Illustration by Jillian Tamaki.

There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day-Lewis’s Oscar-winning performance as a turn-of-the-century oilman is only the most prominent of this film’s treasures. P.T. Anderson’s script, the many wonderful secondary roles and Jonny Greenwood’s creepily sawing soundtrack complete this vivid picture of burning greed.

L.E.S. Artistes, Santogold. Though genre-melding dynamo Santi White wasn’t quite the unstoppable force her advance hype might have led us to believe, the lead single off her debut Santogold album was pristine. Primal drums that smacked like a steady assault of uppercuts and icy sheets of crisp new wave synths built up to an anthemic, bittersweet chorus tailor-made for hoisting Bic lighters (or glowing cellphones) in an arena.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. In the final months of the “W” era, writer Curtis Sittenfeld gave us this fascinating glimpse into the complex psyche of a Republican First Lady who bears a striking resemblance to Laura Bush. Sittenfeld achieved a neat balance of elegant prose and meticulous research; the result is a nuanced novel that would be just as captivating even if it weren’t based on the wife of one of the most infamous U.S. presidents of all time.

I’m F**king Matt Damon. What began as a present from potty-mouthed comic Sarah Silverman to then-boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel became an Emmy-winning YouTube sensation. The only thing better than seeing Matt Damon poke fun at himself in this insanely hooky, viral video romp was seeing his best friend and a cast of other A-listers hamming it up in Kimmel’s over-the-top retort, I’m F**king Ben Affleck.

Kent Monkman's art exhibit Triumph of Mischief puts a spin on the mythical "noble savage." (Image courtesy Winnipeg Art Gallery/Kent Monkman)

The Triumph of Mischief. Cree artist Kent Monkman’s mischievous show, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery this summer, cunningly satirized 19th-century European attitudes to North America’s First Nations people. At the centre of Monkman’s faux-Romantic paintings and installations was his own hilarious spin on the mythical “noble savage” – Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, a fabulous transvestite in feathers, beads and high heels.

Waltz with Bashir. The year’s most startling cartoon film had nothing to do with lovable robots or cute pandas. Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman’s animated memoir of his military service during the 1982 Lebanon War was a phantasmagoric journey into the past with a horrifying climax: the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman. Norman’s bio is neither hagiography nor a repetition of the hatchet job carved by Albert Goldman in his infamous The Lives of John Lennon (1988). This is a beautifully researched study of one of the 20th-century’s most important cultural figures, with a fresh take on Lennon’s middle-class Liverpool upbringing and the books that influenced him as a child. Superb.

Standard Operating Procedure. In this analysis of the Abu Ghraib scandal, director Errol Morris creates a withering indictment of the “W” era. By focusing on the circumstances surrounding those horrific photos of Iraqi prisoners, the documentarian tells a broader story about the Bush administration and the construction of images. A masterful piece of journalism with access to many of the principals, including a chastened Lynndie England.

The Art Gallery of Ontario. Though Frank Gehry's redesign – a graceful, curvaceous mixture of wood and glass – received plenty of accolades, it was the thousands of new works on display in the AGO’s permanent collection that proved to be the real showstoppers. Finally, a cultural space that lived up to its “world-class” hype.

Dangerous by Kardinal Offishall feat. Akon. Forget “that girl” — the most dangerous aspect of this chart-busting single was Kardinal’s savvy hook.

Die Roten Punkte at the Toronto Fringe Festival. A send-up of Brechtian cabaret, humourless Goths, ambiguous brother-sister acts, bad performance art, straight-edge culture, primadonna divas, the White Stripes, the Dresden Dolls and rock operas, this drum-tight gem of musical theatre was a hilarious highlight of this year’s otherwise spotty Toronto Fringe Festival.

Madonna’s Sticky and Sweet tour. Her Hard Candy album may be a bit hit-and-miss, but this Madge-nificently theatrical stadium tour proved that, at 50, the Material Girl still puts on a more explosive stage show than the pop whippersnappers less than half her age.

Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) was Baltimore's most-feared stickup artist on the HBO series The Wire. (Paul Schiraldi/HBO/Associated Press)

The fifth and final season of The Wire. The police procedural will never be the same after David Simon’s landmark HBO series, which burst its genre boundaries to become a wide-angle look at a problem-plagued American city, from the drug-dealer’s corner to the mayor’s office. In its last season, The Wire tapped into the media, where it found duplicity and desperation in the understaffed newsroom of the Baltimore Sun.

Jessica Walter on 90210. Sure, the new 90210 is a stinker, and sure, Jessica Walter’s character – waste-case grandma Tabitha Wilson – is basically a reprise of her role as Arrested Development matriarch Lucille Bluth. But amidst 90210’s clunky writing and wooden acting, any time Walter’s randy, washed-up actress delivers a sly double-entendre or a scathing put-down, it’s evidence the show still has a pulse.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. In this three-part web series by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly), Neil Patrick Harris stars as a wannabe evil genius with girl trouble. As a means of catharsis — and of advancing the plot — Dr. Horrible casts his agonized feelings into song. High-larious. (The best part: it’s now available on DVD.)

Charles Darwin at the Royal Ontario Museum. This superb international exhibit, which had its Canadian premiere at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, offered a deep-focus look at the man creationists love to hate. Patiently tracing the life and scientific investigations of the great British naturalist and father of evolutionary theory, its calm clarity was a welcome antidote to the creationist propaganda of Ben Stein and his ilk.

So You Think You Can Dance. Apologies to David Cook and Archuleta, to Leona Lewis, to Paris Hilton’s new BFF and yes, even to Elicia MacKenzie. So You Think You Can Dance is the only reality competition show that truly left us drooling in awe. The feats of superhuman acrobatics and agility on SYTYCD were addictive enough to keep us tuning in week after week and waiting with sweaty palms for the results.

Katy Perry. Love her or hate her, Perry delivered two of the juiciest singles of ’08: I Kissed a Girl and Hot N Cold.

No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980 by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley. Featuring gorgeous black-and-white photos, interviews and an insightful introduction penned by former Teenage Jesus and the Jerks leader Lydia Lunch, this visual history pays tribute to the no wave bands that emerged from all of the garbage and decay in late-1970s New York. At last, a coffee table book with attitude.

Mordecai Richler: Leaving St. Urbain by Reinhold Kramer. Brandon University professor Reinhold Kramer made prodigious use of old correspondence and two unpublished early novels to draw links between Richler’s life and his fiction. But Kramer had no interest in kissing up — while he revels in Richler’s successes, he doesn’t shy from his follies. Leaving St. Urbain is the best kind of biography: marvelously detailed, but also clear-eyed and even playful.

Canadian Idol winner Theo Tams performs during the Canadian Idol season finale in Toronto. (J.P. Moczulski/Canadian Press)

Theo Tams wins Canadian Idol. With the possible exception of season six starlet Eva Avila, classically trained Theo Tams is the first Canadian Idol winner who stands a chance of making it in the music industry. Not only can the kid sing, but compared to the shoddy karaoke stylings of his co-competitors, he’s a solid performer who understands how tointerpret a song. Oh, and he came out on-air midway though the season, making Tams the first openly gay Idol in North America.

Festen (The Celebration). Danish writer/director Thomas Vinterberg’s Dogme film Festen (The Celebration) (1998) is a brutal, unflinching portrait of one dysfunctional family’s dissolution over the course of a holiday dinner. Watching the stage adaptation is so intimate it’s almost excruciating. In the Canadian Stage production, nuanced performances by Rosemary Dunsmore, Nicholas Campbell and Eric Peterson made for a powerful, profoundly emotional experience.

The rise of Rachel Maddow. In the same year that queer issues suffered a blow with the passage of California’s Proposition 8, a lefty activist lesbian with a background in AIDS activism and a radio show on progressive station Air America became an unexpected pundit sensation on network television. Fiercely intelligent, well informed and amusingly frank, Rachel Maddow made her MSNBC show a huge hit. The mainstream media is better for it.

Hercules and Love Affair. Highly polished and super-hooky, the self-titled debut by this New York collective is disco at its most sensuous and ornate.

Paris Is Burning, Ladyhawke. More disco sunshine, this time from New Zealander Phillipa Brown, a.k.a. Ladyhawke. If it hasn’t already, the song’s effervescent chorus will lay you flat.

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