelligence play in shaping our societies and relationships? Lots to think about!
Dylan O’Sullivan 🇮🇪
Infinite Books editor-extraordinaire. Essayful proprietor. Twitter Jedi.
📖 An Anatomy of Inspiration; by Rosamund E. M. Harding (1940) | A book that dives into the creative processes of famous artists, going deeper than any book published in the 21st century.
📖 Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; by Jorge Luis Borges (1940) | A short story that will, quite simply, break your brain (in a good way).
🎥 The Idea Dictates Everything (2006) | A black-and-white documentary that basically revolves around David Lynch talking about ideas in the abstract for 40 minutes. What more could you want? It's free on YouTube.
Ed William 🇬🇧
Recovering lawyer. In-house writer. Essays on the art & history of cinema at Rough Cuts. Follow Ed on X.
🎥 A Different Man (2024) | A jet-black comedy that upends its Elephant Man premise, weaponizing our own pity against us. Not the film you expect, and all the better for it. One of my favorites of the year.
🎥 The Driver (1978) | A bare-bones cat-and-mouse chase between an elite getaway driver and the ruthless cop obsessed with catching him. A clear inspiration for films like Drive. The set pieces still rip. Just the coolest shit in the world.
📖 The Man Who Was Thursday; by G.K Chesterton (1908) | I tore through this (very short) strange, hypnotic thriller in two sittings. It feels like the urtext for the modern spy/crime thriller, featuring proto forms of all the motifs we’ve come to know and love: globetrotting conspiracies, a mano-a-mano-central rivalry, a Reservoir Dogs-style flashback, a Blofeld-adjacent arch villain, etc. But then it goes somewhere much more weird and metaphysical. Overwhelming.
Ian Davis 🇺🇸
Product design engineer and 2024 O’Shaughnessy Fellow. Designing and building an affordable, mechanical, DIY partial hand prosthetic device. Runs the popular Missing Parts Club YouTube channel (c.568k subscribers).
📖 The Dune Series; by Frank Herbert (1965-1985) | Recently, I've restarted the Dune series by Frank Herbert. One of my favorite thoughts comes from Dune Messiah:
"Between depriving a man from one hour of his life and depriving him of his life, there only exists a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy."
It reminds me to try not to waste someone's time in things that I do or say.
Jack Connor 🇺🇸
Software engineer, linguist, and 2024 O’Shaughnessy Fellow. Saving dying languages by archiving them and creating LLMs capable of conversing in those languages. Follow Jack on X.
🎥 Sorcerer (1977) | One of the tensest, coolest, best-looking movies ever put to celluloid. It's about four desperate men driving explosive trucks full of nitroglycerine through the South American jungle as a way of regaining some version of their former lives. Sorcerer is a movie unlike any other ever filmed, and my favorite William Friedkin movie of all time.
📖 Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes; by Daniel Everett (2009) | A linguist takes his family to live with the Pirahã and becomes the first man to speak the strangest language we've ever discovered, which is so unlike any other language we know that it completely upended several linguistic rules we thought were universal.
🎵 Me and Bobby McGee; by Kris Kristofferson (1971) | The great actor, songwriter, and cool grumpy dude Kris Kristofferson died this year, and I used it as a chance to learn more about his musical œuvre. While Janis Joplin recorded the popular radio version of Me and Bobby McGee, Kristofferson's version has soul for days. It is honestly one of the best pieces of songwriting to ever accompany an acoustic guitar. He sings it country, just like he was, telling the story of love lost while hitchhiking through America and the wistful feeling of knowing you'll never get her back.
Justh 🇮🇳
Musician and 2024 O’Shaughnessy Fellow. Creator of the viral song “Chor” (2.1 BILLION views across YouTube’s platforms). Follow Justh here.
🎥 Tumbbad (2018) | A movie about supernatural, mythological themes, exploring desires like greed and power. I absolutely loved watching this. It was re-released this year, and I saw it for the first time. Loved it so much that I went to the theatre to watch it twice.
🎵 A Thousand Years; by Sting (1999) | I heard this song for the first time earlier this year while attending a concert by Sting in Mumbai. The song has done something to my soul, moved me in ways that is difficult for me to express. I have heard the song countless times this year. Rarely do I get moved by a song as much as this one moved me.
Mateusz Złakowski 🇵🇱
Filmmaker. Podcast audio & video editor. Mat’s portfolio.
🎥 The Substance (2024) | Coralie Fargeat said in an interview that her script-writing process starts with images and sounds. To say that the opening sequences of The Substance were brilliantly edited would be missing the point. There's hardly any dialogue, and yet, within minutes, we are immersed in the psychological torment of the main character. The story's premise and the protagonist's background are established by just two shots, without any words spoken. Fargeat's command of the cinematic language is unparalleled and it allows her to tell the story of merciless self-hatred caused by the impossible demands placed on women's appearances.
The Substance is very funny at times, and yet it is a tragedy. There are no easy solutions, and there is no one arch-villain that could be blamed for everything. The fiercest and most unforgiving critic is, simultaneously, the victim — the main character herself. Throughout the movie, I wanted to hug her, knowing at the same time that it wouldn't help one bit.📖 Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution; by R. R. Palmer (1941) | A book about the Committee of Public Safety from 1793 to 1794, the only serious government Revolutionary France had (as Napoleon would later note.) There are many simplified stories about this period, which, of course, all are wrong. The Great Terror wasn't that "great,” especially in comparison to the terrors inflicted by the 20th-century totalitarian governments (it was a terror nonetheless), nor was Robespierre as blood-thirsty as he's sometimes portrayed, nor was he as influential as he was later made to be by his enemies within the Committee, who brought him to the guillotine. The author gives us living portraits of all of the members of the Committee (some of them actually pretty bloodthirsty) and shows how many things that we would consider obvious today in terms of the functioning of the state weren't obvious in late 18th-century Europe.
🎵 Herr Mannelig; by Garmarna (1996) | A recording of a Swedish folk ballad. It tells the story of a female mountain troll proposing to a young man, who refuses her. Not much to write about it. Just listen.
Michael Graham Richard (Liberty) 🇨🇦
Head of Infinite Media and proprietor of the popular newsletter, Liberty’s Highlights. Follow Liberty on X.
📺 Counterpart (2017) | Short-lived TV show starring J.K. Simmons. The premise is sci-fi but it plays mostly like a thriller. Our universe split in two 30 years ago. Ever since, what started as mirror universes have been diverging. There’s only one way to travel from one universe to the other: a special portal in Germany, where diplomacy and espionage take place.
🎥 In Bruges (2008) | Very funny and very dark film. The script is incredibly well-written and structured. The economy of how they show you what you need to know and set things up is impressive (including for things that don’t pay off the way you expect). Great performances, and great cinematography.
🎥 The Wild Robot (2024) | Best animated film for the whole family in many years (maybe since Moana in 2016?). The painterly art style is very well executed and the composition of many shots is much better than what you’ll see in most animated films these days. The story feels like a mix of Wall-E, The Iron Giant, Castaway, Tarzan, and the Red Turtle.
Michelle Wang 🇺🇸
Engineer and 2024 O’Shaughnessy Fellow. Researching and developing 3D-printed magnets to improve manufacturing methods. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn.
📖 Environment, Power and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy; by H. T. Odum (1971) | I first learned of Odum when Vaclav Smil's work referenced him. Since then, he and Smil have formed the base of my studies in energy systems, focusing on materials and energy balance. It's worth exploring his ideas on the maximum power principle and energy circuit language.
📖 The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms; by Mae-Wan Ho (1998) | In a similar vein, I am interested in energy systems in biological organisms. I think Ho's ideas, along with Robert O. Becker's, will prove increasingly prescient with modern research into bioelectricity and immunotherapy, which I believe will replace invasive treatments. I would also keep an eye on developments in mitochondrial replacement.
📖 Phaedo; by Plato (translated by Benjamin Jowett, adapted by Gregory Nagy, Miriam Carlisle, and Soo-Young Kim) (2018) | This is a beautiful translation of Plato's last dialogue on the death of Socrates. Besides its central arguments, I have particularly dwelled on the moment when Socrates admonishes his weeping followers after drinking poison hemlock. He says, "I have heard that a man should come to his end in a way that calls for measured speaking. So, you must have composure, and you must endure.” Link to translation.
Monika Seyfried 🇵🇱
Interaction designer and 2024 O’Shaughnessy Fellow. Developing technology to store digital data within plants and organisms, contributing to sustainable data management. Follow Monika on X.
🏛️ Exhibition of Glass Models of Plants at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (2024) | One of the most beautiful collections I’ve ever seen, and definitely the most stunning exhibition I visited in 2024. Over fifty years, from 1886 to 1936, the Blaschkas, Czech glass artists, created 4,300 glass models representing 780 plant species.
🎭 The Talking Car; by Agnieszka Polska (2024) | A beautiful play that invites you to fear and dream alongside AI in an intimate setting.
📖 Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture; by Emanuele Coccia (2018) | I discovered this book years ago, but its beautiful exploration of the metaphysics of nature continues to grow and evolve with me in 2024.
Nick Tawil 🇺🇸
OSV Chief of Staff. U.S. Navy, VC & investment banking veteran. Follow Nick on X.
📖 One Summer, America 1927; by Bill Bryson (2013) | The book covers more than the summer of 1927, instead covering most of the ’20s: its icons, technology, and culture. Amazing parallels to today.
📖 Chickens, Gin, and a Maine Friendship: The Correspondence of E. B. White and Edmund Ware Smith (2020) | A view into a rugged, rural life in Maine seen through the letters of a fond friendship between two natural storytelling greats.
📖 Influx; by Daniel Suarez (2014) | A fast, thoughtful (yet still obvious) sci-fi story that includes elements of elite underground, rogue mad scientists, and good mad scientists. Easy, fun reading.
🎥 True Grit (1969 & 2010) | Both the original, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring John Wayne, and the 2010 remake, directed by the Coen Brothers and starring Jeff Bridges. While one’s more of a classic Western and the other a darker and more faithful interpretation of the Portis novel, both showcase the scenic Western landscapes and the epic horse-charging duel. “Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!”
Rohan Uddin 🇨🇦 🇵🇰
Media historian and podcast guru. Playing Glass Bead Games and condensing knowledge at Mortimus. Follow Rohan on X.
📺 Berserk (1999) | A beautiful hand-drawn dark fantasy anime series. I watched the whole thing while I was recovering from a flu, which gave it even more of a fever dream feel. This medieval-horror tale is elevated by its unexpectedly perfect jazzy space-funk soundtrack, and the animation of Kentaro Miura’s intricate source material (especially the nightmare fuel scenes) is exhilarating.
📖 Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Arts Agency; by James Andrew Miller (2017) | Miller’s oral history of Hollywood’s most influential agency tells its story through a fascinating chorus of voices (agents, actors, executives, writers) and shows first-hand how a handful of ambitious agents rewrote the rules of entertainment. The level of access is unprecedented, from Michael Ovitz and Ron Meyer to the assistants who witnessed it all. My favorite parts were when these people would talk about key deals in minute detail. Huge fan of this behind-the-scenes treatment.
🎥 Where’s My Roy Cohn (2019) | This documentary provides an intimate look at one of American politics’ most notorious power brokers through extensive archival footage and revealing interviews. The film does a great job revealing the contradictions of a man who built his career on attacking others while harboring the very qualities he condemned. Through Cohn’s story, we see how his influence shaped decades of American politics, from the McCarthy era to modern times. A twisted tale, but worth knowing - I even wrote an essay about the guy.
Vatsal Kaushik 🇮🇳
In-house Mr. Meeseeks. Co-author of the upcoming Two Thoughts: a Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom. Follow Vatsal on X.
📖 Drunk on Love; by Vipul Rikhi (2023) | A collection of iconic poems and couplets from the ancient Indian poet-philosopher Kabir. Kabir did not read or write, but his poems have been recited for centuries, reminding us to look beyond duality, right vs wrong, yes vs no, and to always question orthodoxy and authority.
Kabir kuaan ek hai, panihaari hain anek
Bartan sabke nyaare hain, par paani sab mein ek
Kabir says, the well is one
Water-bearers many
Each one has a different vessel
But they all contain the same water🎵 Neeraj Arya's Kabir Cafe (2013-present) | I went into the Kabir rabbit hole right after reading Drunk on Love and stumbled across the band Kabir Cafe. They compose Kabir's verses for the modern-day audience by blending Indian folk music with western styles. Kya Leke Aaya Jagat Mai is a great song to start with.
📖 Fart Proudly: Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School; compiled by Carl Japikse (2003) | One of the most notable polymaths of all time, Ben Franklin was a great statesman, scientist, and philosopher, but also a controversial and satire-loving human being. Along with all the laughs, this book is a tribute to freedom of speech, which is upstream of most other freedoms. So, "Fart for freedom, fart for liberty—and fart proudly."
Excellent
Amazing list!